Chapter Text
They shoved the second one in just after lights-out.
The door clanged shut.
Phainon was already on the lower bunk, his arm thrown over his eyes against the harsh strip light that never fully went out. He didn’t bother looking up at first.
New cellmate. Whoʼs he gonna be?
Then the new arrival spoke.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
Phainon’s arm dropped. He sat up so fast the metal frame groaned.
Mydei stood just inside the door, still in the orange jumpsuit, wrists red where the cuffs had been. His eyes were wide with pure, undiluted disbelief that was rapidly curdling into something uglier.
What the fuck?
What the actual fuck…?
Phainon recovered first. A thin, humorless smile cut across his face.
“Well. If it isn’t the love of my life.”
Mydei’s mouth twisted. “You’re still breathing. Shame. I was hoping someone finally finished the job.”
“Aw. You still think about me.” Phainon swung his legs over the side of the bunk and stood, crowding the tiny space on purpose. “I’m really touched. Did you request the cell with the view, or was this just fate’s little joke?”
“I requested a cell without your face in it.” Mydei’s voice was pure acid. “Guess the system’s broken in more ways than one.”
Phainon barked a short laugh. “You always did have a way with words. Remember when you used to whisper nicer things? Or was that just the part where you were still pretending you gave a shit?”
Mydei’s eyes flicked over him, noting the changes the last two years had carved in. “I gave a shit until I realized you were exactly as empty as everyone warned me. Took me longer than it should have. My mistake.”
“Your mistake was thinking you were better than the rest of us.” Phainon stepped closer, voice dropping into that soft register that used to mean something entirely different. “Look where that got you. Same orange. Same cell. Congrats on the promotion.”
Mydei didn’t back up. He never had. “At least I didn’t sell out every person who ever trusted me just to stay one step ahead of the consequences. That was always your specialty.”
Phainon’s smile went razor-thin. “And yours was walking away the second things got complicated. Real heroic of you. Left me holding the bag and the body count. Very classy.”
“You made your choices.”
“So did you.”
They stood there, inches apart in the narrow strip of floor between the bunk and the steel toilet.
Mydei’s voice came quieter, but no softer. “I should’ve known you’d end up here eventually.”
Phainon tilted his head, almost gentle. “And I should’ve known you’d follow. You always did have trouble letting go.”
Mydei’s jaw flexed. “Don’t flatter yourself. I didn’t follow you. I just finally got caught for something that’s real important.”
“Sure.” Phainon shrugged. “Keep telling yourself that. Maybe one of us will believe it.”
The silence that followed was worse than the insults. It had every unfinished conversation and every door that had been slammed two years ago.
Mydei finally looked away first, toward the upper bunk like it was the only acceptable exit. “I’m taking the top.”
Phainon stepped back just enough to let him pass, the same cold smile still in place. “Of course you are. Always climbing. Even when there’s nowhere left to go.”
Mydei didn’t answer. He just hauled himself up, the metal creaking under his weight, and turned his back to the room.
Phainon sat back down on the lower bunk, staring at the opposite wall.
Neither of them slept.
—
Morning arrived the way it always did in here. Mydei surfaced from a shallow, restless sleep to the sound of liquid hitting metal.
Is someone taking a bath?
He cracked one eye open.
Phainon stood at the toilet, back half-turned, the thin privacy of the bolted-on sink doing absolutely nothing. The guy didn’t even have the decency to angle himself away properly. Just stood there like he owned the place, bracing the wall, casually taking a leak three feet from Mydei’s head.
Mydei groaned and dragged a pillow over his face. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Phainon’s voice floated up, unbothered. “Morning to you too, sunshine.”
“Could you not?” Mydei’s words were muffled by the thin prison pillow.
“Sorry for having a bladder.” A final shake, then the flush. Water roared. “You want me to hold it until roll call just so your delicate ears don’t get offended? Didn’t realize I was rooming with royalty.”
Mydei shoved the pillow aside and glared down from the top bunk. “I realized I was rooming with a child who never learned how to aim with the door closed. Or, you know, basic human consideration.”
Phainon washed his hands at the sink, then dried them on his jumpsuit like it was a towel. He looked up, expression pure mock concern. “Sorry. Next time I’ll knock. Or maybe send a formal request. ‘Dear Mydei, permission to empty my bladder in our shared luxury suite?’ How’s that sound?”
“Sounds like you’re still an asshole.”
Phainon crossed his arms, studying him with that same old, cutting attention. “Did you sleep at all, or just lie up there replaying every time you walked out on me?”
Mydei swung his legs over the side of the bunk and landed harder than necessary. The concrete was cold through his socks. “I was replaying how I ever let you talk me into thinking you were worth the trouble.”
Phainon’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Funny. I was replaying the part where you decided I wasn’t. Right around the time the heat got too close. Convenient timing, that.”
They stood in the cramped space again, the toilet still humming from the flush, the sink dripping in slow, uneven ticks.
Mydei’s voice went quieter, but the edge stayed sharp. “Don’t start. Not before I have to look at your face for the next twelve hours.”
Phainon stepped past him toward the lower bunk, deliberately brushing Mydei’s shoulder on the way. “Too late. You already started it the second you opened your mouth.”
Mydei’s jaw tightened. He turned toward the sink himself, muttering under his breath.
I hate this goddamn place already.
—
The call for chow came over the speakers.
They filed out with the rest of their block, two bodies in a river of orange. Mydei kept his eyes forward. Phainon walked half a step behind him the whole way, close enough that Mydei could feel the heat of him, far enough that it looked accidental.
The chow hall was the usual roar of metal trays and shouted conversations. Tables claimed by crews, by race, by nothing more complicated than who had been here long enough to stake a claim.
Mydei took a tray. Mystery meat. Gray vegetables. Something that claimed to be bread. He scanned the room, looking for an empty stretch of bench that didn’t already belong to someone. There wasn’t much. New blood got the leftovers—corners, edges, the seats people avoided for reasons he hadn’t learned yet.
He found a half-empty table near the wall and sat alone.
Across the room, Phainon did the same.
He had been here longer. That much was obvious from the way the guards barely glanced at him. But whatever alliances he’d tried to build, or burn, hadn’t stuck. He ate alone.
Mydei felt eyes on him and looked up.
Phainon was already watching. One corner of his mouth curled. He lifted his free hand and flipped Mydei the middle finger. Then he laughed loud enough to carry over the noise.
Mydei stared back, expression flat. He didn’t return the gesture. He just held Phainon’s gaze long enough to make the point, then looked down at his tray and forced a bite of whatever the kitchen was calling protein today.
Phainon’s voice drifted across the space between them, pitched just loud enough for Mydei and no one else.
“Look at you. Day one and already the life of the party.”
Mydei didn’t lift his head. “At least I don’t need an audience to feel important.”
“Please. You’re sitting there like a kicked puppy waiting for someone to adopt you.” Phainon stabbed at his food. “Newsflash—no one’s coming. This isn’t high school. Nobody cares who you used to be.”
Mydei’s fork paused. He finally looked up again, eyes cold. “You’re one to talk. Been here longer and still eating by yourself. Real impressive social climb.”
Phainon’s smile didn’t change, but something behind it tightened. He raised the middle finger again, casual this time, like a wave. “Enjoy the view, sweetheart. It’s the closest thing to company either of us is getting.”
Mydei turned back to his tray and chewed without tasting anything.
They filed back to the cell in the same tense silence they’d left it with. The door locked behind them. The strip light buzzed like it had never stopped.
A guard’s voice cut through the block a few minutes later, calling Phainon’s name and number. Mydei didn’t bother looking up from where he was laying. Phainon didn’t offer an explanation. He just stepped out when the door opened. The lock re-engaged.
Mydei didn’t ask where he was going. He didn’t care enough to waste the breath.
The morning dragged. Somewhere past the usual count, a different kind of noise started. Carts rattling, trays clattering—lunch being delivered cell to cell instead of the chow hall.
Mydei heard the slot open. He swung his legs off the bunk and reached for the tray just as the door unlocked again and Phainon stepped back inside, looking no more enlightened than when he’d left.
Phainon got there first.
He lifted the tray meant for Mydei, held it out with exaggerated care, and without breaking eye contact, dipped one finger straight into the thick, suspicious brown sauce pooling at the edge of the mystery meat. He swirled it, then offered the tray over like he was presenting a gift.
“Special delivery,” he said. “Extra seasoning. You’re welcome.”
Mydei stared at the finger. Then at Phainon’s face. The last frayed thread of his patience snapped clean.
He didn’t take the tray.
Instead he stepped in, poked his nostrils with his fingers and dragged them down through the same sauce on Phainon’s own tray before Phainon could pull it back.
“There… Now we’re even. Enjoy your fucking lunch.”
Phainon went still. The tray in his hand tilted, sauce threatening to spill.
Then Phainon’s mouth curved.
If this isn’t the petty boy he knows.
“Cute,” he murmured. “You still liked putting your hands on me.”
Mydei wiped his fingers on the edge of his jumpsuit, expression cold. “Don’t flatter yourself. I’d rather put them on a toilet seat.”
“Keep telling yourself that. Maybe one day it’ll sound true.”
—
Dinner arrived the same way lunch had. This time Phainon didn’t touch anything that wasn’t his. He took his tray, sat on the edge of the lower bunk, and ate in silence.
Mydei matched the silence. He ate standing by the sink, finishing everything without tasting most of it. When he was done he stacked his empty tray with Phainon’s on the narrow ledge and climbed the short ladder to the top bunk without a word.
The mattress was thin. The pillow was thinner. The metal frame dug into his shoulder no matter how he shifted. None of it was new. He’d slept on concrete floors, in moving cars, in places that smelled worse and felt colder. Discomfort was just background noise by now.
What wasn’t background noise was the man three feet below him.
Phainon didn’t speak. He didn’t move much either. Mydei could feel the awareness of him the same way he could feel the light that never fully went out.
He closed his eyes anyway. He rolled onto his side. Then his back. Then his side again. The ceiling was close enough that if he lifted a hand he could press his palm flat against it. He didn’t. He just lay there, listening to the block settle into its night noises, and tried not to mind every small sound coming from the bunk beneath him.
Eventually the tension in his shoulders loosened by degrees. The old habit of sleeping wherever he landed took over. The annoyance of Phainon’s presence dulled into something almost ordinary.
Mydei’s breathing slowed.
His last clear thought before sleep took him was that tomorrow would be exactly the same, and the day after that, and the day after that—until one of them got moved, or transferred, or simply stopped existing in the same six-by-eight rectangle of concrete and steel.
Then even that thought faded.