Wiping his feet on the mat, he stepped into the house and was immediately assaulted by the aroma of cooked fish. It smelled terribly appealing, but was a slow lure into a room he knew would be full of people who would likely consider killing him.

Looking around, he realized he didn't know where the bathroom was, and he wasn't going to go up into Ian's room to use that one. On cue, his new roommate came down the stairs with his usual smile, and Nathan pressed against the wall.

"Do you know where a bathroom is down here?" Nathan asked, wanting to avoid any awkwardness with the man before he could use the facilities.

"Oh yeah, sure. It's out the back door to the kitchen." Ian waved him forward and slid through the swing door that Tanner had come from during the morning.

It was an unknown area of the house, and he wasn't enthusiastic for the exploration, but he also had to pee so bad that reason was a little clouded. Maggie and Tanner were in the kitchen, but Nathan shuffled by quickly to keep up with Ian, only registering a granite countertop that extended out into the back of it next to the biggest double doored fridge he had ever seen.

The back door of the kitchen was just a hole without an actual hinged door attached, and it led to a dim hallway, but Ian opened the bathroom door to stream light on them. It was impossible for Nathan to not look at the elevator that was on the opposite wall by an additional door that had a stairwell sign on it, depicting a stick figure walking down them.

"It goes to the downstairs facility," Ian said, sliding his hands in his pocket. "Can you find your way back to the kitchen if I leave you here?"

"It's three feet away." Nathan bristled.

Ian cackled, and it was so sinister in the dark, that Nathan crawled toward the bathroom light for safety. Slipping in and closing the door, he locked it just to be sure Ian couldn't get in.

He used the bathroom and washed his hands but stopped at the sink to look in the mirror. Playing basketball had him covered in a sheen of dried sweat that made it feel gross to move. A knock on the door cause him to jump, and he turned around to open it. Coming face to face with Ian's bright eyes, he tried to close it again but Ian grabbed it with a chuckle.

"Here." Ian handed him a small stack of clothes, and Nathan had to let go of the door to catch them before something rolled off the top. "I saw how you were sweating when you came in. The antiperspirant, Maggie got for you, so don't get all creeped out thinking it was me or anything. I'll see ya in a few." Ian closed the door for him and Nathan fingered his clothes.

He didn't need to be told twice that he smelled. It was embarrassing enough to know that Ian had noticed and brought him something. The new T shirt and jeans felt wonderful after he dabbed himself down with a damp towel from the sink and sprayed the deodorant under his arms. It was a bit too strong for his tastes, but it was better than reeking of sweat.

He advanced slowly into the kitchen's back door and held onto the frame as he peeked in. There was food set on the table, still in pots, and Nathan watched as Maggie reached up for one of the cabinets. In what appeared to be a kind gesture, Tanner stood up from the counter and reached over her to hand her the plates. She thanked him and turned back to the table. Nathan wondered how much of what Tanner did was a façade and how much was his actual heeding of Maggie. It seemed suspicious, like everything else around here.

"Nathan," Maggie called out, noticing him.

Nathan smiled halfheartedly back at her, most of his being homed in on the man sitting at the far end of the table. With his arms behind his head, Ian was sitting in a laid-back manner, rocking his chair with a foot on the table leg. Even relaxing, the guy had drawn Nathan's attention the moment he had set foot in the kitchen, commanding the space around him like he owned it.

"Is it just the three of us?" Nathan asked, trying as passively to broach the subject as possible. In reality, Nathan imagined the other men were too focused on sharpening knives to be bothered with eating. Something like them basking in the deranged delight of cleaning and caring for a weapon that they valued higher than life, just waiting in a dark corner to strike out at someone.

It was going to make him too sick to eat if he kept pondering on what the others could possibly be doing. There was pretty much nothing good. Really, Nathan didn't imagine them reclining in their rooms reading Hemingway and sipping tea.

"We're the only people that matter." Ian stood from the table. "It's still going to be like another half of an hour on the fish. Mags tried to cook again, and she can't time two dishes for shit. You want to see if anything's on tv with me?"

No. Nathan tried his best not to offend him, but his silence was probably doing that.

"If you really want, you can stay here with Tanner. It's not like there's knives or anything in here, and you did kick his ha–"

Nathan bolted by Ian and went out the swing door to throw himself on the couch, where he crossed his arms half in frustration and half to keep them from trembling as Ian sat right next to him.

"You're too easy, Nat." Ian brushed his shoulder against his as he clicked the on button on the remote for the tv. There was more than enough space for both of them on the couch, but the man had sat mere inches from him, so that they touched when he moved.

"Sorry I'm not used to being manipulated." Nathan growled against his better judgement, and Ian's jaw dropped open as he met his eyes.

Lowering his eyebrows, Ian smirked and leaned into him, pushing Nathan all the way to the armrest. "You smell good." Ian inhaled next to him, and Nathan whitened as he trailed the outside of his hand over the side of his face. The touch was momentary, and Ian sat back up to channel surf on his side of the couch.

"You gave me spray deodorant." Nathan narrowed his eyes, speaking when he knew he should have been quiet.

Ian flicked his eyes over, just barely turning his head from the screen, and the smile rolled fully up his face. "I meant before that."

Nathan wasn't sure if heat could rush to a person's face in embarrassment at the same time it drained of color in horror, but his head sure as hell tried. It made him dizzy enough that he had to lean back in the couch and count his breaths.

"You are terrible at taking compliments." Ian lifted a cigarette out of his pocket and dropped it between his teeth, but he didn't light it.

Nathan didn't like to think about if he just liked having it between his lips because it all sank into something inappropriate in his mind. The man wasn't going to light it with Maggie around, so Nathan wasn't sure why he did it. It took Nathan a moment to open his mouth to defend himself again, but the door slammed, and he jumped a few inches away from it.

"Lovely," Ian said, gripping his cigarette so tight between his teeth that he almost cut it in half. Turning the tv off, Ian stood from the couch and groaned, just as the staunch odor of alcohol flooded the room.

It preceded a man by not seconds, and Nathan was frozen on the couch just a foot behind Ian. Stumbling and muttering in a drunken haze, the man entered the living room and leaned against the corner of the wall that turned to the stairs to stabilize himself. With a curse, he turned a pair of bloodshot, grey eyes over to them and then focused on him.

He ran his hand through his choppy brown hair, and then down to rub his unshaven jaw, squinting his eyes on Nathan as if he were a hallucination. With his shirt unbuttoned down to almost his navel, Nathan could see his smooth chest almost to his groin, but he was too terrified to be embarrassed.

"What the hell... where did you get a kid?" he growled in a loud, but low rumbling voice. It sent a chill reverberating down Nathan's spine. The man looked at him as if Nathan were nothing more than something to break.

"Where do you think?" Ian answered with obvious distaste for the man. "I bought him on Amazon, you fuck."

The man's eyes glazed over as he took in the words, lost in a haze of intoxication. "Shit, they sell anything on there nowadays."

How drunk was this guy?

Ian slapped a hand over his eyes just about the same time that Maggie came down the hall into the living room. Taking in the man's condition, she tensed and untensed her hands at her side, her jaw stiff as she faced him with steel, blue eyes.

The man didn't give her half a glance before he picked up a vase from the small end table and hurled it at her. It shattered against the wall a foot past her, but Maggie didn't flinch. Nathan was stiff on the couch a few yards away, but he couldn't miss the look of fear that passed the drunken man's expression as he backed several steps away from her. It was almost like she was holding a gun to his head, but she was just standing there. It struck him as the man's eyes darkened and flinched back from her gaze.

"Consuming alcohol is forbidden in and outside of the house, Rick." Maggie's voice raised in threat, and it tore away any hesitation the man had, hardening his stance. Perhaps it was the alcohol clouding and fighting with his better judgement, but Rick took a few steps toward her, getting directly in her face.

"You think I have to listen to your twisted set of rules, bitch?" Rick hissed in her face, leaning so close that Nathan knew she could smell nothing but his tainted breath. Grabbing the side table, Rick flung it across the room and it crashed against the living room wall near the window.

"Rick, get your ass in your room!" Maggie fumed, completely immune to the threat he posed.

"Make me... bitch." Rick leaned down and smirked at her.

In that moment, Nathan understood the difference between Ian and someone more dangerous. When Ian smirked, it was predatory, yes, but cruel, it was not. It wasn't hard for Nathan to sense the air of it around Rick, the cool dissociation with his own conscience.

The front door open and closed, slamming on its hinges just as hard as the first time, and Nathan wasn't ready for the other tenant of the pen to come down that hallway.

Moving over on the couch to slide more behind Ian, Nathan couldn't stop his eyes from lasering on the man who walked into the living room. Nathan was stunned by the familiar pair of onyx eyes from the basketball court, but even more shocked when Conny moved.

"You left this on the porch," Conny said with not a hint of the kindness he'd shown before.

Without hesitation, Conny pushed Maggie to the wall with one hand and brought an empty beer bottle up in the other. He cracked Rick in the side of the head, and unlike in the movies, it didn't shatter. The hit was a solid crack, and Rick hit the ground like a sack of potatoes. Blood dripped into the carpet from Rick's head, and flashes of Randy falling down the stairs took over Nathan's vision.

Nathan brought his trembling hands up to his head and tried to block them out, but all he could see was the blood seeping out from the boy's body, crawling to his white shirt and blossoming on contact with the fabric. He was hyperventilating, but he couldn't stop himself, and in the background more than one person said his name.

One voice he knew from earlier that day, the soft voice of a man who'd been so gentle, and the other was Ian directly in front of him. Neither of them fully penetrated his spiraling mind, but they at least took the images away and dropped him back into the living room. All he wanted to do when he landed was disappear, but there wasn't anywhere to go with everyone around him.

Arms slipped under his knees and behind his back, but he was in no condition to struggle as someone lifted him from the couch. From the faint smell of smoke and the sting of his cologne on his nose, he could tell it was Ian, but he couldn't look at him. Holding his head was the only thing keeping the racing thoughts buried.

"Maggie, I'm sorry. I didn't know." Conny's voice whispered behind him, but Nathan couldn't respond as it faded, replaced by the creak of stairs.

It wasn't long before he was set on a bed, and he shivered before a blanket was draped over him. A hand touched his head, and he flinched back, letting out a whimper that sounded like it was from someone else's mouth and not his own. The hand paused, but after a moment it ran over his hair, gently threading through it. As it repeated a few times without harming him, it started to calm him.

It had been a long time since someone had tried to soothe him, and he closed his eyes and let the tears slip out. No one had cared about him while he was in jail, and while his mother visited, the guards had all treated him like he didn't need or deserve any sympathy. He didn't want to break down like this, to be weak, but he still had a heart that beat in his chest, just like everyone else. When he'd been separated from society and labeled a criminal, it had stripped him of more than just his freedom, but under all of it, he was still a kid.

How did he become hardened like the men here? Could he? He'd be here for years, so he had to learn something soon or he'd crumble. At some point, Nathan's hands had started clutching his own arms unbidden, and he couldn't stop the shaking. Despite willing it, he just wasn't calming down.

"Nathan, you're safe up here." Ian's voice was barely audible.

Why couldn't he respond?

Speak.

Move.

Anything.

"It's all right. Just get some sleep." The hand on his head disappeared, and it left him cold and more frightened. He didn't know why. It wasn't like he felt safe around Ian, but he's also been so starved of touch lately that it didn't matter who it was.

Tucking his face into the pillow, he inhaled the flowery scent of dryer sheets, and it only renewed his tears. It didn't smell like home, like the citrus detergent his mother had always used. Over time, the scent faded to just the hint of lemon that lingered from the wash on everything. Before being stolen away from it, he'd never thought about how his room smelled, but it didn't smell like this.

This wasn't his home, and he was stuck here.

Something heavy pressed against him, and he jerked back, snapping his eyes open to a comforter as it was tucked around him. For just a moment, Nathan met Ian's eyes, and the man let go of the blanket and took a few quick steps back from the bed.

"I won't hurt you," Ian said quietly, backing up further

More tears flooded Nathan's eyes, and he turned away and wrapped the blankets tighter around him. No matter how hard he tried to wash it away with other sensations, the look in Conny's dark eyes kept returning to him. There had been nothing left of the man who'd laughed with him on the court. There had been nothing but malice.

Which side of the man was real? And how could he trust that he wouldn't flip from calm and caring to violent in the next moment, like he had with Rick. How was he himself supposed to remain calm when everyone here was a monster no matter how well they did or didn't hide it?

A shiver ran down his neck with the touch of Ian's hand against his hair again. The slow trail of it over his head warmed him, and he breathed slowly through his mouth to keep himself from passing out. Staring at the wall, he counted his breaths as he followed the path of Ian's hands over his hair in his mind.

The touch was gentle, so unlike how he'd been that morning. Why was everyone here the flip of a coin? And why was Ian caring for him? Shouldn't he be ridiculing him, or telling him to deal with it? This was a prison, where violence was common place, and he couldn't even function from seeing it. If someone attacked him, would he just fall apart?

"Do you think I'm weak?" Nathan whispered into the wall, and Ian's hand stopped.

"Nathan... you're not weak, just out of place. It's all right to be frightened in a strange place with no one to turn to for safety. You're not the only one."

His last sentence piqued Nathan's interest, and he turned on the bed. Sitting next to the bed, Ian scooted back again when he looked directly at him.

"What do you mean?" Nathan croaked, pulling the blankets to the other side and tucking them around him.

"No one likes to be torn away from what's normal. When we first got here and Maggie let us out of our cells, Tanner hid himself in a corner. You couldn't pry him off that couch even if the house was on fire. It was a little shocking seeing a man that big huddle in fear."

"You're lying to make me feel better." Nathan lowered his eyebrows in frustration.

"I promise I'm not." Ian's chuckle was pleasant, and Nathan was able to release the tension in his body for the first time. "Mags had just pulled him away from the electric chair, and he'd expected everything under him to crumble at any moment. It took time, like I'm sure it will with you. Each and every one of us had to adjust to being here, and we all found different ways. You just have to find yours."

"How do you cope?" Nathan asked with sincerity, and Ian chuckled again.

"I smoke." Ian flashed him his teeth in a wide smile, and Nathan frowned. "Really, I didn't at all before I ended up in prison, just like Rick wasn't a blackout drunk. Some of us adjust poorly, and I hope you find something that isn't a vice."

"Me too. I don't like cigarettes." Nathan's eyebrows crunched together, and Ian dropped his smile.

"I won't smoke in the room while you're sharing it. Perhaps fixing up yours so you have a place that you can go alone will help you get a feel for the pen that isn't... frightening," Ian offered, and Nathan nodded. "I'm glad you've calmed down. It's late anyway, so try and get some sleep. I'll be in the corner here if you want some lonely gay man to keep you company."

A smile tilted Nathan's lips, but it fell as Ian flopped on his bed and reached to the shelf for a book to read. There were no blankets on it, and Nathan looked at the one wrapped around him guiltily.

"Do you want it back?" Nathan asked across the room, and Ian lifted his eyes from his book. "The blanket," Nathan specified as Ian tried to make sense of his words.

"Oh, no." Ian chuckled. "Consider it payback." With a smug smile, Ian relaxed against his pillows.

"What are you paying me back for?" Nathan asked innocently.

"Not me. It's you paying me back for how I tortured you today. I'll freeze as penance."

"You don't have to." Nathan sat up, unwrapping himself.

Before he could respond, Ian was up from his bed and pulling the blanket back around his neck, and Nathan stiffened from how quickly he'd moved and how close he was to his face.

"Keep the blanket," Ian repeated, standing up and retreating back to his bed just as swiftly as he'd gotten up. "You're so skinny that you'll freeze to death much faster than I will. It's fall, and it gets down to forty some nights."

Nathan hesitated, and Ian narrowed his eyes.

"If you give the blanket back, I will get off this bed, hop into yours, and keep you warm with my body." Ian's voice was a hiss that had Nathan tucking himself into the blanket and flopping back toward the wall. A chuckle from Ian chased his fear, but Nathan calmed as Ian dimmed the lights and relaxed under a desk lamp to read.

Awkwardly, the same man who'd terrified him this morning, had spent most of the day with him in peace, and had even calmed him when he'd been on the brink of losing it. As his consciousness faded, he wondered what darkness lurked under the gentle hands of someone who was used to consoling others.

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Word count: 3661 -- Edited July 12th, 2020