Working on his room for the next week wasn't so much distracting as it was traumatizing. Ian finished up the mud and they painted with ease, but when they got to the floor, neither of them knew how to do carpet. It was easier than putting in vinyl floors, so they went with it, but Rick was the only person who was actually house repair savvy. The man was a jack of all trades with most skills, but as the saying goes, master of none, especially not communication.

It was just a slew of gay jokes, jabs, and ear numbing vulgarity that Nathan could go without. One day, Rick went on for almost an hour about how he'd been in a foursome with another couple with one of his kinkier marks, which was what he called the woman he'd conned. Nathan didn't want to know half of the details that escaped his lips, nor the names for the positions they had sex in, but it was hard to get rid of them now.

The man talked about nothing but sex, women, and getting laid. Thankfully, putting in carpet required him to have the whole room with no one standing on it, so Nathan was able to escape for a little basketball with Rachel after they put down the nail boards. Rick said he'd get the carpet in in the next few days, so his room was almost ready to live in. All that was left after was aesthetic, some trim and final touches.

Outside of his room, he stopped by the stairs to the third floor and did some poor math in his head. Ian, and Maggie had said there were five men here, but he'd only seen four. Ian, Tanner, Donovan, and Rick. There were also four rooms down here, so someone had to be up on the third floor with whomever he hadn't met.

"Hey, Ian," Nathan called to him, heading back into their room. They'd been about to head their separate ways as he went to the court, but Nathan still needed to change. Being alone with Ian wasn't favorable, but he wanted to know who he hadn't met yet.

"What's up?" Ian asked as Nathan dug through his dresser for something wearable. They'd ruined a few too many shirts on paint and mud.

"I'm missing someone right?" Nathan said, plopping on his bed, and Ian raised an eyebrow. "You said there were five inmates here, but I've only ever seen four."

"Oh, you mean Julian. Kid's something else. Someone left a few screws out when they constructed that one."

"Kid?" There was someone else here his age?

"Yeah, Julian's fifteen, but not someone you should fantasize about being friends with. Mags plucked him from a mental hospital, and he has special accommodations both on the third floor and downstairs. He's fucking nuts, so he's locked in his room. When I first got here, I could sometimes hear his screams at night." Ian leaned in toward him, and a shiver ran over Nathan's spine.

"Why was he screaming?" Nathan sputtered, and Ian laughed.

"He has nightmares, but I would too if I was that deranged."

"What do you mean?" Nathan was wanting less and less to know, and it made sense why no one had mentioned him.

"It's pretty gruesome, even for people like us. Julian kidnapped two kids and carved them up like Halloween pumpkins, which is why he was restrained in a high-level psychiatric facility before he was brought here. It's one thing to cut people, and another to sit there and meticulously carve detailed pictures into flesh."

"I regret asking," Nathan pushed past Ian and his teasing to slip into the bathroom. He locked the door and changed as fast as he could before he crawled back out and found Ian waiting for him with a smile. "Did you have more to say?" Nathan asked, his stomach turning.

"Nope, not unless you want me to compliment how your shirt looks taut on your chest–" Nathan slammed the door on Ian and intended to head for the stairs, but he came face to face with Rick instead. Those dead grey eyes passes over him like he was a lamb for slaughter, and he leaned into the hand on his hip with a smirk.

"Lovers' spat?" Rick said in his low growl. Nathan tried to push past him, but Rick grabbed his shoulder and shoved him up against the wall. "I heard you having story time, got me interested. Do you want to know what I did?"

"Not really, but I have a feeling you're going to tell me anyway." Leave it to a man like Rick to be proud of his depravity.

"I was convicted for four counts of kidnapping, torture, rape and murder," Rick said, his eyes a sharp steel as he waited for Nathan to respond. If he wanted him to tremble, he didn't have to work this hard. "All of which, I am innocent of." Rick chuckled and backed off, and Nathan tilted his head in confusion. "Kid, I am the only person in this house who has not killed someone, incidentally or intentionally. Shit, I haven't even raped anyone. The women beg for me to crawl into their beds so I've never had a need. Unfortunately, that line of reasoning was not convincing to a jury of my 'peers'. Prudes probably never had a girl beg to blow them."

"Rick, you spitting that nonsense about your innocence again?" Ian asked, leaning on the door frame to his room.

"It's not nonsense, fairy. I'm a conman, the core of which is charming. I either pamper and dote on women with affection, or I pleasure them in ways their men won't or can't. Can't squeeze a dime out of a dead chick, and if I rape them, they ain't comin' back."

"I fail to see how you con anyone with the way you act," Ian challenged, and Rick let out a breath.

"You're all men and I'm not a fucking queer. No reason to waste my time pretending here." Rick returned his gaze to him, and Nathan lowered his eyebrows, unsure of what he wanted. "Go play with your friends or I'll help Ian hold you down to the bed."

Ian slapped the man upside the head, and Rick cursed, but Nathan needed no more convincing to head downstairs. Behind him, Rick cackled as he exchanged words with Ian, but Nathan thankfully didn't catch any of them. There had been a flicker of a moment where Nathan had wondered about Rick's innocence, but then everything molded back to the man breaking things and yelling at Maggie. It hadn't been any secret that Rick was frightened of her. Nathan could see someone drinking excessively and lashing out if they were frightened all of the time about the men around him, but Rick didn't seem to have the sense to be afraid of Ian.

Wondering about Rick's innocence or guilt didn't do him much good as he headed to the court for the day. It just distracted him the entire time he played with Donovan and Rachel, which may or may not have mattered because he was awful at basketball anyway. All he could focus on was the dead look in Rick's eyes. The man always had it, like people were things to him, and whether or not he killed someone, a jury would only see that.

What if he was just a terrible person but not a murderer?

Ian hadn't believed Rick, and by the time Nathan was walking home with Donovan after basketball, his brain was spinning in circles. A touch to his shoulder jolted him back to Donovan's frown. The kindness and concern in his pitch eyes scrubbed Rick's dead look away.

"You've been off today. Did Ian do something to you?" Donovan asked with a deepening tone of threat in his voice, and Nathan shook his head.

"No, I was just wondering about Rick. He said he was innocent," Nathan admitted, and Donovan grimaced.

"That is a true waste of time. Rick is straightforward." Donovan bounced the basketball on the sidewalk and caught it with tightened muscles. "Rick cares about one person, himself. If something will benefit him, he'll lie, pretend, and deceive. The man is good at it, or he'd never get past the periodic assessments of our progress. Rick puts on a face like normal people put on shirts. Anything he said, he said for his own benefit and is most likely a lie."

"You really think so?" Nathan asked, rubbing his neck. Something about the look in Rick's eyes had just seemed so believable, and his logic hadn't been particularly flawed either. The way he'd said it though had been condemning in itself.

"I know so," Donovan answered with a light smile.

Nathan dropped his gaze from Donovan's dark eyes to stare at the concrete below them. He'd been wondering for a few days about what Donovan had done to end up here, but he hadn't had it in him to ask. It was clear that Donovan was capable of injuring another person if pressured, but at the same time, he had a gentleness about him, sort of like Ian.

"Something is still on your mind," Donovan said when he was abnormally quiet, and his shoulders tensed.

"Donovan," Nathan tried to formulate the question, but failed. How could he ask the man about the darkest part of his life? It just seemed intrusive, and Ian hadn't liked it when Nathan had found out from someone else. What option did that leave him but to ask directly?

"Spit it out," Donovan said, and Nathan cringed from the harshness in his tone, but when he regained his connection with his eyes, Donovan's were soft.

"Forget about it." Nathan sighed. Donovan had a very gentle nature, and Nathan didn't want to risk upsetting him. It wasn't like he was worried Donovan would crack a bottle over his head. He didn't want to damage their fragile friendship.

"If you're wondering about my crimes. I'm not innocent, nor do I lie and claim to be. I killed my wife," Donovan said, turning away from him and staring straight ahead. Somehow, Donovan had known what he'd wanted to ask even though he hadn't said it.

With great effort, Nathan tried to imagine the kind face of a man that could pat a small child so gently killing the one woman he loved. He just couldn't see it.

"Why?" Nathan asked to Donovan's back as he trailed a step behind.

"I... don't know anymore," Donovan said in a hushed voice after a moment of silence. When he turned back to him, his eyes were shadowed and his shoulders had sunk.

"There had to have been a reason. I've seen the way you interact with me, Rachel, and other children. You're a good person and more of a parent than anyone I've met except my mom."

"Your mother is kind to you?" Donovan asked with a brittle smile, and Nathan blushed in embarrassment.

"Yeah. I haven't talked to her in a bit, so I don't know what she thinks of me anymore, but before all this, she was a really good mom. We didn't always agree or get a long, but she worked two jobs to keep me in a home and gave me any free time she had. All I did to repay her was get thrown in jail, so I don't know if she–"

"She loves you, Nathan," Donovan cut him off. "You're her world, and I'm sure she's worried about you. You can tell Maggie you want to talk to her, and she'll work out a way for you two to call each other, or you can write letters. I know that last one is slower than other things, but it occupies time during any day and gives you a routine that reminds you of home. It's a healthy thing to do."

"You didn't answer," Nathan prodded, and Donovan frowned. For once, Nathan remained firm in his request, even though his lip quivered when the man stared him down.

"She was... abusing our son," Donovan said, but he broke eye contact and took a few long strides that left Nathan at his back again.

Nathan skipped a few steps to walk at his side again, but gave him a little space as he tried to put his painful thoughts to words.

"There were better ways to deal with it than killing her, but my rage got the better of me. I think it struck me harder than she'd ever hit my son because I didn't find out for years. All I could think about was how I could have missed it.

"I worked a nine to five, but my position at work often had me there longer than I wanted. Even so, I always made time for my son, Micah. We played basketball every day, even if it was by the fading light of the evening when I got back. He was always waiting like an eager puppy for me to come home and play with him. My son is still young. He'll be sixteen this year, and he was only fourteen when my wife sent him to the hospital.

"There is a point in your life as a parent when you wonder how your children got so good at lying. My wife never abused him as a child. I'd have known. I bathed him, clothed him for school, and cared for him just as much as his mother. But once they reach a certain age, they do that all on their own, which is how it slipped under the radar. Once maybe, I caught him with a bruise on his arm, but he said he'd fallen practicing for basketball.

"My son is docile, very smart, but also quiet. If he said he fell, I believed him. I didn't think lying was in him, but I suppose I underestimated how far he would go to protect his mother. I'm sure you've lied to your mother." Donovan glanced over at Nathan, and he flinched.

"Well... yes." Nathan couldn't say he'd never lied.

"You don't have to look so guilty about it. Children lie for any number of reasons, but people like you and Micah lie because they don't want to hurt anyone. Micah didn't want to get his mother in trouble, and I suppose he was right in a way. Had he told me, I'd have kicked her to the curb. I loved my wife, but Micah wasn't the kind of kid that had tantrums or was at all disruptive. The boy got super quiet when he was upset, and the worst thing he did was break things on accident or come inside late when he was practicing basketball.

"My wife couldn't even pretend to justify losing her temper with him. Since he didn't tell me when it was manageable, I found out when they took custody of him away from us. My wife brought him into the hospital and abuse is fairly identifiable at a certain severity. Fourteen year olds don't break bones and bash their own heads in on their own." Donovan gripped the basketball so hard that Nathan veered away.

"Is he okay?" Nathan asked like the naïve kid he was.

It softened Donovan's gaze and he released the basketball from its life threatening position. "I don't know how to quantify that. Alive? Yes. Okay? Probably not." Donovan ran his hand over his face. "I haven't communicated with him once since my trial started. The prosecutors ate him up and I never saw him again after my conviction."

"Did you never try to write to him?" Nathan asked.

"And say what?" Donovan lifted his eyes and tears had filled them, sealing Nathan's lips. "It's a little too late for apologies, and I don't know if saying 'Micah, I forgive you for lying on the stand and saying it was me who beat you' really goes that far."

"I didn't... know." Nathan gripped his forearms and couldn't help the tears that bubbled up in his own eyes. He'd always been a sympathetic crier.

"Like I said, I don't know when he got so good at lying. Perhaps he was angry at me for taking his mother away or he still couldn't bring himself to say anything bad about her. Either way, I had nothing left worth living for at that point. I don't deserve anything else but his hatred. I took his mother and his father from him on the same day that I raised my hand to her. I don't even know why she did it. I didn't ask."

Donovan was silent then, and Nathan's mind bounced in so many directions it was hard to nail it down. He wanted to be angry at Donovan's son, but at the same time he didn't know how he could be. Nathan would never incriminate his own mother, but she'd also never hit him, and he didn't have a father to turn on.

Would Nathan defend his mother if she harmed him? With what he knew about his mother's horrible struggle of a life, he likely still would. It wasn't his place to find fault in the woman who gave everything she had for him. If she hit him, he wouldn't know what to do, but he also wouldn't throw her under the bus.

Without a parent to lean on during the trial, Micah must have been so alone and frightened. Who knew what those prosecutors said to him to sway his testimony or if they even cared about the truth. Nathan had learned that the courtroom was a competition of jesters, the jury nothing but a captive audience for a show that painted what the people there wanted them to see. None of them had batted an eye at condemning him for what had been an accident, not when Randy's friends had spun a different story.

Donovan went into the house with him but hid himself away before the tears fell from his eyes. While he hadn't wanted to pry, Nathan was glad he knew more about Donovan. It was painful and heart wrenching, but it was what defined the man, and motivation was the core to the heart of any person.

Word count: 3021 -- Edited March 29th, 2021