Disclaimer: I don't own Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, Angel, or Prison Break. I do, however, own The Oracle (a.k.a. Cass)
Author's Note: Hugs to Imzadi and –J for their reviews. Also, it was pointed out to me that Anya's name is "Jenkins", not "Emerson". As of right now, I'm not going to go back and change all the wrong references, but I will get it right from now on. I swear. Again, this is not the chapter 9 I intended to write, but the one I had started…well, I'm having medical problems and it's affecting my memory and I forgot what the scene I'd started was about. laughs
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Michael Scofield: You're a mercurial man, John.
John Abruzzi: I prefer bold.
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"SUCRE!" The bellow echoed across the prison yard. The thinking part of Lindsey's brain—the one that might have been able to identify the shout as being for him—wasn't working. Instead, the part of him that had been lurking in the human subconscious since man lived in caves and clubbed food to death in order to eat was in full command as he leaped on the much larger man behind him and rode him to the ground. The receiver for the payphone was still in his hand, snapped free from the booth, and he was using it to reduce the other man's face to so much raw meat. Blood splattered everywhere, but for the first time in months, it wasn't his and there was something strangely liberating about that. An animalistic growl issued from the back of his throat as he hit the man again…and again…
"Sucre!" Hands grabbed him under the armpits and hauled him bodily up off the other man, casting him aside. Lindsey hit the grass and rolled, coming to rest on his back, looking up at a man of average size with shoulder length hair hanging in greasy hanks from a receding hairline. "What the hell is wrong with you, boy?" the man hissed, grabbing Lindsey by the front of the shirt and half lifting him up off the ground. His voice was low and gravelly and made Lindsey want to squirm. There was something familiar about his long face with its narrow nose and too full cheeks. Something that made him want to associate this greasy criminal with court rooms and twelve hundred dollar suits.
"Seems to me, Sucre," the man continued, "Every time I turn around, I see you doing something else to screw up Scofield's plan. First you request a cell transfer and he gets stuck with a new cellmate that doesn't sleep. If Scofield's cellmate doesn't sleep, then Scofield can't dig, and if Scofield can't dig, then I can't break out of here. Now, I understand that that little problem has been taken care of, and you're back in your proper place. That's good. However, now you're picking fights in the yard. Just asking to get thrown back into the SHU, aren't you, boy? Can you see how this could further inconvenience me?"
Lindsey's stomach suddenly twisted itself into a knot as he realized where he knew this man from. This was John Abruzzi, Chicago mob boss. The local DAs had spent years trying to pin something on him and make it stick before one of Abruzzi's men had finally rolled on him. Wolfram & Hart hadn't had a hand in any of it, but Lindsey had followed the case on his own time. If his memory served him correctly, Abruzzi was serving something like one hundred and twenty years for murder. No chance at parole, of course. Men like Abruzzi, who had enjoyed a certain measure of criminal fame and power on the outside, often set up their own little empires within the walls of the prisons, especially if they were going to spend the rest of their lives on the inside. Pissing him off would be a very bad idea. Lindsey licked his lower lip nervously. "Yes, sir, I can."
"You can what?" Abruzzi demanded, yanking Lindsey even closer to his face so that they were practically nose-to-nose. The former lawyer could smell stale garlic and nicotine on the other man's breath and had to fight not to wrinkle his nose.
"I can see how it could be an inconvenience. Sir." Lindsey looked around—now that the fight was over, the other inmates had wandered off. The man he'd jumped was gone, probably taken to the infirmary. A few COs lingered nearby, but they seemed to be deferring to the mob boss in this little matter. "It won't happen again."
The hand on his shirt released, and Lindsey suddenly fell back against the ground, his head bouncing once against the turf. "Good," Abruzzi said, straightening, "See that it doesn't…because if you continue to hinder Scofield, then we'll be forced to have another one of these little chats, and the next one won't be as pleasant as this…I can promise you that." He gestured to two of the inmates standing nearby, and they fell into step beside him as he headed back across the yard.
Lindsey lay on his back on the grass for a few more minutes, folding his hands over his chest as he contemplated the gray clouds that were slowly rolling by overhead. It was as good a position as any to take stock of his situation. Any which way he looked at it, that situation was not good. Sure, he was out of Hell, but now he was in prison, in another man's body, and that body happened to be sharing a cell with a man who was trying to dig one of the nation's most notorious mob bosses out of prison. And then there was Eve… Just thinking about her made a knot form in his chest, right behind his sternum. It was as if someone were jamming their elbow into it. Made it damn hard to breathe and he had to blink quickly, to keep from tearing up.
"Damn it, baby," he whispered to the sky.
A shadow fell across his face, and Lindsey looked up into the face of his cellmate, Michael Scofield. The young man's face was devoid of expression, but his blue eyes flicked over Lindsey, stopping momentarily to take in each little detail—his bleeding knuckles, the cross wrapped around his wrist, the wrinkles in the front of his shirt, the phone lying nearby in the grass. This man didn't miss much, Lindsey noted. "Abruzzi told me you picked a fight with Trokey. He didn't say why."
"You ever been in love?" Lindsey snapped. Rocking forward on his shoulders, he rolled up into a sitting position, resting his arms on his knees. One hand was bleeding pretty badly. Hitting someone in the face was never a good idea—it hurt you almost as much as it hurt them—but then again picking a fight in a prison didn't exactly fall under the heading of 'Brilliant' either.
Scofield regarded him for a minute. "So this is about Maricruz?"
Lindsey had no idea. So he settled for being evasive. "You didn't answer my question."
"You didn't answer mine."
The sun had peeped out from between two clouds over Scofield's shoulder, hitting Lindsey right in the eye. He blinked and lifted a hand to protect his vision. Back-lit like that, his cellmate looked larger than life. It turned the buzzed hair on his head into a fuzzy halo. "You didn't ask one."
That made him pause. Slowly, he nodded his head. "No, no, I didn't." He took his hand out of his pocket and held it out to Lindsey.
Lindsey accepted the help back up to his feet. "You need some help with the digging?" Time to stop messing around and figure out what the hell he was doing here. Odds were, if the Powers had gone to all this trouble to plop him into prison, it was for something slightly out of the norm, and a prison break would fit the bill. Besides, the next time he saw the Oracle (after he had a few choice words with her about certain topics) he wanted to be able to give her the impression he'd actually done something. From what she'd told him, she wasn't a judge of whether or not he succeeded in these trials—just a guide—but it couldn't hurt to have her squarely on his side. Sure, she was an annoying little so-and-so, but she was also the only one who even knew he was here, in this other man's body.
"I could use someone to keep watch tonight. I think I'll be able to break through before count," Scofield replied. He looked down at Lindsey. "Glad you decided to come back. Just don't go drawing any more attention to yourself."
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COs: Correctional Officers a.k.a. guards
SHU: solitary confinement
count: head count—making sure all the prisoners are in the cells and accounted for