#convict!simon

after three months of tending to the ill and injured within manchester prison, you consider yourself rather well-versed in the gruesome and unsettling nature of the place. it isn’t as bad as you originally thought it would be, no worse than your usual gig at the hospital, where you’d been victim to just as many catcalls and death threats. at least, here, there’s less grieving relatives and dying children. instead, it’s all gang violence and testosterone. it’s hard telling which is worse, but there’s something morbidly exciting about your job now. all the stab wounds, the broken bones, and, once, a finger bitten off at its second knuckle. you’ve yet to make it through a shift with your scrubs unsoiled, which is unnecessarily satisfying in itself.

this is a beast unlike any other, however. big in a way that intimidates, handsome face mangled by scars that are much more attractive than they should be, pale skin covered in faded ink depicting tragedies, his blond hair buzzed close to his skull. they roll him in, strapped down to a stretcher, in the dead of night, his white tank top soaked with blood and his nose bent at an awkward angle, breathing heavily, mad at the world, but somehow still conscious.

“simon riley,” one of the correctional officers, graves, tells you, bored, hardly concerned with the fate of this inmate. “stab wound to the left shoulder, probable concussion.”

he’s lucky, all things considered. the wound’s shallow, superficial, it’ll heal fairly quickly so long as he doesn’t strain it, and his concussion’s manageable. he won’t be bleeding out anytime soon, and there’s not any real risk of permanent brain damage, which is more than you can say for a lot of the sorry souls who come through the infirmary on the daily.

he’s unnervingly quiet while you work, watching you with eyes akin to a vulture’s. starving. vengeful. diseased. he’s not outright hostile, not stupid enough to bite the hand that feeds him—rather, the one which keeps him breathing through the night—but he unnerves you like few have managed to.

“you should leave him here for observation, at least for a couple days. if that concussion gets any worse, or that wound gets infected… well, you know.”

“your call. keep him strapped down, and if he tries anything, call us.”

to your relief, he doesn’t. he sits silently, stews in whatever misery he grapples with, watching you flit about the infirmary like a snake that’s spotted a rabbit in the tall grass. it’s only when he nods off, two hours into his stay, that you’re forced to face the man properly.

he jerks violently when you rouse him, teeth bared and eyes wild for a moment too long as he flounders in the wake of whatever tormented his subconscious, snarling at you like it’s all your fault. you’ve seen an awful lot of men in similar states, but something about this one made your hackles raise. you’re not wholly convinced those restraints could stop him if he decided to act.

“easy,” you soothe, with all the professionalism you can muster. these inmates, to you, can’t be whatever they are to the rest of the world. to you, they’re just patients. people who need your help. the second you start looking at them as anything else—as criminals, threats—is when things take a turn for the worst. that’s how people die. he may be big and objectively terrifying, but it’s up to you to look beyond that. “you have a concussion, you need to stay awake,”

you coax him into drinking lukewarm water from the mug you cradle, diligently wiping away what dribbles down his chin, and try to ignore how that vein in his neck throbs. you’re surprised when he speaks up, not having expected it. some of these men like to talk, sure, they’ll go on and on for as long as you them, if only because there’s no one else who will listen, but simon riley doesn’t exactly strike you as much of a conversationalist.

“what’re you doin’ here?”

“it’s my job, mister riley,”

“yeah, i gathered,” he scoffs, like you must be stupid. “why? this ain’t no place for someone like you.”

you want to point out that he has no clue what sort’ve person you are or where you belong, but you don’t, because he’s right. so you simply smile in return, wry and insincere as if the mere sight of him does not scare you witless. “someone’s gotta do the shit jobs no one wants to.”

his lip twitches, almost like he wants to smile, and it instills a bravery in you that was not present a moment ago. “why are you here, then?”

“i thought you weren’t supposed to ask questions.”

“the criminal’s gonna lecture me on what i should and shouldn’t do?”

this time, he does smile, as if amused by your gall. you consider it the closest thing to a victory you’ll, and let your query go unanswered. “is there anything else i can do for you?”

“got a smoke?”

“m’afraid not.”

“that’ll do, then. run along, bird.”

he survives the night, probably to someone out there’s chagrin, and it is left up to the day shift to unsure he keeps breathing until you return at nightfall. your earlier question, however, is answered while you give your replacement, liam, your report.

“you got stuck with simon fuckin’ riley?”

“yeah, so, what about it? you know him?”

“that’s the fucker who killed his brother a couple years back, nephew and sister in law, too. it was brutal.”

you can vaguely recall the news reports. you were still new to the city then, but the story stuck out. you remember wondering how anybody could do such a thing, especially to their own kin, to a child. you can’t help but think of the blond man with the uncanny glare. he frightened you, to be sure, but something about it doesn’t feel right to you. while you could believe him a murderer, fratricide seems extreme. but what do you know?

“it doesn’t matter what he did. treat him like you would any patient.”

you make your final rounds before heading home for the day, finding yourself at simon riley’s bedside once again. his stare’s no less intent, but it’s shifted some, more curious than hostile. the bruising is worse than it was when he came in, making him seem rather haggard, but it isn’t cause for any real concern. at least, here, he won’t be jumped by his fellow inmates again.

“you’re leaving?” again, he surprises you, seeming near disappointed by your departure. it’s not like you’ve given him much reason to be so fond of you. all you did was your job.

“even nurses have to sleep sometime, contrary to popular belief.” you retort, trying not to look at him too hard, not to think of the story you heard all those years ago. “i’ll be back later, for the graveyard shift. try not to terrorize my staff while i’m gone, aye?”

he softens imperfectly, baring his nicotine-stained teeth in a grin that sends a shiver down your spine. “no promises. sleep well, bird.”

simon doesn’t remember much of that night. he can’t remember the sounds of joseph’s wails as his uncle stabbed his daddy thirty-seven times in the belly, or the sound of the toddler’s dainty neck snapping when his screams started to too-closely resemble sirens, nor can he recall what it felt like to crush beth’s skull in between his bare hands. all he remembers was being very, very afraid, convinced that he was in danger, that roba had found him and his family and had come back to finish the job.

the judge called it a psychotic breakdown, an unfortunate side effect of what he went through in captivity. they sentenced simon to twenty years, fifteen if he behaved himself, and that was that—an irreversible tragedy that would likely be forgotten by the next time he saw sun. he wasn’t the first soldier who shouldn’t have come back, and he will not be the last.

that’s what war does to a man. it changes him, it chews him up and it spits him out anew, mangled, unrecognizable from who he once was.

simon often wishes it would’ve swallowed him whole. if it had, tommy would still be here. beth, too. joseph would’ve lived to see his seventh birthday. he spends most of his time nowadays loathing manuel roba for not finishing him off when he had the chance.

in prison, there’s nothing to do but think, to remember, to regret what happened, what he did. that, he imagines, is the whole point. it forces him to face the man in the mirror, as loathsome as he might be. every time he dares to look, he sees less and less of simon riley and more of the ghost.

five years, he’s been here, with nothing but his own thoughts to keep him company, and the rats in the walls. there’s no one to visit him, no one inside willing to call him a friend, not that he wants to be, nobody to drown out the voices.

until you.

this anxious, wily little creature, laughing with him even when all your most primal instincts tell you to run, to get far, far away from him, like he might snap you in two. he could, if he wanted to. luckily for you, he doesn’t.

you’re the first person in five years to address him as a human being, to hold a genuine conversation with him not because you have to, but because you’re decent enough to look upon a murderer and take pity.

he’s surprised you’ve lasted so long in this place. you’re either terribly fortunate, or incredibly resilient. he hasn’t decided which yet.

during the week he spends in the infirmary, you tend to him patiently, loyally, humming under your breath while you work, and never daring to broach the subject of what landed him here. but he’s sure that you know. someone must have warned you by now. still, you do your duty with such diligence he can’t help but admire it. he remembers what it felt like to be so devout.

you’re still skittish, scarcely looking him in the eye, avoiding his teeth and hands at all costs. it excites him, almost. people don’t fear him in this place. they look down on him, they sneer at him, but they are not afraid of him like they should be. every time your breath hitches when he grins, it sends a thrill up his spine.

when it comes time to return to his cell, he’s rather disappointed. he’s alone again, pacing the floor like a rat in a cage, thinking of tommy, of beth and joseph, of you. he lasts two weeks before he decides that he can’t take it anymore.

this time, he’s ready for them when they come. the same fuckers who tried to take him out last time, the ones who led him to you. when the shadows reach for him, he lets them, lets them pound his face into an unforgiving ground, lets them crack his ribs and beat him bloody. just enough that he’ll be sent back, that you’ll have no choice but to smile at him and coddle him like you did the first time. he won’t let them kill him, though he deserves it, but he’ll let them have the satisfaction of bludgeoning the biggest, baddest beast in the block and living to tell the tale.

his reward far outweighs theirs, anyways.

“back so soon, riley?”

he grins at the sight of your tired eyes and wry smile, the way you flit just out of his reach.