Then Michael Happened
Title: Then Michael Happened
Authors: domfangirl and miss_vacant
Starring: Lincoln and Sara with cameos by Katie, Michael and LJ and various prison guards.
Category: One-shot
Rating: NC-17 (for teh_sex and a little bit of language)
Summary: An alternate universe where Linc and Sara had a thing (and yes, that’s what I mean by thing) in Fox River.
Author’s Notes: This piece disregards the canon fact that Sara didn’t know at first that Scofield and Burrows were brothers. Tanya and Candy wrote this on a whim (and in haste over the last couple of days-it was part of a fun writing exercise at miss_vacant’s journal). The American did the first and last parts, whilest the Brit did the meaty middle, but it turned out so surprisingly [good] that Candy thought she ought to post it where people might see it (and also speak about herself in the third person). She encourages even the die-hard shippers to give this a shot. Not the die-hards who think Sara was a virgin before she met Michael, but the shippers who honestly think they couldn’t stomach Linc and Sara. I think if you read this, you might be pleasantly surprised. *g* *pimpz for realz*
The first time he touched her inappropriately, it was an accident. Or at least, she likes to think it was an accident. A happy accident, one might call it.
It happened because the stethoscope around her neck started to slide, the heavy scope part following gravity as she leaned back to grab his chart. He noticed it falling and his hand automatically reached out to grab it.
It just happened to be right over her left breast, and his hand was big, and before either of them could explain it, her nipple had hardened under his thumb, beneath her lab coat, her thin summer shirt and her non-existent bra. She’d gotten up late that morning and had actually forgotten to put one on in her rush to get out the door on time.
That was probably the biggest factor in both their reactions-her nipple didn’t have as much protection as it normally would have and he became instantly aware that she didn’t have a bra on. Most straight men would have found that somewhat arousing, but one who’d been in prison for two and a half years found probably found it particularly erotic, so much so that the sudden bulge in his pants wasn’t exactly discreet.
She’d called for the guard immediately and he’d mumbled an apology as he got to his feet, adjusting his jeans as nonchalantly as possible.
The second time he touched her inappropriately-just four days after the first time-she’d had him brought to the infirmary for a fairly insignificant reason. In fact, when he asked her why he was there, she couldn’t even remember what she’d told Katie for the order form she’d had to fill out to get him into the hospital wing.
His eyes had dropped from her face to her breasts, and she knew he knew she wasn’t wearing a bra again. Only this time it was on purpose, and she hoped he noticed that her nipples were hard without him even touching her. She’d opened the movable curtain so that the windows were blocked just right and his hand moved inside her lab coat this time, cupping her breast expertly and strumming her nipple with his forefinger and thumb before rolling it gently between them. She gasped a little and reached out to steady herself, but his other arm caught her hand in mid-stretch and drew her just a little closer as he eased himself off the examining table.
His head dipped and his lips rubbed at her ear. He breathed the words, “Touch me,” so quietly, she wasn’t even entirely sure he’d said them aloud. If anything, their mutual desire made his wish her command anyway, and her fingers quickly unzipped his jeans. The weight of his shaft in her palm was exhilarating, but it was his low growl and the sudden exposure of her breasts as he shoved her shirt up that caused her to moan in the back of her throat.
“If we get caught…” the words literally ground out from between his clenched teeth and Sara nodded, because that more than anything made her wet for him. Everything about it was wrong, he was going to be dead in a few short months, she knew hardly anything about him beyond his name-Lincoln Burrows, and if she was discovered doing something of this nature, she would be fired as well as banned from the D.O.C. any where in the State of Illinois.
With his lips around one of her nipples and her hand sliding quickly up and down his cock, she rapidly forgot, as did he, any of those concerns, and when he came all over her lab coat a few moments later, she didn’t care that they wouldn’t have time to see to her. His groan of fulfillment would be enough to send her into oblivion that evening in her bathtub.
“Next time, wear a skirt,” he breathed against her ear as he zipped up his pants. He walked around the screened curtain and tapped on the door, calling the guard back to take him to his cell.
*
The next day he was brought to the infirmary, his face dark with bruises and a thick ribbon of blood running from the corner of his left eyebrow down his cheek. He’d gotten into a fight and while he didn’t say so, she knew that he’d done it just to see her again and she couldn’t decide whether that was insanely romantic, or just insane.
Shielded by the thin curtain she wished was a brick wall instead, she waited for him to do something, the tips of her fingers lingering on his face as she tended to the cut. Even through the surgical gloves she could feel the heat of his skin seeping through the latex and it made her bones ache, her heart ready to give way at any moment as she waited for him to continue what had happened the day before.
But he didn’t do or say anything; he didn’t even smile back when she forced him to make eye contact. And just when she thought that what had happened was a brief moment of madness-temporary insanity-never to be repeated again, his hand slipped under the skirt she had dutifully worn for him.
She gasped and had to grab his shoulders with her hands, steadying herself as his fingers slid under the elastic of her underwear. Pressing her lips together, she closed her eyes and swallowed a moan, cursing her body for betraying her so quickly and for letting him know how much she wanted this, how long it had been since someone had touched her there.
His skin was rough and it caught against her inner thighs, sending tiny electric shocks sparking down her legs and forcing her toes to curl in her shoes as the soft sound of cotton brushing against his knuckles whispered throughout the room.
He leaned forward, his mouth grazing the nape of her neck and leaving a trail of hot, sticky kisses. Then she was coming, bracing herself for the orgasm that she could feel clawing up her chest. His name weighed heavy on her tongue and she held onto it, too scared to let it go, trying desperately to maintain her composure and not grind against him as her hips began to buck.
But it was futile because when she did come, there was no way she could have stopped the desperate moan that broke past her lips or the way her hands came up to clasp his head possessively as she dissolved all over his fingers.
*
The logistics of having sex with an inmate were impossible, for good reason. And while they had been content with their hasty altercations in the infirmary every few weeks, they were beginning to lose their patience as each one built in potency until she was dangerously close to just letting him fuck her over her desk.
But if it was frustrating for her, it must have been excruciating for him. She could see it in his eyes every time he reached out to touch her, every time her fingers strayed where they shouldn’t, making him pant like he was going to pass out. And she wondered if she was the one being taken advantage of here; it certainly didn’t feel that way when he let out a helpless whimper as she began to undo his pants.
But she just couldn’t stop herself because she hadn’t felt like this in months. It was as if she was languishing in some sort of purgatory between the Sara she was and the Sara she wanted to be, content to go to meetings and stay in every night, too terrified to find out what life sober was like.
And maybe he was the impetus she needed-the shove-to find out. To remember what it felt like to be that spontaneous-that free-again. What it was like not to question everything she did before she even did it.
To trust herself again.
But maybe she shouldn’t because it was reckless and dangerous and so stupid, it made her question whether the morphine had burnt her common sense clean away, and every time she sunk to her knees to take him into her mouth, she teetered on the edge of losing everything. But when he returned the favor and his tongue drew another orgasm from her, she would have gladly thrown it away.
*
“Burrows is in the SHU,” Katie announced one afternoon, pulling Sara’s attention away from the pile of paperwork she had been using to distract herself from counting the days since she’d last seen him.
Seventeen. “Is he okay?”
”He broke Bellick’s nose.”
”Oh, my God!” she gasped, feigning shock as she tried to swallow a laugh.
”Apparently Bellick beat him pretty bad for it so you should check on him.”
”Is he okay?” she asked again, worry plucking at her nerves.
”It was Bellick,” Katie winked. “He can’t have done that much damage.”
*
Her fingers tightened around her medical bag as Mac opened the door to Lincoln’s cell, thanking him quietly as she stepped in. When the door closed, her heart leapt into her mouth as she stood in the pitch-black and it felt like far too long before the light was flicked on and the airtight box was flooded with light.
He was sitting on the narrow bunk with his back against the wall and a wicked smile playing with the corners of his mouth.
”Are you okay?” she asked, making a mental note of the new cuts and bruises on his face and hands.
”Come here,” he said, undoing his dark blue prison-issue pants.
She didn’t question him-didn’t even think-just dropped the bag and within two steps she was straddling him, his hands yanking up her skirt and tugging her underwear away from her body. “How long have we got until they check on us?” he whispered, impatiently unbuttoning her shirt and pushing it over her shoulders.
”Ten, maybe fifteen minutes,” she managed, her breath running away from her as he unhooked her bra, his hands coming around to move the black lace out of the way as his mouth claimed her left nipple. “Oh, Lincoln,” she groaned.
”Sssh,” he warned, his mouth moving to hers and swallowing her cry as he slid inside her with a single, brutal thrust.
It was the first time they had really kissed and it was hungry and delicious all at once, and she kissed him like it was the last time they would ever do this-maybe it was-and he held her like he knew it was.
It was somewhere between making love and fucking; it was far too frantic to be the former and she was too familiar with the taste of him for it to be the latter. Either way, she loved it, his mouth muffling her moans as the cheap blanket scratched her knees and the bunk threatened to collapse beneath them, the ping of rusty springs and hiss of skin on skin so loud she was sure Mac could hear it.
She didn’t dare make a sound, biting back the orgasm that began to rip through her and panting feebly against his mouth. But in her head she was screaming like a ten-dollar whore, Oh God, fuck me, Lincoln. Fuck me.
When he unraveled inside her with an unrepentant grunt, she came too, her nails scratching at the dirty concrete on either side of his head. Her shirt stuck to her back as her lungs grabbed at the stale air around them, their lips still pressing together. He didn’t apologize for being so rough and he didn’t tell her that he loved her, and she was glad, because she didn’t need either.
But he did hold her for a moment longer than such an illicit encounter allowed, and she let him, risking one last kiss before they heard the key turning in the lock and they had to spring apart, unsure when this would happen again but certain that it would be worth the wait.
*
Sara didn’t really know what she was expecting to happen that would end the deliciousness of their stolen moments; all she knew was that she expected it to happen long before his actual execution. Because after all, the bad choices and stupidity she constantly engaged in couldn’t go on, couldn’t end in the snuffed out life of a man who undoubtedly deserved to be there. She had to get out before then, because she couldn’t be the fourth person in the room the day they electrocuted him thinking about how he’d come in her mouth too many times to count or that when he tried to hold the sounds of his pleasure in he only seemed to kiss her more deeply.
It had been going on for more than four months, and Sara had to tell herself that he had replaced morphine in her life, because there was no other acceptable explanation. She couldn’t actually care for him. He couldn’t possibly give a rat’s ass about her, other than that she’d never said no to him, even though he’d never really asked for whatever happened between them every time they were alone together, or even had the illusion of privacy through a translucent curtain.
The morning Louis came to tell her Burrows was asking for her because his stomach hurt and he couldn’t even walk up to the infirmary from his cell on death row, she felt gut-wrenching fear. It was ridiculous-even if he had something seriously wrong with him, it didn’t change the fact that he would die in less than three months anyway. The irony of his perfect health never failed to prick at her conscience in some inexplicable way.
His cell, with white washed walls and sunshine pouring in from the high-positioned window, seemed almost cheery until she looked at his face. He sat in the corner of the room, on the floor as opposed to the bed that was just a few feet away from him. After the door shut behind her, she rushed forward, dropping her bag on the floor as she knelt next to him on the uncomfortable concrete. “What’s wrong?” she asked, lifting her hands to his neck to press her fingers against the glands there to see if anything was swollen.
His eyes flicked over to the door, as if making sure it was shut, and then his head dropped. He looked down between them, and for a moment, Sara thought it was business as usual and that he was trying to draw her attention to his lap. “Something happened yesterday,” he said lowly.
“What?” she asked. “Tell me what’s wrong,” she encouraged when he didn’t respond immediately.
“My brother,” he said, and then as if he’d run out of air, he stopped. He swallowed, licked his lips, glanced up at the ceiling, but didn’t look at her, though she couldn’t have ripped her gaze from him if someone had paid her good money. His level of anguish seemed to rush at her, catching her in the web of misery too. “My little brother is here,” he said gruffly. “I saw him yesterday. Fuckin’ crazy asshole…” he continued to mutter insults about this brother but they became whispered words that Sara couldn’t really understand. Then suddenly his eyes connected with hers and his hands reached to grip her arms hard-not the desperate fingers of the man she had come to know so intimately over the course of their-whatever it was called-but instead the grasp of someone she’d never known, and couldn’t possibly have until this moment. “His name is Michael Scofield,” he said clearly. “And you have to make sure he’s all right in here. If you suspect anything-and I mean anything, you have to use your authority to put him in the SHU or Ad-Seg, or keep him in the infirmary. Whatever you do, you have to protect him.”
Sara found herself nodding rapidly, if for no other reason than so he’d loosen his death grip on her arms. “Okay, okay, Lincoln. I will, I’ll do whatever I can.”
She watched as a sort of relief washed over his face, as though he actually believed she had that much power, that much ability to keep a grown man from getting killed in prison. “He doesn’t belong here-whatever he did to get here, it’s not real. It’s not real,” he repeated, and Sara could’ve sworn she heard tears clog his throat.
For all the times she’d had him in a vulnerable position, for all the times she’d lightly raked her teeth over the most sensitive portion of his anatomy, for all the times he’d given himself to her unflinchingly, she knew that here and now was the only time she had ever seen the real Lincoln Burrows.
She didn’t realize it then, but as she scooted forward on the hard floor to pull his head against her chest, her fingers gently running down the back of his neck in comfort, she offered him the last bit of intimate contact they would ever share. He wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her cleavage, but it was just the need for contact, for solace, that he sought. When Louis rapped on the door and asked if Sara was ready to come out of the cell, Lincoln caught her face in his palm and pulled her mouth to his for one last kiss. “Thank you,” he mouthed against her lips.
That afternoon Michael Scofield came into the infirmary for a glucose test, and she knew everything had changed, not just for Lincoln, but for herself as well.
*
It was a hazy, sunny day in Baja, Mexico when they sat on the front steps of a bungalow that they shared with his brother and his son, and Sara coveted the beer bottle dangling between Lincoln’s fingers, not because of Lincoln, but because she knew she’d crossed over. She would never really want a drink or a syringe ever again, not with Michael Scofield’s child growing in her womb.
“Do you think we should tell him?” she asked, breaking the comfortable silence between them.
Lincoln took another mouthful of beer before turning his head to look at her. His eyes dropped to her swollen belly and he shook his head. “It was another life, Sara. I was a dead man, and you were a port in the storm. Neither of us could have ever guessed this.”
“You did,” she accused softly. “I think you always knew, that’s why you told me to take care of him.”
He smirked, an expression that gave away everything and nothing. “All I knew was you were the only person in that place that would give a shit. That was all I had to know to place my brother in your hands.”
Sara rubbed her belly unconsciously. She wasn’t sure she believed him, but Lincoln was very good at hiding his emotions, and after everything they’d been through, she knew it would serve no purpose to enlighten Michael as to their previous relationship. But she wanted him to say it. “I did give a shit,” she murmured, bringing her eyes back to his to give him her full meaning, even though she’d used his words.
He paused, his blue eyes sliding over her just for a moment, lost in any of a thousand memories between them. “So did I,” he said as he brought the beer bottle back to his lips. “But then Michael happened.”
Sara nodded. “Then Michael happened.” That was all that needed to be said, really. It was a truth that only the two of them could understand fully.
“Hey, are you guys coming in for dinner or what?”
Sara turned, looking over her shoulder at the young man who stood in the doorway of the bungalow. “Is it ready?” she asked.
“Yep. Uncle Mike said to get your asses in here.”
Lincoln looked back at his son, then exchanged a conspiratorial glance with Sara before saying, “He said what?”
“Okay, that was me,” LJ said with a laugh. “I’m hungry! Get in here!” He disappeared back inside, but Sara knew he wouldn’t be allowed to touch anything until everyone was present for the meal. Michael had strict rules when he made dinner.
Lincoln set his beer bottle aside, stood up and stretched his hands out towards Sara. She reached up, and he pulled her to her feet. With only a few inches of warm Mexican air between them, she wondered how easily she might fall into old habits if given the right opportunity. Her now brother-in-law smiled widely and she suddenly knew that who they had been together had been eradicated, not by Michael, but by the events that Michael had set into motion.
“After you,” Lincoln deferred, sweeping his arm out in front of him. She walked into the house, and into the knowledge of what Michael’s love-and Lincoln’s love in return-had done.
Authors: domfangirl and miss_vacant
Starring: Lincoln and Sara with cameos by Katie, Michael and LJ and various prison guards.
Category: One-shot
Rating: NC-17 (for teh_sex and a little bit of language)
Summary: An alternate universe where Linc and Sara had a thing (and yes, that’s what I mean by thing) in Fox River.
Author’s Notes: This piece disregards the canon fact that Sara didn’t know at first that Scofield and Burrows were brothers. Tanya and Candy wrote this on a whim (and in haste over the last couple of days-it was part of a fun writing exercise at miss_vacant’s journal). The American did the first and last parts, whilest the Brit did the meaty middle, but it turned out so surprisingly [good] that Candy thought she ought to post it where people might see it (and also speak about herself in the third person). She encourages even the die-hard shippers to give this a shot. Not the die-hards who think Sara was a virgin before she met Michael, but the shippers who honestly think they couldn’t stomach Linc and Sara. I think if you read this, you might be pleasantly surprised. *g* *pimpz for realz*
The first time he touched her inappropriately, it was an accident. Or at least, she likes to think it was an accident. A happy accident, one might call it.
It happened because the stethoscope around her neck started to slide, the heavy scope part following gravity as she leaned back to grab his chart. He noticed it falling and his hand automatically reached out to grab it.
It just happened to be right over her left breast, and his hand was big, and before either of them could explain it, her nipple had hardened under his thumb, beneath her lab coat, her thin summer shirt and her non-existent bra. She’d gotten up late that morning and had actually forgotten to put one on in her rush to get out the door on time.
That was probably the biggest factor in both their reactions-her nipple didn’t have as much protection as it normally would have and he became instantly aware that she didn’t have a bra on. Most straight men would have found that somewhat arousing, but one who’d been in prison for two and a half years found probably found it particularly erotic, so much so that the sudden bulge in his pants wasn’t exactly discreet.
She’d called for the guard immediately and he’d mumbled an apology as he got to his feet, adjusting his jeans as nonchalantly as possible.
The second time he touched her inappropriately-just four days after the first time-she’d had him brought to the infirmary for a fairly insignificant reason. In fact, when he asked her why he was there, she couldn’t even remember what she’d told Katie for the order form she’d had to fill out to get him into the hospital wing.
His eyes had dropped from her face to her breasts, and she knew he knew she wasn’t wearing a bra again. Only this time it was on purpose, and she hoped he noticed that her nipples were hard without him even touching her. She’d opened the movable curtain so that the windows were blocked just right and his hand moved inside her lab coat this time, cupping her breast expertly and strumming her nipple with his forefinger and thumb before rolling it gently between them. She gasped a little and reached out to steady herself, but his other arm caught her hand in mid-stretch and drew her just a little closer as he eased himself off the examining table.
His head dipped and his lips rubbed at her ear. He breathed the words, “Touch me,” so quietly, she wasn’t even entirely sure he’d said them aloud. If anything, their mutual desire made his wish her command anyway, and her fingers quickly unzipped his jeans. The weight of his shaft in her palm was exhilarating, but it was his low growl and the sudden exposure of her breasts as he shoved her shirt up that caused her to moan in the back of her throat.
“If we get caught…” the words literally ground out from between his clenched teeth and Sara nodded, because that more than anything made her wet for him. Everything about it was wrong, he was going to be dead in a few short months, she knew hardly anything about him beyond his name-Lincoln Burrows, and if she was discovered doing something of this nature, she would be fired as well as banned from the D.O.C. any where in the State of Illinois.
With his lips around one of her nipples and her hand sliding quickly up and down his cock, she rapidly forgot, as did he, any of those concerns, and when he came all over her lab coat a few moments later, she didn’t care that they wouldn’t have time to see to her. His groan of fulfillment would be enough to send her into oblivion that evening in her bathtub.
“Next time, wear a skirt,” he breathed against her ear as he zipped up his pants. He walked around the screened curtain and tapped on the door, calling the guard back to take him to his cell.
*
The next day he was brought to the infirmary, his face dark with bruises and a thick ribbon of blood running from the corner of his left eyebrow down his cheek. He’d gotten into a fight and while he didn’t say so, she knew that he’d done it just to see her again and she couldn’t decide whether that was insanely romantic, or just insane.
Shielded by the thin curtain she wished was a brick wall instead, she waited for him to do something, the tips of her fingers lingering on his face as she tended to the cut. Even through the surgical gloves she could feel the heat of his skin seeping through the latex and it made her bones ache, her heart ready to give way at any moment as she waited for him to continue what had happened the day before.
But he didn’t do or say anything; he didn’t even smile back when she forced him to make eye contact. And just when she thought that what had happened was a brief moment of madness-temporary insanity-never to be repeated again, his hand slipped under the skirt she had dutifully worn for him.
She gasped and had to grab his shoulders with her hands, steadying herself as his fingers slid under the elastic of her underwear. Pressing her lips together, she closed her eyes and swallowed a moan, cursing her body for betraying her so quickly and for letting him know how much she wanted this, how long it had been since someone had touched her there.
His skin was rough and it caught against her inner thighs, sending tiny electric shocks sparking down her legs and forcing her toes to curl in her shoes as the soft sound of cotton brushing against his knuckles whispered throughout the room.
He leaned forward, his mouth grazing the nape of her neck and leaving a trail of hot, sticky kisses. Then she was coming, bracing herself for the orgasm that she could feel clawing up her chest. His name weighed heavy on her tongue and she held onto it, too scared to let it go, trying desperately to maintain her composure and not grind against him as her hips began to buck.
But it was futile because when she did come, there was no way she could have stopped the desperate moan that broke past her lips or the way her hands came up to clasp his head possessively as she dissolved all over his fingers.
*
The logistics of having sex with an inmate were impossible, for good reason. And while they had been content with their hasty altercations in the infirmary every few weeks, they were beginning to lose their patience as each one built in potency until she was dangerously close to just letting him fuck her over her desk.
But if it was frustrating for her, it must have been excruciating for him. She could see it in his eyes every time he reached out to touch her, every time her fingers strayed where they shouldn’t, making him pant like he was going to pass out. And she wondered if she was the one being taken advantage of here; it certainly didn’t feel that way when he let out a helpless whimper as she began to undo his pants.
But she just couldn’t stop herself because she hadn’t felt like this in months. It was as if she was languishing in some sort of purgatory between the Sara she was and the Sara she wanted to be, content to go to meetings and stay in every night, too terrified to find out what life sober was like.
And maybe he was the impetus she needed-the shove-to find out. To remember what it felt like to be that spontaneous-that free-again. What it was like not to question everything she did before she even did it.
To trust herself again.
But maybe she shouldn’t because it was reckless and dangerous and so stupid, it made her question whether the morphine had burnt her common sense clean away, and every time she sunk to her knees to take him into her mouth, she teetered on the edge of losing everything. But when he returned the favor and his tongue drew another orgasm from her, she would have gladly thrown it away.
*
“Burrows is in the SHU,” Katie announced one afternoon, pulling Sara’s attention away from the pile of paperwork she had been using to distract herself from counting the days since she’d last seen him.
Seventeen. “Is he okay?”
”He broke Bellick’s nose.”
”Oh, my God!” she gasped, feigning shock as she tried to swallow a laugh.
”Apparently Bellick beat him pretty bad for it so you should check on him.”
”Is he okay?” she asked again, worry plucking at her nerves.
”It was Bellick,” Katie winked. “He can’t have done that much damage.”
*
Her fingers tightened around her medical bag as Mac opened the door to Lincoln’s cell, thanking him quietly as she stepped in. When the door closed, her heart leapt into her mouth as she stood in the pitch-black and it felt like far too long before the light was flicked on and the airtight box was flooded with light.
He was sitting on the narrow bunk with his back against the wall and a wicked smile playing with the corners of his mouth.
”Are you okay?” she asked, making a mental note of the new cuts and bruises on his face and hands.
”Come here,” he said, undoing his dark blue prison-issue pants.
She didn’t question him-didn’t even think-just dropped the bag and within two steps she was straddling him, his hands yanking up her skirt and tugging her underwear away from her body. “How long have we got until they check on us?” he whispered, impatiently unbuttoning her shirt and pushing it over her shoulders.
”Ten, maybe fifteen minutes,” she managed, her breath running away from her as he unhooked her bra, his hands coming around to move the black lace out of the way as his mouth claimed her left nipple. “Oh, Lincoln,” she groaned.
”Sssh,” he warned, his mouth moving to hers and swallowing her cry as he slid inside her with a single, brutal thrust.
It was the first time they had really kissed and it was hungry and delicious all at once, and she kissed him like it was the last time they would ever do this-maybe it was-and he held her like he knew it was.
It was somewhere between making love and fucking; it was far too frantic to be the former and she was too familiar with the taste of him for it to be the latter. Either way, she loved it, his mouth muffling her moans as the cheap blanket scratched her knees and the bunk threatened to collapse beneath them, the ping of rusty springs and hiss of skin on skin so loud she was sure Mac could hear it.
She didn’t dare make a sound, biting back the orgasm that began to rip through her and panting feebly against his mouth. But in her head she was screaming like a ten-dollar whore, Oh God, fuck me, Lincoln. Fuck me.
When he unraveled inside her with an unrepentant grunt, she came too, her nails scratching at the dirty concrete on either side of his head. Her shirt stuck to her back as her lungs grabbed at the stale air around them, their lips still pressing together. He didn’t apologize for being so rough and he didn’t tell her that he loved her, and she was glad, because she didn’t need either.
But he did hold her for a moment longer than such an illicit encounter allowed, and she let him, risking one last kiss before they heard the key turning in the lock and they had to spring apart, unsure when this would happen again but certain that it would be worth the wait.
*
Sara didn’t really know what she was expecting to happen that would end the deliciousness of their stolen moments; all she knew was that she expected it to happen long before his actual execution. Because after all, the bad choices and stupidity she constantly engaged in couldn’t go on, couldn’t end in the snuffed out life of a man who undoubtedly deserved to be there. She had to get out before then, because she couldn’t be the fourth person in the room the day they electrocuted him thinking about how he’d come in her mouth too many times to count or that when he tried to hold the sounds of his pleasure in he only seemed to kiss her more deeply.
It had been going on for more than four months, and Sara had to tell herself that he had replaced morphine in her life, because there was no other acceptable explanation. She couldn’t actually care for him. He couldn’t possibly give a rat’s ass about her, other than that she’d never said no to him, even though he’d never really asked for whatever happened between them every time they were alone together, or even had the illusion of privacy through a translucent curtain.
The morning Louis came to tell her Burrows was asking for her because his stomach hurt and he couldn’t even walk up to the infirmary from his cell on death row, she felt gut-wrenching fear. It was ridiculous-even if he had something seriously wrong with him, it didn’t change the fact that he would die in less than three months anyway. The irony of his perfect health never failed to prick at her conscience in some inexplicable way.
His cell, with white washed walls and sunshine pouring in from the high-positioned window, seemed almost cheery until she looked at his face. He sat in the corner of the room, on the floor as opposed to the bed that was just a few feet away from him. After the door shut behind her, she rushed forward, dropping her bag on the floor as she knelt next to him on the uncomfortable concrete. “What’s wrong?” she asked, lifting her hands to his neck to press her fingers against the glands there to see if anything was swollen.
His eyes flicked over to the door, as if making sure it was shut, and then his head dropped. He looked down between them, and for a moment, Sara thought it was business as usual and that he was trying to draw her attention to his lap. “Something happened yesterday,” he said lowly.
“What?” she asked. “Tell me what’s wrong,” she encouraged when he didn’t respond immediately.
“My brother,” he said, and then as if he’d run out of air, he stopped. He swallowed, licked his lips, glanced up at the ceiling, but didn’t look at her, though she couldn’t have ripped her gaze from him if someone had paid her good money. His level of anguish seemed to rush at her, catching her in the web of misery too. “My little brother is here,” he said gruffly. “I saw him yesterday. Fuckin’ crazy asshole…” he continued to mutter insults about this brother but they became whispered words that Sara couldn’t really understand. Then suddenly his eyes connected with hers and his hands reached to grip her arms hard-not the desperate fingers of the man she had come to know so intimately over the course of their-whatever it was called-but instead the grasp of someone she’d never known, and couldn’t possibly have until this moment. “His name is Michael Scofield,” he said clearly. “And you have to make sure he’s all right in here. If you suspect anything-and I mean anything, you have to use your authority to put him in the SHU or Ad-Seg, or keep him in the infirmary. Whatever you do, you have to protect him.”
Sara found herself nodding rapidly, if for no other reason than so he’d loosen his death grip on her arms. “Okay, okay, Lincoln. I will, I’ll do whatever I can.”
She watched as a sort of relief washed over his face, as though he actually believed she had that much power, that much ability to keep a grown man from getting killed in prison. “He doesn’t belong here-whatever he did to get here, it’s not real. It’s not real,” he repeated, and Sara could’ve sworn she heard tears clog his throat.
For all the times she’d had him in a vulnerable position, for all the times she’d lightly raked her teeth over the most sensitive portion of his anatomy, for all the times he’d given himself to her unflinchingly, she knew that here and now was the only time she had ever seen the real Lincoln Burrows.
She didn’t realize it then, but as she scooted forward on the hard floor to pull his head against her chest, her fingers gently running down the back of his neck in comfort, she offered him the last bit of intimate contact they would ever share. He wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her cleavage, but it was just the need for contact, for solace, that he sought. When Louis rapped on the door and asked if Sara was ready to come out of the cell, Lincoln caught her face in his palm and pulled her mouth to his for one last kiss. “Thank you,” he mouthed against her lips.
That afternoon Michael Scofield came into the infirmary for a glucose test, and she knew everything had changed, not just for Lincoln, but for herself as well.
*
It was a hazy, sunny day in Baja, Mexico when they sat on the front steps of a bungalow that they shared with his brother and his son, and Sara coveted the beer bottle dangling between Lincoln’s fingers, not because of Lincoln, but because she knew she’d crossed over. She would never really want a drink or a syringe ever again, not with Michael Scofield’s child growing in her womb.
“Do you think we should tell him?” she asked, breaking the comfortable silence between them.
Lincoln took another mouthful of beer before turning his head to look at her. His eyes dropped to her swollen belly and he shook his head. “It was another life, Sara. I was a dead man, and you were a port in the storm. Neither of us could have ever guessed this.”
“You did,” she accused softly. “I think you always knew, that’s why you told me to take care of him.”
He smirked, an expression that gave away everything and nothing. “All I knew was you were the only person in that place that would give a shit. That was all I had to know to place my brother in your hands.”
Sara rubbed her belly unconsciously. She wasn’t sure she believed him, but Lincoln was very good at hiding his emotions, and after everything they’d been through, she knew it would serve no purpose to enlighten Michael as to their previous relationship. But she wanted him to say it. “I did give a shit,” she murmured, bringing her eyes back to his to give him her full meaning, even though she’d used his words.
He paused, his blue eyes sliding over her just for a moment, lost in any of a thousand memories between them. “So did I,” he said as he brought the beer bottle back to his lips. “But then Michael happened.”
Sara nodded. “Then Michael happened.” That was all that needed to be said, really. It was a truth that only the two of them could understand fully.
“Hey, are you guys coming in for dinner or what?”
Sara turned, looking over her shoulder at the young man who stood in the doorway of the bungalow. “Is it ready?” she asked.
“Yep. Uncle Mike said to get your asses in here.”
Lincoln looked back at his son, then exchanged a conspiratorial glance with Sara before saying, “He said what?”
“Okay, that was me,” LJ said with a laugh. “I’m hungry! Get in here!” He disappeared back inside, but Sara knew he wouldn’t be allowed to touch anything until everyone was present for the meal. Michael had strict rules when he made dinner.
Lincoln set his beer bottle aside, stood up and stretched his hands out towards Sara. She reached up, and he pulled her to her feet. With only a few inches of warm Mexican air between them, she wondered how easily she might fall into old habits if given the right opportunity. Her now brother-in-law smiled widely and she suddenly knew that who they had been together had been eradicated, not by Michael, but by the events that Michael had set into motion.
“After you,” Lincoln deferred, sweeping his arm out in front of him. She walked into the house, and into the knowledge of what Michael’s love-and Lincoln’s love in return-had done.