Cage the Vessel, Never the Soul
maybe this world is another's hell
There’s a man in Cell Block E who’s lost his marbles. Everyone’s a little bit crazy in this place, you kind of have to be, but William – that’s his name, William Beckett, god forbid you call him Bill – he bid his sanity goodbye a long time ago, even before he was dumped in this godforsaken hell-hole.
He’s only a wee slice of a thing, William, disappears if he turns sideways, though he towers over most of the rest of the inmates by at least a good few inches. By all rights, the other guys should’ve made mincemeat out of him the first day he arrived, but no one’s ever laid a finger on him. There've been plenty of crazies in this place over the years, but William... it was just something about his eyes, coal black and utterly blank under a curtain of dark, messy hair that obscured a pale, drawn face. No one dared go near him. People still don’t, mostly, but there are a few he trusts, a few who’ve gotten close enough to see what it is he guards so closely to his chest.
Gabe is one of them, Gabriel Saporta, but he’s nearly as crazy as William. They’re an odd pair, Gabe and William, Gabe with his too-bright smile and casual cynicism and William with his careful blankness and inner core of steel. Somehow, though, they seem to just fit, their jagged edges lining up in the middle to join them together.
There are others who attach themselves to Gabe, and William by extension, but they drift in and out as they please, never staying long enough to forge a lasting bond with either of them. Gabe’s been with William since the day he arrived and he’ll be there until the day he leaves, in a slim black box on the back of a broken dream.
***
William’s never really had many friends and, to be honest, that’s kind of the way he likes it. When he was younger, back when he was still in high school, people used to call him names. He wore the wrong clothes and had the wrong hair and listened to the wrong music and hung out with the wrong people and in the eyes of those who counted, that was enough.
(William didn’t count. William’s never counted, not ‘til now.)
No one calls him names any more. He’s just William, plain ordinary William, except to Gabe, that is. Gabe calls him Bilvy or Billiam or, sometimes, rarely, Will, and he’s the only person in the world who wouldn’t get a kick in the balls for it now. William doesn’t think Gabe realises, doesn’t think he even cares how close he comes to pushing William off the edge for good.
Sometimes, though, sometimes William suspects he does it on purpose.
***
“Do you ever miss him?” Gabe asks, honestly curious.
William doesn’t look up from the book he’s reading. “Nope, not at all.”
Gabe rolls his eyes. “Come on, I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
“William.”
William blows out a shaky breath, fingers tightening around the pages of his book. “Of course I do,” he says, and Gabe can hear the way his voice cracks in the middle. “I miss him all the time, every minute of every day. It’s like... it’s like a constant throbbing ache pulsing in my brain and it hurts, okay? He was my best fucking friend, of course I miss him. That good enough for you, Gabe?”
Gabe winces. He’s pushed too far, he knows he has. Provoking William to see how he’ll react, to make him react, that’s one thing, but this is another thing entirely that his conscience isn’t anywhere near as comfortable with.
“Yeah, sorry, I just-” He breaks off, rubs at the back of his neck. “You’ve never, you never talk about him, and I just wondered...” He trails off when William’s glare threatens to reduce him to ash. “Never mind.”
***
William killed his best friend, they say. In hushed whispers in empty corridors and behind closed doors, they talk about how he hacked his best friend to pieces with an axe and watched him bleed to death. The police never recovered all the fragments of the body, they say.
Some people were calling for the death penalty to be returned, just for William Beckett, the man who killed his best friend in cold blood. He got twenty five to life, with the possibility for a reduced sentence if he behaves himself.
It’s a fucking injustice, some people say. Why should scum like him still be allowed to walk the earth when they’ve robbed another of the chance? It’s a fucking injustice.
(Gabe kind of thinks that’s bullshit, but then he would.)
***
William does behave himself, mostly, but Gabe gets into fights, sometimes. Well. For values of sometimes that basically translate to every time an asshole picks on William. No one lays a finger on him and no one calls him names and few people dare to even come near him, but that doesn’t mean they can’t hit him where it hurts.
William never fights back, never says anything at all when they sneer at him and look down their nose and talk shit about him right to his face. It makes Gabe so angry he could punch something, has to punch something, and the something is invariably someone’s face, or someone’s neck, or someone’s crotch.
(It’s always worth it for the look on their faces, for the knowledge that they won’t try anything again for a while now, for the rush of satisfaction that always follows watching them limp away, clutching helplessly at the part of their body Gabe chose this time.
William doesn’t agree, but then he wouldn’t.)
***
“You have to stop getting in trouble for me,” William says, and Gabe rolls his eyes.
“Who says I’m getting in trouble for you? Maybe I just like starting fights with people.”
“Gabe.”
“William.”
William stares at the floor, at a piece of non-existent dirt on his prison-issue shoes. “I’m not worth it, okay? You don’t deserve this.”
“Will,” Gabe says, softly, trying to ignore the way he flinches, “William, neither do you.”
William’s answering smile doesn’t touch his eyes, and Gabe quashes the urge to wrap him into a hug and squeeze him tight. William tends to have that effect on him, he’s found.
(Gabe has been convicted of robbery and grievous bodily harm twice each; he shouldn’t be capable of warm, fuzzy feelings in the chasm in his chest.)
***
William never talks about his best friend, but he dreams about him, sometimes. He never talks about it, has never so much as mentioned the nightmares, but Gabe knows. The walls in this place are paper thin; he’s heard William mumbling and muttering and moaning in his sleep more times than he can remember. Sometimes he’s begging for forgiveness, other times he’s screaming for recompense.
Wasn’t my fault, Gabe catches, sometimes, a strand of coherence twisted around the babbled nonsense. Sorry, sorry, so fucking sorry.
Sometimes it sounds like he’s talking to someone else, something else. Gabe isn’t sure whether to call it God or Satan or something else entirely, but he knows it scares him nearly as much as it scares William, cold and sweaty and shivering in his sheets.
Gabe tells himself every night he’s kept awake by William’s tortured, sleep-hazy ramblings that he’ll say something to him about them when the morning comes, but he never does.
***
The devil made him do it, William says. Quietly and with unwavering conviction, he says, the devil, it was the devil, it wasn’t me.
He doesn’t care that people don’t believe him, that they think he’s delusional or that he’s just finding someone else to blame. (He isn’t sure what’s worse, to be honest, when people look at him with pity or when they look at him with disgust.) Gabe believes him. Gabe trusts William implicitly, and that’s all that matters.
The devil made him do it too, he says, and that makes William’s lips twitch into what Gabe likes to think is a smile. His eyes are sad, though, little brown droplets of abject misery, and it makes Gabe sad, too. He thinks William would have a beautiful smile if he let it shine, thinks he would be beautiful behind the opaque mask he’s so used to wearing.
***
William killed his best friend, they say. Devil or no devil, he hacked a man to pieces for no reason anyone can discern. Some people don’t think he’s even human. Some people think he’s too human, that’s the problem.
They don’t dare go near him, though, even now. He’s still the man in Cell Block E who’s lost every last one of his shiny little marbles and he always, always will be.
He’s only a wee slice of a thing, William, disappears if he turns sideways, though he towers over most of the rest of the inmates by at least a good few inches. By all rights, the other guys should’ve made mincemeat out of him the first day he arrived, but no one’s ever laid a finger on him. There've been plenty of crazies in this place over the years, but William... it was just something about his eyes, coal black and utterly blank under a curtain of dark, messy hair that obscured a pale, drawn face. No one dared go near him. People still don’t, mostly, but there are a few he trusts, a few who’ve gotten close enough to see what it is he guards so closely to his chest.
Gabe is one of them, Gabriel Saporta, but he’s nearly as crazy as William. They’re an odd pair, Gabe and William, Gabe with his too-bright smile and casual cynicism and William with his careful blankness and inner core of steel. Somehow, though, they seem to just fit, their jagged edges lining up in the middle to join them together.
There are others who attach themselves to Gabe, and William by extension, but they drift in and out as they please, never staying long enough to forge a lasting bond with either of them. Gabe’s been with William since the day he arrived and he’ll be there until the day he leaves, in a slim black box on the back of a broken dream.
***
William’s never really had many friends and, to be honest, that’s kind of the way he likes it. When he was younger, back when he was still in high school, people used to call him names. He wore the wrong clothes and had the wrong hair and listened to the wrong music and hung out with the wrong people and in the eyes of those who counted, that was enough.
(William didn’t count. William’s never counted, not ‘til now.)
No one calls him names any more. He’s just William, plain ordinary William, except to Gabe, that is. Gabe calls him Bilvy or Billiam or, sometimes, rarely, Will, and he’s the only person in the world who wouldn’t get a kick in the balls for it now. William doesn’t think Gabe realises, doesn’t think he even cares how close he comes to pushing William off the edge for good.
Sometimes, though, sometimes William suspects he does it on purpose.
***
“Do you ever miss him?” Gabe asks, honestly curious.
William doesn’t look up from the book he’s reading. “Nope, not at all.”
Gabe rolls his eyes. “Come on, I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
“William.”
William blows out a shaky breath, fingers tightening around the pages of his book. “Of course I do,” he says, and Gabe can hear the way his voice cracks in the middle. “I miss him all the time, every minute of every day. It’s like... it’s like a constant throbbing ache pulsing in my brain and it hurts, okay? He was my best fucking friend, of course I miss him. That good enough for you, Gabe?”
Gabe winces. He’s pushed too far, he knows he has. Provoking William to see how he’ll react, to make him react, that’s one thing, but this is another thing entirely that his conscience isn’t anywhere near as comfortable with.
“Yeah, sorry, I just-” He breaks off, rubs at the back of his neck. “You’ve never, you never talk about him, and I just wondered...” He trails off when William’s glare threatens to reduce him to ash. “Never mind.”
***
William killed his best friend, they say. In hushed whispers in empty corridors and behind closed doors, they talk about how he hacked his best friend to pieces with an axe and watched him bleed to death. The police never recovered all the fragments of the body, they say.
Some people were calling for the death penalty to be returned, just for William Beckett, the man who killed his best friend in cold blood. He got twenty five to life, with the possibility for a reduced sentence if he behaves himself.
It’s a fucking injustice, some people say. Why should scum like him still be allowed to walk the earth when they’ve robbed another of the chance? It’s a fucking injustice.
(Gabe kind of thinks that’s bullshit, but then he would.)
***
William does behave himself, mostly, but Gabe gets into fights, sometimes. Well. For values of sometimes that basically translate to every time an asshole picks on William. No one lays a finger on him and no one calls him names and few people dare to even come near him, but that doesn’t mean they can’t hit him where it hurts.
William never fights back, never says anything at all when they sneer at him and look down their nose and talk shit about him right to his face. It makes Gabe so angry he could punch something, has to punch something, and the something is invariably someone’s face, or someone’s neck, or someone’s crotch.
(It’s always worth it for the look on their faces, for the knowledge that they won’t try anything again for a while now, for the rush of satisfaction that always follows watching them limp away, clutching helplessly at the part of their body Gabe chose this time.
William doesn’t agree, but then he wouldn’t.)
***
“You have to stop getting in trouble for me,” William says, and Gabe rolls his eyes.
“Who says I’m getting in trouble for you? Maybe I just like starting fights with people.”
“Gabe.”
“William.”
William stares at the floor, at a piece of non-existent dirt on his prison-issue shoes. “I’m not worth it, okay? You don’t deserve this.”
“Will,” Gabe says, softly, trying to ignore the way he flinches, “William, neither do you.”
William’s answering smile doesn’t touch his eyes, and Gabe quashes the urge to wrap him into a hug and squeeze him tight. William tends to have that effect on him, he’s found.
(Gabe has been convicted of robbery and grievous bodily harm twice each; he shouldn’t be capable of warm, fuzzy feelings in the chasm in his chest.)
***
William never talks about his best friend, but he dreams about him, sometimes. He never talks about it, has never so much as mentioned the nightmares, but Gabe knows. The walls in this place are paper thin; he’s heard William mumbling and muttering and moaning in his sleep more times than he can remember. Sometimes he’s begging for forgiveness, other times he’s screaming for recompense.
Wasn’t my fault, Gabe catches, sometimes, a strand of coherence twisted around the babbled nonsense. Sorry, sorry, so fucking sorry.
Sometimes it sounds like he’s talking to someone else, something else. Gabe isn’t sure whether to call it God or Satan or something else entirely, but he knows it scares him nearly as much as it scares William, cold and sweaty and shivering in his sheets.
Gabe tells himself every night he’s kept awake by William’s tortured, sleep-hazy ramblings that he’ll say something to him about them when the morning comes, but he never does.
***
The devil made him do it, William says. Quietly and with unwavering conviction, he says, the devil, it was the devil, it wasn’t me.
He doesn’t care that people don’t believe him, that they think he’s delusional or that he’s just finding someone else to blame. (He isn’t sure what’s worse, to be honest, when people look at him with pity or when they look at him with disgust.) Gabe believes him. Gabe trusts William implicitly, and that’s all that matters.
The devil made him do it too, he says, and that makes William’s lips twitch into what Gabe likes to think is a smile. His eyes are sad, though, little brown droplets of abject misery, and it makes Gabe sad, too. He thinks William would have a beautiful smile if he let it shine, thinks he would be beautiful behind the opaque mask he’s so used to wearing.
***
William killed his best friend, they say. Devil or no devil, he hacked a man to pieces for no reason anyone can discern. Some people don’t think he’s even human. Some people think he’s too human, that’s the problem.
They don’t dare go near him, though, even now. He’s still the man in Cell Block E who’s lost every last one of his shiny little marbles and he always, always will be.