Subject Info: Alvarez/Torquemada
Feedback: Love it !
Highlight to view warnings: Could be read as dubious/coerced sexual consent - if you're triggered, tread carefully.
Notes: Miguel succumbs to Destiny. NC-17. Spoilers for "Junkyard Dawgs" and "Exeunt Omnes" (including a few snips of dialogue.) Thanks to the ever-intrepid kitestringer for beta. Written for faelinn in the 2006 Oz Magi holiday gift exchange.
Highlight to view warnings: Drug use, may be considered dubious consent - if you're

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There's a painting of one of the lady saints in St. Ignatius where Abuela used to take Miguel as a kid. When Mass got boring, Miguel would sneak out of their pew and wander around the side chapels off the main sanctuary. He always stopped and looked at this painting because the lady was pretty and she'd been burned alive or had her head chopped off or something freaky and cool like that. She stared out from the painting with her pale skin and blue eyes and blonde hair that fell around her shoulders in fine, wavy lines.

Cathy Jo looks like that. And her sudden appearance in Miguel's life sure as hell seems pretty miraculous after the living nightmare of six years in Oz. Why an Aryan fuck like Cutler would leave everything he had in the world to Miguel when he had someone beautiful and sweet like Cathy Jo at home...

It had to be fate, because otherwise it just didn't make sense. But Cathy Jo makes the best kind of sense: the shy way she smiles at him in the visiting room, the fresh green scent of outdoors that lingers in the soft cloud of her hair, the gentle squeeze of her hand over his. Like a promise. Like his own lady saint. Like maybe his luck is changing.

That night, as the lights go out in Em City, Miguel slips his hand down the front of his shorts, smiles into the darkness, and thinks about fate and Cathy Jo.

***

Right from the start, Alonzo Torquemada sashays around Oz like he owns it. Miguel is simultaneously impressed by Torquemada's cojones and amazed at his stupidity. He really expected to last around here looking and acting like something out of a high-fashion freak show? The other gays get along by knowing their place. They do their thing, strike their bargains, but they do it quietly. Only one who was ever different was Jason Cramer, but he could fucking fight, and proved it.

Torquemada doesn't strike Miguel as much of a fighter. He's got a certain kind of presence though, Miguel's got to give him that. And there is the strange aura of celebrity around him. Miguel knows he can't be the only one who's heard the rumors about Torquemada's clubs, the crazy shit that went on behind those velvet ropes: beautiful people, mad drugs, the hottest music. All-night raves that evolved into writhing piles of naked bodies getting down and dirty in every way imaginable.

That it turns out Torquemada is interested in him is an unwelcome surprise. Attention is the last thing Miguel needs right now. And if Torquemada is anything, it's a magnet for attention.

Plus, the guy is fucking creepy.

"Miguelito," he says in that weird sing-song voice, leaning with exaggerated ease against the stair rail. "You know, if you join with me, we can own this place. Once a taste of Destiny works its magic? No one can resist."

One eye stares too intently: the other is dead, white, like a hard-boiled egg.

"I told you, man. I'm not interested in 'joining with you.' Not for moving your designer-whatever drugs, and not for anything else, neither. You want to own this place? That's great. Me? I just want to get out of it."

Miguel retreats to his pod and sits on his bunk, turned away from the gaze he knows is still trained on him. Totally fucking creepy.

That night, as the lights go out in Em City, Miguel thinks about second chances. McManus being willing to go to bat for him with the parole board has to mean something. Now he just needs to stay positive, like Sr. Pete says in counseling. Stay clean, stay strong, and his chance will come.

It's got to.

***

Blows rain down from the fists of Schillinger's goons, and Miguel feels sick from more than just the beating. He should have seen this coming. The Aryans were sure to realize Cathy Jo was visiting too much to just be about transferring Cutler's estate back to her -- the guy didn't own that much stuff. Knowing they'll reach Cathy Jo is worse than his own physical pain. Miguel silently prays whoever Schillinger sends will only threaten her.

Whatever they do, she won't be back.

He needs to get parole. Ruiz wouldn't have agreed to a meeting unless he has a shot. If he can keep it together, impress Ruiz, get it right this time, maybe it doesn't have to be over with Cathy Jo. He can find her on the outside, take her far away from Schillinger's reach. It's something to hang onto, anyway.

Around Em City, the little blue pills Torquemada taps into open palm after open palm are proving persuasive. Nobody cares about Guerra's freak out, the way junkies never care about other people's freak outs -- it gets in the way of getting high. Torquemada and his D-tabs look like they're here to stay. Like he's been able to muscle in on the drug trade without hardly having to lift a black-painted finger, just like he said he would.

Problem is, Torquemada seems to think he's going to be able to muscle in on Miguel the same way. It doesn't make any fucking sense. Why him? Why? Why does this whacked out shit keep happening to him?

"Chulo," Torquemada whispers, following him down the hall. "You're so fucking sexy. I dream about you at night."

Miguel's hands clench into fists at his sides. Stay clean, stay strong. Stay clean, stay strong. Staycleanstaystrong.

"Leave me alone!"

"You'll see, baby." Torquemada smiles and blows him a kiss before turning on his stacked heel and walking away.

Miguel unclenches his hands and finds them shaking. Torquemada, Schillinger, before that, Beviliqua, the hacks, El Cid -- Jesucristo, why can't they all just leave him the fuck alone?

That night, as the lights go out in Em City, Miguel thinks desperately about freedom. The future's all he's got, because there is no now.

***

"The final score is this: you're not getting out of Oz. Not in three years, not in thirty, not ever. Oh we'll still go through the procedure, but that's so each time your number comes up, I can see how much you've ripened. I'm gonna watch you ripen until you rot."

When Ruiz is gone and the helpless rage fades, there's numbness. Disbelief. And at the same time, he feels a stone in his gut. Inevitability. Did he really expect it to be different?

Miguel somehow staggers back to Em City and stands at the base of the stairs in the common room. He looks up and around. The ends of the universe shouldn't be so visible. It leaves no room to dream.

That Torquemada has somehow managed to wrangle his way into being Miguel's new roommate should probably have been anticipated, but Miguel's kind of sucked at anticipating things lately. 

"You want to help me make my bed, sugar?"

Miguel is too fucking tired to deal with this. The idea of having to live now with Torquemada's constant come-ons, live now for...God only knew how long. God only knew.

"Hey, let me tell you something," Miguel says, giving Torquemada his hardest stare. "You may have wined and dined, hired and fired, bought and sold, and I may have never done nothing with my life, but there is no way -- hear me? -- no way that I'm ever going to be your bitch."
 
"Miguel, dumpling, I don't want you to be my bitch." Torquemada stops making his bed and turns to lean against the bunks. He looks like he's considering something. "I have a little confession. I'm a virgin."

Yeah, right. Miguel raises an eyebrow, but Torquemada just nods, like that was the reaction he expected.

"I've never had sex with man, woman, fish or fowl. You're thinking, 'I've heard about the orgies.' At my clubs, yes. My home, quite a scene. But I myself never indulge. I provide a pleasurable environment, the necessary ambrosia, then I let nature take its course. And I watch." He pauses as Mineo calls lights out, then moves suddenly, swinging down into Miguel's bunk, leaning over him. "So, I don't want to fuck you. That would be too common. No, Miguel Alvarez, I want to be you."

As the lights go out in Em City, Miguel is too empty to feel. Torquemada shifts in the shadows above him, waiting.

He'll always be waiting.

"You want to be me, huh? You know what? You're welcome to it." Miguel rolls out of his bunk and leans against the pod door, looking out over his empty universe. "I'm so tired. I'm tired of trying, I'm tired of the walls, the lies, the fear, the death. I'm so tired." Miguel feels Torquemada come up from behind, and something inside of him sags. "You got one of those D-tabs?"

Torquemada keeps saying no one can resist Destiny. No fucking kidding. Miguel opens his mouth and lets Torquemada slip a small blue pill past his lips. It dissolves almost instantly.

Fuck it. Fuck it all. He turns to face Torquemada, sees his expectant face, knows what he wants to hear.

"You want to party, baby?" Miguel says, leaning in closer. "Keep them D-tabs running."

Now is all he's got, because there is no future.

He opens his mouth to accept another pill, closes his eyes and waits for oblivion. Torquemada makes a sound like a sigh and runs his hand across Miguel's chest.

"That feeling good yet, Miguelito? Feeling sexy?"

And the thing is? He is starting to feel good. Really good: light, warm. And sexy? God, his skin... Torquemada's touching him feels so much.

"Yeah." He hears himself speak as if from far away. Feels himself nod, reach up to cover Torquemada's hand with his own. "Yeah, it's...don't stop."

"Oh, sugar." Torquemada laughs and strokes Miguel's chest, raising goosebumps Miguel can feel down to his toes. "I'm not ever going to stop."

Miguel nods again. He's confused, and is grateful for Torquemada's hands guiding him back to his bunk.

"Lie down," Torquemada says, dropping a gentle kiss on his forehead before pushing him down. "Relax." Torquemada sits at the edge of his bunk and gives Miguel's shorts a firm tug. "Let me see you."

And Miguel is squirming to get naked because his skin needs more. More touch, more something. He thrusts helplessly up toward Torquemada as he works the shorts the rest of the way off his hips. He's vaguely aware that this is wrong, that he doesn't do this, that he isn't like this, but he can't seem to make himself care. Not when just looking at Torquemada's hungry face is enough to make his cock fill and swell, rising away from his body, and proving that he is like this, right now.

At least Torquemada wants him. He reaches for Torquemada's hand, but Torquemada stops him and sits back.

"No, sweet, you do it. I want to watch you."

"Yeah. Yeah, okay," Miguel gasps, grabbing at himself. He can't remember feeling like this since he was fourteen -- frantic, pulling on his dick this relentlessly, hard and fast, like if he didn't come he was going to die. Sweat breaks out on his body and his hand feels like a blur, out of control, trapped in its own momentum. He closes his eyes to concentrate, finish off, and hears Torquemada's voice whispering urgently in his ear.

"Look at me when you come, Miguel. Look at me."

Miguel looks and Torquemada is leaning over him, face not six inches from his own. He looks, staring up into that dead white eye, and comes so hard he feels like he's being torn in half.

When it's over, he feels like crying. He's not sure why. Maybe he's already coming down. This is wrong. It's all wrong. He doesn't want to be here, and the saints can't save him.

He turns his face away as Torquemada moves over his body and tries to ignore what's happening when he feels the wet, hot flat of Torquemada's tongue licking the jizz from the sensitized skin of his belly.

"So beautiful, Miguelito," Torquemada says, sitting back up, licking his lips. He runs his fingers through Miguel's hair, then down across his jaw. "You and me are going to have so many beautiful times together."

Miguel shudders, then nods dumbly. He turns on his side, drawing his knees up toward his chest. He's cold.

"Get some sleep, baby." Torquemada pulls the thin blanket over Miguel and smiles at him fondly. He leans down to kiss Miguel's lips, and Miguel can smell himself on Torquemada's mouth.

"Yeah," he hears himself mumble, then Torquemada moves off, up to his own bunk, and Miguel is alone.

He stares out into the darkness, exhausted but unable to sleep. He doesn't want to be here. The problem with Destiny is that it wears off too fast. And then Miguel is stuck with life.

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