Wish #3
Request 2:
Pairing/Character(s): Toby/Chris
Keyword/Prompt Phrase: Post-season 6, Toby has amnesia, and Chris lives- he tries to win Toby back and Toby hears rumours of what they used to be.
Canon/AU/Either: Canon-ish AU.
Special Requests: Kink and angst. Go nuts, but don't kill either Toby or Chris.
Story/Art/Either:Story.
Title: If what we had was real, how could you be fine?
Pairing: Tobias Beecher/Chris Keller
Rating: Mature
Word Count: 5301
And then they fall. Together. Like in a sort of romantic movie that Bonnie would have loved and on which he would made silly jokes.
You could have been anything you wanted to be. Toby said that to him a night in their pod, years ago. A life ago. They were sharing their children’s memories. What were your favorite games? Did you have a dog? Silly questions, silly things, just a way to pass their time for Chris, to kill boredom. What did you want to be when you grown up? Chris has dismissed the question, answered in the same way he used to. I don’t know mechanic, wrestler, football player maybe. Nothing so interesting, nothing real. The truth is: he never considered that. He didn’t really have a choice. He only should grown up and try to survive not to dream. And then Toby said that silly phrase: You could have been anything you wanted to be, Chris. You are so smart, so brilliant. You are even smarter than O’Reily (Of course I’m smarter than mick, Toby). You could talk to someone few minutes and convince him to buy a nice house with a sea view. In the Sahara’s desert. Chris has made jokes about, not really trusting of Toby’s words. No-one can be anything he wants to be, it’s not a matter of choices, it’s what or who you are. You can’t win against who you are. You can’t choose if you are piece of shit, a scumbag. You can’t win. You can’t be what you want.
And then they fall. Together.
You could have been anything you wanted to be, Chris.
Chris remembers that line half asleep in chair in front of Toby’s bed in infirmary. Maybe was true or he wouldn’t have convinced Dr. Nathan to let him stay to Toby’s bedside like he was a relatives, a friends and not a prisoner. Maybe, in another life.
How can you fall from a balcony and get away only with a few bruises and a broken arm? Especially when the idiot that fell with you (and why had you to fall with me, Toby?) is in a bed with a sort of cerebral trauma or some kind of shit like that. And he doesn’t want to wake up.
Until now, at least.
Hi there.
Toby tries to make a sound, to talk. His eyes on Chris, asking something without words.
Are you still here?
“Don’t talk. Here take some water, here. Easy, easy. Don’t try to choke you to death. Don’t try to die on front of me, Toby. Not with a sip of water.” This is simple. He can do that.
And then Toby talks.
“Whe- where am I?”
“You are in hospital, Toby.” This is simple too.
A suspicious look in his eyes. “Am I Toby?”
Ok don’t panic. He is confused. He slept for days. He fell from balcony. It’s all right. Like when you wake up from anesthesia and you are not immediately yourself. Don’t freak out, Keller. Toby is alive, is still here, Chris repeats to himself, taking Toby’s hand.
“Yup. Tobias Beecher. ” Bitcher sometimes too, maybe is better not to mention that “Lawyer. Husband. Father. “ and all these shitty labels that you love to be. “I make it Toby.”
A little smile. Chris squeezes his hand.
Few moment of silence like Toby is trying to put all the pieces together, to come back to himself.
“How long have I been unconscious?”
“Only few days. You fell from the balcony. ” Few long fucking days.
“And were you here all the time?”
“Where the fuck I should have been?” Maybe in a pod. Maybe in solitary.
A look at their hands locked together at his bedside.
“You are…” a pause. A long pause. My lover? A scumbag? A serial killer? Labels, again. “Are you my husband?”
What the fuck?
He should say no. They aren’t husbands, maybe they aren’t an “us” anymore. He should say no. He doesn’t say anything, just smile. And nods.
“How did I end up with someone like you?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Too loud. Maybe yell at your lover’s bedside isn’t the right thing to do when he’s not so himself.
Toby laughs. He really laughs. A real laugh, that kind of laugh that made before Oz. Before Vern. Before Chris broke his arms and fucked his parole. This is Toby’s laugh, Chris thinks. This is his real laugh. I would have liked that laugh, in another life.
Toby points to himself. “You are too sexy for a nerd like me. You are definitely out of my league!”
This is the real Toby, Chris thinks. This is how could have been outside between Toby and me, thinks.
“I’m not so sexy. And you have a best ass in the world.”
Toby laughs again and yawns.
“Sleepy?”
“A bit. My head kills me.”
“Try to sleep, Toby you need to rest.” Gentle Chris caresses his hands. He isn’t normally so delicate, this is not the way in which their body talked to each other before but this is different. These aren’t the real us. He can be softer, he can be different.
“Will you still here when I’ll wake up?”
“I’ll always be here.” Like I have other options. In more than a way.
Just… just apparently you are not here too. Apparently you are somewhere where I can’t find you (and touch you), thinks Chris. At your awakening you are here but you are not. You are not you, thinks Chris when Murphy guides him to his bunk after Beecher’s awakening when all the consequences of his fall are clear (and scary).
He is a survivor, says Sister Pete to him. He fell from a balcony; he survived to a brain trauma. He is alive, Chris. Sister Pete says “Chris” a lot of time, like when they were almost friends.
“He has an amnesia, Chris”. Chris again. Like he were a scared child (he’s not. He never was). “He remembers his life before Oz, even if he has some lapse of memory of his life with Genevieve and the car crash but after that his mind goes blank. Nothing. He doesn’t even remember to have come to Oz, or his trial. The doctors say that could be permanent. “
Toby would always remember his trial. He couldn’t stop talking about. It doesn’t make sense.
“He is recovering. Doc Nathan says he is physically fine, except for the amnesia. His body is fine.” Toby’s body is more than fine, thinks Chris. And says nothing. “ He just needs time to be himself again. Time and help.” Sister Pete says help staring at him. “He has lost the last five years of his life. He just found out that he had lived a life of which doesn’t remember anything. He just discovered that he had lost a child and he doesn’t remember five years of another. He needs time, space and all of help of the world.”
He just nods.
“The memories could come back in few days, few months or maybe never. We just don’t know. He doesn’t know. But he is alive, he is a survivor. He still has a life.” And she is staring at him like he is the only problem in Beecher’s recovery.
“So?”
"So maybe this is your chance to let him go, to do the right thing Chris."
Oh Sister Pete is really scared by him. By his “influence”.
“No way, Sister. No way. The only way to let him go would have been that I had lost the memory of falling from the balcony. That someone had ripped the memory of Tobias Beecher from my head like you do with tumors or aneurysms that keep you from thinking clearly. And probably not even that would be enough. ”
“And then, what you have in your mind?”
“And then maybe this is my chance to start over. Without all this shit, from the beginning. “
“And would you still want him? Without the things that have made him the man you have know? Without all the pain?” Pain and love. Trust and betrayal. Be in love with a man and shout “I’m no fag”. He is really so obvious?
"He's always been that man." And we are always existed. We always have been “us”. Only in an easier way.
They aren’t in the same pod of course. No-one, neither a douchebag like McManus could put them in the same pod with their dysfunctional history. Toby shares with O’Reily, like in the good old days before Chris and Cyrill (before all those deaths), and Chris has the top bunk in a scum’s pod.
They not talk to each-others, they haven’t reasons and Toby barely speaks with Busmalis and Rebadow. He seems younger, more fragile like this was his first time in Oz, like he was still an Ivy League lawyer with a wife and three kids (you are still here, Toby?). Chris watches him all time. During the queue at the cafeteria, during Up to your Antle where Toby (still) always knows all the answers, during the night when he can’t sleep and Chris knows he prays a God that doesn’t listen to him (you ask the right things, Toby? You ask freedom? Forgiveness? You ask me too? I would only ask you if I believed in something).
Toby never watches him.
One day Chris is switching a chess pawn between his hands, trying to kill the day between a wank and Miss Sally, and it happens.
“Do you play chess?”
How didn’t he notice that Toby approached to him?
You can be anything you want to be, Chris. You can have your second choice, without all that shit. You can say the truth. You can say that would beat most of these assholes without even looking at pawns.
Chris says “I’ve never learned the rules.”
Toby smiles, so bright, so honest. If there was no his past to speak for him, the memory of Crazy Beecher (all those deaths) and an Emerald city that is dying, these jizzbags would eat him for breakfast.
“I can teach you… if you want.”
Ok. “Ok”
“The two of us… we... we know each other?” Toby hesitates, stumbles. “We knew each other?”
The two of us, baby? “Us” that we tried to kill each other more times than I can remember? “Us” we saved each other more times than I can remember?
“Just a few words.”
“I’m Toby,” and he smiles again.
Chris would like to throw all the pieces on the floor, bend Beecher on the first surface near them and fuck him. Just to see if the new (the old) Beecher moans in the same way. Just to know if fuck with this man without have his ghosts like voyeurs is different. Just to know if the way in which says his name when he begs to let him come is different, if he can really let go, if he can trust Chris.
And more than that Chris would like hug him.
(There was a song that Kitty always sang to him that said “I closed all the doors to the world, I slept hugged her clothes, I almost wanted to stop her in the amber but then I realized that the safest place was inside me. I ate my girlfriend.” Chris remembers those words now. Maybe a part of him would like to eat Toby.)
He must clench his fists so much to feel his knuckles turn white for doing nothing.
“You shouldn’t introduce yourself with your first name, you aren’t at school, you aren’t outside. It’s not wise.” Chris says that with a grin in his face.
Toby snorts “You know apparently I have a swastika branded on my ass so I guess I was never too wise here. Ok let’s go again: I’m Beecher.”
“I’m Chris. Let’s play.”
Toby smiles.
And then they are back.
Beecher is watching him in the shower. Chris doesn’t remember the last time Toby has watched him in the shower without annoyance, like he didn’t want kill him. The gaze in Toby’s face doesn’t hide some evil plan, when Toby watches him, this time, doesn’t flirt with him (Chris doesn’t know how to look a naked body in this way, a naked body for him will always have something to do with sex or death), he is just watching him. So open, interested. And even if he has a towel tied in his waist he feels himself naked. Chris looks back.
Then after in his pod Chris waits. Wait, wait, he repeats in his mind, don’t stand too close to him, and don’t scare him. Wait for him. And Toby follows him.
“You are like a fucking car crash, you know that?” Toby says. “I should not but I can’t stop watching you. I don’t know why. I don’t remember you, I don’t know who you are but apparently I can’t stop watching you. Like when there is a car crash and you are on the other lane with your car and you know that you should watch your road but you don’t do it. You slow down and you look at the car crash.”
Chris nods.
“Do you know that a lot of car crashes happen because the driver looks at a crash in the other lane?”
“Not yours, Beech. You are here because you are dunk when you killed your little girl. There wasn’t car crashes, just you and your martini.”
Toby smiles. He still good with self hate and guilt. You can forget what you’ve done but you can’t forget the way you are. “ Not mine, yeah. Maybe I replaced my addiction to alcohol with this addiction to watching you.”
Oh Toby, you really don’t know how it’s true.
I loved alcohol. I loved heroin. But I had to put them behind me because they were poison. Death. You… are death.
“Just watch?” Chris edges closer.
“What?”
“It’s only that your addiction? Watching a car crash? Watching a martini glass? Watching me?”
Now they are really close. Their knees almost touching. Toby doesn’t bear his gaze. Baby, you are too easy. Maybe your mind doesn’t remember our story but your body knows me so well. You can’t forget the way you are, the way your body reacts to me (but we can have a new story, Chris thinks).
“This is what you want, Toby? Just watching?”
“Instead of what?” Beecher raises an eyebrow. He’s not good as Keller at this game but he is not even a schoolgirl with a crush. He is not some blushing virgin. If he was, if he was simpler, Chris would be bored long before. Toby is a kaleidoscope of contradictions. He can’t hold his gaze but his voice is firm when he talks to Chris. He asked Chris to let him go and then followed him in his pod. His knee trembles lightly on contact with Chris but he doesn’t move. He doesn’t run away. Instead runs toward.
Chris takes his hands and presses it to his chest. “Touching.”
Toby smiles, his fingers caressing the skin, like were the first time, like weren’t (his body remembers). “You know I was a very bad alcoholic. I am not capable of having an addiction only halfway. ”
Am I only this? Chris asks himself. Only an addiction? Just something to kill (to pass) the time? We were in love, he would yell. Maybe you don’t remember but I do. I ruined your life not just for an addiction (It is true?) but because we are in love and I could not think of spending my life here without you. And now you are here, Chris thinks, you are here but you are not. And I deserve a second chance (you really deserve something, Chris? After all these death?) But I'm not sure to want that chance if all I can have is just an addiction. We were much more, Toby.
And then against his pod: “Shakedown!”
The days after the conversation about the car accident are made of many other incidents. Flirting.
This is the first time we’re flirting for real, Chris thinks. Not just fooling around, fucking someone and then staring to each other (Oz flirt’s lesson number one). No like we were outside of this shithole. Like we were real persons, normal blokes in a pub with a beer in their hands after a boring day at work ( a voice in his head remember him that he never just flirted with a normal bloke outside, fucked with a normal guy outside and let him live. Toby is different, he tells to himself and shuts up the voice).
Talks playing chess. A smile when he shaves. Some question about his marriages (“How is it possible that they still come to visit you, after all this time? What are you doing so special?” “I’m so special, Beech. If we were married, you would move in the visiting room just to be closer to me.” “I’m lucky then, because I’m already here.”) And what Toby remembers about his life before Oz.
He asks about his children. Toby’s children were always a safe place and are now too. He looks at their photos and “Holly looks exactly like you, Toby.” “I don’t know, she seems a new person to me. I remember a baby and now she is a little girl. A little girl grew up without his father” a little sigh and then “I’m sure you were a good father for her (he was, a father that would have sacrificed himself for her), and you will too (if I’ll let you go out). You will and she will drive you crazy like all girls do.” “Crazy?” “Crazier.” Just to makes Toby laugh. A touch at his knee during breakfast at cafeteria. A contact longer than usual trying to catch the ball playing basketball (he hates basketball but he doesn’t say to Toby, he loves basketball this time).
Chris doesn’t how to move on from this point. He didn’t have to. He doesn’t flirt (at least not for more than a night, to get anything more than a quick fuck in an alley) he fucks, he doesn’t court he manipulates, he doesn’t talk he kills. Even with Toby at the beginning the flirting, the casual touches were all a scheme, nothing real (I’ve never loved you, not for a second).
Chris has his second chance and he doesn’t how to go further. He expected a grope in the laundry room, a fuck in the shower, maybe just a kiss in his pod after the end of shakedown not… this. This slowness. “This college boys flirting”. This. But he wants his second fucking chance so he can’t slam Toby against the glass wall and touch him all over like he would. He can’t even if he sure that Toby’s body wants him, knows him (Chris on his knees in front of him, a hand cupping Toby’s balls and Toby’s cock in his mouth. Toby panting when a finger enters in him, when for the first time he really let Chris in, and his name on his lips, and “ChrisChrisChris” like if it were a prayer) because Toby’s mind, Toby’s beautiful mind doesn’t remember a dick about him, doesn’t know who he is (better because when he knew he hated Chris and he wanted him far far away from him, maybe on the death row) and if he wants more than a blowjob he needs to play at Beecher’s rules. And he wants much more than that. He always did and maybe this is a part of their problem. Because for the first time in his life Chris wants someone for more than just sex, or more than just business and he doesn’t how to deal with that. How to “want someone” in the right way. A way doesn’t end with broken arms and broken hearts.
“He speaks about you. “Says Sister Pete.
“Who doesn’t speak about me all the time?” He mocks her. “I’m always your favorite subject of conversation.”
“Chris.” When he was a kid he thought his name was an insult because his mother always said it in that tone of voice. The same way that uses Sister Pete (“Chris!” moans Toby in his mind. No-one ever said his name like Toby does).
“What he says about me, anyway?” Almost casual.
“Nothing, really. He says he has met someone."
Like they were outside, like this were real. Like if they met at gym near Beecher’s office and then shared few drinks. In Oz you don’t really meet someone, in Oz you try to not run in someone that could rape or kill you (or both of them, if it’s Chris).
“He says you are smart and charming. And you really suck at chess.”
Chris snorts.
“Oh I know how you can be charming.” A pause. “He is confused. He was a married man, married with a woman, just few days ago in his mind. He still is in his mind. And you are the first charming man he meets here. Not only charming but interested in him.”
“He talks about sex?”
“No. He never did. He never was about sex between you and him, for Tobias at least. No he has always spoken about love.”
Again their problem. Yeah. It was always about love. It still his.
Sister Pete speaks again “ He feels something for you…”
“An attraction?” Everyone feels an attraction to him, is a part of who he is.
“No no, a connection. He doesn’t remember you but he feels something for you. Like he can trust you. Like, he says not me, you could really see him. Even if you don’t know him too.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Because you said so, isn’t it? You said you didn’t know him. You lied to him, again.”
“Was it not what you wanted, Sister?”
“No I want you to let him go, Chris. What you wanted was another chance without having to bother to change yourself.”
“People can change, Sister. It’s our second chance, we can be whatever we want.”
“Oh, sure. People can change, they do all the time but can you?”
“He speaks about you.” Says O’Reily in cafeteria.
“What does he say?”
“Oh don’t imagine a lot of open heart conversations as we braid each other's hair, I’m not like him. He just says your name a lot, with no reason.”
“What did you tell him about me?”
“Nothing, only that you are a scum like everyone here.”
“Nothing more?”
“You can trust me, K-boy.”
“Yeah. With my life, like the others. I can trust you and maybe after lunch I could even walk away from this shithole.”
“It’s Oz, man, I know who my friends are. And know which ones are the most dangerous.”
“Beecher is dangerous too.” He says like he should defend his honor.
“Beecher is crazy. And he is less boring when he is crazy with you than dangerous without you.”
Then all goes to hell. Again.
A moment before they were almost in love, a moment after Toby speaks and it’s not a word of love (“Leave me here, leave me alone, Let me so, Do not say a word that is not love” a song in his mind).
“It’s yours?” Beecher spits out pointing at his back.
“Your ass? We're almost kissed I think it's early to offer me parts of your body. Even if it’s a nice ass, Toby.” He jokes.
Toby is livid. “Not- not my ass!” He can barely speaks, for the first time Chris sees a Toby’s part he almost forgotten. “That swastika- That swastika on my butt, it’s yours? It’s your fault?”
“What the fuck are you talking about, Beech? I’m not even a Nazi.” I’m no Nazi. I’m no fag. I’m not your husband. I’m nothing.
“Stop joking, it’s not funny!” It is from the outside. A bit. “ Was I…?”
“Was I what, Toby?”
“Was I…” Beecher searches the words. “Was I yours? Was I your prag?”
Oh there we are, Keller thinks. He remembers something. He knows. We are done, again.
Were you mine, baby? Oh yeah, almost how much I was yours. But prag, we were never been this. Prag, fag, prison wife, bitch, sir. Words. Labels (you loved labels). Categories to which we were never able to belong. We weren’t like this. We were much more, even if no-one could see that from the outside.
“You remember?” He asks.
Toby laughs. “Haha. Is just this your problem? You can breathe, Keller. I don't remember a single thing. But apparently this place is like high school and sooner or later someone speaks. Sooner or later Busmalis argues with his Norma and he is all 'love sucks and you should be careful to Keller with your history'. And then like at school seem to you that everybody talks about you and you try to know your story. Mine and your story, because apparently everybody talks about you and me. So again, Keller… was I your bitch?”
KellerKellerKeller.
“Why?” Chris snorts.
“Because! Have you seen me? How could a person like me be something more than that? I’m not at the top of the food chain here and I have a swastika on my ass. I was a prag, wasn't I? Yours?”
“No.” And yes. You were a prag and you weren’t. “You were a prag, before. Not mine, never."
A pause.
“And what then?” Toby’s voice is hesitant.
Chris thinks about second chances. Thinks about the possibility of change, even for him. Thinks about Sister Pete’s words. Thinks about that day where the fell. “You could have been anything you wanted to be, Chris.” Thinks about Toby. He could lie, he could lie. He could threaten anyone, and no-one would ever speak to Toby again. He could reinvent their story and have his second chance. His simple, is who is he. And then he thinks about New eve’s day. He thinks about Toby asking McManus to let him be his roommates again even if Chris broke his arms and has betrayed his trust. That memory is real, they were real.
“You were a prag. Not mine, Vern’s. You don’t remember him but you two had a really shitty history. He branded that swastika on your ass and you shat on his face and fucked up his parole. And then you met me and we became more than friends and I broke your arms (and your heart yourheartyourheart) because I’m a piece of shit. And then you tried to kill me and we became lovers. And you don’t remember me. You remember that bitch and don’t remember me and-"
“What bitch?”
“That bitch! Genevieve!”
“Keller she was my wife!”
“And she didn’t come to visit you here. And she killed yourself only to blame you, because she knew your weakness and guilt always will be your worst weakness (guilt and addiction). And you remember her anyway. And not me.”
“What?”
Chris ignores him. “And then after we became lovers you tried to kill me again, because you could love me but you couldn’t trust me and you couldn’t believe I was capable of loving someone, loving you. And I save your family and we became lovers again and you save my life from the death row. And I fucked you parole because I didn’t want to live here without you, or maybe because I’m a piece of shit. And then we fell from that balcony and we lived and you don’t remember me. You don’t Toby, but I do. I remember everything. “ And I’m not sorry.
“So apparently you weren’t my prag. We were in love (we are in love, inside you. I know that). But you’ll understand why I was not dying to tell your romantic love story.”
“Fuck you.”
And Toby walks away.
I’m not sorry. I’m not.
Days later. No Miss Sally on TV, even porn magazines are boring (remember to tell Bonnie to send others, Bonnie has always a good taste for porn magazines, maybe because she has a bad taste for lovers).
Beecher appears in his pod. He remembers when he called him “Thinkerbell,” maybe Toby is really a little fairy that can appears if you clap your hands. He seems thin, a bit scruffy (shitty nightmares, Beech? O’Reily is not good as me with your nightmares, especially when he has his little brother’s ghost haunting his dreams) , nothing like a fairy. He sits in the lower bunk near to him and just for a second Chris forgets how to breathe (this would be really funny, isn’t it Tobe? You come back to talk to me, you come back from death and I die for love like a Victorian heroine).
“Sister Pete told me everything about you and me.” His voice is lower but firm.
“Everything?” Chris teases.
Toby smiles, a little smile almost a grin. “Maybe not everything. Just the basics not all the juicy details.”
“But let me tell you something, man. I’m sure she thought about those glory details a lot. Especially in the night, on her sad and cold bed. Not I blame her, you’ve seen me…”
“Chris!”
“Go ahead.”
“She tells me almost everything about you and me. About Gary too.” Toby doesn’t smile anymore. “I think she could not wait to do it, to be a nun she speaks really so much.”
“And?”
“And then nothing. Then I thought I'd run away, as far as is possible to run away from something here. You broke my bones, Chris. You fucked my parole, my life. I shouldn’t be here; I should be as far as possible from you.”
“And why are you here, Toby?”
He snorts. “Because I’m an idiot, apparently. And because I remembered something.”
“You remember?” Great. With their luck, if Toby remembers something, is something bad.
“Don’t celebrate. I don’t really remember anything real. I don’t remember all my life. I don’t remember something particular, I just…remember you. A feeling. This feeling. Fuck I don’t have the words for this. I remember you. You here, in this pod. You here, with me.”
“You remember sex?”
“I don’t remember sex! God I really hate you. I remember how I felt with you. It’s not a memory. It’s not an image; it’s a sensation, a feeling. I remember us.”
“And if you remember us why don’t you run away?”
“Because it’s not an option. You are not an option on a takeaway menu. I should choose the Thai chicken or Chris Keller in my life, I don’t really know. You are not an option. Like in a thousand years of loneliness...”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“One Hundred Years of Solitude? Gabriel Garcia Marquez? Did you ever read it?”
“Yeah, sure! It’s in my bedroom between my copy of Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre.”
“Jane Eyre? I always imagined you more like a Wuthering Heights type. You know storms, deaths and unhappy love stories.”
They smile each other. And it feels like love, like home.
“Anyway. Marquez says that some people are doomed to repeat the same mistakes. All over. For all their life. They can’t change. They can’t change the way they are, they can’t change their life. We can’t change. Chris. Everything is a choice with you, and everything is not a choice. I can’t not be here. ”
We can’t choose. We don’t deserve a second chance.
“Is this what I am, then? Your punishment? Your mistake? Is this what we are? Yours life sentence?”
“Maybe we are our destiny.”
“Maybe we are.”