Sinn'ous steps to the bars effectively shutting the other’s mouth, slipping his arms through, and leaning his elbows on the door’s central horizontal bar.
“Drop off a deckof cards to A-18910, put it under my number.”
Erik nods profusely, tripping over his own feet to go do as told. And Sinn'ous, well, he’s left alone to plonk his foreheadagainst the bars and try to stuff down his mind’s inner voice. Try to ignore how good it would have felt to throw Erik to the ground and stab him until his body stopped twitching. To roll around on the ground in the fresh blood and laugh in Satan’s honour.
~~~
When a note is slid over his floor Sinn'ous is equal parts surprised and not. Erik lingers several steps from the cell to wait on him reading the note
The small, folded page opens to a handful of neatly pencilled lines of handwriting. Scrawled in near perfect lines over the otherwise blank page. An entire sliceof A4 paper used to scratch downa few sentences.
Sinn'ous suppresses a smirk at the way Jasper didn’t rip the page into a more manageable size.
I think I should start by thanking you for the cards, they have been a lifesaver. And now for the reason of this note. You kind of said I could use you (for lack of a better word) so I’m hoping you wouldn’t mind if I borrowed that lighter of yours?
-Izz
Sinn'ous hands his lighter over to Erik, pressed between a few chocolate bars, and sends the addictinmate back to Jasper—no, toIzz. He tries not to feel a way about it, but to have the boy removing barriers they may have still lingered between them is enough to send a thrill straight to his cock. Being given a more intimate connection to his prey. It does something to him. Lights a spark in his chest he isn’t sure how to describe, even to himself. He thinks he likes it, but then it’s not a sensation following a murder, so it’s hard to tell.
He spends the rest of the afternoon on his back on the cold floor, to avoid sleep, arm locked in place to float the note above his face. He studies every curve, and every line of pencil. Drifting to and from a place outside of himself, it’s the most peace he’s had since he woke from that first dream all those days ago.
Was it days ago? It could be centuries for all his body is telling him. Exhaustion is a weight crushing his chest. In a way that has him sure he can taste his own blood.
And through it all. The note stays right there, sustenance for his starved eyes.
A connection has formed between them, Sinn'ous can feel it. Ever since Izz came to his cell to ask for help in a time of need, there has been a tether connecting them. And that string has only strengthened, to the point where a rope is closing in to replace it.
It’s not until the nightly count is announced that Sinn'ous drags his frozen stiff limbs off the floor. Each crack of joints protesting sends a tingle of pain to clear his mind further. Allowing a decision to be made.
Rogers steps to the bars, and Sinn'ous is already standing there waiting for him. The sigh the guard lets slip says he knows Sinn'ous is about to lay out orders.
“I need to make a phone call.”
Rogers’s tone is defeated, “you know I can’t let you out, not with how tight this lockdown is. Or after the last time.”
The hint at murder drags his thoughts back to the last time he saw Rogers. When the guard had been fuming over the murder of another guard. He’d given Rogers a taste of the truth, just a slice to patch any cracks between them. Can’t have a guard’s death jeopardising theirrelationship.
Don’t get him wrong, he would kill one, and has done so in the past. But Rogers doesn’t need to know this, he requires Rogers’s undivided unquestioning loyalty. And besides, he knows Rogers has a soft spot for Jasper.
“No need to open the cell. Just bring me a phone.”
Rogers’s eyes stay narrowed.
Suppressing an unnatural urge to roll his eyes, Sinn'ous adds. “I need to call my lawyer.”
Rogers blinks a few times. “Oh, sure. That’s an easy do. We’re required to allow access to legal counselling.” Rogers shrugs off the conversation, clicking his counter, and walks on to the next cell, barely pausing to count before continuing on.
~~~
He sort of lied, and sort of didn’t. No, he’s not calling his lawyer, but he is getting a lawyer. The call however is going through to someone else entirely.
The numbers he punches into the prison’s cordless landline is a burner number he memorized a long time ago. And on the second ring the call is picked up.
“Hello?” The soft Italian-accented voice isn’t who Sinn'ous expected. It’s not his brother’s voice.
“Who is this? And how did you get this phone?”
“Sinn'ous?”
