Spook Me FIC: A Solitary Ghost (Oz, PG)
Oct. 27th, 2018 06:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vanillalimeTitle: A Solitary Ghost
Characters: Tobias Beecher, Chris Keller
Rating: PG
Word Count: 3,133
Creature Prompt: Ghost
Summary: A mentally unstable Toby receives a visit from Chris's ghost. But who's haunting who?
Notes: Written for the 2018 Spook Me Multi-Fandom Halloween Ficathon. Cross-posted to AO3. Inspired by the following artwork prompt:
________________________________
Toby sat on his tiny bed, his back shoved against the cold wall of his cramped cell. Hugging his knees against his chest, he stared silently at the shimmering shape in front of him: a windswept mass of bluish hues that made up the image of the recently deceased Chris Keller.
Chris patiently stared back at him with an expression that Toby couldn’t quite read. The tilt of his head suggested curiosity, but it could just as well have been amusement. It certainly wasn’t guilt, which is what Toby would’ve liked to have seen from him.
Time passed… four, five, maybe ten minutes. Or maybe it was a couple of hours. Ever since they’d tossed him into solitary, time had become sort of a hazy concept to Toby.
Finally, Toby decided that he'd had enough. He cleared his throat and said, "So, are you a ghost, or am I losing my mind?"
Slowly, Chris’s blue lips formed a small smile. "No reason why it can’t be a bit of both," he quietly replied, using a voice no different than the one he’d always used.
Toby was slightly unnerved, however, by the fact that he wasn’t sure if the words he’d heard had been said out loud, or if they had only been inside his own head. He had heard voices inside his head before, and the ensuing repercussions had been less than desirable.
Toby frowned. He didn’t need this shit. He didn’t deserve this shit. Waving his hand impatiently around the room, he snapped, "This is all your goddamn fault, you know."
Chris calmly responded, "No, it’s not, and you know it."
Toby snorted and huffed and clutched his legs tighter.
"You wanna talk about your little fight with Agent Taylor?" Chris suggested.
"Fuck you."
"Ah, okay," Chris replied, nodding his blue head. "So you’re gonna be like that."
"Yeah, I’m gonna be like that," mocked Toby. He closed his eyes and rested his forehead on his arms. Maybe if he just waited a bit, Chris would leave. If he was even there to begin with.
More time passed. Eventually, Toby looked up.
Nope, still there. Shit.
"Don’t you have something else to do?" Toby asked impatiently. "Somewhere else to go?"
The smile on Chris’s face slipped a little. "Not really. My preferred destination doesn’t have any vacancies at the present time."
Toby didn’t even want to know what that meant.
Slowly, Chris’s image blew closer. "I’m here to help you, Toby," he said softly. "I wanna protect you."
A high-pitched cackle escaped from Toby’s mouth. "Protect me? From who? In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t exactly have a lot of interaction with other people at the moment."
"Solitary’s more dangerous than you’d think," Chris told him. "The hacks are really pissed at you for what you did to Agent Taylor."
"They’ll get over it," Toby countered. "It’s not like he was one of them."
"That ain't all. A few underground Aryans are still creepin' around, lookin’ to avenge Vern’s death."
"They’ve been after me for years," Toby scoffed, "and I’m still breathing."
"Well, on top of all that," Chris finished sheepishly, "Angelique is takin’ my death far harder than I would’ve expected. She got word somehow that you’re the one to blame, and I can tell you from first-hand knowledge that her revenge tactics are pretty crafty."
That last declaration touched a nerve. "I’m the one to blame?" Toby repeated. He hopped off his bed. "You fucking jumped off that balcony! Then you used your last breath to try and frame me! What was with that fucking 'Toby, don't!' bullshit, anyway? Fuck you!"
The rage that had been simmering just under the surface finally exploded. Toby rushed toward the blue mass, then fell through it to the floor. An intense cold swept over him—inside his body, inside his brain, inside his heart. His breath caught in his chest, his head spun, and his eyes turned blind. He felt as though he’d been sucked inside a tornado made of ice.
Take me back to Kansas, he thought irrationally.
Staggering to his feet, Toby managed to regain his senses. He looked back at Chris, standing there—no, blowing there—with a new expression on his face, and this one was unmistakable. It was full of fear and worry.
Good.
"Fuck you!" Toby repeated. He grabbed the nearest object, and a book went flying. As it passed through Chris’s head, Toby yelled, "Get out of here!"
The only answer was a soft thud as the book landed on the floor.
A tube of toothpaste followed. "Fuck you!" A bar of soap. "Get out!" Shaving cream in one hand, deodorant in the other. "Fuck you, get out!"
Toby tried to lift his small bedside table, but it was bolted tight to the floor. "Fuuuuck youuuu," he howled.
"You’re gonna regret this, Toby," said Chris’s voice, swirling around inside his head. "Remember, I only wanted to help you."
And then Toby was standing alone in his cell. The blue hues that had made up Chris’s image had evaporated, and his voice had disappeared, replaced by a loud, continuous pounding against the cell door.
"Beecher! Hey, BEECHER! Shut the fuck up! Stop talkin’ to yourself, or you're not gettin' any dinner!"
Toby stared at the door and seethed, but said nothing.
A few seconds later, someone abruptly slid a tray of food through the slot in the door. Toby waited for his vision to clear, then walked over and picked it up. He sat down on his bed, grabbed the plastic spoon, and gobbled down the bitter grub they called dinner, his hands shaking the whole time.
~*~*~*~
Toby woke up feeling remarkably refreshed and rested. It was a brand new day. He looked around the room, but there was no sign of Chris. It felt like his confrontation with him had all been a bad dream, one that had happened a long time ago…
Toby got up and stretched. Then he froze, inside and out, as something on his bedside table caught his eye: a worn, torn copy of last month’s issue of Busty Babes, lying there in place of the book Toby had been reading.
Toby quickly sat back down again. Then he stared silently at the well-endowed cover model for a long, long time.
Was the magazine real? Or was it a figment of his imagination? Toby wasn’t even sure which scenario he preferred.
Eventually, curiosity got the best of him. Toby poked the magazine with a fingertip. With a wave of disgust, he discovered that not only was it real, but that several of the pages were stuck together.
Toby got up to search for his book. It didn’t take long to cover every inch of his cell. But the book had simply vanished, much as Chris had.
Toby collapsed on his bed, trying to figure out how Chris’s favorite skin mag had made its way onto his bedside table. But thinking about it just made his brain hurt.
Finally, he grabbed the magazine and walked over to the wastebasket. He ripped out a page, tore it into tiny bits, and threw the pieces inside. He did this over and over until he had shredded the entire magazine. When he was done, he thought he heard a voice muttering expletives.
Toby decided to ignore it and went back to bed.
~*~*~*~
Toby woke with a start. He tried to go back to sleep, but it was no use. His brain was in overdrive. He was thinking way too much about… everything.
How long had he been asleep? He glanced up at the tiny, barred window near the top of his cell, but the dark gray sky provided no definitive answer.
Obviously, he’d slept through breakfast. He wasn’t particularly hungry, but eating helped pass the day. Maybe it was lunchtime. Or dinnertime.
With a sigh, Toby got up. He looked toward the door of his cell at the delivery slot, hoping to see a tray of Oz’s finest cuisine. He saw a tray, all right, but he was immediately taken aback by what was on it. Or, rather, what wasn’t.
He walked over to the door, picked up the tray, and examined its contents closely: leftover crusts from a sandwich, an apple core, the discarded plastic wrap from a slice of processed cheese, and an empty plastic container that had probably once held orange juice.
Toby sniffed it. Nope, grape.
Toby’s blood boiled. Somebody was clearly fucking with him, and he had a pretty good idea who it was.
Something snapped inside him and he sent the tray flying across the room. It smashed against the mirror above his sink, cracking the supposed shatter-proof glass.
Toby smiled as he heard a shriek echo off the walls of his cell.
~*~*~*~
For several minutes, Toby stood under the shower, his head bent forward, his eyes closed. He sighed heavily as a steady stream of tepid water cascaded down his back. He had hoped that a nice, long shower might take the edge off and put his mind right.
It didn’t.
He rinsed the soap from his body, then turned around to shut the water off. As he stood there dripping, he reached for the bath towel he’d left hanging on the knob next to the shower stall.
Except his hand grasped nothing but air. The towel was gone.
Goddammit.
Toby looked out into his cell and quickly found it. The towel had been draped over the mirror—the same one he’d cracked with the tray of leftover food.
Toby grumbled as he got out of the shower. He padded over to the mirror, leaving a trail of wet footprints along the way. Apparently, someone had found the cracked mirror unsettling. This realization suddenly struck Toby as amusing.
As he pulled the towel down, he started to laugh. "Are you afraid of seven years’ bad luck or something?!" he called out into the empty cell.
A moan answered him, and Toby’s laughter grew he as he dried himself off. Then he sat on his bed and tore the towel into several long strips. He tossed the rags under his bed, save one. He tied that strip around his forehead, turning it into a headband.
For the next several minutes—or maybe hours—a naked Toby stealthily crept around his cell, pretending he was a ninja planning his next assassination.
~*~*~*~
Toby stared at his cracked reflection in the broken mirror. His eyes had a strange, hollow look to them that was somewhat disconcerting. He gingerly stroked his fingertips along his smooth jaw. Maybe it would help if he stopped shaving and grew a beard.
Toby opened his mouth to look at his teeth, then smirked as he remembered biting Robson’s dick with them. After studying them for a while, he picked up his toothbrush.
You’re never too crazy to practice good oral hygiene.
Toby grabbed his tube of blue minty gel toothpaste, only to discover that the tube was nearly empty. Most of its contents had been haphazardly squeezed out from the center, rather than neatly flattened and rolled up from the bottom the way Toby liked.
Toby threw the tube down in irritation. Fucking with a man’s toothpaste was a bridge too far.
Gripping the edge of the sink, Toby tried to keep his cool. Losing it wouldn’t solve anything. He took a deep breath and looked back up into the mirror. In its reflection, he caught sight of something new and foreign on the wall behind him.
Toby quickly turned around, and his eyes narrowed at what they saw: foot-high, blue letters that spelled out the word "HELP."
He trotted over to the wall for a closer look and determined that the letters had been written in toothpaste.
Toby shook his head. Apparently, Chris had felt it necessary to remind Toby of his offer of protection.
Well, Toby didn’t need Chris’s help. He didn’t need anything from Chris, and Chris needed to know that—obviously, he hadn’t got the message the first time.
Toby took off his ninja headband. Very carefully, he used it to wipe away the right-half of the letter "P." Then he retrieved the toothpaste and drew a line that changed it to an "L."
HELL.
Yes, Chris, because that’s exactly where you deserve to be.
Toby frowned sadly. And it feels like that’s where I am right now.
Then Toby climbed into bed and curled under the blanket. He was already asleep when the wailing began to ring throughout the cell.
~*~*~*~
Toby woke up shaking. He reached down to pull his blanket back up around him, only to discover that it was no longer there. He quickly glanced around the room, then bolted upright in bed.
Someone had ripped the blanket apart and made a rope out of it, combining the strips of fabric with those of the bath towel. One end of the rope was tied in a knot around the bars of the cell’s window, while the other end had been fashioned into a hangman’s noose. The noose hung there, swaying slightly, as though it was daring someone to use it.
"That does it!" Toby shouted as he jumped up. "Do you think this scares me? Do you think I would actually kill myself over you?"
The empty cell yielded no response.
Toby’s wrath grew. His blood ran cold and he felt himself getting swept away by his emotions. He was losing control. "That’s some ego you got!" he raged.
Toby turned around and around, half-expecting Chris to suddenly appear from out of the shadows. He head swirled, and he became dizzy.
Toby was working himself into storm. "Face me like a man!" he yelled.
He could no longer see, no longer breath. It felt like he’d been sucked into that icy blue tornado all over again.
"Where are you?" Toby roared senselessly.
And then he heard a voice. A new voice. A small, meek voice.
"R-r-r-right here."
The world stopped spinning. Toby rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands and tried to focus, physically and mentally.
There stood a man, a young Latino Toby had never seen in his life. The guy was holding the noose over his head, looking for all the world like someone who’d just seen a ghost.
For several seconds, they both stood motionless, staring at each other. Then Toby finally blurted out, "Who the fuck are you?"
The guy swallowed nervously. "R-r-r-ramon," he stuttered.
Toby looked the guy up and down. This was so confusing. "What the fuck are you doing here?"
Ramon cowered in fear. "This is where they put me," he answered softly. "After the other guy died."
Toby blinked. "What other guy?"
Ramon glanced anxiously around the cell before whispering, "That guy whose dinner was poisoned."
Toby stared at him in silence.
Then slowly, very slowly, Ramon raised his arm and pointed a finger directly at Toby.
"It’s you," he cried accusingly. "You’re the one who tore up my magazine. You’re the one you broke my mirror. You’re the one who took down my towel and ripped it up."
Toby furrowed his brow. "What’re you talking about?"
"I tried to send out a distress signal," Ramon continued, nearing hysterics. "I prayed to God that He might help me. And then someone changed what I’d written. It was you."
A feeling of dread began to creep through Toby as he realized what the guy was trying to say.
"I can’t take it anymore!" Ramon wailed. "I don’t want to live the rest of my life in fear! I want you to leave me alone!"
Ramon placed the noose over his neck and climbed up onto the bedside table. "I’d rather kill myself than be haunted by you!"
As Toby watched in stunned horror, Ramon bent his knees and prepared to jump…
… until Chris’s image swept in from out of nowhere and put a hand in front of him. "Don’t!" he commanded.
Ramon stopped cold in surprise. Even Toby was caught off guard.
"Your message was received," Chris told Ramon in a softer, soothing voice. "I’m here to help you."
Ramon teetered on the edge of the table as he skeptically surveyed his latest visitor.
"Killing yourself is not the answer here," Chris added. "Trust me."
"Yeah, well, you don’t look like someone who’d help me," Ramon argued. "You look like another ghost!"
"Maybe I am," Chris calmly responded, "but I can still help you. I can make your problem go away." He turned and gave Toby a meaningful look.
"What, exactly, is going on here?" Toby asked, more to himself than to anyone in particular.
"Oh, Toby," Chris said sympathetically, "Surely you’ve figured it out by now."
Toby stood there trembling, not wanting to believe what he knew to be true. Very quietly, he mumbled, "I’m dead."
It was an observation, not a question.
"I tried to help you, but you wouldn’t listen to me." Chris shook his head in frustration. "You never listen to me."
"But, if that’s the case, why am I here? Why didn’t I go… somewhere?"
"Like I said before, there’s no vacancies right now," Chris explained. "At least, not at the place where you wanna go."
Toby wiped a hand over his face. "So, what am I supposed to do?"
Chris blew toward him. "Come with me," he whispered. "I’m tryin’ to do good things now. And while I couldn’t save you, we can save Ramon here, this poor fuck you’ve driven half-crazy."
Toby glanced toward Ramon, who was staring at them, eyes wide, listening intently to their conversation.
Chris gave Toby a little smile. "It ain't so bad. In fact, sometimes it feels kinda nice." He held out a shimmering blue hand. "Come with me," he repeated. "Maybe there’ll be some vacancies soon, and, together, we can get in."
Chris’s words made sense somehow. But Toby hesitated, wondering if he could really trust him.
"Listen to me for once, Toby."
Toby was tired of thinking so much. He was tired of being angry. He was tired of fighting. He wanted to love again.
He reached out and grasped Chris’s hand, and he was surprised to find it warm and comforting, like slipping on an old glove. Touching him no longer felt like an icy blue tornado of fear and fury.
Then Chris swiftly carried him away, leaving Ramon behind to sort out his tedious new life in solitary, and Toby experienced a sense of serenity that he hadn’t felt in a long, long time.
"Of course," Chris’s voice murmured inside his head, "there’s no reason why we can’t have a little fun. Let’s see what that idiot McManus is up to."
Characters: Tobias Beecher, Chris Keller
Rating: PG
Word Count: 3,133
Creature Prompt: Ghost
Summary: A mentally unstable Toby receives a visit from Chris's ghost. But who's haunting who?
Notes: Written for the 2018 Spook Me Multi-Fandom Halloween Ficathon. Cross-posted to AO3. Inspired by the following artwork prompt:
________________________________
Toby sat on his tiny bed, his back shoved against the cold wall of his cramped cell. Hugging his knees against his chest, he stared silently at the shimmering shape in front of him: a windswept mass of bluish hues that made up the image of the recently deceased Chris Keller.
Chris patiently stared back at him with an expression that Toby couldn’t quite read. The tilt of his head suggested curiosity, but it could just as well have been amusement. It certainly wasn’t guilt, which is what Toby would’ve liked to have seen from him.
Time passed… four, five, maybe ten minutes. Or maybe it was a couple of hours. Ever since they’d tossed him into solitary, time had become sort of a hazy concept to Toby.
Finally, Toby decided that he'd had enough. He cleared his throat and said, "So, are you a ghost, or am I losing my mind?"
Slowly, Chris’s blue lips formed a small smile. "No reason why it can’t be a bit of both," he quietly replied, using a voice no different than the one he’d always used.
Toby was slightly unnerved, however, by the fact that he wasn’t sure if the words he’d heard had been said out loud, or if they had only been inside his own head. He had heard voices inside his head before, and the ensuing repercussions had been less than desirable.
Toby frowned. He didn’t need this shit. He didn’t deserve this shit. Waving his hand impatiently around the room, he snapped, "This is all your goddamn fault, you know."
Chris calmly responded, "No, it’s not, and you know it."
Toby snorted and huffed and clutched his legs tighter.
"You wanna talk about your little fight with Agent Taylor?" Chris suggested.
"Fuck you."
"Ah, okay," Chris replied, nodding his blue head. "So you’re gonna be like that."
"Yeah, I’m gonna be like that," mocked Toby. He closed his eyes and rested his forehead on his arms. Maybe if he just waited a bit, Chris would leave. If he was even there to begin with.
More time passed. Eventually, Toby looked up.
Nope, still there. Shit.
"Don’t you have something else to do?" Toby asked impatiently. "Somewhere else to go?"
The smile on Chris’s face slipped a little. "Not really. My preferred destination doesn’t have any vacancies at the present time."
Toby didn’t even want to know what that meant.
Slowly, Chris’s image blew closer. "I’m here to help you, Toby," he said softly. "I wanna protect you."
A high-pitched cackle escaped from Toby’s mouth. "Protect me? From who? In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t exactly have a lot of interaction with other people at the moment."
"Solitary’s more dangerous than you’d think," Chris told him. "The hacks are really pissed at you for what you did to Agent Taylor."
"They’ll get over it," Toby countered. "It’s not like he was one of them."
"That ain't all. A few underground Aryans are still creepin' around, lookin’ to avenge Vern’s death."
"They’ve been after me for years," Toby scoffed, "and I’m still breathing."
"Well, on top of all that," Chris finished sheepishly, "Angelique is takin’ my death far harder than I would’ve expected. She got word somehow that you’re the one to blame, and I can tell you from first-hand knowledge that her revenge tactics are pretty crafty."
That last declaration touched a nerve. "I’m the one to blame?" Toby repeated. He hopped off his bed. "You fucking jumped off that balcony! Then you used your last breath to try and frame me! What was with that fucking 'Toby, don't!' bullshit, anyway? Fuck you!"
The rage that had been simmering just under the surface finally exploded. Toby rushed toward the blue mass, then fell through it to the floor. An intense cold swept over him—inside his body, inside his brain, inside his heart. His breath caught in his chest, his head spun, and his eyes turned blind. He felt as though he’d been sucked inside a tornado made of ice.
Take me back to Kansas, he thought irrationally.
Staggering to his feet, Toby managed to regain his senses. He looked back at Chris, standing there—no, blowing there—with a new expression on his face, and this one was unmistakable. It was full of fear and worry.
Good.
"Fuck you!" Toby repeated. He grabbed the nearest object, and a book went flying. As it passed through Chris’s head, Toby yelled, "Get out of here!"
The only answer was a soft thud as the book landed on the floor.
A tube of toothpaste followed. "Fuck you!" A bar of soap. "Get out!" Shaving cream in one hand, deodorant in the other. "Fuck you, get out!"
Toby tried to lift his small bedside table, but it was bolted tight to the floor. "Fuuuuck youuuu," he howled.
"You’re gonna regret this, Toby," said Chris’s voice, swirling around inside his head. "Remember, I only wanted to help you."
And then Toby was standing alone in his cell. The blue hues that had made up Chris’s image had evaporated, and his voice had disappeared, replaced by a loud, continuous pounding against the cell door.
"Beecher! Hey, BEECHER! Shut the fuck up! Stop talkin’ to yourself, or you're not gettin' any dinner!"
Toby stared at the door and seethed, but said nothing.
A few seconds later, someone abruptly slid a tray of food through the slot in the door. Toby waited for his vision to clear, then walked over and picked it up. He sat down on his bed, grabbed the plastic spoon, and gobbled down the bitter grub they called dinner, his hands shaking the whole time.
~*~*~*~
Toby woke up feeling remarkably refreshed and rested. It was a brand new day. He looked around the room, but there was no sign of Chris. It felt like his confrontation with him had all been a bad dream, one that had happened a long time ago…
Toby got up and stretched. Then he froze, inside and out, as something on his bedside table caught his eye: a worn, torn copy of last month’s issue of Busty Babes, lying there in place of the book Toby had been reading.
Toby quickly sat back down again. Then he stared silently at the well-endowed cover model for a long, long time.
Was the magazine real? Or was it a figment of his imagination? Toby wasn’t even sure which scenario he preferred.
Eventually, curiosity got the best of him. Toby poked the magazine with a fingertip. With a wave of disgust, he discovered that not only was it real, but that several of the pages were stuck together.
Toby got up to search for his book. It didn’t take long to cover every inch of his cell. But the book had simply vanished, much as Chris had.
Toby collapsed on his bed, trying to figure out how Chris’s favorite skin mag had made its way onto his bedside table. But thinking about it just made his brain hurt.
Finally, he grabbed the magazine and walked over to the wastebasket. He ripped out a page, tore it into tiny bits, and threw the pieces inside. He did this over and over until he had shredded the entire magazine. When he was done, he thought he heard a voice muttering expletives.
Toby decided to ignore it and went back to bed.
~*~*~*~
Toby woke with a start. He tried to go back to sleep, but it was no use. His brain was in overdrive. He was thinking way too much about… everything.
How long had he been asleep? He glanced up at the tiny, barred window near the top of his cell, but the dark gray sky provided no definitive answer.
Obviously, he’d slept through breakfast. He wasn’t particularly hungry, but eating helped pass the day. Maybe it was lunchtime. Or dinnertime.
With a sigh, Toby got up. He looked toward the door of his cell at the delivery slot, hoping to see a tray of Oz’s finest cuisine. He saw a tray, all right, but he was immediately taken aback by what was on it. Or, rather, what wasn’t.
He walked over to the door, picked up the tray, and examined its contents closely: leftover crusts from a sandwich, an apple core, the discarded plastic wrap from a slice of processed cheese, and an empty plastic container that had probably once held orange juice.
Toby sniffed it. Nope, grape.
Toby’s blood boiled. Somebody was clearly fucking with him, and he had a pretty good idea who it was.
Something snapped inside him and he sent the tray flying across the room. It smashed against the mirror above his sink, cracking the supposed shatter-proof glass.
Toby smiled as he heard a shriek echo off the walls of his cell.
~*~*~*~
For several minutes, Toby stood under the shower, his head bent forward, his eyes closed. He sighed heavily as a steady stream of tepid water cascaded down his back. He had hoped that a nice, long shower might take the edge off and put his mind right.
It didn’t.
He rinsed the soap from his body, then turned around to shut the water off. As he stood there dripping, he reached for the bath towel he’d left hanging on the knob next to the shower stall.
Except his hand grasped nothing but air. The towel was gone.
Goddammit.
Toby looked out into his cell and quickly found it. The towel had been draped over the mirror—the same one he’d cracked with the tray of leftover food.
Toby grumbled as he got out of the shower. He padded over to the mirror, leaving a trail of wet footprints along the way. Apparently, someone had found the cracked mirror unsettling. This realization suddenly struck Toby as amusing.
As he pulled the towel down, he started to laugh. "Are you afraid of seven years’ bad luck or something?!" he called out into the empty cell.
A moan answered him, and Toby’s laughter grew he as he dried himself off. Then he sat on his bed and tore the towel into several long strips. He tossed the rags under his bed, save one. He tied that strip around his forehead, turning it into a headband.
For the next several minutes—or maybe hours—a naked Toby stealthily crept around his cell, pretending he was a ninja planning his next assassination.
~*~*~*~
Toby stared at his cracked reflection in the broken mirror. His eyes had a strange, hollow look to them that was somewhat disconcerting. He gingerly stroked his fingertips along his smooth jaw. Maybe it would help if he stopped shaving and grew a beard.
Toby opened his mouth to look at his teeth, then smirked as he remembered biting Robson’s dick with them. After studying them for a while, he picked up his toothbrush.
You’re never too crazy to practice good oral hygiene.
Toby grabbed his tube of blue minty gel toothpaste, only to discover that the tube was nearly empty. Most of its contents had been haphazardly squeezed out from the center, rather than neatly flattened and rolled up from the bottom the way Toby liked.
Toby threw the tube down in irritation. Fucking with a man’s toothpaste was a bridge too far.
Gripping the edge of the sink, Toby tried to keep his cool. Losing it wouldn’t solve anything. He took a deep breath and looked back up into the mirror. In its reflection, he caught sight of something new and foreign on the wall behind him.
Toby quickly turned around, and his eyes narrowed at what they saw: foot-high, blue letters that spelled out the word "HELP."
He trotted over to the wall for a closer look and determined that the letters had been written in toothpaste.
Toby shook his head. Apparently, Chris had felt it necessary to remind Toby of his offer of protection.
Well, Toby didn’t need Chris’s help. He didn’t need anything from Chris, and Chris needed to know that—obviously, he hadn’t got the message the first time.
Toby took off his ninja headband. Very carefully, he used it to wipe away the right-half of the letter "P." Then he retrieved the toothpaste and drew a line that changed it to an "L."
HELL.
Yes, Chris, because that’s exactly where you deserve to be.
Toby frowned sadly. And it feels like that’s where I am right now.
Then Toby climbed into bed and curled under the blanket. He was already asleep when the wailing began to ring throughout the cell.
~*~*~*~
Toby woke up shaking. He reached down to pull his blanket back up around him, only to discover that it was no longer there. He quickly glanced around the room, then bolted upright in bed.
Someone had ripped the blanket apart and made a rope out of it, combining the strips of fabric with those of the bath towel. One end of the rope was tied in a knot around the bars of the cell’s window, while the other end had been fashioned into a hangman’s noose. The noose hung there, swaying slightly, as though it was daring someone to use it.
"That does it!" Toby shouted as he jumped up. "Do you think this scares me? Do you think I would actually kill myself over you?"
The empty cell yielded no response.
Toby’s wrath grew. His blood ran cold and he felt himself getting swept away by his emotions. He was losing control. "That’s some ego you got!" he raged.
Toby turned around and around, half-expecting Chris to suddenly appear from out of the shadows. He head swirled, and he became dizzy.
Toby was working himself into storm. "Face me like a man!" he yelled.
He could no longer see, no longer breath. It felt like he’d been sucked into that icy blue tornado all over again.
"Where are you?" Toby roared senselessly.
And then he heard a voice. A new voice. A small, meek voice.
"R-r-r-right here."
The world stopped spinning. Toby rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands and tried to focus, physically and mentally.
There stood a man, a young Latino Toby had never seen in his life. The guy was holding the noose over his head, looking for all the world like someone who’d just seen a ghost.
For several seconds, they both stood motionless, staring at each other. Then Toby finally blurted out, "Who the fuck are you?"
The guy swallowed nervously. "R-r-r-ramon," he stuttered.
Toby looked the guy up and down. This was so confusing. "What the fuck are you doing here?"
Ramon cowered in fear. "This is where they put me," he answered softly. "After the other guy died."
Toby blinked. "What other guy?"
Ramon glanced anxiously around the cell before whispering, "That guy whose dinner was poisoned."
Toby stared at him in silence.
Then slowly, very slowly, Ramon raised his arm and pointed a finger directly at Toby.
"It’s you," he cried accusingly. "You’re the one who tore up my magazine. You’re the one you broke my mirror. You’re the one who took down my towel and ripped it up."
Toby furrowed his brow. "What’re you talking about?"
"I tried to send out a distress signal," Ramon continued, nearing hysterics. "I prayed to God that He might help me. And then someone changed what I’d written. It was you."
A feeling of dread began to creep through Toby as he realized what the guy was trying to say.
"I can’t take it anymore!" Ramon wailed. "I don’t want to live the rest of my life in fear! I want you to leave me alone!"
Ramon placed the noose over his neck and climbed up onto the bedside table. "I’d rather kill myself than be haunted by you!"
As Toby watched in stunned horror, Ramon bent his knees and prepared to jump…
… until Chris’s image swept in from out of nowhere and put a hand in front of him. "Don’t!" he commanded.
Ramon stopped cold in surprise. Even Toby was caught off guard.
"Your message was received," Chris told Ramon in a softer, soothing voice. "I’m here to help you."
Ramon teetered on the edge of the table as he skeptically surveyed his latest visitor.
"Killing yourself is not the answer here," Chris added. "Trust me."
"Yeah, well, you don’t look like someone who’d help me," Ramon argued. "You look like another ghost!"
"Maybe I am," Chris calmly responded, "but I can still help you. I can make your problem go away." He turned and gave Toby a meaningful look.
"What, exactly, is going on here?" Toby asked, more to himself than to anyone in particular.
"Oh, Toby," Chris said sympathetically, "Surely you’ve figured it out by now."
Toby stood there trembling, not wanting to believe what he knew to be true. Very quietly, he mumbled, "I’m dead."
It was an observation, not a question.
"I tried to help you, but you wouldn’t listen to me." Chris shook his head in frustration. "You never listen to me."
"But, if that’s the case, why am I here? Why didn’t I go… somewhere?"
"Like I said before, there’s no vacancies right now," Chris explained. "At least, not at the place where you wanna go."
Toby wiped a hand over his face. "So, what am I supposed to do?"
Chris blew toward him. "Come with me," he whispered. "I’m tryin’ to do good things now. And while I couldn’t save you, we can save Ramon here, this poor fuck you’ve driven half-crazy."
Toby glanced toward Ramon, who was staring at them, eyes wide, listening intently to their conversation.
Chris gave Toby a little smile. "It ain't so bad. In fact, sometimes it feels kinda nice." He held out a shimmering blue hand. "Come with me," he repeated. "Maybe there’ll be some vacancies soon, and, together, we can get in."
Chris’s words made sense somehow. But Toby hesitated, wondering if he could really trust him.
"Listen to me for once, Toby."
Toby was tired of thinking so much. He was tired of being angry. He was tired of fighting. He wanted to love again.
He reached out and grasped Chris’s hand, and he was surprised to find it warm and comforting, like slipping on an old glove. Touching him no longer felt like an icy blue tornado of fear and fury.
Then Chris swiftly carried him away, leaving Ramon behind to sort out his tedious new life in solitary, and Toby experienced a sense of serenity that he hadn’t felt in a long, long time.
"Of course," Chris’s voice murmured inside his head, "there’s no reason why we can’t have a little fun. Let’s see what that idiot McManus is up to."
