Archive of Our Own ^beta

Stephen hates his neighbor’s lip ring.

Neighbor. What a stupid way of putting it. It makes Stephen think of Mr. Rogers. It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood, alright. A beautiful day in minimum security prison.

It could be worse. They could have sent him to a medium security. When he’d been waiting for his sentencing, the thought had made him sick. There was no way he would’ve made it in even medium security.

This place actually isn’t bad. It’s prison, obviously. But it’s not horrible.

Except one day he gets back from his job (prison library—he gets a lot of reading done) and finds the empty room next to him is occupied.

Tall guy, taller even than him. Black hair tumbling in curls and waves to his shoulders. Long, aquiline nose. Flashing blue eyes.

Stupid gold lip ring, glinting in the late afternoon light.

“Is this the part where I’m supposed to say ‘what are you in for?’” the guy asks.

“You’ve watched too many prison movies.”

Stephen has too. That’s the exact question he sardonically asked the man who occupied this room before—the guy who was here when Stephen arrived. It still annoys him that this guy is asking.

New guy cocks his head. “I’m going to take a guess. Middle-aged white guy…hm. Embezzling money from the tax preparation firm you worked for?”

Sunlight glints off the lip ring as he smirks.

Stephen hates that fucking thing.

His name is Loki. He’s the one who’s in here for embezzlement. Gossip says it was his dad’s company he stole from.

Stephen can see the gym from the library. Loki’s in there every time Stephen works, like he’s timing it that way. He’s obviously not. It’s coincidence.

Stephen watches him working out. Loki doesn’t take the lip ring off. Does he ever take it off? Stephen’s never had a piercing. He doesn’t know.

It bugs him, seeing this rangy, lean guy deadlifting weights, biceps and lats popping, hair pulled up in a knot behind his head, sweat sheen on his forehead. And that stupid lip ring.

Loki catches him watching one day. A hot surge of—embarrassment, it must be embarrassment—fills Stephen’s stomach, and he drops his eyes back to his job. ‘Job.’ He’s just reading right now, some grimdark crime novel. He’s read better. It’s more entertaining than doing nothing.

Just maybe not as entertaining as watching Loki work out.

When Stephen chances a look up, Loki is gone. Relief. That’s what the sinking in his stomach is. It’s his mortification and…dislike? draining away.

A few minutes later, Loki reemerges, changed back into his button-up and khakis. The uniform isn’t flattering on anyone, but it’s especially unflattering on him. The pants are too short in the legs, the crotch pulls too tight. The shirt is too long, and Stephen can see a bulge along the waist of the pants where he’s tucked all the excess fabric.

There’s a bulge in the crotch, too. Stephen tries not to look there, even if it’s his natural inclination to admire what he sees.

When Stephen accidentally meets Loki’s eyes, there’s a tiny twist of a smile on his face. A curl of black hair stuck to his forehead. Hairline damp with sweat. Something else in Stephen’s stomach. Dislike. The smile, more of a smirk, makes the lip ring move.

Stephen looks back down to his book.

When he glances up again, Loki is gone.

The knock on Stephen’s door comes ten minutes before lights out, twenty minutes after the last census count of the day. “It’s open,” Stephen says from where he’s sprawled on the bed. He only locks the door at lights out. The guys here aren’t threatening. That’s the whole reason they’re here.

Seeing Loki’s frame fill the doorway isn’t what Stephen expected. He looks uncomfortable standing there at the threshold, swaying a bit like he wants to step forward, but waiting to be invited. Again. “Hi,” he says, belatedly.

“Hi,” Stephen says. “Do you need something?”

Loki shrugs and sticks his hands in his pockets. His eyes roam the room. Personal effects are limited here, but Stephen has a full, neat bookshelf. Loki’s eyes linger on it, then track back to Stephen.

“You can come in,” Stephen says, because the guy is making him nervous standing there.

“Oh.” It’s not even clear if Loki knows he said anything. But he steps inside and swings the door shut quietly behind himself. He doesn’t say anything else for a second and Stephen’s just about to prompt him. He gets as far as the intake of breath to speak, but then Loki asks, “You work in the library, right?” He’s still in constant motion. Fidgety, but now that he’s in the room, Stephen’s not sure it’s nervousness. More like pent up energy with nowhere else to go except drumming fingers and a bouncing leg.

The question makes something gutter to life in Stephen’s chest. Maybe Loki loves books too? Maybe he’s a kindred spirit. “Yeah.”

Loki fiddles with his lip ring and glances at Stephen. “Do you think you could get me a job there?”

And it’s like.

Oh.

Like a fall Stephen didn’t even see coming.

And now he’s disappointed. More than disappointed. He’s mad. Why is he mad? Who cares. Does he need a reason? Why should he need a reason? During his trial, he couldn’t even come up with a good reason why he did what he did to end up here, even though he had one. This is a much smaller thing.

But he hates how Loki keeps fiddling with the lip ring. Maybe that’s a good enough reason to be mad.

“Yeah, I work there,” Stephen says.

Loki’s eyes bounce around Stephen’s face. Stephen doesn’t think he kept the edge out of his voice. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t care if he makes friends while he’s here. He’d rather not.

The pink skin of Loki’s lip stretches as he pulls on the ring. Blood flushes it a darker red. Stephen stares, his stomach twisting in hate. Hate. Has he ever hated anyone? The strength of his feelings towards Loki bother him.

“Um, so.” Loki shifts from one foot to the other. “Can you like, I don’t know. Put in a good word for me or something?”

“I don’t even know you,” Stephen says. It’s rude. He usually isn’t so rude.

Loki lets out a huff of laughter. “So you’re serious about character references here.”

Here. In prison.

“Yeah,” Stephen says, unpleasantness prickling under his skin and in his bones. He wants to say something else. Doesn’t know what. But something. Probably should be an apology for being a dick, but he doesn’t want to apologize. He wants to put his hand on Loki’s lip and rip that ring out.

The image bursts through his head like ripe fruit exploding—and freaks him out. He’s never been violent. He wouldn’t be here if he was violent. But he can see it, and feel it, the way Loki’s soft lips would feel under his hands as he hooked a finger in and pulled.

Loki’s eyebrows draw together. Uncertainty ripples over his face, then vanishes, but he doesn’t move. It’s 10:25 now, five minutes to lights out, and suddenly Stephen doesn’t feel like going to bed, even though that was his plan. If he does, he’ll lie here and think about—he’ll think about. Something. The horrible, violent thought that just went through his head. Loki’s pale skin, and his pink lips, and the bitten red where he keeps fiddling with the piercing.

Abruptly, he stands up. Loki still doesn’t move. Stephen feels like he owes him an apology for the image in his head, even though it’s not like he articulated it. It’s not like he’d ever do anything like that.

Instead of saying sorry, he says, “I’ll mention you’re interested in a library job.”

Loki’s smile is devastating. Stephen pushes past him before either of them can say anything else.

The thought of working in the library with Loki does something to Stephen’s body. Makes him twitchy and jittery with energy that has no outlet. Maybe this is how Loki feels.

Stephen doesn’t want to think about how Loki feels.

He’s a quiet neighbor. The prison encourages that, obviously, but silence isn’t required outside quiet hours. Loki, though, he never makes a peep. There’s the sound of his door opening and closing, and then nothing. Once, Stephen thought he heard the bump of the headboard against the wall. Maybe the squeak of the mattress. He told himself he wasn’t listening. He didn’t hear anything else, so that was true. Nothing to listen to, so he wasn’t listening.

He doesn’t mention to his unit lead that Loki wants to work in the library. Loki doesn’t ask him about it again.

They see each other in the halls. They see each other when Stephen’s at work in the library, and Loki’s working out in the gym. Their eyes always meet.

Stephen wonders if he should ask to have his shift changed. No. Loki should work out at a different time. Why should Stephen change his schedule?

They exchange pleasantries, nothing more. A lot less, actually, because ‘pleasantries’ to Stephen is mostly a grunt of acknowledgment. Was he this rude on the outside? Maybe to people with stupid piercings. Not that he knew anyone with a stupid piercing.

And then they bump into each other at the mail room. Stephen never gets mail, but he’s a member of an LGBTQ+ foundation at home, and he has to send the membership form. He already submitted his BP-199 for the fee, and the prison’s Business Office will send a check for him. There’s enough in his prison trust fund to cover it.

Stephen tries to stop, Loki tries to move; they end up banging shoulders, and Stephen reaches out unthinkingly to grab Loki’s arm and steady him. Under the poorly fitting shirt, under Stephen’s palm and fingers, his skin is warm and—vital, and something snaps apart in Stephen.

He stumbles back, and Loki reaches for him. Stephen shies away. Loki’s Adam’s apple bobs sharply. “Sorry,” he says. He lifts a parcel and jiggles it. “Too caught up thinking about this.”

“Wife sending you a care package?” Stephen says, a little too jovial. A little too much like an idiot, more like. Loki doesn’t wear a ring. “Girlfriend?” he amends.

“Brother,” Loki says. “The other two don’t exist.” His eyes drop to the floor, and his mouth forms a tiny oh. “You dropped this.” He bends to pick up the envelope. Stephen’s muscles stiffen as Loki’s eyes scan the address. Being queer in prison is…well, maybe Stephen’s just watched too many movies. It’s not something he spreads around.

Loki cocks his head, stares at the letter another second, and then offers it. “They do good work,” he says. “I’ve donated to them.”

Stephen takes the envelope back and doesn’t say anything for a second. Then, he says, “I guess I should have asked about a husband or boyfriend, too.”

The lip ring glints as Loki smiles a little. “Would’ve been more accurate for my preferences. They still don’t exist, though.” He shifts the package in his arms. “I saw a post on Reddit after I got sentenced to come here that you’re not supposed to mention if you’re queer in prison, but…”

He shrugs and doesn’t bother finishing the sentence. Stephen’s eyes snag on the movement. It’s…graceful. No other word for it.

“I should mail this,” Stephen says abruptly, not wanting to think about what it means to find Loki graceful.

“Oh. Right.” Loki pulls the package close to his chest, almost hugging it. “I guess I should see what books my brother sent before I have to go to my shift.”

Books.

Stephen wants to ask, what books? He wants to ask, do you like reading? He wants to ask, did you want a job in the library because you love words, like me?

Instead, he asks, “Where did they assign you?”

“Landscaping crew.”

Stephen nods. A twist of guilt goes through him. Not only did he never mention that Loki wants to be placed in the library, he never even considered it. Not for real. It was something he had over Loki, a tiny bit of power.

Why should he care about having any power over this guy?

Loki waits another half a minute for Stephen to say something. The silence gets awkward, and then he says, “Well, bye. See you later.”

“Bye.”

Stephen doesn’t watch Loki walk away. Why would he do that?

Glancing over his shoulder as he walks through the door to the mail room? Just a reflex. It doesn’t mean anything.

Loki working outside.

Loki using a shovel, muscles straining.

Loki sweating, hair damp, curling around his forehead and at the back of his neck.

Loki drinking deep from a water bottle, sharp ledge of his Adam’s apple dipping up and down; wiping a hand across his mouth, a finger catching on his lip ring.

Loki in the hot sun, stripping off his shirt.

Loki stretching to work the tightness out of his muscles, arms over his head, biceps and triceps taut. Pants sinking low on his waist. Hair on his stomach leading down. Sweat running in rivulets between his pecs, his shoulder blades, down to the swell of his ass.

The images won’t leave Stephen alone. For three nights, it’s all he can see, and he tosses and turns in bed, stripping down to nothing and still sweating, despite the air conditioning.

The sheets feel like sandpaper against his skin. Everything is sensitive. His hard-on is inevitable. He refuses to touch himself. It’s a losing battle, but he’s going to hold out as long as possible.

Because this wasn’t supposed to happen. He’s not supposed to be attracted to anyone here. It’s a bad idea. It’s a disaster waiting to happen. It’s something he obviously isn’t going to act on.

He never sees Loki actually working. And they wouldn’t let people take off their shirts. So the fantasy is silly, anyway. Stupid. Really, he should laugh. At himself. At his brain. His libido.

But he watches Loki work out in the gym, the strength in his lean frame, the way his arm muscles ripple, the way the fabric of his workout tank bunches and stretches across his chest and back. And he doesn’t laugh. He just keeps seeing Loki in his head.

He finds himself standing in front of Loki’s door one night, knocking, and he doesn’t exactly know why. It’s late, after lights out, but Stephen can’t face his bed, and the sheets that make him feel everything, and the images of Loki.

After he knocks, it’s silent until Loki opens the door. Bare feet, bare chest, basketball shorts, hair loose around his shoulders. The lip ring is still in place.

“Do you sleep with that in?” Stephen blurts. When Loki gives him a confused look, Stephen touches his own lip. The force of his desire to touch Loki’s lip is like a presence.

“Oh, yeah. I never take it out.”

“Never?” Stephen asks. “But…doesn’t that…you’re gay?”

The confusion on Loki’s face grows deeper. Stephen wishes they had solitary here. He’d volunteer himself for the duration on his sentence.

His face is burning. “Um, never mind, I don’t…”

“Oh,” Loki says, as it dawns on him what Stephen meant. This is not better. Loki understanding that Stephen was just thinking about what it’s like for him to suck cock with a lip ring is not something Stephen wants him to understand. “It’s not a big deal. No difference. Unless you know what you’re doing, then it can be…”

Abruptly, he stops. Flushes. Clears his throat, and asks, “Sorry, did you need something?”

“Um, no.” Loki’s bare chest is intensely distracting. His pecs are well defined, his collarbone is a sharp slash from shoulder to shoulder. He doesn’t have a six pack, exactly, but there’s muscle there, and his V-cut, then treasure trail, draws Stephen’s eye. He makes himself look up, but his gaze lingers on Loki’s pink, pert little nipples on the way.

Ogling your neighbor isn’t a good look. Stephen makes himself stop, even though he never made the conscious decision to start. “I was curious about the books your brother sent. And you wanting to work in the library. You never said why you want to work there.”

Loki tilts his head, then steps backwards into the room. “You want to come in and look? My book collection isn’t as good as yours. But you can borrow anything you want.”

His bookshelf is still pretty bare. Five books. All look like science fiction or fantasy. Stephen tips one out to look at it.

“I met that author,” Loki says, sounding almost shy. “She’s amazing.”

“Is the book good?”

“Yeah. It’s my favorite.”

Stephen starts to put it back. He can’t borrow Loki’s favorite book. He’s hard on books—dog-ears the pages, makes notes, doodles in the margins, spills coffee, ruins the covers.

Loki only needs a step to reach Stephen’s side, and he puts his hand up to stop Stephen from replacing the book on the shelf. Their hands touch, Loki’s resting on top of Stephen’s. “Borrow it,” Loki says. “Let me know what you think.”

Something’s wrong with Stephen. He can barely hear anything over the buzzing in his ears and the thrum in his veins.

No, that’s not right. He can hear Loki. It’s everything else he can’t hear.

He can feel Loki’s warm, calloused hand on his.

“Okay,” Stephen says. “Thanks. I’ll be careful with it.”

A shrug from Loki. “I like when you can tell a book is loved. It’s like a whole other story, separate from the book. You know when people write a note on the inside cover or the first page? Like, ‘To Rose, hope you find this book about buoyancy and the physics of flotation interesting. Love, Jack.’”

Stephen snorts with laughter. He can’t help it. Loki grins.

With that grin, Stephen thinks he might be done for.

It’s bright and piercing, a quick flash of light, a searing edge of wit and humor and pleasure at a shared joke. It doesn’t so much change Loki’s whole face as it illuminates it. Gilds it. He’s limned with the brightness and the force of his personality when he smiles.

“I do love those notes,” Loki says, later, when they’re sitting in the TV room. The TV is on but the sound is muted. The overhead lights are off, so they’re bathed in flickering, soundless light. “In books. I love knowing that somewhere out there, a person picked up the book and it made them think of another person. Something about it resonated with them and they wanted that other person to have it. I think that’s…” He pauses. Considers. “I think that’s an amazing thing. To write something that could resonate through relationships like that.”

“You make it sound poetic.”

Loki laughs a little. “Good? I want to be a writer. Or. I guess I am a writer. Not published or anything. It’s just like, a thing I do.” He stares at the TV. A movie from the 00s that Stephen can’t remember the name of is playing. “That’s why I wanted to work in the library.” He shrugs. “I guess they didn’t need anyone else.”

Guilt chews at Stephen. Maybe the unit lead wouldn’t have placed Loki in the library even with Stephen mentioning it, but he doesn’t know…because he never bothered. “Well, placements get switched up,” Stephen says. “You never know.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Their hands are next to each other on the sofa. They aren’t touching.

It would take a miracle for their hands to touch. A miracle, or a shift one inch to the left.

“Maybe they’ll put me there eventually,” Loki says.

“It would be nice if they did,” Stephen says, before he realizes he really thinks that.

Stephen tells his unit lead about how Loki would be great for the other library position that’s gone unfilled for months.

Maybe Stephen has a rapport with the unit lead. Maybe they just don’t need anyone else on the landscaping crew. But a few days later, standing for the afternoon count, Loki beams at him and says, “I’m getting transferred to the library.”

Stephen beams back. “Good. I’m glad.”

He means it.

And something about the way Loki’s lip ring catches the sun is—Stephen doesn’t know. It makes something sting behind his sternum. A sweet sting, like sour candy hitting your tongue, the sour melting away to sweetness.

Sometimes Stephen sees Loki writing in a notebook. Cramped, crabbed handwriting that looks uncomfortable.

“Is that a book?” Stephen finally asks.

“Mm.” Loki looks up at him. “Maybe.”

“Will you tell me what it’s about?”

Loki stretches his arms over his head. Shoulder joints pop; his fingers crack as he laces them together and turns them inside out. “I’m not sure yet. Maybe a romance in space. I was thinking an idealistic young man makes a series of poor choices and ends up in prison.”

“Space prison?”

Loki flips a wrist. “Obviously.”

One of his legs is crossed over the other, foot jiggling, The notebook rests on his thigh, pen at an angle across the paper. It’s just a plain ballpoint pen, the clip on the cap angled away from the stick instead of flush against it. Easy to imagine Loki fidgeting with it, bending it up as he thinks about what to write next.

“Can I read it when it’s finished?” Stephen asks, wondering if he’s overstepping.

But Loki looks at him like something amazing just came out of his mouth. Like the offer is an award. Or something precious. “You really want to?”

“Yeah.”

Stephen means that, too.

After the evening count, Stephen knocks on Loki’s door. “It’s open,” he hears, and goes in. Loki is reading, legs stretched in front of him on the bed, one ankle crossed over the other. An arm arches up, bent at the elbow to fold behind his head, and Stephen’s eyes run over the way Loki’s hair bunches up along the pale skin and hard muscle.

Loki’s room is laid out opposite from Stephen’s, which means their beds are pushed together, the wall separating them.

“Do you want to go to the TV room?” Stephen asks. “We can flip through the channels and decide nothing’s on, like we always do.”

“And talk,” Loki says, a hint of a smile curling at his lips.

“And talk,” Stephen agrees. He’s learned, these past months, that talking to Loki isn’t like talking to anyone else he’s ever known. He’s quick and clever. He makes Stephen laugh. It’s easy to imagine sitting somewhere else with him and talking. Somewhere other than here. Over a restaurant table. Over a bottle of wine. In an apartment somewhere, filled with books; science fiction and fantasy, the crime novels and rom coms and music memoirs that Stephen likes. And some of the books would have Loki’s name on the spine, and they would be Stephen’s favorites.

“What are you reading?” Stephen asks before the pressure in his chest gets too heavy to speak past.

Loki gestures for him to sit down on the bed, so Stephen does. “I asked my brother to send it to me after you said I should read it,” he says. James Brown’s The Godfather of Soul, Stephen’s favorite music memoir. His copy is so well-loved that he was afraid to bring it with him to prison, not knowing if it would survive.

The pressure in Stephen’s chest hasn’t gone away. It’s joined by a warm bloom of emotion. A flower unfurling its petals in the spring sun, surprised by the cold receding, even though it’s just the nature of things for ice to melt.

“Is something wrong?” Loki says, uncertainty edging his tone.

“No. I’m just…flattered, I guess.”

Loki closes the book and sets it aside. “You want to know the reason I was embezzling from my dad’s company?”

“Isn’t money normally enough reason?” Even though Stephen knows it’s not, because it wasn’t for him. Money had nothing to do with what he did.

Shaking his head, Loki says, “I didn’t need money. What I needed was…” He trails off, then shakes his head again. “My dad’s company takes advantage of people. Not illegally. But it should be. So I took the money and gave it to people who really would help. Charities.”

He pauses and thinks. Stephen doesn’t interrupt him. Finally, Loki says slowly. “What I needed was to feel like I could control some tiny piece of goodness, when normally it feels like all I can control is how to make everything worse.”

There are so many things to say. Your writing is a piece of goodness. The way you make me feel is, too.

“I’m here for healthcare fraud,” Stephen says. He’s never told Loki what he did. “I coded things wrong on purpose to save my patients money.”

“You’re a doctor?”

“Nurse Practitioner.”

Loki gazes at him. He sits up.

He leans forward. And he kisses Stephen.

Stephen doesn’t even have to think. He kisses him back.

The second kiss is deeper. Loki opening. Stephen melting. Loki’s lips are soft, his breath is a warm, careful touch on Stephen’s face. The lip ring is skin warm, the contrast of hard metal and delicate skin a kick start to Stephen’s pulse. Loki’s tongue finds its way to Stephen’s, soft slide, quiet hitch of breath. A hand on a waist. Fingers tangling in hair.

A pause, finally. “This is against the rules,” Stephen says, his hand brushing over Loki’s cheek, along his jaw. The white ledge of his collarbone peeks out from under his clothes. It takes everything Stephen has not to lower his mouth and put his lips there.

Loki puts a hand over Stephen’s chest. Not just over his chest—over his heart. That bright smile that Stephen loves flickers to life. “We’re good at breaking rules, though,” he says.

“Not so great at not getting caught.”

Mischief in Loki’s eyes. He draws Stephen down on top of him, and Stephen can’t even think of resisting. “We only have to not get caught as long as we’re in here.”

Stephen laughs and kisses him. It already feels as natural as breathing. “You’re a bad influence.”

“I know,” Loki breathes, and then there’s no more talking.

It turns out Stephen likes the lip ring after all.

It also turns out Loki lied about never taking it out. He takes it out for their wedding. He takes it out to replace it with the one Stephen gives him that morning. Something new.

The ring glints in the light. Loki closes the distance between them. “We’re not supposed to kiss each other before the ceremony,” Stephen points out.

Loki smirks. “We’re not supposed to see each other before the ceremony.”

“Oh, well.” Stephen’s arms slide around his waist. “We’re good at breaking rules.”

“Bad influence,” Loki murmurs, his lips brushing over Stephen’s.

I know, Stephen would say, but the deepening kiss says it all.