In an effort to block the blow coming towards his head, the inmate put up his arm to block it. But the lock and sock easily busted his wrist and the pursuer raised his arm for another swing. All joy his attacker had was there; it was written on his face like the words in a book.
"I think he's had enough, Rollins." The man behind the attacker said, grabbing his friend's shoulder. "Don't want another write up again, do you?"
Brown eyes met sky blue eyes. Shoving the improvised weapon into his pocket, Seth Rollins looked down at the man that he had been pummeling earlier. The man was curled into a ball, even though he had just had that shit beat out of him the man hardly made a sound. It's the code that inmates lived by.
"That's what snitches get." A third man said from where he was standing watch over at the door. "They swallow their own blood."
Roman Reigns, the enforcer for The Shield, always scared anyone. Demented Dean Ambrose knew ways to get someone to talk, snitch or admit to even the littlest infraction. That just left the oddball one. Rollins gave the impression of being a werewolf, hence why he was often called The Wolf. He was a fast one, always running the track during their hourly recreational time. Not as big as his counterparts, he made up for the love of attacking people physically just for the fun of it. Just like this moment.
The inmate that had been beaten looked at the three men. As the three looked down at him, he knew he had to do something. But snitches were killed. They were ranked with the child molesters, children killers and rapists. Regardless of what he was in prison for, he was still a snitch. And prison politics dictates that no one snitches on others.
"Understood?" Dean leaned down and looked at the man in the face.
Blood trickled from his now busted nose. There was a coppery tint to his black hair and a busted lip the oozed slightly. In the pain he was in, the man merely nodded, showing that he understood exactly what he had coming to him if he let his mouth run away from him again.
"Good. We don't want to have to visit you a second time." Dean painfully gripped the man's shoulder, pressing his thumb into a pressure point on his collar bone. "Keep your fucking mouth shut next time or you'll be loosing more teeth."
And with that, the three Florida inmates exited the cell and walked out onto the top tier of the range.
The prison had three stories in this cell block. High windows gave only moderate light. Each cell held a light of it's own but it was shared between two people. Glancing up, Seth spotted the high sun, marking the midpoint in the day.
"Lunch will be served soon." Seth said as he followed the other two members of the Shield down the range to the stairs.
Dean glanced over his shoulder at his cellmate as he was about ready to step on down the stairs. "This shit they feed us? You've been eating for how many years now?"
"What can I say, the carbs are great for working out. Just don't think about the taste and you should be okay."
Dean was the quintessential bad boy of the group, sandy blond hair with a set of light blue eyes. He was tall, about 6'4'' in height and chiseled much like the rest of the inmates around the prison. Working out was the only way to keep their minds from going to mush, as he described it when Seth first showed up at the Dade County Prison.
There was a grunt from Roman. His black hair hung loosely in curls down his upper back. Of Samoan heritage, and one of the biggest street gangs in Florida ranging from Pensacola down to Miami, he was a generational gangster. His father had been a drug kingpin in the eighties, around the time when Roman was born. Now he was two tiers down from his two cousins, known around the prison as The Usos.
"What's with that noise, Ro?" Seth asked from behind in the pack.
"Give it up, you know he misses his Mama's cooking." Dean laughed. "They want to deprive us of our essentials. I can't wait for Canteen though."
The mere mention of Canteen gave the Samoan a grin. He had a few ideas for doing some real cut throat business.
"You thinking of Hustling the Chesters?" Seth asked.
"If they want to live, sure I do." His friend responded. "I got a few in my sights. If they know what's good for them, they'll fucking pay up."
Dean and Seth went back to their cell, Joe went three cells down to his where he was sharing with a man known around the prison as R-Truth. As Dean and Seth were preparing for chow, a fifteen minute sprint for most inmates, something caught Dean's attention. It was a form for an online profile thing he'd heard about.
"You're really considering doing Prison PenPals?" Dean asked picking up the piece of paper that held it's triangular emblem at the top corner of the sheet.
"Yeah, why?" Seth didn't even bother to look up from what he was doing.
"Hell, I don't know. Sounds like something you wouldn't ever do."
"Sorry, I'm getting a little bored with shit coming from home. Even though Iowa is a world away from the Sunshine State, I don't want to hear about my brother's escapades in romancing women. I would actually consider looking for one myself but it takes a special woman who would actually look beyond the fact that I am in prison."
"Who would want to spend the next ten years talking to you?"
"Come on, Man. You have ten years left as well. Maybe you should think about looking into getting a lady yourself." Seth pulled the penpal form sheet from Dean's hands. "Maybe you could get that stick out of your ass. What's the deal with you? Do you want to talk to men all the time?"
"I've been scarred by broads most of my life. How do you think I got here? It was all because of a bitch that thought it would be better to rob a bank than actually earning the Goddamned money herself." Dean tossed his blood spattered prison uniform into his prison issued nylon mesh laundry bag. "Come on, get your sorry ass in gear so we can get to chow."
Seth tucked the correspondence form under his top bunk pillow before following his friend out. He nodded at Roman as they exit out onto the range, then they started heading down to the main floor of the cell block for their chow line. Maybe getting some food into his stomach would ease Dean's anger, at least Seth could hope for that.
"Hey, get this, Ro?" Dean slapped the muscular man's arm slightly. "Seth's applying for the Prison PenPal Profile shit."
"Aw, man, don't start this shit again." Seth groaned, nearly slapping himself over the face. "Can we do without the Seth bashing right now?"
"Come on, it's fun. It breaks up the days of monotony around here." Dean pepped up.
Only for Dean, bringing others pain and torture brought him joy. This was something that he craved to do. Getting back at the people who had done him wrong also brought him a sadistic joy. Prison really did bring out the worst in people. This was no different.
The CO, correction officer, escorted the large group of inmates out of their cell block and into one of the halls of the prison. Nearly the center of the prison is the mess hall, where breakfast, lunch and dinner are served to those on general population. Dean had just gotten out of the Hole for getting caught assaulting another inmate. The worst thing for someone is to be trapped by themselves with only their minds for enjoyment. It was this reason that Seth decided not to get involved in the same kind of stuff that Dean did. Well for the most part.
"What's your type?" Roman asked. Off in the distance a buzzer sounded, signaling that the iron door to their cell block had been closed.
"My type?" Seth asked.
"Yeah, your type of woman." Dean elaborated for their friend.
"Is breathing a quality?"
Dean rolled his eyes as he followed Roman down the hall. "Come on, man. Do you like blonds, brunettes or are you a redhead kind of person?"
"Does it really matter on the issue?"
"Not really, but please tell me you aren't still thinking about it. Can't you just get your mom to hook you up with some broad?" Dean asked.
Roman wasn't going to be any help, Seth knew that. Following up the three, and having a guy at his back, Seth groaned. This was going to be one hell of a time for him.
"Look, it's my personal life." Seth declared. "I kind of want to keep it that way. Now will you drop it?"
"No way in hell, Cellie." Dean responded glancing over his shoulder at the younger man. "You're a twenty-seven year old virgin, aren't you?"
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"Why are you so damn interested in getting a penpal?" Roman spoke up again.
"It would give me something to do around here. I mean, besides what we usually do, I would actually like to hear from some woman a world away from here. It would keep my mind from going crazy behind bars."
"I'm the poster child for insanity, I'll give you that much." Dean grumbled as they finally made it to the mess hall.
The alarm clock started beeping mercilessly. It took Rose Miller longer to get up this morning. In part because of the dog that was literally laying over her chest. Tinkerbell, her small pitbull mix breed dog, started kissing the woman's face, urging her to get up.
"I don't want to." She groaned, lightly shoving her dog's nose away from her. "I don't want to go to work today."
After much prodding, Tinkerbell sat down next to her owner on the bed. That's when the beeping of the alarm mixed with the with Tinkerbell's howling roused the light brunette woman up.
"For crying out loud. I'm up, I'm up, damn it." She groaned, crossing her arms over her eyes, trying to kick her covers off. This was a little difficult since her dog was still sitting on the bed.
With a slap of her hand, Rose shut off her beeping alarm clock and slowly sat up. Confident that her owner wasn't going to go back to sleep, Tinkerbell jumped off the bed and headed out towards the kitchen of the apartment. With the dog gone, Rose got up and stretched one more time. Flipping on the radio, she swayed for a few beats of the rock song that was playing, something from the eighties she was sure, and then headed into her adjoining bathroom.
Once she had showered and changed into some black slacks, a nice red top with a white under shirt, Rose grabbed her shoes and was preparing to leave for work.
"Great, it had to be raining. Why does there have to be so much rain in Portland?" She asked as she bent over to tie her tennis shoes.
As Rose was getting ready for her morning shift, she fed Tinkerbell and then grabbed her purse to put her wallet and keys in. Then she settled on some chocolate peanut butter spread on toast for her own breakfast.
"We have a man coming in for some touch up work." Rose told Tinkerbell while she was looking through her appointment log for her work shift. "Nothing going on. Thank goodness it's Monday, huh girl? Otherwise it will be a mess."
Weekends were usually the hardest for Shave and A Haircut Salon. That's when people who didn't work usually came in for regular appointments. Having Fridays off was Rose's saving grace. That's when she liked to go out and party hardy until the cows came home. Usually it was her, dateless as usual acting like a third wheel for her friends who want to give the dating scene a try.
"Your clock is ticking, Rosie." Her mother Astrid would always say when she called. "You need to find a young man, settle down and give me grand kids."
Just the mere thought of her mother telling her what to do- yet again in her life- made Rose roll her eyes.
Once breakfast was done for Rose and Tinkerbell, they headed out. Luckily they lived right off of Burnside in the Pearl District of Portland, OR. So did Shave and A Haircut, which made the commute short for the dog and owner. Making sure to grab her umbrella before she left, Rose and Tinkerbell headed out.
Along the way, Tinkerbell did her usual doggie stuff. She sniffed the corner hydrant, peed on the sidewalk grass that grew between the sidewalk and the street. At least she didn't attempt to go after the poodle some woman was walking in the rain. Even the dog had it's own raincoat and goulashes, both of which matched the owners own rain attire. Portland was an open book, a lot of refugees, illegals, and people doing illegal things. But with Portland being on the border to Washington State, where marijuanna was legal, it wasn't a far fetched thing to see a man smoking a pot pipe right on the sidewalk next to her job.
"Hey Mac." Rose greeted her pot smoking coworker. "Any plan on quitting?"
Taking one last drag on the pipe, the woman started coughing. She coughed so hard some of the dyed red hair fell out of the messing bun that was clipped to the base of her neck. Once composure was restored, her pipe safely tucked into her pocket, large brown eyes with thick black eyeliner and eye shadow looked at the other woman.
"No such luck. As long as it doesn't interfere in my work, I don't see what's the problem."
"It's not a problem, but you might want to spray some Fabreeze on yourself. To dissolve your au'd de skunk smell. That might give customers something to gripe about." Rose said as she unlocked the store.
Rose and Mackenzie Santiago had been best friends since high school. They worked in the drama department, usually doing backstage makeup, costume and hair stuff for the performers. They both went to beauty school together and decided they wanted to open up their own salon. Shave and A Haircut Salon was a dream for them to come true. While Mackenzie worked mainly with the women clients, Rose worked on the men. Her daddy had been a barber and he taught her how to shave with a single bladed razer to give the ultimate shave for a man.
The new hire, a woman who was sort of like a receptionist came in ten minutes late. Mackenzie and Rose both looked at her when she walked in.
"My car wouldn't start this morning." Jennifer said as she took off her hat.
Jennifer Anderson wanted to get into a beautician career but need to earn her way into a beauty school. So Mac and Rose had hired her because of how popular the salon had become.
"You could have called, you know." Rose said as she put on her hairstylist pocketed apron. "I was about ready to call you." She added some scissors and combs to her apron.
"I'm sorry. Really I am." Jennifer said as she headed towards the back room that doubled as the employee break room and locker space.
Tinkerbell was at her post, which was a dog bed near the front door of the salon so that she could greet customers as they came in. The moment that Rose brought the dog to work, customers seemed to be ready and willing to come in so that way they could be greeted by the sweetest looking black and white dog. With her easy going nature, Tinkerbell really did become a mascot for Shave and A Haircut. But the one thing that she did not appear to like was Jennifer. Mac instantly picked up this trait from the beginning.
"Next time, if you know you're going to be late, the least you could do is call one of us." Mac called out after her. After getting a sloppy wave in return, she turned to look at Rose. "I don't think we can keep her if she's going to continuously come in late for her shifts."
"Come on, just give her a chance." Rose said.
"Fine, but I swear, she's no good. Even your dog thinks so."
Before she had a chance to respond the bell to the door dinged rather loudly and a hulking muscled man walked in with a shorter woman behind him. The two of them contrasted each other. The man was tall, he had pale white skin with flaming red hair. The woman had a more sun kissed tan to herself. But unlike most women she bore the fact that she had muscles, or at least in her arms. Rose noted she had dual dyed hair, blond mixed with chocolate brown or vice versa. From where she stood at her station, Rose couldn't make out what was dyed or what was natural. But one thing was for sure, the man didn't have dyed hair. Hell, he didn't even appear to have any fat on him what so ever.
"Hi, are you Mr. O'Shaunessy?" Rose asked as she approached the couple.
"Aye, that I am." The man replied, speaking in a thick Irish brogue accent. "Just a shave today, lass."
Rose nodded as they shook hands. "Then you've come to the right place. I'm Rose, I tend to all the male clients. And you are?" Then she turned to the woman.
"Kaitlyn O'Shaunessy, his wife." She jabbed her thumb in his direction. "I'm actually in for some layering work myself."
"Then you'll be handled by Mac, I mean Mackenzie."
"Mac will do just fine. Hi, nice to meet you. I'll take you to my station." Rose's coworker said motioning towards the styling section of the shop.
"And you'll be over here at my station. Straight razer shaving is my specialty, is that what you were aiming for?" Rose asked the Irishman.
"That's that plan at least. I've just moved here, I'm a bouncer for that Irish pub here." The man said sitting down in the chair.
Rose could see freckles around the man's face and into his shoulders, light in color. He stretched his shirt so much it appeared that he had a second skin, covered in green green really did bring out his eyes though. And cue the hormones, it had been a while since she last had a man come home with her.
"You'll have to take your flat cap off though. You can put it right there if you want to." She motioned to the vanity shelf that held other grooming supplies. "So it's just a shave, right?"
"Aye, and a trim if that's not a problem."
"Spike the hair?" She looked at the top of his head and then down the sides.
"That would be nice."
Okay, while trying to come up with a sequel to another story I have up this concept sort of popped into my head. And with it being my first AU I'd really appreciate some feedback from you guys. Should I continue with it or should I not? It's not something you really read about around here, and as a fan of those prison documentaries I think it kind of fits the image of The Shield. Having never done an AU before, I'm just dipping my toes into it right now.