by Katsura
"Okay, Jude, two weeks. Not a problem.
Bye." He snapped his phone closed then stood over Hugo and looked down at him with loathing. Although he had truly loved his evening with Mikhail it did leave him feeling bitter this morning. Mainly because it reminded him of how much he really didn't want to be with Hugo anymore.
Ending their union was practically impossible for Fergus because Hugo knew way too much. He heard of couples who had amicable divorces, remained friends even afterwards, and he wanted to laugh at that thought. You'd have to be friends first before you could ever be friends afterwards.
Nothing with Hugo could ever be amicable, and Fergus stared at him, hating practically everything about him because, quite simply, he wasn't Mikhail. He was too needy, too greedy, to hatefully thin, too not blond or civilised, and right now so fucking irritating that Fergus wanted to follow up the slap with a punch.
"I just want you to tell me if you will stay out all night, yet again." Hugo looked up at him, the slap mark on his cheek angry and red and still showing the clear shape of a hand.
"I'm not going to check in with you, Hugo.
I am free, okay? If I want to stay out all fucking night I will stay out all fucking night." Fergus narrowed his eyes and waited for the challenge to his words.
"I did not say that you couldn't," Hugo sniffed haughtily. "I just want you to let me know so that I won't wait up for you."
Fergus laughed and refilled his glass of juice. "Wait up? Oh, come on, Hugo." He gave a derisive snort. "You couldn't wait up if your life depended on it. You pass out every night. I have to practically carry you up to bed, and don't think I don't consider just leaving you lying there. Be honest. Did you make it upstairs last night when I wasn't here?"
Hugo's slightly less cocky expression served as an answer, and Fergus continued to mock him with his laughter.
"You will have woken up with your wine glass on the floor next to you and a blinding fucking headache. Then you'll have dragged your sorry ass upstairs for a shower before coming back down here to start all over again. Or did you even bother with the shower? No, maybe not, eh?"
"Don't." Hugo got to his feet and leaned on the table for support. "Don't talk to me like that."
"Why?" Fergus grinned. "Because you don't like it?"
Hugo walked to the corner of the room where he fetched a dust pan and a brush.
He crouched again to sweep up the broken glass, and Fergus stared at him with contempt the whole time.
"You are pathetic. You know that?" he hissed.
"Of course I know that." Hugo let the glass tumble from the dust pan into the bin before turning his face to him, and Fergus felt a pang of guilt as Hugo really did look wretched. He wasn't crying but he looked close to breaking down, and tears were something that Fergus had never been able to cope with. Such displays of emotion always made him feel helpless and frustrated. If he was responsible for the breakdown this made it worse, and he remembered his mother crying at court when he was handed down his sentence.
Hugo had rather touchingly attempted to comfort her. Of course she had moved away from him as though he had the plague, but he had tried.
Fergus handed Hugo the glass of juice and he took it, sipping it slowly. He then lowered his gaze to Fergus's outstretched fingers.
"You are not wearing your wedding ring."
Hugo looked up into Fergus's face, his eyes glistening.
Fergus remembered putting the ring into his jacket pocket, and he mentally chided himself for the fact that he still felt the need to come up with an excuse. If he had told the truth all hell would have broken loose, and right now he was trying to avoid the drama. "It's in my pocket." He looked into Hugo's eyes. "It felt a bit loose and I didn't want to lose it."
Hugo put the juice glass down then embraced Fergus. He leaned his head against Fergus's chest and Fergus found his arms sliding around Hugo's small frame in response. "I will get it made smaller for you." Hugo's voice was so quiet now that Fergus could barely hear him. "Then you can wear it and not worry."
Chapter Four
From within the confines of the small prison cell, you could still hear all that went on outside, but this was not unusual.
It was always noisy. It didn't matter what time of day or night it was, there was always some fight going on or some nutter having a nightmare, but you got used to it after a while and learned to shut yourself off. Maybe on release you would have to get used to silence in much the same way.
The other prisoners were going down to get something to eat in the prison canteen, but Vinny couldn't be bothered with that right now. He had more important stuff to do and he smiled as he took down five years of treasured memories from the walls of his cell. Li, his cell mate from the first day that he had arrived in this stinking hole of a place, watched him. Vinny paused briefly then pulled down a picture of himself standing beside the closest friend that he had ever had in his whole life, Judas MacGregor. Only Judas and the ex-offenders' charity that had been helping him this last while knew that he was due to get out. They had asked him if there was anyone he wanted informed of his release date and he had given them Judas's phone number. But maybe that wasn't his number anymore. He may have changed it since then.
Vinny tossed the picture on top of the box that he had been filling for the last hour with his odd assortment of possessions, and Li picked it out again. He looked at it with a sort of lost expression.
"Naw, don't cry. I'll leave you the porn, okay?" Vinny smiled. His long wine-coloured braided dreads flicked over his shoulder as he turned to look at Li.
Beneath the grey and ill-fitting prison shirt, that shoulder was decorated with a large black dragon tattoo. "Even the good stuff."
"That was already mine," Li replied, his voice filled with unconcealed misery.
"Ha, yeah, so it was." Vinny laughed and continued to take the pictures down from the wall. Li turned the one of Vinny and Judas around between his fingers.
"Yeah." Li looked up and leaned back a fraction. His eyes travelled from the picture in his hands to Vinny's face. Vinny was used to being stared at like this as he was an extremely striking character. He had high cheekbones, pale almond shaped green eyes and a little silver stud pierced just below his lower lip. And that wasn't the only place he was pierced either. His tongue was pierced too, as was his cock.
He'd come into prison with none of these adornments, all of them having been done by the skilful hand of his cellmate.
"You took them off me first night you came here. My magazines I mean." Li frowned, still obviously miserable but probably not about the loss of his porn.
"Well, I had to make sure you knew who was boss. I am nobody's bitch," Vinny laughed. Of course they both knew that was not strictly true. Vinny was happy to be anybody's bitch for a few fags or some blow, or really anything else that was going. But Vinny was generous to a fault and always shared the loot with Li, who, clearly from his sulky expression, would miss the hell out of him.
"Yeah." Li sighed as Vinny sat down next to him taking the photograph from his hands and he once more placed it into the box. "You were such a fucking bully. Oh fucking hell, Vinny. What will I do without you? I got no mates here. Just you.
Who is going to keep me from getting shafted in the shower? I'll get eaten alive."
"You've always liked to get eaten." Vinny extended his tongue and wriggled it. He played the stud there against his lower teeth and grinned as Li watched with an expression of mock anguish.
"Don't." Li laughed. "I'm serious, man.
There is no one here like you. They will put some nut job in with me and I'll have to pull the hard man act all over again."
"Oh, so that's what you were doing to me?
Trying to dominate me?" Vinny lifted his chin with a smirk. "Li, just do what I do.
Suck the right dick and no one will touch you, okay?"
Li nodded, not appearing entirely thrilled by the idea, but that was really how things worked in a place lik
e this. If you were a big hard man, you dominated everyone you could. If you were built like Vinny or Li, you learned to wipe your chin and say thank you. Gay or straight, most people accepted a blow job either in exchange for protection or as an alternative to having to beat someone into submission.
Vinny's pierced tongue made his services desired, and that had more or less saved him from the kicking that most people of his build took every other day. He went on his knees for all of the big gangsters, and in return, he and Li were left alone.
Vinny smiled then embraced Li tightly.
"It's not that bad, Li. I'll talk to some guys for you before I go."
Vinny had been sentenced to ten years but only needed to serve half of that before being considered for parole, but as for Li, he had a way to go yet. Prison could be a hell of a lonely place, and the only way to make it was to form friendships, sometimes between the most unlikely of people. But looking at Li, Vinny had the feeling that even on the outside they would have gravitated together. They had the same strange sense of humour, and God knows, you really needed a sense of humour here. Li wasn't doing a very good job of trying to look reassured or pleased at Vinny's imminent departure, and Vinny understood why, hugging him a little tighter. Anyone who had never served a stretch might have found the sight of them strange, but when you were in the nick long enough the normal social rules didn't apply.
"So you excited? I guess that guy in the picture, he means a lot to you?" Li leaned his head against Vinny's head and sighed again.
"He's the reason I'm in here." Vinny sighed too. "When I get a flat sorted, I'll come back and see you, okay? And I will write, send you stuff even."
"You can write?" Li laughed and Vinny elbowed him playfully in the ribs.
"Yeah I can write! You just were just too interested in my ass to notice." He turned and looked a little more serious. "But when you get out, you can come stay with me. Don't worry, I won't forget you."
Vinny couldn't help himself and glanced at the picture in the box again. His hair was black then and he'd looked so much younger, but strangely not healthier. Now he looked healthier as he had filled out a little and no longer had the permanent bags under his eyes or the hollow cheeks.
Judas looked cock of the walk, fancy sunglasses on and a French cigarette dangling from between his lips. He had been showing off with the cigarette as Vinny only ever smoked roll ups. And who took that picture?
Oh yeah, Fergus. Strange that. Vinny had known Fergus Campbell quite well on the outside, but when they were both in here they had rarely spoken to each other and never mixed at all much really. Vinny hadn't questioned that. Fergus was a well respected hood and Vinny? Vinny was a nobody, he guessed.
He hadn't resorted to sucking Fergus's dick to keep him off his back, but maybe some others had. Guys like that were secretive about the whole dog-suck-dog prison life.
"That's good of you." Li interrupted his thoughts. "I'm not sure I got anyone outside waiting for me."
Vinny reached and ruffled his fingers gently through Li's hair, as he knew that feeling only too well. "You got me, so don't you worry about that."
* * *
How the fuck was someone supposed to choose flowers when there were so many fucking choices?
Fergus stared at the screen of the laptop that he was using to browse the local florist's website, and he wished they would just label the bouquets a little more clearly or practically. Such as, there could be one called "I am sorry I forgot your birthday." No real reason for that to be an overly fancy affair. Then there could be the "I deeply apologise for saying that about your mother." More effort could be put into that one, but still, a fairly basic bunch.
What he was really looking for was the "that was the most amazing night of my fucking
life"
and
looking
at
the
arrangements in the pictures, well, none of them really appeared to say that.
Judas looked over his shoulder, smiling as he drank coffee from a mug that bore the l egend, Sex God. Fergus hadn't heard Judas arrive and shuddered at the way the man could creep up on a person unnoticed.
He probably had plenty of practice in the dancers' changing rooms downstairs. A while ago Fergus had heard his father jokingly refer to a pair of shoes as brothel creepers and he remembered how this had instantly made him think of Judas.
Fergus had first met Judas when they were both in their late teens, and up until Fergus was imprisoned, they'd worked together on jobs. They were actually considered as quite a double act, but Fergus had begun to distance himself when it became clear that Judas's private life was not exactly private. Any job they were on together ended with Judas urging the rest of the gang to go get some tail. Of course, a lot of the other men didn't mind this and would take both of the young hoods to the local whorehouses quite gladly. Fergus would usually make an excuse, though, and took a lot of ribbing for this. Judas, however, would boast openly about his encounters in the dingy back rooms and alleys where the local prostitutes would ply their trade.
Fucking some slag and sharing the details was
considered
polite
conversation
among criminals. Taking some rent boy up the arse against the wall at the back of the chippy wasn't. But Judas didn't seem to care about this and his sexual exploits gave him quite a reputation, but maybe not the kind that Judas believed it to be.
"You stole my seat," Judas said in amused voice and he cast his eyes over the computer screen. Fergus knew that he expected to find porn there. There was always porn there when Judas used it.
Judas had once told Fergus in all seriousness that "laptops are for porn and if God didn't mean them to be used for that he would never have made them close so easy to conceal it."
"Well I am back and I don't need you to run the place for me. So this is my seat now and my office too, and you should knock the door before you come in here. I could have been doing anything." Fergus glanced back at him then once more browsed the floral offerings.
"That's all the thanks that I get?" Judas didn't sound serious, but it still bugged Fergus that the man would expect to be thanked for spending five years running a perfectly respectable burlesque club into the ground while Fergus languished at Her Majesty's pleasure.
Judas grinned. "But you are right. I'll knock in future. Me and some of the girls have had some times in here, and I'd hate to walk in on you getting your end away with the talent some night."
"Don't you start on me. Can't you see that I am busy?" Fergus was filled with the heartfelt wish that Judas would just piss off and go do whatever it was that he did around here.
But Judas simply smiled and perched against the desk. "You don't need to send me flowers, you know. I liked looking after the girls and I am pretty sure that the girls liked looking after me. This is a quite successful little strip joint since I was running it." He grinned lecherously.
Fergus rolled his eyes and tapped his fingers against the laptop keys. "Will you shut the fuck up? And it's not a fucking strip club, it's burlesque. There is a fucking difference."
Judas laughed. "Oooh...touchy. Okay burlesque then. And what are we calling the fights? Pugilistic displays? The protection rackets...safety enhancement cover?" His grin widened. "And you got to love the pharmaceutical supplies."
Fergus leaned back in his seat then placed both hands on the desk as he got to his feet. He grabbed Judas by the collars and dragged him over to the wall where he pressed him against red wallpaper and looked into his eyes with positive loathing. "I
am just looking on the fucking Internet to make a fucking purchase," Fergus hissed, his face menacingly close to Judas's.
"Well I am just saying, if you want to buy me something I don't like flowers." Judas smiled unperturbed.
Fergus felt all the more furious, but he let Judas go and took a step back, making an attempt to calm himself. "Can't I send flowers without a big fucking scene?"
/>
Judas raised his eyebrows and regarded Fergus with an expression of amused suspicion. "Seriously? You were sending me flowers? Fuck...I never knew you cared."
There was no point in trying to be calm when faced with Judas and his pointless humour, so Fergus just gave up and yelled at the top of his voice, "They are obviously not for you! Just fuck off and give me a bit of peace won't you?" He went back over to the desk, sat down and stared at the screen again. But he had lost even the little enthusiasm that he had for the task now and stared at an arrangement that was clearly in the category of "I am sorry my dog shat on your lawn."
"White roses are what I want..." he muttered out loud, not really meaning to.
Judas looked at him with a glint of mischief in his eye. "So, anyone I know?
Do I need to get my black suit pressed?"
He laughed and Fergus lifted both hands at him, not having a fucking clue what Judas was on about. "The wreath. Who died...or who's gonna die?"
Fergus balled up a piece of paper and threw it directly at Judas's head. "You if you don't get your annoying fucking ass out of here."
Judas laughed more and glanced back at Fergus when he reached the door. "Okay, I'm gonna go...now don't you beg me to stay,
okay?
That
would
just
be
embarrassing for both of us."
Fergus made a sarcastic face at him then grinned. "Oh, but before you do go, Jude, I am thinking of making an unauthorised withdrawal at the bank."
Now that finally removed the man's cocky demeanour, and Judas looked back with interest. "Oh?" He raised his eyebrow, one hand resting on the door frame.
"Yeah, and this time keep your dick in your pants and turn up for the planning meeting. You know how indispensable you are to me. Now go."
Judas left looking smug, and Fergus stared at the door with a grin.