Hard Time 100
Page 3



Personal Business
The challenge: Write a drabble that continues a scene on the show. 
This is a continuation of the “How'd you like a blowjob” scene from “You Bet Your Life.”

“Think you can take what I got?”  Mondo looked him over casually as he unzipped his fly.  “Your girlfriend had some trouble, you know.  Guess she’s used to something smaller."

Something inside Chris snapped under the weight of that image— Toby, on his knees, gagging, sputtering semen.  His mouth formed a broad smile as he imagined his shank slicing into Mondo’s throat.  “I’ll manage.”

Mondo shifted restlessly on his feet, his cock hardening in his hand.  “Well?  What you waitin’ for?”

Chris dropped to his knees.  "Close your eyes, Mondo.  It'll be better for you if you close your eyes."


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Nightmare on Oz Street
The challenge: Write a drabble in which somone is having a dream.  (Warning: goofy.)

“C’mere, Toby... take your pants off.”

“No Chris, I have to finish!”  Toby continued the feverish task of sorting all the socks in Oz by size and color.  Whenever he developed a workable set of categories, the giant talking weasel from Unit B used a high-powered leafblower to destroy his work.  It was infuriating, but he needed to control his temper.  His parole hearing was coming up soon.

“Toby, let’s go!  Pants. Off.

“Goddammit, I can’t!”

The weasel was again cackling maniacally over the leafblower’s roar when Toby awoke to the buzzer sounding count.

Cafeteria tacos, he thought.  Never again.


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Necessary but Not Sufficient
The challenge: Write a drabble in which someone is confessing something.


The eyes looking back at him were kind and intelligent, reflecting the mind of probably the only living person who could truly understand what he'd been through and what he was about to say.

I'm a murderer. I killed a man with my bare hands, ordered the killing of another. I've done terrible things... and I'm sorry.

His confessor's expression showed everything he wanted to see. Sadness, yes, but also real understanding— of mitigating circumstances, of his true nature. Clinging to a tenuous feeling of absolution, he turned from the mirror and climbed into bed, praying for a dreamless sleep.


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Wide Open
The challenge:  Write a drabble that involves the Golden Rule.

"Ever hear of the Golden Rule, Nate?"

"The wha...?" Shemin arched his back, thrusting hard into Chris's fist.

"You know, 'Do unto others as they've done unto you.'"

"I—" He gasped against Chris's neck as the warm grip around his cock tightened. "I don't think that's how it goes."

"Whaddya mean?"

"I don't... oh fuck... I don't think that's the Golden Rule."

"No? Funny, that's how I remember it." Chris pressed his thigh up against Shemin's crotch, bringing the shank in his boot within reach. "So tell me: how did it feel when you sliced my guts wide open?"


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Trick of the Light
The challenge:  Write a drabble that involves darkness and/or light.

“Hey, Beecher?” Andy’s voice had a puppy-dog-like eagerness that filled Toby with warm satisfaction.

“Mmmhmm?”

“You guys really gonna teach me to wrestle?”

“If you want.”

There was a creaking of bedsprings, and Andy popped up beside him. “Yeah, it’s just... I’ve never been good at that kind of shit.”

Toby glanced at Andy’s half-lit face, all soft edges and baby fat and childlike need. Just a trick of the light, he thought, but not before that warm satisfaction had twisted into something cold.

“I felt the same way at first. But trust me— Keller’s the best teacher there is.”


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James Robson's Very Bad Night
The challenge:  "Write a drabble that looks at something from canon via the POV of a character you dislike, disagree with, or just plain love to hate. Preferably, make it a character you've never written before."  This one takes place during the season 2 episode "The Tip."

Falling asleep in Unit B was never easy, but before the goddamn riot it was at least fucking possible.

It took the hacks and their nightsticks three tries before they finally got that nigger Wangler to stop whimpering about tits, and now it's Vern's old prag keeping me awake, making noise in the bottom bunk. Mumbling fucking gibberish, squeaking his goddamn bedsprings... Fuck, the pussy even breathes too loud. Guess he must be one sweet piece of ass for Vern to put up with that sleeping under him every fucking night.

Only one way to find out for sure, right?


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Red in Tooth and Claw
The challenge:  Describe Chris's or Toby's hands doing something.

With the first swipe, his smoldering fear was shoved aside by something that pumped power through his veins, made his arms feel ten times stronger, turned his hands into organic weapons that hardly seemed like they could be part of him. As fingertips like razors sliced red ribbons through white skin, he admired the efficiency of being born with knives he could grow and dispose of at will, a natural survival strategy.

When the danger had passed, he stared at the body on the floor. “Survival,” he whispered as he turned and staggered away. “That’s what this is. That’s all.”



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Within Reach
The challenge:  Write a drabble that involves jealousy.

If he presses his own hand against the curve of his neck, he can fall asleep imagining it's Toby's hand, touching him when they kissed. He wakes up believing he's been held and warmed by Toby's hands— opened up, turned inside out, touched in places no one else can reach.

But it's just a dream. Those hands are far away— reading, praying, doing other shit that's got nothing to do with him.

Chris knows who's to blame. He also knows what he needs to do about it.

The next thing he imagines is Said, finally silent, inside a body bag.




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Insignificant
The challenge:  Write a drabble that involves scars.  This ties in with another story of mine, "What to Believe."

In the flush of postorgasmic euphoria, I’d sometimes get a stupid, romantic urge to learn everything about him.

"What’s this from?" I asked once, touching the faint crescent-shaped scar beneath his ear. I pressed my lips to it, wanting to erase all his past pain.

His body hardened, muscle by muscle, gradually but completely. “Nosy fucker, aren’t you?” he said. After that, he wouldn’t say another word.

His anger evaporated my lingering endorphin giddiness. That’s the last time I ask him anything, I thought, for maybe the hundredth time.

But what unspeakable thing could have left such a tiny mark?



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