"Lights Out!"
The hack screamed it a little louder than usual which put Miguel slightly on edge as Em City descended into semi-darkness and he sat back on his bunk. Maybe something bad was going down and they needed the cover of dark quick. Or maybe the hack stationed at the light switch was just going deaf. He chuckled involuntarily at that thought.
"What's so funny, sugar?" purred Torquemada. He was lounging gracefully seated on his footlocker and leaning against the pod wall, clipping his fingernails. He hadn't even looked up.
"Nothing, just thinking about a hack going deaf."
"Oh," was the only response this earned before the pod slipped back into comfortable silence.
Comfortable, that was a laugh. He never would have imagined that he could feel comfortable around Torquemada, but a month back and they'd already slipped into a familiar routine.
The anthrax, powder, toxin, whatever that had wiped out most of the Aryans had also shut the prison down for three weeks. Most of the inmates had been moved into a disused juvenile facility with a few select being moved into a recently built nursing home. Miguel had been lucky enough to get a room at the nursing home because he worked in the infirmary. He'd also been roomed with Ryan O'Reily. He saw right away that Miguel was hooked on drugs again and had taken it upon himself to get the kid off them. His exact words had been something to the effect of , "you're too smart to give up hope." So Ryan had put him on a detox diet and by the time they had returned to Oz, Miguel had kicked the habit.
Torquemada hadn't been too happy about that and asked if Miguel was turning his back on him now. "Naw, I just figure that if I'm gonna be your numerous dos, that I'm going to be helping you with shit, that I'd better have my head clear." He had still been wary until Miguel let Torquemada touch him. Alvarez may have been off the drugs but he still craved attention.
Ryan had been great for that, holding and soothing him when he had night sweats and shakes. That made him realize that O'Reily was a softie at heart but Oz and his life had made him show the tough sociopathic survivor that everyone else knew him as. He could see why Cyril had been willing to kill for him.
Since they'd come back Torquemada had been true to his word and now basically ruled Em City. With O'Reily's help of course. Thinking of the partnership suddenly made Miguel think of the first thing Torquemada had said to him.
I hear you're the man to know. Of course it had seemed utterly ridiculous to him at the time that anyone would have said that about him and even more so that someone would believe it. Now... now it just made him curious. And just a little suspicious.
"Who told you I was the man to know?"
He seemed to have genuinely surprised Alonzo with the question. "What?"
"When you first talked to me, you said that you'd been told that I was the man to know. I was wondering who told you that."
He frowned a little. "Why?"
"Just curious is all."
"I don't remember."
Bullshit flashed across his brain. "You're telling me that you believed the word of someone you can't be bothered to remember? That's the biggest load of crap I've heard in a while."
He moved to painting his toes and shrugged. "Believe what you want, chulo. I just thought you were cute."
This obviously wasn't going to get him anywhere. Time to pull out the bluff card and hope it worked. "So there's no truth to the story that you and O'Reily knew each other on the outside?"
All the confirmation Miguel needed was conveyed in the way Torquemada accidentally painted a stripe along the side of his big toe. "I thought you were too old to be believing fairy tales." He tried in vain to rub the black polish off his skin. "And if you're going for a joke, it's not even funny to suggest it. O'Reily's an effective business partner, but he's also the biggest homophobe in here."
Miguel shook his head. "Naw, he just does what he can to survive. And making sure everyone in here knows he doesn't go in for that shit is part of survival. Who you are in Oz is different from who you are on the street. Believe me they are."
Silence ruled the pod once again while Torquemada finished his toenails. When he had decided that they were dry, he wiggled them then smiled. "I made my toes all pretty. You want me to do yours?"
"No," he replied and lay down on his back instead.
Alonzo pouted slightly at this rebuke then went over to the bunk and sat next to Miguel's hip. "What's wrong, sugar?"
"Nothing really, I-" he shook his head. "I keep feeling like I've been set up, but I can't decide whether it's good or bad."
He leaned down and started to lick and kiss his way across Miguel's chest. "Explain."
"You're a terrible liar, you know that?"
He looked up and met Miguel's eyes, slight confusion reigned in his. Then he went back to what he had been doing, teething slightly at a peaked nipple and Miguel resolved that if he didn't say this now, he might never get the nerve again.
He reached over and lifted up Alonzo's face so he could look at him. "I know Ryan had to have had some part in us. Whether it was actually planned out or if he just pointed you in my direction, he was involved. I mean, who else could it have been? Half these cockmotherfuckers wouldn't know who I am and the rest of them would have laughed at the very thought of me being good for anything let alone `the man to know'. But O'Reily.... him and me, we got history."
Torquemada was sitting mostly upright again, an arm planted on either side of Miguel's body holding himself up. "History? What kind of history could you two have?" he asked somewhat skeptically, but mostly interested.
Emotions played across his face as he wordlessly opened and closed his mouth a few times. Then he seemed to fix his gaze on some unseen object past Torquemada's shoulder. Just when Alonzo was about to resume his ministrations again, Miguel spoke.
"Ryan used to call me gatito." He cleared his throat. "Not around anyone else, just when it was the two of us alone. I didn't mind it too much, we got along real well. I guess he felt sorry for me, you know getting stabbed as soon as I got here and losing my baby, but I knew he also respected me. So one day I asked him why he called me kitten and he explained that part of it was my attitude. He said I was shy and skittish, yet bold and sure. And part of it," he paused and smiled remembering how embarrassed Ryan had seemed to admit it. "Part of it was how I moved. Slick and graceful. He and Father Mukada made that first year bearable. And knowing that the two of them thought I was worth something, that gave me the confidence to think I could handle runnin' El Norte."
He sat up and pulled his knees to his chest, arms loosely circling them. Miguel's eyes focused on nothing, he was lost in thought. He'd never seriously considered it before or put any stock in the idea, but now that he had.... it all seemed so obvious. How could he have missed it?
He suddenly snapped his gaze up to his lover's and realized he was waiting for the rest of what he had to say. Only, Miguel didn't know how to say it. "Ya know, he stopped calling me gatito after he got cancer. I was always a little sad about that. Then, I don't know exactly why, but we got into the habit of insulting each other in front of other people. I never took offense to it or nothing, it just sorta became the norm."
He looked over at Alonzo, smiled reassuringly and held out his hand. Torquemada took it, intertwining their fingers and absentmindedly rubbed his thumb across the back of Miguel's hand.
"When he was helping me through detox he'd call me that. Mi gatito, silly gatito, everything's going to be fine gatito.... and you know something? He never once said anything bad about you. I didn't even notice it at the time, but looking back.... he never once said `This Torquemada guy's no good' or `you shouldn't let him play you like that.' All he ever said was `you need to stay away from those pills. They're only hurting you Miguel. Come on, you're smarter than that!'" He smiled genuinely. "He likes me. Probably loves me, but because he's Ryan O'Reily he'd never do anything about it." His brow suddenly furrowed in frustration. "But why would he do that? Why would he set me up for you? I didn't think he was the type to be able to handle seeing anyone with a person if he can't have them."
He started to kiss Miguel's knuckles and ran his other hand over the smaller man's forehead, smoothing it. "Why? Because he knows that you're hurting. He knows that you need affection. And he knows that he can't give it to you." He leaned over for a kiss that lasted several long minutes before he broke it and sat back. "Yes, I do know him from outside of Oz. It seems like a lifetime ago." he paused seeming to reflect on that and said more to himself than his podmate, "It probably was." He blinked, then grinned slyly, "But that's not a tale to be told tonight. Story time's over Miguel, time for you and I to share some much needed affection."
Miguel grinned back then pinned him to the bunk, catching his mouth in an almost savage, passionate kiss.