Settling the Bill: Alone at Last (1/17)	     [Home | Quicksearch |
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 Beta: Fantastically, encouragingly and speedily beta-ed by Dorilon.
Thanks! 
Copyright: Edgar C. Gambodge, Elizabeth Lightbody and Martha Grosbeak are
mine. Sadly so are Father Michael and Gruner. 
Warning: In my Oz universe, many of the events from the last two episodes
of Season Six are fictitious.
  
  Settling the Bill: Alone at Last (1/17) by Rosybug  

 I.

 Toby was dizzy with fear and rage. Chris's dead weight was straddling his
legs, crushing him into the enamel-painted chair, pinning him against its
back, trapping his arms. Keller was only slightly taller and not very much
heavier than him, but Chris had always been much stronger. And much
quicker. Toby had forgotten that. He had been completely taken by
surprise. He surprised himself again by laughing bitterly at the double
entendre. How was he going to be taken next? None of the scenarios playing
out in Toby's mind were pleasant. His mouth was stinging from Chris's
ripping off the duct tape, he still wasn't sure if Keller had a real shank
or not and, when Chris started kissing him savagely on the mouth, Toby
started to fear what he hadn't feared in a long time. But he kept laughing
out loud. Crazy Beecher was getting the upper hand again, no doubt brought
back to life by an all too familiar threat of imminent sexual violation.

 "Now, if I was really siding with Schillinger, Toby, you'd be dead
already. But instead...all I really want...is for you to love me again..."
Chris drew back a bit, to look at him properly.

 Toby broke off in mid-cackle. Keller had to be nuts. Chris sounded
desperate and, from what Toby could see in the swinging overhead light, he
looked desperate too. But Toby felt suspicious. After all, what looks real
isn't. He'd learned that from a master.

 "Toby, please..." Chris's voice, usually as smooth as velvet, as soft as
silk, had a new and jagged note to it. 

 Toby hadn't heard that before.

 "Toby, I love you..." 

 "You have got to be joking," Toby said.

 "I do, Toby, you know I do... please, Toby..." 

 Toby marveled. Chris Keller begging. But his marveling was cut short by a
new surprise. Chris's dark head swooped in again. Toby drew back as far as
he could in the chair, wondering whether he could bring himself to bite
off the tip of Chris's tongue if he stuck it into his mouth again. But it
was worse. 

 Chris was breathing in his left ear, "Please, Toby... I love you so
much... please ..." 

 And his voice. Toby had only ever heard that ragged tone once before in
all their long years together and through all the pain, humiliation, fear
and loss they had had to endure. That time after Chris came back from
hospital and, as he would have it, from Hell, when he sat in the dark, on
the floor of their pod, smoking. And weeping.

 "Toby, please... love me again..."

 As his rage and fear passed off, Toby could feel himself returning to
himself, filling his body again. He could feel Keller's weight on his legs
and chest. The heat of his body. He could feel Keller's smooth, warm skin
where his tank top had rucked up. Toby found that his arms were free, but
that he'd put them around Chris's waist on a reflex. Fuck. 

 "Chris, stop it," he said wearily, "don't."

 Oz had been pressing down on him since he stepped through those double
doors again in his orange transportation overalls. He just didn't have the
strength for any more misery. He pulled Chris's tank top down again.
Stroked it down over the contours of his back. Heard Chris catch his
breath. Felt Chris's heart beating through the double layer of his own
T-shirt and Chris's vest. Too hard and too fast.

 "Shh," Toby told him.

 Chris was heavy, slumped against him, but Toby didn't want to have to see
his face just yet. Chris had shh'd, which was something. Toby relaxed a
bit more. He rubbed Chris's back lightly, just as he used to do with his
kids. He was always good with children, he thought sadly. Probably never
see his kids again now, after breaking his parole. "They'd" never let him.
Certainly not if "They" could see him in Oz's Prop Room with Chris Keller
on his lap.

 "Please... I love you, Toby..." breathed Chris.

 "Iloveyoutoo..." Fuck fuck fuck.

 "Toby..." breathed Chris again, his lips on Toby's ear.

 A new voice put an end to Chris's suit.

 "What the fuck is going on here?"

 Suzanne Fitzgerald, her arms full of scripts, was staring furiously into
the gloom. Chris scrambled off Toby, as they both lurched to their feet.

 "Just a little harmless fun between two consenting adults," said Chris
nonchalantly.

 Toby kept his face in shadow and averted from Mrs. F, who was becoming
increasingly paranoid about losing more cast members as the dress
rehearsal approached. Chris, by contrast, stood facing his director, full
in the light. He smiled his dimples and pretty teeth at her, as Toby
struggled to catch up with the events and the next amazing act in Chris
Keller's repertoire. His own heart was still hammering on his breastbone
and he felt crumpled and disheveled. He backed further into the shadows.

 "Keller?" Mrs. F. squinted at Chris. "Don't bull me. It didn't sound or
look like fun from where I was standing."

 "Honest, Mrs. F.," Chris's smile developed an "aw, shucks," quality about
it, "we don't got much time alone in Oz, ya know? Gotta take what we can
get."

 "Well, don't do it on my turf," she said, "and get out."

 As they left, Toby saw her staring after them, with the same bright and
clever eyes as Ryan O'Reily. She was no doubt wondering, not for the first
time, if choosing "MacBeth" for the Christmas play had been a wise idea,
when it was always such an unlucky play and Oz such an unlucky place. What
had she noticed? He sighed. Why hadn't he said anything during Chris's
exchange with her? Why hadn't he told her what had really happened? He
should have. Only he wasn't sure what it was.

 II.

 Toby and Chris had parted company outside the cafeteria partly on
instinct borne of a long struggle for self-preservation. Toby didn't
actually doubt Chris's assertions about Schillinger's intentions. He
merely lacked details. He realized it would be wiser if they weren't seen
together. Self-preservation guided him on another level too. He didn't
need to be around Keller right now. Period. He needed time to think. He
picked at a patch of residual stickiness the duct tape left at the corner
of his mouth. Yeah. He really needed to think hard.

 Later that afternoon, when he went to the library to find something to
take his mind off things, he saw Keller leaning against the wall outside
the copy room. Keller looked as if he'd been there for a while, thumbing
through an old National Geographic. Keller motioned with his head at the
door, his face expressionless, and then rolled off the wall and went
inside. A minute or two later, Toby followed him, against his better
judgment. Alone in a storeroom with Chris Keller. Unwise, Beecher, very
unwise. It was to find out about Schillinger, he told himself. That was
crucial if he was to survive long enough to his next parole hearing.

 Toby found Chris sitting on a large box in the shadows. He must have come
from gym, because he'd changed his clothes. Toby found himself scanning
the room to make sure they really were alone. Just in case. They were.

 "Toby," said Chris, in his old voice.

 Toby's heart sank.

 "Chris," he replied unwillingly from the doorway.

 Chris remained where he was on the box. Toby felt relieved. He came a bit
closer, wondering why there wasn't an act that outlawed Chris Keller from
wearing body-hugging thermals. Chris was hunching over and hugging his
arms to make himself look smaller. He looked up at Toby, who wondered how
he did it. Chris had seemed so big in the Prop Room. Chris reached out a
hand to him. Toby stopped a reflex to take it, as he came to stand in
front of Chris. Chris withdrew his hand, but continued to gaze up at Toby,
wide-eyed. Toby clenched his teeth.

 "Still mad at me, huh?" said Chris, straightening up.

 He brushed Toby's jaw with his fingers. Toby flinched.

 "Sorry that I hit you like that and all - things got... I got a little
crazy at the thought of losing you... You still love me, right?"

 Toby realized he was standing right in front of Chris - virtually between
his knees. Ah shit, drop the pretences, Beecher. The guy was a walking
aphrodisiac to him and he'd never known why. And he did love him, even
though he really didn't want to anymore. He put his hands on Chris's
shoulders and Chris straightened up hopefully, his lips parting in
anticipation. 

 Toby's own lips tingled, but he said: "Chris, I love you, but I don't
trust you. If you want to have anything to do with me (yeah, keep it
vague, he thought), you're going to have to show me you're trustworthy."

 "I told you about Schillinger, Toby, Christ!" Chris radiated barely
contained anger, which Toby could almost feel coursing under his hands. 

 He whipped them off Chris's shoulders. Chris shot out a hand toward Toby,
seemed to have second thoughts, and pulled it back. His jaw muscle
twitched. His fist balled. But Toby flinched again when he saw how wounded
and needy Chris's eyes were.

 "Yeah, you did, but you're going to have to do more than that," Toby told
him patiently.

 "I have a plan how we can get rid of Schillinger for good," Chris said. 
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