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His whole time in Oz, Chris had heard the rumors that Death Row was haunted. He used to laugh that off as a bunch of superstitious mumbo jumbo, but that was before he died and went to Hell. Now he knew sure as anything that ghosts were real – and Death Row was fucking crawling with them.
Cedar Junction had been different. He'd just been a number there. It was like a factory and he was a part: marked, sorted, and put in a bin for storage. He didn't know why Oz kept its echoes, or why they were revealed to him. Maybe it was because he had history here. He'd made ghosts. But none of the people he'd killed were the ones that haunted him.
No, his ghost was still alive and visited him regularly, pushing a banged up mail cart. His ghost was tantalizingly real, saying his name softly and flashing a familiar, wry smile when he stopped by to hand over letters and packages.
"Hey," Toby said, wheeling up and checking back down the corridor for hacks, fucking Lopresti especially.
"Hey," Chris said back, coming as close as he could to the bars, gripping them hard enough to hurt.
There were times he still felt wary, like Toby's appearance for a few minutes each day was just some sick trick of his imagination. Torture. And other times, like today, it was pure blessing. A small bit of peace and hope, a memory of something good he could jealously guard to make it through one more day.
"You know what today is?" Toby asked, wrapping his fingers warmly over Chris's.
"No." Chis shook his head. It was the truth. He'd stopped keeping track. He didn't really want to know, because every day that went by was one that brought him closer to his ultimate sentence. Closer to the end.
"New Year's Eve," Toby said, ducking his head, and Chris could see the flush beginning to rise up on his cheeks. That was one thing about Toby's fair coloring – all his emotions showed right on his face, in his skin. He couldn't hide anything from Chris even when he tried.
"New Year's Eve," Chris repeated.
"Yeah," Toby said, looking up. His gaze held Chris's directly then, open and loving, and Chris would have given anything at that moment for the power to bend steel, to be able to tear the bars aside and pull Toby into his arms. Instead, all they could do was stare into one another's eyes and share thoughts of one night when they'd been together completely.
"Make your delivery and move it along, Beecher!" came Lopresti's ugly bark down the corridor.
Toby blinked, and it was over, connection broken.
"This is for you," Toby said thrusting an envelope into Chris's hands. "Don't open it until just before lights out, all right?"
"Okay," Chris said, nodding, but only half-hearing Toby's words because he was too busy trying to memorize the sight of him, to breathe in his scent while he still could.
"Beecher!" Lopresti yelled again, making Toby flinch and glance back over his shoulder before turning back to Chris one more time.
"Promise? You'll wait?"
He had that earnest, worried expression he wore so often, and Chris had to smile to try to reassure him.
"I promise."
"Happy New Year," Toby whispered leaning in to press a hard, fast kiss to Chris's lips. Chris squeezed his eyes shut in the hope of making it last, but he knew it was no use.
When he opened his eyes again the echo of the mail cart was rattling down the corridor and Toby was gone, leaving nothing but the memory of his ghost.
Except... Chris looked down at the envelope in his hands, slightly crumpled at the edges where he'd squeezed it. It was a regular white letter envelope, stamped and addressed like any other piece of mail that came to him in Oz, to Prisoner No. 98K514, Oswald State Correctional Facility. The handwriting was Toby's. And in neat, looping, lawyerly script on the back, it read: Don't Open 'Til New Year's Eve.
The temptation was there, to tear the envelope open immediately. To read the words Toby had written for him so he could begin to savor them right away. But he'd promised. Shit. Breaking a promise to anyone else, he wouldn't even have to think about. But with Toby he'd actually feel guilty if he did. Toby always had to be such a pain in the ass.
Well, the mail run usually came in late afternoon, not too long before dinner arrived in all its taste-free glory. Chris wasn't sure how many hours it was from dinner to lights out, but... it wasn't that long. He could do it. He'd promised Toby. He could wait.
He took one last look at the envelope addressed to him in Toby's handwriting, and stuffed it under his pillow. He just wouldn't think about it until then.
He thought about nothing else.
He paced. He did pushups and situps and lunges, set after set, until his muscles burned. When dinner came, he pushed it around on his tray until they took it away again. He tried taking a nap, but he couldn't sleep, and just lay there, blinking up at the water stains on the ceiling bleeding out from the emergency sprinkler system.
He was never going to hold Toby in his arms again. He was never going to feel him, sweet and yielding one moment and surprisingly strong the next, biting and sucking and shoving their way to a temporary heaven, made of friction and slicked with sweat.
That was all gone now. Barred off. Out of reach. Chris didn't know which was worse – being in Cedar Junction where he was warehoused like a spare part, or here, where he could at least see Toby, but only in these maddening glimpses that made him feel like he was going to lose his mind.
Finally, Lopresti's voice bellowed, "fifteen minutes to lights out!" and Chris clawed his pillow out of the way to get to the envelope. He turned it over in his hands one more time before carefully tearing it open to remove the single sheet of looseleaf paper folded neatly into thirds. It almost hurt just to look at Toby's handwriting, neat, small, and even.
Dear Chris,
I wish I didn't have to be putting this in a letter instead of being able to say it to your face, but Glynn still won't let me visit you and Lopresti never lets me stay more than a minute. I'm not good at writing personal things. It's funny because I know you never replied to my letters when you were at Cedar Junction because you thought you couldn't write well and I'd laugh at your spelling or grammar, but in truth, you've always been better at expressing what you feel than I am.
I know there's no privacy here, so I'm not going to even try to put into words all the things I will be thinking about when I turn in after lights out on New Year's Eve. I can only hope you will remember what we've shared, and be thinking of me at the same time I will be thinking of you.
Love always,
Toby
Chris read the two short paragraphs over and over. He wasn't sure what he'd been hoping for, what he'd been expecting – that Toby would have written a fucking Penthouse letter about them? Made promises? Said something stupidly hopeful and untrue about their future?
"Lights out!" came the final call and Oz was plunged into the dim gloom of nighttime. It was too dark to read the words anymore, but he'd already memorized most of them. He folded the paper and stuffed it back into the envelope, then crawled with a groan into his hard, narrow bunk. He flopped dejectedly onto his back and stared up into the vague dark gray of his cell.
He knew what Toby was trying to do, but it wasn't enough. The loneliness was too corrosive, and he'd been feeling it for too long.
Of course... Toby was alone too. He hadn't replaced Chris with anyone new, Chris could tell that from the look in his eyes when he came by on his rounds. Hell, he'd managed to wrangle himself a job in the fucking mail room, working with Vern and his trained Aryan apes just for the chance to see Chris every day. That had to mean something.
I can only hope you will remember what we've shared, and be thinking of me at the same time I will be thinking of you.
Chris closed his eyes and thought of the look on Toby's face this afternoon, what had passed between them before Lopresti had sent Toby away. Thinking of New Year's Eve.
And that was what Toby had been trying to tell him. No matter what kind of place they stuck him in, no matter how many rules they slapped down, nothing could take away the memory he had of Toby on that first night they spent together. The night Toby was lying in his bunk down in Em City remembering too, right now.
Chris shoved his briefs down his thighs to make room for his already hardening cock, then kicked them all the way off. Toby that first night had been like something out of a dream, the perfect combination of shy and bold, desire and fear. Chris remembered the hunger on his face in those last minutes before lights out, lying back in his bunk while he watched Chris wash up in the mirror – the almost predatory way he'd licked his lips in anticipation.
It all came back in a rush as Chris gave his dick a long, slow stroke, then another. He and Toby were doing this together in the only way they could, and he wanted it to last. Toby loved him. Toby wanted him – now, and then.
Chris remembered the first kiss they shared that night: a kiss of forgiveness, reunion, and longing. He groaned and squeezed himself harder as an ache washed over him. The way Toby had leaned into him, drawing him closer, and Chris hadn't cared at the way his still-healing stitches pulled and hurt, because Toby was finally, finally letting him in, and it was the most amazing thing he'd ever felt in his life.
They'd gone down into Chris's bunk, kissing and touching, and Chris can remember Toby's soft little gasps and moans as Chris moved over him, pushing Toby's t-shirt aside and kissing, licking, sucking, biting, everything everywhere all at once. God, yeah that had been sweet – Toby arching up under him, and the feel of his cock, steel hard and leaking pre-come, slicking and sliding across Chris's belly as they shoved against each other in the darkness. How they'd found a groove, Toby hooking his leg across Chris's, locking him in place, breaking kisses just long enough to pant and moan and share a long, searching look before diving back in for another round.
Fuck, there was no way this was going to last – not if Toby was remembering what Chris was right now, not if he was doing what Chris was – thrashing around in his bunk, pulling himself harder and faster, wild with momentum, remembering Toby's final convulsing cry that night, muffled against Chris's neck as he came, the hot pulse of orgasm trapped between their bodies.
Yeah, that was it, right there, memory and feeling blurring together, drawing tight and spilling over until Chris was coming, long and hard, eyes shut tight to try to hang on to the memory as long as possible. To be with Toby again.
When the last afterimages faded, Chris stared up into the gloom, wondering if Toby was down in his bunk in Em City, doing the same.
"Happy New Year," he said quietly, somehow trusting Toby would feel if he did.
It wasn't enough. It would never be enough. But the echoes in Oz were strong, and so long as he kept this ghost with him, Chris knew he'd never be alone.
--The End--