fic: with all the madness in my soul (4/4)
with all the madness in my soul (4/4)
starkville correctional facility
As it turns out, you can get rather used to prison. Nick hadn’t thought that would be the case, but here he is.
It probably helps that by the time they were dragged in, they’re the most notorious pair in the country. Possibly the world. In the last several months Nick’s seen his own face on television more times than he can even begin to count, and he doesn’t bother trying to disguise the smug feeling of satisfaction that courses through him like electricity every time.
After their arrest, their transport from the hospital to the maximum security prison had set a television viewing record, or at least that’s what he’s heard. Privately, he thinks he couldn’t be more pleased with that if he’d orchestrated the whole thing himself. Ideally, of course, they wouldn’t have gotten caught in the first place, would still be on the endless road driving towards a horizon they can never catch. But if they had to be caught, the way it’d happened had been perfect, really, or at least if not the actual capture -- Nick still feels his pulse spike hot and twisting when he thinks about Harry, shot in the stomach and screaming like a banshee -- the aftermath had been. There’d been masses, absolute masses, during the transfer and its live coverage, loads of them protesters with signs calling for him to hang, calling them monsters, out for their blood. But there had been the others, too, the ones who shrieked in joy when Nick was led out of the police van and through the prison gates. They’d had his face on shirts. They’d had signs, posterboard with glitter on it, his and Harry’s names both scrawled on them in hot pink, decorated with hearts.
It's like being a rockstar, Nick thinks, and he loves it. Plenty of people think he’s a monster, yeah, but the thing is, they all still watch him. They all still know his name, know Harry, know what they’d done, and whether they’re fascinated or repulsed, they still can’t look away. It’s almost poetry to Nick, that.
During the transfer, Harry’d been brought around back, he’d heard later, because he’d needed a medical crew to transport him after they’d stitched up the gunshot wound in his gut, but even then, two camera crews had found out about it and filmed the whole thing. Nick’s seen bits of it on the television that’s mounted behind thick glass in the cafeteria, and the sight makes his heart want to burst with pride.
In the soundless video, Harry’s straining to sit up on the gurney he’s being wheeled in on, still too messed up even for a wheelchair, apparently. He’s saying Nick’s name over and over, asking where Nick is, his face thin and pale and perfect, his hair sticking straight out from his head at every angle. He nearly jerks himself free from the restraints and several more guards rush into frame, pressing him back down.
That’s when Harry notices the cameras that have found him, and his whole face changes the second he does. His mouth curls into a grin, and although there’s no sound, he clearly says “fuck off,” and then in an instant, jerks forward, smashing his forehead into the mouth of one of his guards, sending the man back with a jolt. There’s blood on Harry’s forehead, and the guard is staggering, clutching at his face, and three more guards pop up to take his place. Harry grins into the camera the whole time, eyes unblinking.
Nick loves him more than ever.
-
The worst part is being apart from Harry, of course. Prison itself is fine, the wait for their trial hardly worth noticing, since there’s nothing he can do about it, and it’s all tied up indefinitely, a maze of hoops to jump through anyway. It’ll be ages, likely. Nick doesn’t mind it much, on the whole -- he certainly doesn’t mind having an air of notoriety about him, even among the rest of the inmates, who are all notorious enough in their own regard. They generally give him a wide berth, so he’s free to do as he pleases, more or less -- he sleeps, and thinks, and occasionally talks the sole tolerable guard, a blonde lad, into letting him have a cigarette or a book.
He knows Harry’s near, holed up in the same complex, but they’re not allowed anywhere near each other. At night, Nick tries to send out some sort of radar, hoping to sense Harry in proximity to him, to recognize his heat signature or the scent of him on the wind, any scrap at all. It doesn’t quite work, but still helps to make the distance between them feel a bit less gaping. Just a bit.
-
The bloke is back today. The psychologist, or whatever his title is, Nick can’t quite remember. He remembers his name -- Liam -- and generally doesn’t mind their little get-togethers. Liam is gentle and serene, a strange oasis of calm in the chaos of the general prison, and it’s not that Nick doesn’t thrive on the chaos, but it’s an interesting change, anyway.
“How’s it going today, Liam?” Nick asks easily as he slides into the plastic molded chair across the bolted-down table from Nick. He knows how this goes -- he knows how to handle everyone in the place, from the impotent, faceless guards to the looming warden, and even Liam, strange, soft Liam.
“I’m actually supposed to be asking you that,” Liam says pleasantly. He has a yellow pad of paper aligned precisely on the table between them, an uncapped bottle of water and a flexible pen arranged parallel with it. Honestly, Nick can’t imagine why the precautions are necessary -- what’s he honestly going to do with the cap to a bottle of water, honestly. Although, alright, there had been that one thing with a pen, but that had been with the bloke before Liam, a nasty bald little git that Nick had loathed on sight and even worse when he’d made a smart comment about Harry. So maybe the safety pen is fair play after all.
“Don’t surprise I have many secrets in here,” Nick drawls, draping an arm over the back of his chair. It’s also bolted down, although less severely than the table. It’s overkill, because he likes Liam just fine -- he’s neutral and pleasant in a way that usually grates on Nick, but it’s so incongruous in this context that it becomes very nearly charming. He hasn’t got even the slightest urge to bash his head in with his chair. “You probably know better than I do.”
“I know what you’ve been doing, yeah,” Liam agrees. “Dunno how you’re doing, though.”
Nick just shrugs. Liam’s the psychologist. He ought to be able to figure it out.
“You were in another fight, I hear,” Liam says neutrally, like he hasn’t any horse in the race, totally indifferent to Nick bashing a bloke in the face with a cafeteria tray. Like he’s commenting on the weather.
“Well,” Nick says, examining his nails. Most people stay out of Nick’s way. The bloke he’d beaten, a new transfer, apparently hadn’t gotten that message, and had been out to prove something in his first week. Nick had almost felt sorry for the sorry git when his teeth has been skittering around the concrete floor of the cafeteria, because he supposes there is something quietly unassuming about him. He certainly looks out of place among the other inmates. It’s just that most of them have learned he’s unassuming in the same way as a snake is -- quietly coiled until it strikes, poisonous.
Anyway. This bloke had the message now. Nick had only gotten three days in solitary, which was scarcely punishment anyway. There’s only one person Nick cares if he sees or not, and he hasn’t, not in months. And unless this conversation has anything to do with him, Nick’s not particularly interested in continuing it, so he doesn’t elaborate on the fight.
They watch each other silently for a bit, Nick lazily, Liam carefully. Eventually, Liam picks up his pen, draws one thick, straight line on the paper, and then sets it back down.
“D’you know I’m supposed to make my recommendation soon?” he says to Nick, raising his eyebrows slightly.
“Figured as much,” Nick says. “So what’re you planning to say?”
“Technically, I’m not supposed to tell you,” Liam says calmly. “If you are a sociopath, y’know, it’d just be an opportunity for you to try and manipulate me into believing you aren’t. Or so they say.”
Nick laughs at that, because it’s such a Liam answer he can hardly stand it.
“Alright,” he says. “No official diagnosis, then. At least give me a hint, though.” He leans forward and spreads his long fingers on the tabletop. “D’you think I’m crazy?”
Liam cocks his head and peers at him. “No,” he says. “Not particularly.”
It surprises Nick, at least a little.
“Then what am I?” he asks. It’s a bit fascinating, trying to sort out how Liam sees him.
Liam considers before he answers, and when he does, it’s very careful. “Interesting,” he finally says. “I think you’re interesting.” He pauses. “And possibly a bit evil, but that’s not exactly a medical diagnosis.”
Nick laughs again. He really does like Liam. “Hardly,” he agrees.
Liam smiles, and while his eyes are still crinkling, Nick asks the only question he has for him. “Have you seen him?”
Liam’s smile lessens, but doesn’t drop completely. “You know I have,” he answers. Nick does -- he knows that Liam comes to see him Mondays and Thursdays, but Wednesdays and Saturdays he treks to the opposite cell block, the long term isolation wing. Harry’s antics during the transfer had gotten him chucked in there at first, and apparently he’d repeated them enough to make it permanent after the third guard he’d send to the med wing.
Nick suspects, too, that it’s also a means of punishing him. The warden is petty and unimaginitive in the worst ways.
“And,” Nick says, licking his lips. “Is he -- how is he?”
“Also not supposed to tell you,” Liam says, and he sounds almost sorry about it.
“Don’t suppose you could anyway, then? In general terms, I mean, just... basics.”
“He’s the same,” Liam offers. “Mood swings. Occasional violent outbursts. Asks after you all the time.”
“They’ll transfer him again, won’t they,” Nick says, asking even though he knows the answer.
“‘S’not my decision,” Liam says, vaguely apologetic. “But yeah, I reckon so.”
It’s pretty much been decided that Harry’s the mental one, a foregone conclusion they’ll deem him insane and lock him up in a psychiatric ward for the rest of his life. Nick’s own status is up in the air -- it seems that no one can quite decide if they want him to be mental as well, or just a standard fare evil bastard.
Either way. No one will tell them if they’ll be extradited to be tried back home for doing in Harry’s bloke, or left here, where their list of charges is exponentially longer. But either way, he supposes, Harry’ll be sent to an asylum -- it seems inevitable. Even if Nick eventually is as well, once that happens, well. He won’t see him again.
He sighs, and Liam picks up his pen.
-
Nick thinks a lot about fate. He thinks about seeing Harry that first time in the bar, all bright eyes and dark hair and hunched shoulders, steadfastly ignoring the bloke -- the bloke whose name Nick has never learned, he realizes -- as he orbits nearer and nearer to Nick, their destinies coming closer together until they become so tangled up as the be the same. Possibly they always have been tangled up, and they’d just been marking time, waiting to find each other.
Now he waits a bit more, because -- because he’s not got much else to do, if he’s being honest. He has to wait, has to believe that the same strong, unknowable force that blew them together in the first place will do it again. It probably seems naive, blindly hopeful, but he remembers the shape of Harry’s lips when he’d whispered the word “fate” when they’d flown to America, held together above the clouds. He remembers that, remembers Harry, and waits for their destiny to arrive, telling himself that when it does, he’ll recognize it, grab it and not let go.
-
He waits, and waits, and then suddenly he’s not waiting anymore.
Afterward, they try to say he’s orchestrated the whole thing, which is flattering, but so far outside his skillset to be laughable. He’s with Liam, when it happens, in the same room with the same bolted-down table and chairs, the same calm smile playing on the edge of Liam’s mouth, when from deep beneath them, like a giant waking up, the sirens start to scream.
Liam’s off his feet in an instant, gesturing at Nick to stay in his chair, not that Nick has any plans to go leaping around in ankle shackles and double cuffs. He just raises an eyebrow, curious, while Liam fumbles his radio on, trying to sort out what’s happening.
Nick hears, between the crackling static, snatches of words -- mobilized and C-Block and officers down. That’s when he stands up.
As he does, the door to the room opens, and the guard -- the blonde one Nick likes -- is leaning in, a frantic tint to his cheeks, slightly out of breath.
“Liam,” he pants, shaking his head. “Get ‘im up, we’ve got to move the two of you while the stairs are clear.” He nods at Nick.
Liam frowns, the calm slipping from his face for the first time Nick’s ever seen. “Niall?” he asks uncertainly. “What’s going on?”
“Two groups,” Niall explains, holding the door open so they can shuffle through, Liam first and the Nick, Niall behind him. “One in the rec yard, one unit transferring from yard detail, there was a scuffle--” He waves his hands vaguely, still trying to shuttle Liam and Nick like ducks in a line through the empty hall just outside the room and to the metal staircase that will lead them down to a holding cell and processing offices. “It escalated,” he says.
Nick hears, then, over the sirens, the din of a hoard of voices, all mingled together, angry and on the move.
So a riot, he thinks.
Niall explains how it’d started to Liam as they hurry down the stairs, his hands flapping ineffectually as they go, but Nick doesn’t hear it, because it’s back, suddenly -- the itch in his fingers, the need to act, the same one he’d felt in the bar back in London. He knows, breathlessly, suddenly, that this is the moment, can feel it in the air like an electric current, sharpening his nerves and tensing his muscles.
At the bottom of the stairs there are five holding rooms all in a row, and Niall’s leading them to the furthest, ostensibly to stow Nick somewhere before he does the same with Liam so he can run towards the fray, wherever it is. Another wall of guard rushes past them, pressing Nick up against the wall for a moment as they go, totally unaware of the three of them, it seems, and then they’re gone, their footfalls mingling with the far-off shouts. After a moment, he hears gunfire.
When they’re outside the last door, one more stray guard rounds on them.
“Toss that one in there,” he says brusquely, scowling at Nick in a way that feels distinctly personal. Nick doesn’t recognize him, specifically, but he’s suited up in riot gear, which might be disguising him. Nick doesn’t particularly care, though, because this is when he needs to move -- this is the moment when he has to reach out and snatch the hand that fate’s offering. It doesn’t matter who the guard is -- all that matters, now, is acting, after so much waiting.
He times it, waiting until the four of them are all crowded up in the doorway. There’s a half second when they all shift, unsure, waiting to see who’ll go through first, and in that instant, the spare guard’s gun drops -- just an inch, just enough, and that’s when Nick moves, grabbing at the barrel of the gun and jerking it up so the butt smashes into the guard’s face. In ordinary circumstances, he’d never have stood a chance, but the guard is distracted enough that he’s off his game. He shouts, his grips weakens, and Nick uses it to wrench the gun away.
Liam’s unarmed, but by the time Nick’s twisted the second guard around so the gun is pressed solidly against his temple, Niall’s drawn his as well, leveling it square at Nick’s face. The guard is between them, and Niall looks like he’s calculating whether he’ll be able to shoot Nick between the eyes without risking him as collateral damage.
“Nick,” he says calmly. “Don’t be stupid, now.”
“Sorry, mate,” he says, pressing in more firmly, scraping the skin at the guard’s temple with the muzzle until it’s raw. He’s silent, a murderous look twisting his face around, at least as far as Nick can tell from where he’s got him. Nick has the upper hand, and it’s a visceral thrill when he realizes it.
“It’s nothing personal,” Nick says, because it’s not, fate’s not personal. This is what he’s got to do, is all. “But I’ll shoot if I have to, and I’d rather not, so go ahead and take my cuffs off, yeah? Legs too.”
Niall stares at him, an impassable expression on his face as he considers, and in that instant he looks too young for this place by a mile. After a moment, he lowers the weapon, and moves forward to cautiously unlock Nick’s hands and feet.
“Cheers,” Nick says, flexing an ankle idly once he’s done. The cuffs clatter uselessly to the floor, and he thinks for a moment before kicking the guard at the back of the knees so he buckles to the ground. “Pick ‘em up,” he instructs, shoving the three of them backwards into the holding room once he does.
“Lock him to the table, yeah?” he instructs Niall. He stays silent, and Nick knows that behind his calmly schooled expression, he’s scanning Nick, trying to sort out his plan, his method, any weakness. He hopes he won’t have to shoot Niall. He will if he has to.
Niall does it, though, looping the chain of the cuff through the metal ring lodged in the concrete table before pushing gently at the other guard until he sits down, furiously putting out his hands and allowing Niall to snap the metal around them.
“Alright, then,” Nick says after a moment, looking around the room. He feels manic, his brain running too fast and his hands moving too slow, and he tries to plot out what’s next, how to play this hand the way he’s meant to. “So you’ll stay here,” he says to the cuffed guard, “and we’ll be on our way.” He gestures with the gun for Liam and Niall to head for the door in front of him. “Your gun, though, Niall, c’mon,” he says, halting them.
“‘Course, yeah,” he agrees easily, an easy lilt to his voice that’s only betrayed by the cautious, calculating look on his face. He kneels, slides his gun across the floor to Nick, who bends to scoop it up while keeping the first gun still trained on Niall, and then smiles, easily and friendly. He’s going along with it because he hasn’t got a choice, Nick knows, and he reminds himself not to underestimate him.
Liam hasn’t said anything, but he’s got the same expression as Niall -- trying to look neutral, even friendly, and it must be a tactic, to make the murderer with the gun think you’re on his side, same as Niall’s trying to do, but Nick can work with that. He’ll burn the whole place down if that’s what needs to be done, but if they can all play nice long enough to get out the door without having to put a bullet in either of them, that’s what he’s aiming for.
But it’s just an idle hope, he thinks, a passing desire for the path of least resistance to get him where he needs to go. His pulse is thrumming Harry, Harry, Harry. He can feel the walls that stand between them coming unmoored, crumbling in the chaos, and everything else is secondary.
“Alright, lads,” he says, trying to infuse his voice with something easy-going. “Let’s walk.”
-
For several minutes they’re alone in the halls, the sounds of the riot going on away from them, removed, and it’s almost eerie, the ghosts of an unseen confrontation echoing invisibly around them. Nick keeps one gun pressed against Niall’s neck in front of him, and the second aimed at Liam, a half step off to their left. It’s almost easy, and Nick’s reminded of all the other people whose lives he’s watched snuff out, how disarmingly easy it all is sometimes, easier than you’d ever suspect. Perhaps walking out of prison is the same.
First, though, they’ve got to walk further in.
When they push through the double set of doors to the central yard, though, they’re in the middle of it in an instant.
A mass of guards on the north side has set up a blockade, a wall of riot shields between them and two hundred loosed prisoners as they aim wild rounds into the thick of it. Nick swears and pulls the three of them behind a column, recalculating.
“Jesus,” Niall mutters in horrified awe. Liam just nods. “How’d they override the locks, Jesus.”
Nick spares a second to wonder at the same thing -- all of B-Block’s cells stand wide open, the iron bars useless as picket fences. There must be a mastermind here, Nick realizes, someone who’d set the first sparks of the fire, sent out rumors, fanned the flames as they’d spread, because the chaos is too orchestrated to be truly chaotic. There’s a method behind it, distinct threads of purpose in the way people are moving. Nick glances out from around the column and sees so much blood, a slew of shot-down guards and prisoners alike, and it’s so much, the wild purpose of it making his blood sing, a song he knows by heart. He uses it to focus, schooling his mind into planning their next steps.
“Niall,” he asks. “Isolation -- can we get there?” His gun is still trained on Niall because Niall is still a guard, they’re still on opposite sides of an uncrossable chasm, but here, behind this column, separated from the rest of the fray, he thinks they might be able to work together, just for a moment.
Niall considers. “Dunno. Maybe if, like --” He peeks around the column and jerks back when a bullet whizzes by, clanging off the column a foot above his head. Nick can’t tell if it’d come from the guards or the prisoners. He supposes it hardly matters. “Main route’s fucked. Utility hall could do, though.”
He doesn’t bother to ask why they’re going to isolation, so Nick assumes it’s obvious.
“Well then,” Nick says, regripping his guns. “That’s what we’ll try.”
“We?” Liam asks.
“No, I’m goin’ in there--” Niall starts, nodding towards the standoff happening past the column.
“Go,” Nick instructs them both, not listening. Liam’s good leverage if he needs it, and Niall’s a guard -- even if he’s got a riot to deal with, Nick hardly thinks he’ll let him walk off on his own. So they’ll all go together. Niall’s got the keys, in any case.
The trace back towards the empty hall they’d come from, and after a few false starts, Niall pulls them through a narrow door and into a service corridor. The hoard must have come this way at some point, oddly, because there are the bodies of two officers and four prisoners strewn around like broken dolls, smears of blood slick underneath them. Liam is silent, looks horror-struck and a bit sick, and Niall shakes his head and swears under his breath before the three of them begin picking their way down the hall. It’s empty now, at least, empty of anyone living, and Nick thanks small wonders, sees the thin weave of fate all around them.
They don’t see anyone for several silent, tense moments, and Nick almost -- almost -- suspects their luck will hold out.
When they round into the last stretch of service corridor and stumble back into the open, though, they’re suddenly swarmed.
A barrage of gunfire flies past them, sending them ducking underneath a bloody, overturned mattress. The large room is bathed in an eerie green emergency light, giving everything an alien feeling. Nick feels outside of himself suddenly, like he’s watching it all happen from somewhere above. He sees himself shove Niall and then Liam in turn behind an enormous prisoner covered in sweat and blood, using him as a human shield to barrel past the last throng of guards. The shield bloke takes four shots to the stomach before he goes down, but as he does they’re around the last corner, out of the fray, through two more doors and finally, finally in front of the isolation cells. From above, Nick watches himself squeeze a final round of bullets into the skulls of the two guards still posted there, too frazzled to react in time, their blood painting the concrete wall behind them brightly. He watches himself -- he doesn’t hesitate for a moment.
In the moment after that, he crashes back to himself.
The din still rings behind them, but suddenly the room is silent, the only sound Liam’s choking gasps as he gazes in shock at the fallen guards. He bites off the sound and then looks down, scrubbing at a smear of blood across his neat white shirt like he can force it out.
“You killed ‘em,” Niall says quietly, and Nick rolls his eyes despite himself, gesturing Niall and Liam over.
“They’re hardly the first.” He points at the downed guards. “Find his keys.”
He keeps one gun aimed generally back at them while they hesitate and then kneel, rummaging through the corpses’ key rings, but looks away long enough to peer into each of the cell windows in turn. His blood is singing, his hands tingle, he’s so close and he could scream because now that Harry’s near -- he is, he can feel him -- it’s worse than ever to be separated, a shrieking pain from somewhere inside him, the very deepest part.
It’s the third cell, turns out. He presses his face against the smudged glass of the third cell, and then -- and then he’s there, and Nick can’t believe it, Harry’s there, real and alive, skin and flesh and bone, curled up on his cot, barefoot, lips moving slowly. Nick can’t hear, but it looks like he’s singing.
“The keys, c’mon,” he shouts back at Niall, but there’s no response. Nick turns, and freezes, because Niall and Liam are both on their feet, now. Niall’s got a ring of keys in his hand, but that’s not all -- he’s also got a gun, the one he’d taken off the fallen guard, the one Nick stupidly didn't take, too distracted by the proximity of Harry’s heartbeat echoing in his bones.
“Give ‘em here,” Niall says calmly, gesturing at the guns Nick’s still clutching.
“He’s so close,” Nick says, mostly to himself. It comes out desperate, and he regrets it instantly.
“I know,” Niall agrees. “Give ‘em.” His aim is steady, and Nick knows he’ll shoot, won’t hesitate. He feels wild, honestly caged for the first time. He can see Harry, can see him when really he shouldn’t have ever laid eyes on him again, and this can't be how this ends. This can't be it.
“Alright,” he agrees, defeated. “Alright.”
He kneels to slide the guns to Niall, and just as he’s about to touch the floor, jerks them back up. His right hand squeezes the trigger and the bullet sinks into Niall’s knee with a sickening crunch.
“Fuck,” Niall swears, and he shoots in response but Nick’s shoving forward now, and the bullets Niall gets out before Nick’s taking him down at his injured knee go just wide. Just barely. Nick feels the breeze as they pass, and gasps.
He’d honestly thought Niall would hit target.
He’d thought that he would die. It’s almost startling when he realizes he hasn’t.
He shakes his head to clear it. Niall is collapsed underneath him, his knee bloodied and twisted, swearing and red-faced.
“Jesus, Jesus,” Liam is muttering behind them, his hands wringing in panic, and even further back there are the shots and bangs of the riot, moving away but still there, but Nick can’t hear it. There’s nothing he can focus on besides getting Niall’s gun away, yanking the spare cuffs from his belt. Niall curses again, softer this time.
“You get down here too,” Nick instructs Liam softly. “Next to Niall, there you are.” Liam sinks to his knees softly, looking horrified, eyes reflecting Nick’s wild face back at him. “Hands out.”
Nick cuffs them together, tight. It won’t keep them, won’t hold them to their spot, but he thinks that’s alright -- cuffing them to the door would be a death sentence if the riot reaches them, and he can’t bring himself to condemn them like that despite it all. He’s got all the guns away from Niall, all four of them, so there shouldn’t be anymore surprises.
“Just stay,” he instructs. “Listen. I don’t want to shoot you again, okay, so don’t make me.”
Neither one responds, twin silent stares looking up at him, and Nick takes that for an agreement.
He plucks the key ring away from Niall, and hands shaking, fits the largest one into the lock of the door to the third cell door.
Harry jerks to his feet like a frightened animal as the door pushes open, leaping up to perch on the far corner of his metal cot with a feral look in his eyes, but when Nick steps in he goes limp, a puppet whose strings have been cut.
“Nick?” he asks disbelievingly, and for a moment, Nick doesn’t even know the answer -- he might be Nick, possibly, but his heart is beating so fast there’s no way for him to be sure.
Harry’s thinner, if that’s possible, his face gaunt, hair longer and a bit lank where it’s shoved off his face in untidy waves. There’s something almost ethereal about his face, like he’s seeing something otherworldly, and for a moment Nick hesitates -- just a moment, just enough to memorize the sight of him.
And then Harry’s leaping off the cot, careening the three steps across the small room to hurl himself at Nick, pressing their lips together and digging his long fingers sharply into Nick’s hips. Everything else falls away.
-
They walk out the front door. They walk out the front fucking door of the prison and there are so many waves of prisoners and wounded officers and state police and onlookers pressing in that they slide into it easily, two anonymous bodies in a sea of a thousand, a thousand that feels like a million.
When they’re clear of the mob they run, their own two feet pounding against the hot sun-bleached pavement and then, later, an empty dirt road. Nick’s voice goes hoarse with laughing because no one’s looking at them, no one sees because the world is falling down around them, and they’re running through the flames.
After a time that Nick thinks could be ten minutes or ten hours, a cavalcade of sirens swoops past them. They dive into a ditch on the side of the road but none of the police cars even feign towards a stop -- Nick doesn’t know if they’d stop even if they’d seen them at all, probably needed more desperately elsewhere. Still, they crouch in the ditch together for a long time, the noise and panic steady behind them. There’s a low thud of explosion after a while, another battery of shrieking sirens, but in the ditch it’s quiet and still, Harry’s breath sweet and hot against Nick’s neck where he’s clinging to him fiercely.
“Nick,” he whispers eventually. “Look.”
Across the open road, there’s a van.
There’s a van, abandoned, lights still on and engine idly. One door hangs open uselessly, and it must’ve been left in a hurry, because the radio is still whispering softly.
There’s an idling van and Nick laughs, again, harder than he’s ever laughed before, positively doubling over at the joy of it, the absurd perfect kismet of divine intervention. Harry joins in with him in the next instant, his throaty rasp the most beautiful music Nick’s ever heard, and then he takes Nick gently by the hand, yanking them out of the ditch and pulling him towards their getaway.
Harry clambers into the driver’s seat when they reach it, and pauses to reverently drag the palms of his hands over the steering wheel. The next instant they’re shooting down the road, flying away from the noise and the chaos, the apocalypse shrinking behind them.
“Jesus,” Harry whispers as he drives. The sun shines in through the windows and he squints his eyes against it, smiling his sharp smile, and Nick has to kiss him, leans across the center seat to bite at the curve of his lips. The van swerves and then straightens in response.
“We did it,” Harry says.
“Yeah,” Nick says, feeling awed at it all. Everything feels new and reborn, an unimaginable lightness buoying them as they race, west and west and west.
It’s truly endless this time, Nick thinks, there’s nothing to stop them, no earth or sky or horizon, just the vast world, all theirs, barren and beautiful. All theirs.
“I knew it,” Harry says, “I knew we would. It’s fate, like you said.”
“Fate,” Nick agrees. “Brought us together, didn’t it? Couldn’t keep us apart.”
“Never,” Harry agrees. He looks at Nick, once, smiling, the lines of his face lit up in the setting sun, wild and beautiful and free. He smiles, and they drive.
starkville correctional facility
As it turns out, you can get rather used to prison. Nick hadn’t thought that would be the case, but here he is.
It probably helps that by the time they were dragged in, they’re the most notorious pair in the country. Possibly the world. In the last several months Nick’s seen his own face on television more times than he can even begin to count, and he doesn’t bother trying to disguise the smug feeling of satisfaction that courses through him like electricity every time.
After their arrest, their transport from the hospital to the maximum security prison had set a television viewing record, or at least that’s what he’s heard. Privately, he thinks he couldn’t be more pleased with that if he’d orchestrated the whole thing himself. Ideally, of course, they wouldn’t have gotten caught in the first place, would still be on the endless road driving towards a horizon they can never catch. But if they had to be caught, the way it’d happened had been perfect, really, or at least if not the actual capture -- Nick still feels his pulse spike hot and twisting when he thinks about Harry, shot in the stomach and screaming like a banshee -- the aftermath had been. There’d been masses, absolute masses, during the transfer and its live coverage, loads of them protesters with signs calling for him to hang, calling them monsters, out for their blood. But there had been the others, too, the ones who shrieked in joy when Nick was led out of the police van and through the prison gates. They’d had his face on shirts. They’d had signs, posterboard with glitter on it, his and Harry’s names both scrawled on them in hot pink, decorated with hearts.
It's like being a rockstar, Nick thinks, and he loves it. Plenty of people think he’s a monster, yeah, but the thing is, they all still watch him. They all still know his name, know Harry, know what they’d done, and whether they’re fascinated or repulsed, they still can’t look away. It’s almost poetry to Nick, that.
During the transfer, Harry’d been brought around back, he’d heard later, because he’d needed a medical crew to transport him after they’d stitched up the gunshot wound in his gut, but even then, two camera crews had found out about it and filmed the whole thing. Nick’s seen bits of it on the television that’s mounted behind thick glass in the cafeteria, and the sight makes his heart want to burst with pride.
In the soundless video, Harry’s straining to sit up on the gurney he’s being wheeled in on, still too messed up even for a wheelchair, apparently. He’s saying Nick’s name over and over, asking where Nick is, his face thin and pale and perfect, his hair sticking straight out from his head at every angle. He nearly jerks himself free from the restraints and several more guards rush into frame, pressing him back down.
That’s when Harry notices the cameras that have found him, and his whole face changes the second he does. His mouth curls into a grin, and although there’s no sound, he clearly says “fuck off,” and then in an instant, jerks forward, smashing his forehead into the mouth of one of his guards, sending the man back with a jolt. There’s blood on Harry’s forehead, and the guard is staggering, clutching at his face, and three more guards pop up to take his place. Harry grins into the camera the whole time, eyes unblinking.
Nick loves him more than ever.
-
The worst part is being apart from Harry, of course. Prison itself is fine, the wait for their trial hardly worth noticing, since there’s nothing he can do about it, and it’s all tied up indefinitely, a maze of hoops to jump through anyway. It’ll be ages, likely. Nick doesn’t mind it much, on the whole -- he certainly doesn’t mind having an air of notoriety about him, even among the rest of the inmates, who are all notorious enough in their own regard. They generally give him a wide berth, so he’s free to do as he pleases, more or less -- he sleeps, and thinks, and occasionally talks the sole tolerable guard, a blonde lad, into letting him have a cigarette or a book.
He knows Harry’s near, holed up in the same complex, but they’re not allowed anywhere near each other. At night, Nick tries to send out some sort of radar, hoping to sense Harry in proximity to him, to recognize his heat signature or the scent of him on the wind, any scrap at all. It doesn’t quite work, but still helps to make the distance between them feel a bit less gaping. Just a bit.
-
The bloke is back today. The psychologist, or whatever his title is, Nick can’t quite remember. He remembers his name -- Liam -- and generally doesn’t mind their little get-togethers. Liam is gentle and serene, a strange oasis of calm in the chaos of the general prison, and it’s not that Nick doesn’t thrive on the chaos, but it’s an interesting change, anyway.
“How’s it going today, Liam?” Nick asks easily as he slides into the plastic molded chair across the bolted-down table from Nick. He knows how this goes -- he knows how to handle everyone in the place, from the impotent, faceless guards to the looming warden, and even Liam, strange, soft Liam.
“I’m actually supposed to be asking you that,” Liam says pleasantly. He has a yellow pad of paper aligned precisely on the table between them, an uncapped bottle of water and a flexible pen arranged parallel with it. Honestly, Nick can’t imagine why the precautions are necessary -- what’s he honestly going to do with the cap to a bottle of water, honestly. Although, alright, there had been that one thing with a pen, but that had been with the bloke before Liam, a nasty bald little git that Nick had loathed on sight and even worse when he’d made a smart comment about Harry. So maybe the safety pen is fair play after all.
“Don’t surprise I have many secrets in here,” Nick drawls, draping an arm over the back of his chair. It’s also bolted down, although less severely than the table. It’s overkill, because he likes Liam just fine -- he’s neutral and pleasant in a way that usually grates on Nick, but it’s so incongruous in this context that it becomes very nearly charming. He hasn’t got even the slightest urge to bash his head in with his chair. “You probably know better than I do.”
“I know what you’ve been doing, yeah,” Liam agrees. “Dunno how you’re doing, though.”
Nick just shrugs. Liam’s the psychologist. He ought to be able to figure it out.
“You were in another fight, I hear,” Liam says neutrally, like he hasn’t any horse in the race, totally indifferent to Nick bashing a bloke in the face with a cafeteria tray. Like he’s commenting on the weather.
“Well,” Nick says, examining his nails. Most people stay out of Nick’s way. The bloke he’d beaten, a new transfer, apparently hadn’t gotten that message, and had been out to prove something in his first week. Nick had almost felt sorry for the sorry git when his teeth has been skittering around the concrete floor of the cafeteria, because he supposes there is something quietly unassuming about him. He certainly looks out of place among the other inmates. It’s just that most of them have learned he’s unassuming in the same way as a snake is -- quietly coiled until it strikes, poisonous.
Anyway. This bloke had the message now. Nick had only gotten three days in solitary, which was scarcely punishment anyway. There’s only one person Nick cares if he sees or not, and he hasn’t, not in months. And unless this conversation has anything to do with him, Nick’s not particularly interested in continuing it, so he doesn’t elaborate on the fight.
They watch each other silently for a bit, Nick lazily, Liam carefully. Eventually, Liam picks up his pen, draws one thick, straight line on the paper, and then sets it back down.
“D’you know I’m supposed to make my recommendation soon?” he says to Nick, raising his eyebrows slightly.
“Figured as much,” Nick says. “So what’re you planning to say?”
“Technically, I’m not supposed to tell you,” Liam says calmly. “If you are a sociopath, y’know, it’d just be an opportunity for you to try and manipulate me into believing you aren’t. Or so they say.”
Nick laughs at that, because it’s such a Liam answer he can hardly stand it.
“Alright,” he says. “No official diagnosis, then. At least give me a hint, though.” He leans forward and spreads his long fingers on the tabletop. “D’you think I’m crazy?”
Liam cocks his head and peers at him. “No,” he says. “Not particularly.”
It surprises Nick, at least a little.
“Then what am I?” he asks. It’s a bit fascinating, trying to sort out how Liam sees him.
Liam considers before he answers, and when he does, it’s very careful. “Interesting,” he finally says. “I think you’re interesting.” He pauses. “And possibly a bit evil, but that’s not exactly a medical diagnosis.”
Nick laughs again. He really does like Liam. “Hardly,” he agrees.
Liam smiles, and while his eyes are still crinkling, Nick asks the only question he has for him. “Have you seen him?”
Liam’s smile lessens, but doesn’t drop completely. “You know I have,” he answers. Nick does -- he knows that Liam comes to see him Mondays and Thursdays, but Wednesdays and Saturdays he treks to the opposite cell block, the long term isolation wing. Harry’s antics during the transfer had gotten him chucked in there at first, and apparently he’d repeated them enough to make it permanent after the third guard he’d send to the med wing.
Nick suspects, too, that it’s also a means of punishing him. The warden is petty and unimaginitive in the worst ways.
“And,” Nick says, licking his lips. “Is he -- how is he?”
“Also not supposed to tell you,” Liam says, and he sounds almost sorry about it.
“Don’t suppose you could anyway, then? In general terms, I mean, just... basics.”
“He’s the same,” Liam offers. “Mood swings. Occasional violent outbursts. Asks after you all the time.”
“They’ll transfer him again, won’t they,” Nick says, asking even though he knows the answer.
“‘S’not my decision,” Liam says, vaguely apologetic. “But yeah, I reckon so.”
It’s pretty much been decided that Harry’s the mental one, a foregone conclusion they’ll deem him insane and lock him up in a psychiatric ward for the rest of his life. Nick’s own status is up in the air -- it seems that no one can quite decide if they want him to be mental as well, or just a standard fare evil bastard.
Either way. No one will tell them if they’ll be extradited to be tried back home for doing in Harry’s bloke, or left here, where their list of charges is exponentially longer. But either way, he supposes, Harry’ll be sent to an asylum -- it seems inevitable. Even if Nick eventually is as well, once that happens, well. He won’t see him again.
He sighs, and Liam picks up his pen.
-
Nick thinks a lot about fate. He thinks about seeing Harry that first time in the bar, all bright eyes and dark hair and hunched shoulders, steadfastly ignoring the bloke -- the bloke whose name Nick has never learned, he realizes -- as he orbits nearer and nearer to Nick, their destinies coming closer together until they become so tangled up as the be the same. Possibly they always have been tangled up, and they’d just been marking time, waiting to find each other.
Now he waits a bit more, because -- because he’s not got much else to do, if he’s being honest. He has to wait, has to believe that the same strong, unknowable force that blew them together in the first place will do it again. It probably seems naive, blindly hopeful, but he remembers the shape of Harry’s lips when he’d whispered the word “fate” when they’d flown to America, held together above the clouds. He remembers that, remembers Harry, and waits for their destiny to arrive, telling himself that when it does, he’ll recognize it, grab it and not let go.
-
He waits, and waits, and then suddenly he’s not waiting anymore.
Afterward, they try to say he’s orchestrated the whole thing, which is flattering, but so far outside his skillset to be laughable. He’s with Liam, when it happens, in the same room with the same bolted-down table and chairs, the same calm smile playing on the edge of Liam’s mouth, when from deep beneath them, like a giant waking up, the sirens start to scream.
Liam’s off his feet in an instant, gesturing at Nick to stay in his chair, not that Nick has any plans to go leaping around in ankle shackles and double cuffs. He just raises an eyebrow, curious, while Liam fumbles his radio on, trying to sort out what’s happening.
Nick hears, between the crackling static, snatches of words -- mobilized and C-Block and officers down. That’s when he stands up.
As he does, the door to the room opens, and the guard -- the blonde one Nick likes -- is leaning in, a frantic tint to his cheeks, slightly out of breath.
“Liam,” he pants, shaking his head. “Get ‘im up, we’ve got to move the two of you while the stairs are clear.” He nods at Nick.
Liam frowns, the calm slipping from his face for the first time Nick’s ever seen. “Niall?” he asks uncertainly. “What’s going on?”
“Two groups,” Niall explains, holding the door open so they can shuffle through, Liam first and the Nick, Niall behind him. “One in the rec yard, one unit transferring from yard detail, there was a scuffle--” He waves his hands vaguely, still trying to shuttle Liam and Nick like ducks in a line through the empty hall just outside the room and to the metal staircase that will lead them down to a holding cell and processing offices. “It escalated,” he says.
Nick hears, then, over the sirens, the din of a hoard of voices, all mingled together, angry and on the move.
So a riot, he thinks.
Niall explains how it’d started to Liam as they hurry down the stairs, his hands flapping ineffectually as they go, but Nick doesn’t hear it, because it’s back, suddenly -- the itch in his fingers, the need to act, the same one he’d felt in the bar back in London. He knows, breathlessly, suddenly, that this is the moment, can feel it in the air like an electric current, sharpening his nerves and tensing his muscles.
At the bottom of the stairs there are five holding rooms all in a row, and Niall’s leading them to the furthest, ostensibly to stow Nick somewhere before he does the same with Liam so he can run towards the fray, wherever it is. Another wall of guard rushes past them, pressing Nick up against the wall for a moment as they go, totally unaware of the three of them, it seems, and then they’re gone, their footfalls mingling with the far-off shouts. After a moment, he hears gunfire.
When they’re outside the last door, one more stray guard rounds on them.
“Toss that one in there,” he says brusquely, scowling at Nick in a way that feels distinctly personal. Nick doesn’t recognize him, specifically, but he’s suited up in riot gear, which might be disguising him. Nick doesn’t particularly care, though, because this is when he needs to move -- this is the moment when he has to reach out and snatch the hand that fate’s offering. It doesn’t matter who the guard is -- all that matters, now, is acting, after so much waiting.
He times it, waiting until the four of them are all crowded up in the doorway. There’s a half second when they all shift, unsure, waiting to see who’ll go through first, and in that instant, the spare guard’s gun drops -- just an inch, just enough, and that’s when Nick moves, grabbing at the barrel of the gun and jerking it up so the butt smashes into the guard’s face. In ordinary circumstances, he’d never have stood a chance, but the guard is distracted enough that he’s off his game. He shouts, his grips weakens, and Nick uses it to wrench the gun away.
Liam’s unarmed, but by the time Nick’s twisted the second guard around so the gun is pressed solidly against his temple, Niall’s drawn his as well, leveling it square at Nick’s face. The guard is between them, and Niall looks like he’s calculating whether he’ll be able to shoot Nick between the eyes without risking him as collateral damage.
“Nick,” he says calmly. “Don’t be stupid, now.”
“Sorry, mate,” he says, pressing in more firmly, scraping the skin at the guard’s temple with the muzzle until it’s raw. He’s silent, a murderous look twisting his face around, at least as far as Nick can tell from where he’s got him. Nick has the upper hand, and it’s a visceral thrill when he realizes it.
“It’s nothing personal,” Nick says, because it’s not, fate’s not personal. This is what he’s got to do, is all. “But I’ll shoot if I have to, and I’d rather not, so go ahead and take my cuffs off, yeah? Legs too.”
Niall stares at him, an impassable expression on his face as he considers, and in that instant he looks too young for this place by a mile. After a moment, he lowers the weapon, and moves forward to cautiously unlock Nick’s hands and feet.
“Cheers,” Nick says, flexing an ankle idly once he’s done. The cuffs clatter uselessly to the floor, and he thinks for a moment before kicking the guard at the back of the knees so he buckles to the ground. “Pick ‘em up,” he instructs, shoving the three of them backwards into the holding room once he does.
“Lock him to the table, yeah?” he instructs Niall. He stays silent, and Nick knows that behind his calmly schooled expression, he’s scanning Nick, trying to sort out his plan, his method, any weakness. He hopes he won’t have to shoot Niall. He will if he has to.
Niall does it, though, looping the chain of the cuff through the metal ring lodged in the concrete table before pushing gently at the other guard until he sits down, furiously putting out his hands and allowing Niall to snap the metal around them.
“Alright, then,” Nick says after a moment, looking around the room. He feels manic, his brain running too fast and his hands moving too slow, and he tries to plot out what’s next, how to play this hand the way he’s meant to. “So you’ll stay here,” he says to the cuffed guard, “and we’ll be on our way.” He gestures with the gun for Liam and Niall to head for the door in front of him. “Your gun, though, Niall, c’mon,” he says, halting them.
“‘Course, yeah,” he agrees easily, an easy lilt to his voice that’s only betrayed by the cautious, calculating look on his face. He kneels, slides his gun across the floor to Nick, who bends to scoop it up while keeping the first gun still trained on Niall, and then smiles, easily and friendly. He’s going along with it because he hasn’t got a choice, Nick knows, and he reminds himself not to underestimate him.
Liam hasn’t said anything, but he’s got the same expression as Niall -- trying to look neutral, even friendly, and it must be a tactic, to make the murderer with the gun think you’re on his side, same as Niall’s trying to do, but Nick can work with that. He’ll burn the whole place down if that’s what needs to be done, but if they can all play nice long enough to get out the door without having to put a bullet in either of them, that’s what he’s aiming for.
But it’s just an idle hope, he thinks, a passing desire for the path of least resistance to get him where he needs to go. His pulse is thrumming Harry, Harry, Harry. He can feel the walls that stand between them coming unmoored, crumbling in the chaos, and everything else is secondary.
“Alright, lads,” he says, trying to infuse his voice with something easy-going. “Let’s walk.”
-
For several minutes they’re alone in the halls, the sounds of the riot going on away from them, removed, and it’s almost eerie, the ghosts of an unseen confrontation echoing invisibly around them. Nick keeps one gun pressed against Niall’s neck in front of him, and the second aimed at Liam, a half step off to their left. It’s almost easy, and Nick’s reminded of all the other people whose lives he’s watched snuff out, how disarmingly easy it all is sometimes, easier than you’d ever suspect. Perhaps walking out of prison is the same.
First, though, they’ve got to walk further in.
When they push through the double set of doors to the central yard, though, they’re in the middle of it in an instant.
A mass of guards on the north side has set up a blockade, a wall of riot shields between them and two hundred loosed prisoners as they aim wild rounds into the thick of it. Nick swears and pulls the three of them behind a column, recalculating.
“Jesus,” Niall mutters in horrified awe. Liam just nods. “How’d they override the locks, Jesus.”
Nick spares a second to wonder at the same thing -- all of B-Block’s cells stand wide open, the iron bars useless as picket fences. There must be a mastermind here, Nick realizes, someone who’d set the first sparks of the fire, sent out rumors, fanned the flames as they’d spread, because the chaos is too orchestrated to be truly chaotic. There’s a method behind it, distinct threads of purpose in the way people are moving. Nick glances out from around the column and sees so much blood, a slew of shot-down guards and prisoners alike, and it’s so much, the wild purpose of it making his blood sing, a song he knows by heart. He uses it to focus, schooling his mind into planning their next steps.
“Niall,” he asks. “Isolation -- can we get there?” His gun is still trained on Niall because Niall is still a guard, they’re still on opposite sides of an uncrossable chasm, but here, behind this column, separated from the rest of the fray, he thinks they might be able to work together, just for a moment.
Niall considers. “Dunno. Maybe if, like --” He peeks around the column and jerks back when a bullet whizzes by, clanging off the column a foot above his head. Nick can’t tell if it’d come from the guards or the prisoners. He supposes it hardly matters. “Main route’s fucked. Utility hall could do, though.”
He doesn’t bother to ask why they’re going to isolation, so Nick assumes it’s obvious.
“Well then,” Nick says, regripping his guns. “That’s what we’ll try.”
“We?” Liam asks.
“No, I’m goin’ in there--” Niall starts, nodding towards the standoff happening past the column.
“Go,” Nick instructs them both, not listening. Liam’s good leverage if he needs it, and Niall’s a guard -- even if he’s got a riot to deal with, Nick hardly thinks he’ll let him walk off on his own. So they’ll all go together. Niall’s got the keys, in any case.
The trace back towards the empty hall they’d come from, and after a few false starts, Niall pulls them through a narrow door and into a service corridor. The hoard must have come this way at some point, oddly, because there are the bodies of two officers and four prisoners strewn around like broken dolls, smears of blood slick underneath them. Liam is silent, looks horror-struck and a bit sick, and Niall shakes his head and swears under his breath before the three of them begin picking their way down the hall. It’s empty now, at least, empty of anyone living, and Nick thanks small wonders, sees the thin weave of fate all around them.
They don’t see anyone for several silent, tense moments, and Nick almost -- almost -- suspects their luck will hold out.
When they round into the last stretch of service corridor and stumble back into the open, though, they’re suddenly swarmed.
A barrage of gunfire flies past them, sending them ducking underneath a bloody, overturned mattress. The large room is bathed in an eerie green emergency light, giving everything an alien feeling. Nick feels outside of himself suddenly, like he’s watching it all happen from somewhere above. He sees himself shove Niall and then Liam in turn behind an enormous prisoner covered in sweat and blood, using him as a human shield to barrel past the last throng of guards. The shield bloke takes four shots to the stomach before he goes down, but as he does they’re around the last corner, out of the fray, through two more doors and finally, finally in front of the isolation cells. From above, Nick watches himself squeeze a final round of bullets into the skulls of the two guards still posted there, too frazzled to react in time, their blood painting the concrete wall behind them brightly. He watches himself -- he doesn’t hesitate for a moment.
In the moment after that, he crashes back to himself.
The din still rings behind them, but suddenly the room is silent, the only sound Liam’s choking gasps as he gazes in shock at the fallen guards. He bites off the sound and then looks down, scrubbing at a smear of blood across his neat white shirt like he can force it out.
“You killed ‘em,” Niall says quietly, and Nick rolls his eyes despite himself, gesturing Niall and Liam over.
“They’re hardly the first.” He points at the downed guards. “Find his keys.”
He keeps one gun aimed generally back at them while they hesitate and then kneel, rummaging through the corpses’ key rings, but looks away long enough to peer into each of the cell windows in turn. His blood is singing, his hands tingle, he’s so close and he could scream because now that Harry’s near -- he is, he can feel him -- it’s worse than ever to be separated, a shrieking pain from somewhere inside him, the very deepest part.
It’s the third cell, turns out. He presses his face against the smudged glass of the third cell, and then -- and then he’s there, and Nick can’t believe it, Harry’s there, real and alive, skin and flesh and bone, curled up on his cot, barefoot, lips moving slowly. Nick can’t hear, but it looks like he’s singing.
“The keys, c’mon,” he shouts back at Niall, but there’s no response. Nick turns, and freezes, because Niall and Liam are both on their feet, now. Niall’s got a ring of keys in his hand, but that’s not all -- he’s also got a gun, the one he’d taken off the fallen guard, the one Nick stupidly didn't take, too distracted by the proximity of Harry’s heartbeat echoing in his bones.
“Give ‘em here,” Niall says calmly, gesturing at the guns Nick’s still clutching.
“He’s so close,” Nick says, mostly to himself. It comes out desperate, and he regrets it instantly.
“I know,” Niall agrees. “Give ‘em.” His aim is steady, and Nick knows he’ll shoot, won’t hesitate. He feels wild, honestly caged for the first time. He can see Harry, can see him when really he shouldn’t have ever laid eyes on him again, and this can't be how this ends. This can't be it.
“Alright,” he agrees, defeated. “Alright.”
He kneels to slide the guns to Niall, and just as he’s about to touch the floor, jerks them back up. His right hand squeezes the trigger and the bullet sinks into Niall’s knee with a sickening crunch.
“Fuck,” Niall swears, and he shoots in response but Nick’s shoving forward now, and the bullets Niall gets out before Nick’s taking him down at his injured knee go just wide. Just barely. Nick feels the breeze as they pass, and gasps.
He’d honestly thought Niall would hit target.
He’d thought that he would die. It’s almost startling when he realizes he hasn’t.
He shakes his head to clear it. Niall is collapsed underneath him, his knee bloodied and twisted, swearing and red-faced.
“Jesus, Jesus,” Liam is muttering behind them, his hands wringing in panic, and even further back there are the shots and bangs of the riot, moving away but still there, but Nick can’t hear it. There’s nothing he can focus on besides getting Niall’s gun away, yanking the spare cuffs from his belt. Niall curses again, softer this time.
“You get down here too,” Nick instructs Liam softly. “Next to Niall, there you are.” Liam sinks to his knees softly, looking horrified, eyes reflecting Nick’s wild face back at him. “Hands out.”
Nick cuffs them together, tight. It won’t keep them, won’t hold them to their spot, but he thinks that’s alright -- cuffing them to the door would be a death sentence if the riot reaches them, and he can’t bring himself to condemn them like that despite it all. He’s got all the guns away from Niall, all four of them, so there shouldn’t be anymore surprises.
“Just stay,” he instructs. “Listen. I don’t want to shoot you again, okay, so don’t make me.”
Neither one responds, twin silent stares looking up at him, and Nick takes that for an agreement.
He plucks the key ring away from Niall, and hands shaking, fits the largest one into the lock of the door to the third cell door.
Harry jerks to his feet like a frightened animal as the door pushes open, leaping up to perch on the far corner of his metal cot with a feral look in his eyes, but when Nick steps in he goes limp, a puppet whose strings have been cut.
“Nick?” he asks disbelievingly, and for a moment, Nick doesn’t even know the answer -- he might be Nick, possibly, but his heart is beating so fast there’s no way for him to be sure.
Harry’s thinner, if that’s possible, his face gaunt, hair longer and a bit lank where it’s shoved off his face in untidy waves. There’s something almost ethereal about his face, like he’s seeing something otherworldly, and for a moment Nick hesitates -- just a moment, just enough to memorize the sight of him.
And then Harry’s leaping off the cot, careening the three steps across the small room to hurl himself at Nick, pressing their lips together and digging his long fingers sharply into Nick’s hips. Everything else falls away.
-
They walk out the front door. They walk out the front fucking door of the prison and there are so many waves of prisoners and wounded officers and state police and onlookers pressing in that they slide into it easily, two anonymous bodies in a sea of a thousand, a thousand that feels like a million.
When they’re clear of the mob they run, their own two feet pounding against the hot sun-bleached pavement and then, later, an empty dirt road. Nick’s voice goes hoarse with laughing because no one’s looking at them, no one sees because the world is falling down around them, and they’re running through the flames.
After a time that Nick thinks could be ten minutes or ten hours, a cavalcade of sirens swoops past them. They dive into a ditch on the side of the road but none of the police cars even feign towards a stop -- Nick doesn’t know if they’d stop even if they’d seen them at all, probably needed more desperately elsewhere. Still, they crouch in the ditch together for a long time, the noise and panic steady behind them. There’s a low thud of explosion after a while, another battery of shrieking sirens, but in the ditch it’s quiet and still, Harry’s breath sweet and hot against Nick’s neck where he’s clinging to him fiercely.
“Nick,” he whispers eventually. “Look.”
Across the open road, there’s a van.
There’s a van, abandoned, lights still on and engine idly. One door hangs open uselessly, and it must’ve been left in a hurry, because the radio is still whispering softly.
There’s an idling van and Nick laughs, again, harder than he’s ever laughed before, positively doubling over at the joy of it, the absurd perfect kismet of divine intervention. Harry joins in with him in the next instant, his throaty rasp the most beautiful music Nick’s ever heard, and then he takes Nick gently by the hand, yanking them out of the ditch and pulling him towards their getaway.
Harry clambers into the driver’s seat when they reach it, and pauses to reverently drag the palms of his hands over the steering wheel. The next instant they’re shooting down the road, flying away from the noise and the chaos, the apocalypse shrinking behind them.
“Jesus,” Harry whispers as he drives. The sun shines in through the windows and he squints his eyes against it, smiling his sharp smile, and Nick has to kiss him, leans across the center seat to bite at the curve of his lips. The van swerves and then straightens in response.
“We did it,” Harry says.
“Yeah,” Nick says, feeling awed at it all. Everything feels new and reborn, an unimaginable lightness buoying them as they race, west and west and west.
It’s truly endless this time, Nick thinks, there’s nothing to stop them, no earth or sky or horizon, just the vast world, all theirs, barren and beautiful. All theirs.
“I knew it,” Harry says, “I knew we would. It’s fate, like you said.”
“Fate,” Nick agrees. “Brought us together, didn’t it? Couldn’t keep us apart.”
“Never,” Harry agrees. He looks at Nick, once, smiling, the lines of his face lit up in the setting sun, wild and beautiful and free. He smiles, and they drive.