Are there any plans for a update of spit your pity into my soul?? If not, I will be patiently until there are :)
Ahhh thank you, this was very lovely to receive, I hope the same for you!! 🖤🖤
Ummm… I am chipping away at it. Lol. Most days I write a little bit for it (strong emphasis here on the word ‘little’), but I am probably quite far off of an update, I’m very sorry. Most of my capacity is going into work at the moment, and I must confess, writing about Comac doesn’t scratch the same itch as writing about Tom… *sigh*
Here is a little teaser though! I hope you like what I have planned hehehehe 🖤🖤🖤 (spoilers below)
"Mr. Riddle, if you'd like to respond...?"
He nods slightly and angles his face towards her, though his eyes stay firmly focused on the table between them.
Now that she’s properly looking at him, Hermione can just see the shadow of movement of his leg beneath the table. He’s bouncing it as though he's nervous or restless. Agitated.
Tom clears his throat.
"Her—" He pauses and clears his throat again. "Hermione."
His voice is rough and grainy; textured, the same as it had been back in the courtroom. The damage she'd done to his vocal cords must've been permanent.
Good.
"I... admire the courage it must have taken for you to come here and get all of that off your chest,” he says slowly, speaking without looking at her. "I, too, often find myself reflecting on our night together, and all the ways I wish my actions had been diff—"
"No," she grounds out over him. It's probably pushing her luck, probably delivered too aggressively for such a session, but Pamela doesn't stop her. "No, if you don't mind, I would appreciate it if you would refrain from describing the worst night I've ever lived through as 'our night together'."
Tom's eyebrows shoot upwards. He glances at Pamela and waits for some input.
She doesn't give any, though. She simply continues to watch them carefully, her lips pressed together as though she’s biting at her inner lip.
Tom sniffs and angles his eyes back down towards the table.
"My apologies," he says tightly. "I was simply attempting to be considerate with my choice of words."
"Oh, don’t worry, I don’t mind. You can call it what it was; the night you assaulted me. Multiple times," Hermione hisses icily. "Besides. In the time I knew you, you never seemed to care much for being considerate."
"Ms. Granger," Pamela finally chimes in quietly.
Tom rubs at his eyebrow. "All I was trying to say, is that I am regretful for everything that happened."
"Regretful you were caught, you mean."
"Ms. Granger," Pamela says again, more forcefully this time. "Your feelings are valid. But to ensure they can continue to be heard, we need to keep the session in the space of impact and accountability. And Mr. Riddle— this is the time for taking responsibility, not for debating. Now, when you say 'regretful,' can you be more specific? Regretful for what, exactly?"
Hermione hears Tom exhale quietly through his nose, and when she looks up—
Finally, he’s staring right at her. "I regret what I put you through that night—the night that I assaulted you," he says directly. "I regret the way you've carried it with you, and I regret the way things unfolded. If I could go back and do things differently... I would."
Her heart flutters instinctively. It’s hard to think through it, hard to formulate some sort of response, because now that she’s at the receiving end of that hollow look—the same one she remembers from her nightmares—all she can hear is what he doesn't say.
I regret I didn't put you through more.
I regret that you're alive to carry it at all.
If I could go back and kill you instead, I would.
But his expression— his eyes are blank. Utterly neutral. From a look alone, she can't tell if he's lying.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 10/?
Fandom: Game Changers | Heated Rivalry - All Media Types
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov
Characters: Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Chris Keller (Oz), Tobias Beecher, Ray Mukada, Yuna Hollander, Peter Marie Reimondo, Svetlana Vetrova, Scott Hunter (Game Changers), Rose Landry
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Prison, Ilya is a prisoner, Shane is a priest in training, Homophobic Language, First Kiss, Shane Hollander Wears Glasses, Hand Jobs, Religious Guilt, Religious Conflict, Virgin Shane Hollander, Jealous Ilya Rozanov, Minor Violence, Blow Jobs, First Time Blow Jobs, Public Blow Jobs
Summary:
Shane follows Ray through the halls, head turning every which way to take in everything around him. As they near his office, a young man, blonde curly hair pulled back into a low ponytail, steps out from another nearby door. He stops dead in his tracks. “We have new blood?”
“Keep walking, Ilya.”
Ilya catches the eye of the man trailing behind Father Mukada, one hand white knuckling a brown paper bag, the other hand tucked awkwardly in his pants pocket, and he can’t help but notice the way his mouth drops open just a little as they look at one another. The innocence oozes off of him in waves. “Well, fuck me for being curious.” He starts to walk away back to Em City, but not before winking at Mukada’s guest.
~~~
Ilya is a new inmate at the Oswald State Correctional Facility (Level 4), otherwise known as Oz. Shane recently graduated with a degree in theology, and found an opportunity to work with Father Ray Mukada in Oz.
what I don't remember now - a shigaraki x f!reader fic
Tomura's life doesn't end when his death sentence is handed down, and he knows damn well that he's innocent. It won't be long before one of his appeals proves it, and he can come home -- back to his friends, and back to you, the girlfriend who stood by him through the trial. But death row is a nightmare Tomura can't wake up from, and as the years behind bars begin to pile up, Tomura starts to question if it really matters whether he did it. If he'll ever be free. And if you and the other people who love him have forgotten him for good. (cross-posted to Ao3)
This is the prequel fic to 'if my heart was a house', and covers what's happened to Tomura since the last time he and the reader saw each other. I did a not-insignificant amount of research into the criminal justice system in Japan, specifically on prison conditions, prisoner treatment, and the administration of the death penalty. There is some dark and potentially triggering content, especially in later chapters, so please be wary! dividers/banners by @cafekitsune
part i part ii part iii
one
It’s cold. Tomura lies still in the half-darkness of his cell, willing himself not to shiver. If he shivers, that’s it. That’s an admission that he can’t hack it, that being here is getting to him, that he can’t swallow the fistful of bitter pills that have been shoved down his throat. Tomura made a decision, somewhere between his sentencing and when he was shoved out of an armored transport in the yard of an unnamed prison, that he’s not going to give a nanometer. He’s not going to blink, or flinch, or whatever the fuck. Do that, and it’ll look like acceptance. And Tomura’s not going to accept being sentenced to death for something he didn’t fucking do.
Tomura’s not a good person. On his best day he’s lazy and on his worst he’s an unapologetic asshole. The most redeeming feature he has is the fact that better people than him want to be around him for some reason, and it’s not because he’s good-looking or ambitious or rich. Since birth Tomura’s been a disappointment. That’s not the same thing as being a murderer, and as many good reasons as Tomura has to hate the house he grew up in and the family who lived there with him, none of them are enough to make him kill them all.
He doesn’t remember what he was doing the night of the murders, except that he spent part of it in the hospital. He doesn’t remember confessing, which he apparently did, and when he tries to think about any of it, he gets a splitting headache and the kind of nausea that means he’s gotten hosed down in his cell eight times since he arrived three weeks ago. Tomura’s trial is a blur, too. The only thing that’s clear in his head is the memory of you – you, and your hands clasped tight around his, holding on so hard that Tomura thought his fingers would break. Your hands are smaller than his. Your hands were strong. Your hands are warm.
Thinking of you is one way to warm up, but it comes at a cost. A shiver runs through Tomura from his fingers up, and he lurches upright on his cot to hide the motion. A split second later, the lights in his cell go on, so bright that he’s blinded for a second. He raises his hand to shield his eyes, and a guard barks at him over the intercom. “Inmate 230385, return to the rest position immediately.”
“I just sat up,” Tomura says. “Is that illegal or something?”
“Return to the rest position.”
“Why?”
“Return to the rest position or corrective action will be taken.”
Corrective action? Tomura’s already on death row. What the hell do they think they can do to him that will make a difference? Take him out of his cell, probably. And put him somewhere colder. Tomura’s blanket slid down when he sat up. He hitches it back up and lies down again.
He doesn’t need to cause trouble. He’s not going to be here long. He’s got appeals pending, and there’s no way the judge who hears the next one will be as stupid as the one at his trial. Tomura’s not going to die here. Sooner or later, he’s going to get out, and when he does, nothing anyone said at the trial will matter. His friends will still be there, and so will you. Tomura just has to hold out until then.
He stares up at the ceiling and tries not to shiver. It gets easier when he remembers the warmth of your hands around his, the last time he saw you. Tomura thinks about that, about you, and it helps. But even your memory can’t quite keep out the cold.
two
Someone’s coughing. Tomura can’t tell which cell they’re in, but they’re making a hell of a lot of noise, and it’s ripping at Tomura’s nerves. He didn’t use to have such a problem with noise, but the death row is so silent most of the time that Tomura can hear the other inmates breathing in their tiny cells. No one gets to talk unless spoken to by the guards, and the guards never speak to anyone unless it’s to correct someone. Tomura’s been on the receiving end of corrective action more than a few times by now. It’s usually not worth it.
Tomura knows it’s not worth it, and still, the urge is there. He wants to say things. He wants to ask questions – like why he’s not allowed to make phone calls or write letters, what’s happening to all the phone calls and letters that he knows are coming for him. He doesn’t want anything to do with the other prisoners, but if he needed to talk to them, he’d want to know the option was available without risking the loss of his exercise period or getting his meals reduced from three to two per day. Tomura’s heard there are worse punishments. If he’s going to get one of those, it’s not going to be for trying to talk to someone.
Still, the coughing sounds like it’s killing whoever’s doing it – but before it kills them, it’s going to kill Tomura, because he can’t take this fucking noise. He can’t say a word without permission, but this asshole gets to hack out a lung with no consequences at all? Fuck that. Tomura clenches his jaw, trying to hold in the howl of frustration. He clamps his hands over his ears so he won’t have to hear it any longer. They need to stop. No one cares, and it’s driving Tomura insane – more insane than the silence, more insane than the cold. Shut up, he thinks at them, whoever the fuck they are. Shut up, shut up –
“Shut the fuck up!” someone else explodes from somewhere further down death row. “Just die already!”
“Inmate 113019, this is a verbal reprimand for speaking out of turn. If you continue –”
“Yeah. Go for it! Put me in the protection cells! At least then I’ll be away from this fucking noise –”
The coughing takes on a weird, wet note that it hasn’t had before, something that makes Tomura’s skin crawl. It’s drowned out almost instantly by the sound of the guards’ footsteps down the hall on their way to lower the hammer on 113019, whoever he is. Whoever he is, he puts up a fight. Tomura hears heavy thuds, curses, a burst of sound that might be sobs or laughter, and somewhere in the middle of it, the coughing comes to a complete stop. It doesn’t start up again, and once the guards drag 113019 away, the cell block is dead silent once more.
Two minutes ago, all Tomura wanted was for it to be quiet again. Right now, he can’t help wondering why the coughing stopped so suddenly. Right now, he misses the noise.
three
There’s frost on the ground, and Tomura can see his breath. His teeth are chattering, and he’s shivering too hard to walk. He shouldn’t be outside. But he gets one exercise period per day, and it’s the only time he gets to spend outside his cell. The only time he gets to see the sky and breathe air that hasn’t been recycled thousands of times until it tastes old and stale. It doesn’t matter if it’s below freezing. If Tomura has a chance to be outside, he should use it.
He forces himself to take even steps on his way around the tiny exercise yard, and at the same time, he lets his mind wander – back to you, because it’s easier to think about you out here than it is in his cell. He doesn’t want to imagine you in there with him. Out here, it’s easier. He can pretend the two of you are meeting up to go for a walk, like you did on your first date. He can pretend you’re just around the next turn.
After the first time you ran into each other, Tomura didn’t think he’d see you again. Which was stupid. You worked at the library on campus, and he needed to use the library, so of course he was going to see you. And every time you saw him, you talked to him until you had to go do something else – like renew someone’s checked-out book, reserve them a study room, schedule a session with a tutor, find a source they really should have been able to find on their own. At first Tomura took those interruptions as his cue to leave. Then he started waiting through them. Then he started coming by even if you were busy, waiting however long it took for you to have time for him.
Tomura hadn’t meant to ask you out, exactly. He just told you that he wanted to talk more sometime when you weren’t busy, and you suggested taking a walk together. Worked for him. Except for the part where it was really cold, even though the sun was out and the air was still, and the part where Tomura handles the cold the same way cats handle being sprayed with a hose. He was shivering before the two of you made it halfway around campus.
You noticed. Are you okay?
Fine, Tomura muttered, and you gave him a skeptical look – but you didn’t argue. You always knew how to call him on his bullshit, right from the beginning. Aren’t you cold?
I run kind of warm, you said, and you held out your hands. Here.
Tomura knew it didn’t mean anything, but his stomach still twisted, and his hands were shaking from more than the cold when he settled them in yours. Your hands were warm, just like you said they’d be. Warm, but not sweaty, and before Tomura could say anything, you folded his hands together, with yours on either side. You’re freezing, you said. I can keep you warm, but we should probably go inside.
Yeah. Tomura was glad you were holding his hands that way. Any other way, and he’d have latched on tight, refusing to let go. Sorry. This was a dumb idea.
Not really. A walk is a decent first date.
A first date. You wanted it to be a date, and you thought it was a good one. Tomura’s face somehow managed to heat up without making the rest of him any warmer. If I ask you to get coffee with me right now, can that be our second date?
You smiled. That made Tomura feel warmer, almost as warm as your hands felt around his. That works for me.
You always kept Tomura warm, and not for the first time, Tomura wonders what’s happening to you out there. Where you are, what you’re doing. If you found somewhere to live, because you can’t pay the rent in yours and Tomura’s apartment alone. If you’ve got your job still, because Tomura was pretty sure you were going to lose it for calling out so many days to sit with him during the trial. If you’re okay without him.
Tomura’s not okay without you. That’s why he has to be careful where he thinks about you. Not inside, when he can’t escape the fact that he’s been in prison for three years already. Only out here, in the cold, when he can think about what it’ll be like when all this is over. A guard shouts at Tomura that it’s time to come inside, and Tomura picks up the pace. One more circuit around the tiny yard. A few more seconds walking with you.
four
Tomura closes his eyes and listens to the quiet tapping against the bars of the cell beside his. It’s taken him four years in here to learn Morse code, and now that he knows it, he can talk to the other inmates on death row – the ones he feels like talking to, which is basically no one. The person next to him is all right. He calls himself Kurogiri. Tomura doesn’t know why he’s here.
Nobody knows why Tomura’s here, either. On the rare occasions anyone gets to talk to anyone else, they have better things to do than go over what bullshit twist of fate led to their death sentences. Convictions don’t matter when they’re all waiting on the same punishment. All that matters is time – how much time they’ve spent in here, and how much more time it’ll take for this to end. It says something about this place that four years after he was sentenced, Tomura’s still the newest one on the block.
Not for long, though. That’s what Kurogiri’s saying. Tomura taps out a response. H-o-w k-n-o-w?
G-u-a-r-d-s. Kurogiri has some kind of in with the guards. He’s never said what it is, and Tomura’s never asked. K-u-n-i-e-d-a o-l-d c-e-l-l.
So far in Tomura’s time here, only one inmate’s died, and it wasn’t in an execution. The inmate who was sick during Tomura’s second winter here died of whatever he had, and the guards didn’t find him in the cell until the next morning. By that point the smell of death was everywhere, and instead of letting the inmates move somewhere else until it was gone, the guards left all the vents open to flush it out. They let in the cold, too. It took Tomura two weeks to get warm.
He wonders if anyone’s going to tell the new guy what happened to the last person who lived there. Then again, nobody’s told Tomura what happened to the last occupant of his cell. He doesn’t want to know. Kurogiri is tapping out another message, and Tomura listens idly. Y-o-u o-k?
Tomura double-taps – shorthand for yes. W-h-y?
There’s a long pause. A really long pause. Tomura’s in the process of repeating himself when another prisoner responds from down the hall. C-h-i-c-k-e-n-s-h-i-t. T-e-l-l h-i-m o-r I w-i-l-l.
W-h-a-t? Tomura asks. His stomach is clenching, nausea welling up like he hasn’t felt in months. It’s hard to get scared in here. Nothing ever happens. T-e-l-l –
F-i-r-s-t a-p-p-e-a-l d-e-n-i-e-d. Kurogiri answers so fast that Tomura can barely decipher it. O-n-l-y f-i-r-s-t o-n-e. O-t-h-e-r-s –
Tomura’s not listening anymore. He manages to roll sideways off his bed before he throws up, but that’s it. The nausea that overtakes him is too powerful for him to do anything but vomit on the floor, then dry-heave once his stomach empties itself completely. The other inmates are laughing at him, calling out even though the guards are already on their way. The same inmate who always gets dragged out for talking is the loudest. “You’re getting off easy, kid! You killed seven people, but you only have to die once.”
“There are more appeals,” Kurogiri says. His voice is soft, almost comforting, completely at odds with the sound of Tomura’s cell door scraping open, drowned out almost entirely by the rush of cold water spraying from the fire hose, dousing Tomura and the mess and everything in his cell all at once. “You don’t need to worry. The process has already begun –”
“I didn’t know.” Tomura’s voice is hoarse, and his mouth tastes so awful that the sensation of air rushing over his tongue makes him retch again. “Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
The other inmates jeer at him, pointing out that they did tell him, but they must know that’s not what Tomura meant. Tomura should have heard that news from a lawyer, from an administrator, from a doctor – from somebody important. Not from a bunch of murderers. What if that hadn’t been his first appeal? What if it was his last one? If all his appeals fail, how is Tomura going to find out? Is anyone going to tell him, or is he just going to wake up one morning and find out it’s his last day on earth?
Tomura tries not to think of you in here, when things get bad. But he lets himself this time, just this once. Just to imagine that someone’s here who loves him, someone who cares that he’s sick and lonely and terrified. Someone who could tell him that it’ll be all right. Someone he’d believe. But when his skin is crawling with cold and disgust and terror so strongly that he can’t help but try to scratch it away, it’s hard to imagine that even you could make him feel better.
five
Tomura’s never gotten a letter from the outside. Never gotten a letter from you or any of his friends or whichever lawyer is handling his appeals – or even from Sensei, who spent the entire trial testifying against him so he could “learn his lesson”. Tomura thinks Sensei owes him an explanation, given that Sensei’s testimony put him away. The person he described as committing the murders sounds nothing like Tomura, because Tomura didn’t do it. He wants to hear what Sensei has to say about that. If Sensei thinks he’s learned his lesson yet.
It’s the lack of contact from you and the others that worries him more. He thought for sure he’d hear from you, from Spinner, from Toga, from Twice. Dabi’s not the letter-writing type, and Magne and Compress were newer additions to the group, but Tomura thought they’d maybe write at least once in five years. He’d call and ask, but he’s only got some of the phone numbers memorized, and what if you’ve changed them? It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t get visits or phone calls anyway.
It feels like a punishment, but Tomura can’t figure out what he did. He acts up the standard amount for a death row prisoner, enough to lose his exercise period or get his food restricted or have his cell tossed and lose anything he’s managed to keep in there. Nothing that deserves no phone calls for five years. Five fucking years. It’s not until the newest inmate starts acting up that Tomura gets a real answer.
He knows the name of the guy in Kunieda’s old cell only because the guy keeps insisting on being called by it, no matter how many times the guards correct him for speaking out of turn. When he’s not picking stupid fights with the guards, Chisaki is bitching about how this prison compares to his last prison, and everybody got tired of it within six weeks of his arrival. Tomura doesn’t have anything to compare this prison to. Before this, he’d never spent even a night in jail.
As summer turns to fall turns to winter and the temperature inside the cell block drops to just above freezing, Chisaki calms down. For a week, then another week, then an entire month. Did he get religion or something? Tomura’s seen that happen to at least one prisoner by now, but from what he can tell, it usually takes longer. To go from fucking around constantly to not fucking around at all is a big shift. It’s weird.
One day, while he’s huddled up in his cell under his stupidly thin blanket, Tomura hears voices filtering in from the exercise yard. His cell has vents that let in the cold, and apparently also give him the chance to eavesdrop. He’s never had a chance to eavesdrop before, but that’s because no one ever talks.
Of course it’s Chisaki talking. He’s somehow gotten permission from one of the guards to speak up, and he’s getting straight to the point. “My behavior for the last month has been exemplary. In my previous prison such a record has resulted in the renewal of privileges which were previously removed – such as the opportunity for visitors. When will that be restored?”
Whichever guard he’s talking to laughs awkwardly. “Nobody told you?”
“Told me what?”
Tomura’s interested, too. He listens closer. “You were in maximum security before, but it’s – different here,” the guard says awkwardly. “Once a sentence is finalized, no contact is allowed with the outside world.”
“What?” Chisaki demands. “Why not?”
“It’s policy. Contact with the outside world causes distress for condemned prisoners and their families and has no practical benefit. I – no, stop –”
Shouting erupts in the yard, and Tomura cringes away from the vents, his eyes burning. It’s not a punishment. It’s not a punishment, which means it can’t be lifted, which means that even if you and the others have been calling and writing letters, you can’t get through. Tomura will never get those letters. Tomura can’t write back. When Tomura saw you in the courtroom after his sentencing wasn’t just the last time he ever saw you, it’s the last time he’ll ever get to talk to you. And he didn’t know it. If he’d known it he would have said –
The noise from the exercise yard is so intense that the rest of the cell block can hear it, too. They’re doing what they usually do, any time someone shows weakness, and because they’re shouting at Chisaki, who’s bought himself a one-way ticket to the protection cell for the next month, no one notices as Tomura sinks down in the corner of his cell and scratches his neck until it bleeds.
six
Somebody’s death sentence gets reduced to life, and the cell next to Tomura’s opens up. Rather than leaving it open, leaving Tomura alone, the guards move fucking Chisaki into it. It’s not bad enough that Tomura has to rot in here until one of his appeals is successful and gets him out of here – he has to listen to Chisaki’s bitching and whining, too. And eventually Chisaki breaks the cardinal rule, the one rule that keeps everybody on death row even sort of sane. He picked up Morse code faster than Tomura did, and one day he taps out a question aimed at Tomura. W-h-a-t d-i-d y-o-u d-o?
He signs off with the last two numbers of his prisoner number, like Tomura’s confused about who’s sending this dumb message. Tomura doesn’t bother with identifying himself by tacking the last two digits of his ID on the front of his response. f-u-c-k o-f-f.
D-i-d y-o-u d-o i-t?
f-u-c-k o-f-f. Not for the first time, Tomura wishes he could all-caps a message without banging on the bars loudly enough to attract the guards’ attention. Morse code really needs a shift key. W-h-a-t d-i-d y-o-u d-o? Y-o-u f-i-r-s-t.
Silence. Of course. Chisaki can dish it out, but he can’t take it for shit. Tomura settles into the quiet, not hoping to enjoy the break so much as get through it without making himself feel worse. Downtime is bad for Tomura these days. He spends too much time thinking. Too much time getting angry. Too much time figuring out how he got here.
He knows Sensei set him up. It had to have been Sensei, because Sensei was in charge of Tomura when Tomura was fifteen, and Sensei kept hinting that Tomura should try to reconcile with his family. Tomura only agreed so Sensei would leave him alone about it. He’d meet them, deal with whatever happened, see if he could talk Hana at least into staying in touch and sending him pictures of Mon, and get out of there. It was going to be a bad night no matter what. At least Sensei agreed to go with him.
But something went wrong. They never made it there, at least not in Tomura’s memory, because Tomura woke up in the hospital. He’d blacked out or passed out or something, and as soon as he was borderline lucid, Sensei gave him the news. Tomura still remembers the weird way he delivered it, like he was telling Tomura they were having something gross for dinner instead of telling him that his entire family had been murdered. Tomura didn’t react the right way, either. He was supposed to meet his family. Now he wasn’t going to. He laid back down and went under again.
They used that, at the trial, seven years later. The fucking prosecutor asked Sensei a bunch of questions about how Tomura responded to the news, and Sensei told them how unsettling it was that Tomura didn’t care at all about his family dying. Tomura’s lawyer wouldn’t let him get on the stand to explain his side. They’ve already decided you’re guilty. Don’t make it worse.
They were going to kill him. Tomura knew that by then. There was no way to make it worse than it was already going to be, and if he was already guilty, he might as well have told the truth. What little of it he remembers.
Chisaki is tapping on the bars again at a pace Tomura couldn’t keep up with if he wanted to. His fingers are too fucking cold. W-e a-r-e-n-t d-i-s-c-u-s-s-i-n-g m-e.
No, they’re not discussing anybody. Tomura’s done with this. Screw the guards – he taps with emphasis. F-U-C-K O-F-F.
“You want to know what he did? I’ll tell you.” Prisoner 113019 laughs from across the hallway – the same one who always laughs when something bad happens to someone else. For the first time since he got here, Tomura prays for the guards to get here fast. “The little rat bastard’s a mass murderer. Greased his entire family.”
Tomura doesn’t know how 19 got ahold of that information, and right now, he doesn’t care. He just wants the guards to get here and shut him up. “His body count is higher than mine, and he won’t even own up to it like a man,” 19 continues, gleeful. “You’ve heard him talking in his sleep. He says he’s innocent.”
“Shut up,” Tomura says. His voice sounds awful, and he realizes all at once that he can’t remember the last time he spoke. It doesn’t matter if he talks now. They’ve only got one protection cell, and 019 is going in it. “You don’t know what you’re talking about –”
“And not only is his count the second-highest on death row,” 019 continues, ignoring Tomura, “he’s a sadist, too. Maybe his family deserved it – they’d have to for raising something like him – but there’s no way his dog had it coming.”
“Shut up!” Tomura explodes. His voice cracks, and he can feel his face contorting, eyes squeezing shut and jaw clenching tight. He’s not going to cry. He can’t cry here. “You stupid fuck. I didn’t do it!”
Death row erupts in laughter, just in time for the guards to arrive. Sure enough, they head to 019’s cell first, but two guards break off to drag Tomura out of his for a talking-to, also known as getting beaten up in places that won’t show. Tomura’s been in here long enough, knows how it works here well enough, to be almost thankful for a reason to feel pain. If anyone sees him, they’ll think his eyes are watering because he just took a baton to the ribs. Not because he misses his dog.
Tomura didn’t mention his family’s deaths to you for a while. He didn’t want to see you react, because he knows how people react to stuff like that – like Tomura’s just a tragic backstory with an ugly face, like everything he is can be described by the worst things that ever happened to him. He didn’t bring up his family, but he mentioned Mon, and you asked. Tomura told himself to answer like a normal person. He ended up crying instead, and you didn’t laugh or look at him differently. You just reached for his hand and –
A blow to the hip knocks Tomura off-balance, just in time for another hit in the stomach to double him over, and Tomura crashes sideways to the floor. He sprawls out, pinned with a guard’s knee on his back, as 019 marches past, flanked by four guards, and still leering down at him. Something snaps in Tomura’s head. He reaches through the guards’ legs, seizes 019’s ankle, and yanks his leg out from underneath him.
The knee grinds harder into his back, knocking the air out of his lungs, but Tomura can barely feel it. He’s trying to pull his hand back, and he’s too slow. Slow enough for a guard to see what he’s doing. Slow enough for the guard to raise one boot and stomp down on Tomura’s hand with all his strength, and for the first time since he set foot on death row, Tomura screams.
The Billy Big Bang posting season starts on November 1st and Team #10 will be posting their collaboration through November 20th! The banner and artwork are by @alicetallula / Tallula03 and the fic is by @mayalaen / Mayalaen! Take a glance below and prepare to be cuffed to your computer awaiting their collaboration!
Fic Title: Life Sentence
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Hopper/Billy, Henry/Billy
Characters: Billy Hargrove, Jim Hopper, Henry Creel
Billy takes the fall when his abusive mate is caught embezzling money from investors. He thinks he's saving Henry from the hell of alpha prison, but once inside, he learns quickly that he was wrong about omega prisons. But it's not all bad, and maybe some of those fairy-tales were true and soulmates do exist.
The view from his window is jarring; he sees tall buildings that don’t belong in Hawkins. A doctor fills in the blanks; he was life flighted to a major trauma centre in Indianopolis.
“Don’t know why they bothered,” mumbles the cop.
Thing is, neither does Eddie.
He’s fucked. He knows he is, doesn’t need Wayne telling him it’s going to work out, that “Jim Hopper’s on it,” which, yeah fuck, okay, his brain is mush and he can only deal with so much at a time right now. He tries so, so hard not to let himself hope; that Hopper can do something, anything, that Dustin has something up his sleeve, that Nancy is running around with that sawed off shotgun threatening all and sundry on his behalf.
But he knows it’s not true. In his heart, he knows this is going to be bad
In case any of you wanted to engage in a 18k Destiel prison story that I wrote without knowing shits about American prisons and prisons whatsoever, come read the finally complete fic titled "Polunsky redemption" here.
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