CHAPTER 2
A/N – Hello my dear readers! And here I am, back with the second chap of this outstanding shit. Enjoy!
Warnings: violence, verbal abuse, heavy swearing
Nikolai Arlovski – nyo!Belarus
Toris Laurinaitis - Lithuania
Raivis Galante – Latvia
"Wouldn't dream of it," Alin grumbles under his breath. He could use a nap though, a week-long one if possible too. "Where's Nikolai?"
Tsvetan blows a soft cloud of smoke, taking his sweet time. In a couple of minutes there will be time for them to start their rounds down the halls, making sure all inmates stick to curfew and no one is up doing hell knows what shit, and he'd rather sit down and dawdle a bit more before another night of being up on his feet.
"You know Nikolai, he's always early. Was ready when I got here and already started," the Bulgarian replies at last, motioning with his head towards the door. "Don't get what he's so eager about…"
Alin finishes getting dressed in his uniform and hangs the heavy truncheon to his belt, sighing. He doesn't give a fuck about Nikolai and his over-eagerness beyond the extent that it can become dangerous, but the Chief Warden taking a night shift is bad news on principle. It means trouble of some kind being envisaged and the Romanian genuinely feels that his job is shitty enough even on a normal, uneventful day. He's sick of the constant proximity of human filth and there's always fear on the back of his mind, because things can get very ugly on either side of the bars. With the current organization they're painfully understaffed, only three, maximum four guards per shift on each prison block and only the guards manning the fence towers and those posted at the gates are actually armed. It's the machine guns posted up on the towers which keep small feuds from breaking into full-out riots when everyone is out in the yard having their daily walks, but inside it's a different kind of hell.
"Come on," says Borisov standing up and putting out his cigarette into the half-full, cracked glass ashtray. "Ladies first, please." As they head out of the locker room, he delivers a hearty slap to Alin's backside, chuckling.
"Futu-ți mama ta…(A/N - fuck your mother)" the younger mutters under his breath and Tsvetan chuckles louder, because he knows a couple of Romanian swears (and has always been genuinely impressed by the fact that Alin can swear for ten minutes without any repetition, he's that creative when it comes to cursing!)
From there they part ways and Alin takes the first floor, just to see Tsvetan cursing as he stumbles blindly up another flight of stairs (since Nikolai came in first, he took the ground floor, that fucking, skittish bastard!) There aren't many light bulbs to begin with and at night they're dimmed – mainly to save power – so the guards do their rounds mostly groping in a disturbing semi-obscurity, where the slightest noise makes them flinch and the moving shadows keep them on edge.
Alin hates night shifts.
He hates the stronger smell of disinfectant, the unnatural quiet broken by random moans, sighs and the occasional snore and above all the thought that under the cover of darkness someone is planning to drive a nail into their sleeping cellmate's skull or slice their throat open with a shard. And it's all the more pain in the ass when they get transfers or new 'merchandise'. By lucky accident, the two new inmates everyone is fussing over – a Turk and a Greek who were caught trafficking various prohibited goods and occasionally helping emigrants – are crammed up in a cell on the second floor along with four other people.
Inside the cells, moonlight filters through the narrow, grated windows, making all the sleeping faces bone-white, gives an ashen color to the rough, standard blankets covering the slumbering forms curled up in the bunks and Alin finds this sight deeply unsettling.
"So it's true," someone whispers suddenly. "Here they put the cutest guards on the night shift, I wonder why…"
A low chuckle follows and the Romanian stops dead in his tracks. What do you know, someone new here as well… Fuck. Teeth gritted, he wheels around and stalks back to the door of the cell the comment had come from. As he does, he sees one of the inmates in the bottom bunks sitting on the edge of the bed, observing him. The man has his back to the window, his face in shadow, but Alin intuits his grin nevertheless.
"What?" he asks coldly, lifting his chin. "Did you piss in your bed?" The guard tilts his head expectantly, truncheon weighed in one hand as the blunt tip taps the open palm of the other.
The man laughs. "Do you speak from experience?"
Others burst into more or less muffled laughter too at this and Alin slams the truncheon violently against the bars, making an infernal noise. "SHUT! THE! FUCK! UP! NOW!" When the laughter dies down he leans against the door and says "I don't piss in my bed. I only piss in your soup." Of course, he doesn't do that – though he could - but the inmates don't know and can't check either.
The inmate who started it is no longer laughing. He stands up now – he's quite massive and when he rolls up his shoulders large muscles bulge under the rough, striped jacket, but Alin stands his ground even when he sees him approach. If he shows the slightest weakness now he's fucked.
"What did you say, pretty boy?" the giant hisses, gripping the bars and flexing his fingers around them in a motion which clearly suggests he could do the same to the young guard's neck.
"You heard me the first time," Alin says firmly. "Now go the fuck back to your bed and be quiet!"
The man snorts, shaking his head, and in the next second his arm shoots through the bars, grabbing the guard's arm, twisting and pulling in the same time and the Romanian's back is slammed violently against the iron bars, the air knocked out of his lungs. His other hand covers Alin's mouth to keep him from screaming, knocking his head against the hard metal in the process.
For one brief moment he's dizzy, vision swimming from the blow and the lack of oxygen and he's confused – what… he promised Andrei something… something… breakfast?... to make toast for breakfast! – the truncheon has dropped from his hand and rolled away on the floor but his now free hand digs into his pocket and grips the set of keys, letting them spread between his fingers like a fan of spikes and then he pulls them out and drives them repeatedly into the arm which keeps him from breathing.
His attacker groans in pain and twists his other arm (and it hurts horribly) but Alin drives his free elbow backwards – a blind thrust because he could always hit the bars instead of his target, but he's in luck and hits in full, viciously, until the other finally lets go, stumbles to pick up his truncheon from the ground and hits the man through the bars – in his side, upper arms, shoulders, everywhere he can reach, releasing a string of curses in pretty much all the languages he knows until the other is on the ground, curled up into a ball and struggling to get away.
The other inmates in the cell are perfectly silent and motionless in their bunks.
"I'd skip lunch tomorrow if I were you," Alin says through heavy pants, poking the prisoner one last time before smoothing his uniform and walking away.
Fuck, he was so scared just now! His heart is still slamming violently against his ribcage as he leans against the wall, waiting to catch his breath. When the man grabbed him, especially when he covered his mouth, Alin was sure the bastard had something – anything sharp could do the trick – and expected to have it thrust into his back!
"Fuck!... Fuck my life!" he mutters absently, until he discerns a familiar shadow standing at the end of the corridor, where the main staircase is.
Borisov stands there with one hand on his hip, tapping his foot, his standard issue whistle in the other. And of course, being the fucking bastard he is, he waits until Alin is not ten feet from him to blow it, startling the younger guard.
"The fuck are you doing, Vasile? Huh? Are you fucking around?" he asks teasingly, poking the other's flushed cheek with two fingers.
Alin wants to punch him in the face so hard right now, but he only says "Yeah, there's someone new back there who needed some more 'orientation'". He can't actually tell Borisov that he was grabbed and nearly strangled, because that only happens when you're careless and Alin was kind of careless just now.
Tsvetan nods and sighs. "Anyway, I need you to come with me now. I think there's gonna be trouble up there, I heard some shit… That fucking Turk is gonna pull up a stunt, because he's been thrown in with one of his former suppliers, some guy named Toris, they're in the same cell. He thinks this guy talked and stuff."
"Who the fuck put them in the same cell?!"
The Bulgarian shrugs and glances down the stairs, towards the ground floor. He sees nothing, scowls and blows his whistle again. "Where the fuck is Nikolai?! I swear, if that little shit is taking a nap somewhere, I'm kicking his ass like you've never seen!"
By the time they make it up to the second floor, Nikolai in tow (because to his luck the Belarusian wasn't asleep after all), they can already hear the tell-tale ruckus of conflict. Inmates from the other cells are up too, piling up at the doors to see and hear what the fuss is about and Tsvetan drags his truncheon against the bars as he walks, slamming it occasionally to push them backwards. But it's in vain, because for some reason everyone wants to see the guards kicking someone's ass.
"Okay, this is gonna suck," the brunet warns, taking out his keys to unlock Adnan and Karpussi's cell.
As the three guards march in, the well-built Turk already has his hands around his adversary's throat and much to their misfortune his Greek partner and two other men have his back. Also to their misfortune they're not intimidated by the guards and a fight breaks out. Alin gets kicked in the stomach so hard that he doubles over, just in time to see a young blond boy – indeed he can't be more than fifteen – inching towards the open door cell and eventually slipping outside in the corridor.
"Hey! Don't let him get away!" Nikolai shouts, pretty uselessly because the boy can't actually make it farther than the yard, which is continuously swept by the searchlights of the guard towers.
The Romanian does go after the boy though - because if he gets to be apprehended or worse, gunned down by the guards outside it's proof they haven't been doing their job – chases after him down the dark corridor until he sees the small blond tripping over his own feet in panic and collapsing near the wall.
"HEY! WHERE THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU'RE GOING, HUH?!" Alin yells at the hunched form, prodding them with the truncheon. "GET THE FUCK UP! ON YOUR FEET, NOW!"
The boy looks up at last, eyes wide and face streaked with tears and he's shaking so badly that he can't haul himself up.
"What's your name?"
The little blond sobs loudly, wiping his nose with the striped sleeve. "R-Raivis…" he stutters. "P-Please… I haven't done anything, I wanna go home! I w-want my mom…" he whines and refuses to budge.
"Get up," says Alin sternly. He wants to go home too, he wants his mother back too, but that's just not gonna happen. Any other guard would 'soften' little Raivis' bones for talking back and being a brat, but he can't hit the boy, not when he's so small and skinny and already a mess. He may be brutal, but he's not barbaric and that's something he's about to pay for, very soon.
He brings Raivis back to the cell by the scruff of his neck and closes the door to make sure no one else gets funny ideas. By the end of it two men are lying unconscious on the ground aside from the apparent informant – Toris – who was the first to pass out at the Turk's hands and they drag Sadik Adnan away in cuffs to be put into solitary confinement for the time being.
Borisov, who has been on the receiving end of most of the opponents' punches and kicks, walks with a slight limp and is sure to sport a black eye by morning. Nikolai, who has only got a bleeding nose out of this, is off to report the incident and its outcome to the Chief Warden and shortly afterwards both Alin and the Bulgarian are called to Braginski's office.
Now, this is really bad news, Alin ponders as the two of them make their way across the wet concrete, to the administrative block. He's never gotten called to report to the Chief Warden before – he's only met the man briefly upon his enlisting – but he's heard tales of terror from those who had the bad luck to be.
"We're fucked, aren't we?" the Romanian asks. He already took two painkillers for the aching arm – his left wrist might be sprained after all - and threw up his dinner, so he should be fine for now.
"Um… " Tsvetan replies uncertain. "You know, I had a bottle of rakia stuffed at the bottom of my locker… and it's gone."
"You fucking asshole… " Alin mutters, numb with dread. "We're fucked," he concludes.
It's pleasantly warm in the administrative block and the hall even has a cheap carpet on, and Alin stares down pensively at their messed-up uniforms and dirty boots, envisaging getting at least some hell in that regard. The Chief Warden's office has an antechamber and there, behind a large wooden desk, sits Braginski's perfect assistant, Gilbert Beilschmidt, who's always wearing a pristine uniform, has a perfect German posture and a perfect German stick up his ass. As the two guards approach, the albino looks up from his papers and stands up, gracing them with an all-knowing smirk.
"Looks like you're in trouble, comrades… keseseseses"
To be continued
A/N – Okay, so I saved the best part for the final chap because this shit was getting way too long and it's very late. But stay tuned, because it will be up soon!