Author's Note
.｡｡*ﾟi hope you're staying safe and being kind to yourself! .｡｡*ﾟ
Love youuu 💗
Warning: Mentions of violence, drug use, sexual activity, references to sexual abuse
SING SING PRISON – 1899
"Will you put those out before someone sees you?" Jack growled, watching Muggs and Alexei hop out of the back of the newspaper wagon, each smoking a cigarette.
Alexei took a final drag and dropped it, smashing it under his shoe. Muggs exhaled a steady cloud of smoke through his nose, snuffing out the cigarette on the back of his hand without so much as a flinch. They'd both been chain smoking the whole train ride up there, and even after Denton had met them at the Ossining station with the newspaper wagon, Morozov and Tracey were breathing more tobacco than oxygen.
Sophie got out to straighten their garments, smoothing out wrinkles and creases as they squirmed. "There, that's better," she said, tilting her head to observe her work. Looking toward the large, ominous edifice of Sing Sing, she whispered, "Are you ready?"
Alexei shook his head as Muggs shrugged.
"Can't imagine how scared they must be," Jack mused. "Tide and Grim. Right now, they believe they're in there until they hang."
"It's awful," Sophie murmured. "How could anyone watch that?"
Muggs' green eyes fixed themselves unwaveringly on Jack's. "I've seen someone hang once."
"You have?" Marquette asked. "For why?"
"Murder."
"No, I mean, who was it?" Marquette clarified.
Alexei exchanged a subtle glare with Muggs after he went quiet. Stealing himself, Muggs replied, "My older brother. Jesse. He killed one of my mother's clients," Muggs forced out a chuckle, shaking his head. "Bastard tried something with Colleen. I don't know. Anyway, he stomped the guy's face in with his boots until his head was all mushed. It was quite the mess. Cops took Jesse away, threw him in here, and put a rope around his neck."
No one said anything for a moment. It was news to the others, save for Alexei.
"Took him a while," Muggs added, his face blank. "His legs must've been kicking for a minute or so after the trap door opened. Sorta looked like he was dancing."
"Fuck, Muggs," Jack mumbled, his eyes wide. "I'm sorry."
Jack briefly wondered why Muggs had volunteered that very personal story. Perhaps it was his way of opening up. Perhaps he had to tell somebody other than his opium-addict friend who wasn't always 'present.'
"Yeah, well…I need one more hit before I go in," Muggs said, feeling his empty pockets as an old man in a moth-eaten cap approached them from the prison gates.
"Too late for that," Sophie said as she turned back to the wagon, receiving a sharp scowl from the young man.
Muggs grabbed her arm firmly, spinning her around to face him. He dug into her skirt pocket with the other hand and pulled out his cocaine tin. With a scoff, Sophie wrenched her arm out of his grip, as Alexei pulled her close, making a half-hearted attempt to comfort her.
"What the hell did you do that for?" Sophie shrieked, allowing Alexei to rub the part of her arm where Muggs had grabbed her.
Jack glared at Muggs. "Hey, don't touch her! Ever."
Alexei hushed Sophie as he stroked her hair. "It's okay," he said, his voice oddly soothing. "He don't mean to hurt you."
Jack blinked. The scene was grossly revealing in how the two operated. Any alienist could come observe that exchange and know the game they were playing, the manipulation, the good cop—bad cop tactic. They had it down to an art. Alexei did the luring, and Muggs did the enforcing.
"Muggs, you oughta be nicer to young ladies," Alexei said, letting Sophie go.
"Who, her?" Muggs asked, snorting the white powder off the edge of his rosary crucifix. "She ain't no lady. She's as much a nun as I am a priest."
As Jack helped Sophie back into the wagon, the old man reached them with a curious expression.
"Just...look pious, dammit," Jack hissed at the two.
At that, Marquette muttered in French to the horses, clicking his tongue, and the wagon jerked forward before moving away. Jack held tightly to the bribery money Pulitzer had given him. He'd give it to Sophie to use a bribe for the rather notoriously corrupt warden.
The light around them began to diminish rapidly.
Straightening up, Alexei nudged Muggs, who turned around to face him. Alexei gestured subtly, and Muggs took the hint, wiping the cocaine residue from under his nose.
"Excuse me," the old man said. "How can I help you?"
Muggs looked the newcomer up and down, forcing a contrite smile. "We're here on special request from our Monsignor to visit the condemned before they meet our Lord. I'm Father Matthew Flannagan, and this is Father Alexei Rakovsky."
Alexei gave a half-grin, nodding his head in a hello. "Мир тебе, ублюдок.."
"Oh, I see," the old man said. "Well, in that case you'd better come with me. Right this way."
The two burny-loaded priests exchanged a knowing look and followed him.
Sing Sing's key block ran along the Hudson riverfront, with numerous warehouses, constructions, and the various wards for different offences ranging in severity. A string of towering chimneys soared out of several structures on the property and finalized the picture of an extremely gloomy sweatshop, one whose chief invention was soul suffering.
Some prisoners roomed with other convicts, despite the cramped cells. The minimal upkeep that went on in the penitentiary was insufficient to offset the potency of disrepair – the spectacles and odors of rot were inescapable, even worse than the Refuge.
As they passed the entry fence, Muggs and Alexei overheard the dull clamor of chains as prisoners walked the yard. While this unfortunate march wasn't marked by the blow of a whip, the portentous timber billy clubs used by the guards clued them into the main way of keeping order in the prison.
After a brief exchange with the warden, Muggs and Alexei were entrusted into the capable hands of a jailor who would take them down to the death row block.
The jailor Haggerty, a huge, unkempt man of suitably ill humor, finally arrived to escort them.
"I hope you don't mind me saying this," Haggerty said, chuckling nervously. "But ain't you both a little young to be priests?"
Muggs smirked. "Just left the seminary. The archbishop wanted us out in the field as soon as we took our final vows."
After following Haggerty through the limestone corridors and sparse moss boundaries of the courtyard, they arrived at another block. In one area close to the entryway, some inmates clad in steel and lumber beams like an ox might wear. The contraption suspended their arms, with a separate hole for their necks. This group was being crossly scolded by a trio of guards, whose murky regalia were as dirty as Haggerty's and whose moods seemed somehow more disagreeable.
As they entered the new cell block, a sudden shout of pain shook Muggs and Alexei. Inside one little 5ft x 7.5ft cells, another guard was beating another prisoner with a cat-o'-nine-tails whip.
Unfazed, Morozov and Tracey pressed on. It wasn't anything knew. Both young men had seen that and worse torture in the Refuge.
Alexei glanced at the faces behind bars as they walked through one of the long cell blocks. These weren't violent offenders per se, as they were still on the first floor. He glanced up, seeing the various floors above them, overwrought with thousands of cells. It was like the various layers of hell itself.
As Muggs continued making insufferable small talk with Haggerty, Alexei felt a tug at his sleeve followed by a raspy voice calling, "Father? Oh, dear God, Father, please help me. I ain't done nothing wrong."
Alexei paused, looking into the cell at the young woman who'd stopped him.
She smiled when he faced her. "I'm but a poor sinner," she stammered, reaching out to drag her fingers across the rosary beads attached to his waist. "And I need to confess."
Alexei glanced down the cell block as Muggs walked with Haggerty, completely oblivious that the Russian had stopped.
He leaned his head to one side, stepping closer. "That so?"
"I haven't had the pleasure of a reverent man in a very long time," she whispered. "Father…"
"Rakovsky," Alexei finished, taking another step closer to the cell. "What did a delicate thing like you do to end up in a place like this?"
She held his gaze, looking deep into his eyes. "Not what they said I did, but I've lived a life of the flesh," she hummed, lowering her stare to his crotch. "Is there anything I can do to cleanse my soul?"
"No one is beyond redemption."
She moved her eyes up again. "Yeah?"
Alexei put his hands on the cell bars. "If you really want forgiveness, there is something you can do. But if you're lying, then I'm afraid even I can't help you." He forced a slow smile, glancing down at her.
The young woman brought a hand to her thigh. "Anything."
"There's a good girl," Alexei whispered. "But I'm afraid I can't touch you. It's against my sacred vows." He moved a hand to unbutton the middle of the cassock, his long underwear now slightly visible. "Which means I'm not allowed to touch myself either."
"Oh," she crooned, looking at him. "That must be terribly difficult."
"It's so painful," Alexei continued, feigning discomfort. With one hand clutching the bars, he undid another button with the other hand. "But if you were to absolve me, I could absolve you."
The young woman watched him, biting her lip. Reaching up, she held onto the bars of her cell. "I think I can do that."
Alexei pushed the cassock open as she stepped back a bit, lifting himself out of his underwear, and then gripping the bars.
Though Muggs and Haggerty had disappeared, another guard patrolling the cell block took notice. He glanced around before fixing his eyes on the two.
Alexei began panting hoarsely, his lips inches away from hers, their eyes locked as her hand moved faster.
The guard in the block stood against a wall, watching. Alexei looked down the hall at the guard, leaning his lips toward the young woman, while casting a menacing stare. It was a threatening gaze that would make anyone's blood run cold.
Alexei's ragged breathing turned into muffled moans as he pressed his forehead against the bars.
As his eyes moved to the wall behind her, he felt his head spin dizzily as a whirlwind of haunting images and voices plagued his mind. Suddenly, it wasn't her hand anymore as he peered into the dark cell, his hands still gripping the bars.
And for a moment, he was back in the dark, rat-infested dormitory on Randall's Island, in that miserable ward, surrounded by beds of sleeping inmates, all their wrists restrained to prevent escape. His stomach dropped, and he felt a bit of panic creep up his spine.
There's a voice in the darkness, whispering his name as he begged the shadowy figure beside his bed for opium.
"Shh," she says, in a voice meant to be soothing as she ruffles his hair and puts a finger to her lips.
Alexei gives in and asks for a bit of laudanum as he pulls at his binding. Maybe Doc's right, he thinks. Maybe laudanum will help. It's liquid opium, after all.
But the matron sitting beside his bed has no intention of giving him a drug of any kind. "I'll help you. Don't worry. You don't need opium," Mrs. Anderson whispers, trailing her hand under his blanket, leaning down to kiss his neck. "There's a good boy."
"No, stop," Alexei whimpers as he moves away as much as he can. "Please, stop."
He feels her fingers nimbly reach into his trousers, and he cries out, "Stop it!"
It works.
"What the fuck are you doing?" Tide yells, catching the matron off-guard.
"Go back to sleep," she hisses, her movements freezing.
Alexei grits his teeth and looks away.
"Get away from him!" Tide's voice wakes up a few others. He wasn't about to let what happen to him happen to Alexei. "Get the fuck away from him!"
Hot tears sprang into the back of Alexei's dull eyes. The pressure in his abdomen built up as the girl kept at it. He was still faraway, trapped in the past, as mumbled in a strangled voice, "I'm gonna..."
After he finished, she looked up to find his watery lifeless eyes glued to the opposite wall, his hands wrapped around the bars on either side of his head, his left thumb between his teeth, and his brows furrowed anxiously. No euphoria, just misery.
She stepped back, watching him. He readjusted his clothing, seemingly snapping back to the present as he forced another smile.
"Am I forgiven, Father?" She asked, wiping her hand on her grey dress.
Without a word, and suddenly wanting to get high again, Alexei turned from the cell and walked away. As he passed the astonished guard, the man turned away, pretending not to have seen.
Alexei nudged by him, intentionally ramming his shoulder into the guard's as he discreetly lifted the man's billfold from his pocket. "Enjoy the show?" Alexei guessed bitterly without looking back. "That'll be three Hail Mary's, извращенец."
When he caught up with Muggs and Haggerty in another corridor, Muggs gave him an accusatory glare. "There he is," Muggs said with false relief. "Father Rakovsky seems to have been lost."
Haggerty shrugged. "I was just explaining to Father Flannagan about the hanging process. More humane than other executions, I suppose. Those two Randall's Island killers from the papers…they'll be lucky if their neck snaps once the door opens. I've seen plenty strangle for some time," he explained, enunciating each word to the Russian priest. He turned to Muggs, nodding his head to Alexei. "Could you translate?"
Muggs took a deep breath and turned to Alexei, "Могу ли я вскрыть горло этому человеку?" Muggs asked in perfect Russian, his eyes darting from Haggerty to his accomplice.
Alexei shrugged. "С чем?"
"Мои зубы." Muggs maintained his gentle tone, even smiling a bit at Haggerty.
Alexei considered this for a moment, cocking his head. "Джек сказал больше не убивать."
Muggs chuckled. "Джек может подавиться своей банданой."
Alexei exhaled deeply, and the two turned to face Haggerty, smiling.
"He says it's what they deserve, if God wills it," Muggs replied to the man as Alexei bowed his head.