T-bag chewed on his bottom lip, glancing around the exercise yard. It had been a week since he had been thrown, feet first, into solitary confinement and he doubted that he would ever be deemed to have suffered enough for causing a nasty cut on one of the guards' faces in his rampage, but he was finally free again.
His group were predictably where he left them and he sauntered over to the bleachers, holding his head high as almost everyone stopped what they were doing to whisper about him. His smile faded slightly when he heard the whistles of appreciation from Abruzzi's clan, the man appearing out from solitary right behind him, but he shook the thoughts of inadequacy out of his mind. He was still one of the top dogs, regardless of whether he was cheered or not.
"Howdy boys," he smirked, struggling to maintain that fact when eyes started to avert his gaze and bodies hunched inwards. "I said…"
"Hey T-Bag," it was one of the younger ones, one of the bitches that had drawn up the courage to speak.
He looked him over, he wasn't too attractive and at twenty-four he did seem old but a week with nothing but his hand for company had already started to take its toll. He tried to keep the delight out of his voice as he hissed the threat, "that's Mr. Bagwell to you."
"S…sorry."
"Mr?"
"Jones, my name's Jones."
The misinterpretation of the demand, which would usually have had people in stitches barely managed to raise a few giggles. Confused by this he roughly smacked Jones around his ears, "I wasn't asking your name boy, I was…"
He paused as Anderson stood up, moving protectively in front of Jones. Anderson had claimed the meat as soon as he had walked off the bus but this wouldn't have happened a week ago. Everyone in the group knew that T-Bag got his pick of whoever, whenever, wherever.
"So what's this then? Mutiny on the bounty? Because I sure don't remember any of you lot being pirates."
"It wasn't pirates' that mutinied you idiot," he clenched his fists as everyone started to laugh at the insult. Something really wasn't right here. His fears were confirmed when Anderson looked at him out of pity, his voice deliberately calm.
"The thing is T, you were just leavin' everyone here and people aren't too pleased about that."
"Here I was thinking I could do what I damn well wanted." He was struggling to keep his voice quiet even though the fear was building up inside him.
"Yeah but…" Anderson faulted, obviously not wanting to continue talking, "it just hurt is all. We're supposed to be your friends."
"At least now we know why you couldn't catch the Pretty." Rackham, the same one who had made the snarky comments about pirates was really starting to get on T-Bag's nerves.
"I didn't catch him because I didn't want him."
Rackham scoffed, "you couldn't catch him if you wanted to. And, until you do, you're out of the group."
T-Bag felt a wetness encase his fingers and winced lightly, he'd clenched his fists so hard that his nails had drawn blood. "You just watch me."
Michael blinked in the bright sunlight that surrounded the yard, immediately walking to where Sucre was. He was too scared to be by himself yet, especially when he knew that Abruzzi and C-Note were after him.
"Hey fish," Michael looked at him, relieved to see that Sucre was still smiling, even though it was barely noticeable. He had half expected him to hate him as well, once the realization of being away from Maricruz sunk in, "you doing okay?"
He shook his head, not wanting to answer directly. There were, as Bellick had gleefully just reminded him, only three hours left until Lincoln was to be executed. He tried to distract his mind from thinking about it, "where's Abruzzi?" But his voice came out hoarse and tired, betraying the fact that he hadn't slept for the last three nights.
Sucre pointed him out, "if he comes after you I'm running away," he laughed, trying to make light of the situation but the attempt fell far too short. "Look, you're gonna get through this, you're Michael, you have a plan for everything."
"Not anymore I don't."
Michael flinched as an inmate walked over, thinking that he was going to get attacked but letting a sigh of relief escape as the convict ignored him, greeting Sucre. "Did you hear? Purity gang's kicked T-Bag out."
"Seriously?" Michael noticed Sucre's bare smile widen immensely, "I wouldn't want to get in his way any time soon."
Michael drowned their conversation out, he didn't care about games or gangs or anything apart from Lincoln. He doubted that he'd be crossing paths with T-Bag again anyway.
