"Straight to Hell" for pamalax
Title: Straight to Hell
Rating: R for language and non-graphic incest (except for one very brief scene)
Character/Pairing: Michael/Lincoln (one-sided)
Requested By: pamalax
Summary: There ain’t no need for ya/Go straight to hell, boys.
Author’s Notes: The lyric in the summary comes from the song “Straight to Hell” by The Clash.
pamalax, I hope you enjoy it, even though I couldn’t incorporate everything you asked for.
Thank you, circus_sands, for doing an awesome beta’ing job.
3399 words.
I.
They’re in a barn somewhere in Texas, hiding in the loft amidst hay and bird shit. The owners aren’t home, but Michael had insisted on staying in the barn, just to be safe.
Lincoln takes a step away from his place at the window to watch Michael. His brother is asleep on a dirty mattress, curled into the fetal position. The chaotic ink that networks his upper body is covered by a blanket Lincoln found in the tack room, because Michael’s body heat does weird things when he’s worried and Lincoln wants to make sure that he’s comfortable.
Michael’s sick, too.
By the second day after the escape, he’d caught a terrible cold that had him pausing every mile to clutch at Lincoln’s shoulder to cough and spit into the dirt. Must have been all that running in the bitter weather, Lincoln figures.
It’s evolved into a fever and something with Michael’s stomach-on the train down to Texas, Michael spent his time curled up on the floor, wincing every time the train bounced roughly on the tracks-so they took a chance to rest in a house that Abruzzi told them about.
“Friend of mine, he goes down there during the summer,” Abruzzi had said, consonants banging into each other on his awkward tongue. “He shouldn’t be down there ‘till the end of June, but I can make a call and make sure he doesn’t make a visit this year, if you want to stay.”
Michael doesn’t want to stay. Keep moving, he’s always saying. Keep moving. Don’t let the trail get hot. We have to stay secret, Lincoln.
Lincoln takes another step towards Michael and crouches on the ground, fingertips brushing against the hay-dusted floor.
“Don’t you worry,” Lincoln finds himself saying. He reaches out, craving the feel of Michael underneath his hand, but he stops himself before he’s halfway there. He bites his lip, digging the tooth into chapped skin.
This shit better not come back again.
“You’re going to feel better soon,” Lincoln continues. His fingers flex against his palm. “Don’t you worry.”
A.
Lincoln doesn’t know when it started. He’s glad. Knowing the exact date when he decided he wanted his brother would make him sicker.
He’s the big brother. The protector. Lincoln is the one who taught Michael how to ride a bike, the one who gave Michael a Band-Aid for the scrapes on his knees, the one who beat up anyone who looked at Michael the wrong way.
Lincoln has done everything for Michael, regardless of the cost. He’s always taken care of Michael, even when Mom was still alive, and there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for him.
(“I’d die for you,” Lincoln had said once. Fourteen-year-old Michael shook his head and said, “Don’t you dare.”)
But Lincoln knows it’s a colossal jump from making Michael dinner to this-this want.
This shreds Lincoln into pieces of useless junk, makes him exhausted from overthinking the situation. (Why’s he thinking so much? That’s Michael’s business.) But he can’t think about it anymore-he can’t try to think up ways that he could tell Michael about this, because it just won’t work.
Hey, Michael, I know we’re brothers, but have you ever thought about fucking?
Ha. No.
The thought of doing things to Michael makes Lincoln ill and gets him hard all at once. Every thought drags the guilt from Lincoln’s gut, binding it with the shame that’s been stewing for years (too many years). Lincoln keeps his fantasies locked away in the dark corners of his mind, allowing them to come out only in bursts of daunting arousal.
It’s a little weird to have to crouch by the toilet when he jerks off, but towards the end, he’s thinking of Michael (Michael, Michael, only Michael), and the word brother burns bright on the back of his eyelids; abruptly, even as his hand keeps moving, Lincoln remembers everything from Michael’s childhood in sudden sparks of recollection-bile rises in his throat, and maybe two-thirds of the time, Lincoln ends up gripping the toilet seat with come-slick fingers, emptying dinner or breakfast or whatever into the water.
Guilt tastes like vomit, Lincoln thinks, and spits in the toilet.
B.
The first time Lincoln really tries to think about it, he is twenty.
The playground is empty at night, save for the occasional group of teenagers, but tonight, it’s entirely bare, and Lincoln’s footsteps are too loud against the pavement.
He heads for the swings but stops before he’s halfway there, pivoting on his heel as he reaches into his pocket for a cigarette. (He only has a few more left, but he’s going to quit-Veronica’s making him-so he might as well smoke them all tonight.) Instead, Lincoln walks to one of the slides, taking a seat and leaning back, the cold metal soaking into his skin through the jacket he just bought. He kicks his feet at the dirt that surrounds most of the playground, heels digging into the ground.
Lincoln lights his cigarette and tries to think.
If Michael were here, he’d probably have some smartass comment to make-“You thinking, Linc?”-but Lincoln came here alone on purpose, because he can’t look at his brother anymore. He can’t, not without that thing twisting deep in his chest, wrenching up something that shouldn’t have been there in the first place.
Lincoln loves his brother too much.
He sees Michael-Jesus, the kid’s only sixteen-and doesn’t see Michael, the brother, the boy that Lincoln has raised since Mom died (Uncle Jared didn’t do shit, after all); no, Lincoln’s fucked up, because he sees Michael as-shit, he can’t even think of the words to describe it, because the idea of it makes his head spin.
Fuck.
He takes another drag and blows a smoke ring. (He practiced for hours, smoking cigarette after cigarette until he could finally do it, and Veronica said, “That’s great, Lincoln,” when he showed her, but Michael grinned and said something about Lincoln using his tongue that had Veronica whipping her head around to make sure she heard right.) It hovers awkwardly in the air-not so much a ring, but more of a gawky oval-until it melts into the sky.
Lincoln came out here to think about this, the thing that’s been bothering him for too long, but the idea also makes him feel queasy enough that he has to sit very still and squeeze his eyes shut.
He lights another cigarette with the butt of the other, tossing the spent one into the dirt. The nicotine is his comfort zone, something he can concentrate on, but in between inhales of smoke and the tobacco between his fingertips, there are flickers of Michael on his closed eyelids, and Lincoln doesn’t know what to think.
This disturbs him, but only certain parts.
Everyone’s had that one time when I was at summer camp-or, in Lincoln’s case, that one time when I was stoned with a friend and he started jerking me off-so that part doesn’t bother him as much as he thought it would.
(“Tell me-if you want me to stop this-but Jesus, you look so fuckin’ hot right now, I wish you could see yourself-here, here, take another hit-fuck, Lincoln-”)
But he doesn’t know about Michael, who has had one girlfriend and didn’t seem very interested in her. (“She’s not very smart.”) But Michael is all about the “new experiences” and all that shit, so maybe he wouldn’t mind. Just not with his brother, probably.
It’s the brother part that disturbs him (of course) because he’s known Michael since infancy-no, since the womb, because Lincoln remembers leaning against his mother’s swollen belly and feeling for Michael’s kick. He can’t ache for Michael’s touch and Michael’s looks and just plain Michael when he knows they share blood.
Lincoln exhales smoke, not bothering to try for a ring this time.
He knows that he can’t do anything, because even if-if Michael decided to ignore his morals, decided that this would be fine and dandy, and that’s a pretty big fucking if-if, if, if they were caught doing something (and, shit, there are so many somethings that run through Lincoln’s mind daily, he can’t decide on one) it would still be his fault. He’s the older one, the responsible one, even if Michael’s had to take care of him on more than one occasion.
It physically hurts, thinking about this. Thinking is Michael’s domain. Michael is the one that takes in every fucking detail and looks at every possibility. Lincoln takes one glance and says, “Fuck it,” because he doesn’t want to worry about the particulars. Really, it should be Michael that’s obsessing over this, not Lincoln. Lincoln should be rolling a joint or making some money or fucking Veronica. Something routine.
Lincoln sits up and drops the cigarette by his feet. His head feels abnormally heavy, and he doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
I am one fucked up person, Lincoln thinks, grinding the cigarette into the ground with his heel.
C.
Lincoln looks forward to P.I. every day. He’s allowed to leave his cell for a few hours a day, not to mention he gets to see Michael.
This one day, they’re working on the hole. They’re taking turns, and it’s Abruzzi’s shift now, so Lincoln stands by the wall and pretends to think about drywall.
Michael is standing across the room, monitoring Abruzzi’s progress. He balances a sledgehammer on a foot (the uninjured one) and speaks to Abruzzi. Lincoln watches, unable to hear the conversation, but he assumes it has something to do with planes and border patrol.
His mind travels to the eventual escape, and his fingertips itch just from thinking about being free (with Michael). He’ll be with his brother for the rest of his life, living in a hut on an island somewhere, safe and free.
They’ll be alone. Alone. Nobody has to know that they’re brothers; maybe that’ll make it easier for Michael, maybe it can work.
And then, from that thought, all Lincoln can focus on is the curve of Michael’s neck and the way he fingers the handle of the sledgehammer-
“Sink, pay attention.”
C-Note’s sharp voice snaps Lincoln back to attention. The other man is staring, raising his eyebrows perplexedly.
“Yeah,” says Lincoln, just to fill the silence. He drops his gaze from Michael’s neck and looks at C-Note.
“You all right?”
Lincoln repeats, “Yeah,” and scratches the back of his head.
C-Note moves closer, rubbing his stubble. He takes a look around the guards’ room, eyes flicking to and from the various other inmates, and then says, in a gentle whisper, “If you need a break, go ahead and take it, man. I know you’re probably having a nervous breakdown in your head right now and you’re tryin’ not to show it, so just go calm down, okay?”
“Okay,” Lincoln answers involuntarily. He offers a twisted smile to C-Note, who nods and turns to walk back to the hole, and walks past Sucre to the door.
Lincoln steps outside. A rush of wind raises the hair on the back of his neck, and he rubs the skin with a cracked, dry palm. The motion reminds him of Michael, and he swallows away another clench in his stomach, pushing his fingertips into the side of his neck.
“Why ain’t you workin’?”
Lincoln whirls around. The door is just closing behind T-Bag, who adjusts his hat and takes a step towards Lincoln. He’s carrying a clipboard underneath one arm.
“Needed a break,” Lincoln replies. His upper lip curls as T-Bag struts closer like a goddamn rooster, sliding his ever-present tongue along the top row of teeth. Fucking pervert. “You wanna leave me alone?”
“Not particularly,” says T-Bag, grinning. He places the clipboard on a stack of insulation and stretches one arm above his head, bending it at the elbow and tugging until there’s a popping noise. “Noticed some things ‘bout you today. Thought I might share ‘em.”
Lincoln really doesn’t want to deal with this now.
He turns his body slightly to look for guards (he’s learned not to turn his back on T-Bag), but Louis and Bellick are standing at the end of the road, talking with exaggerated hand gestures. Louis must be telling him about Pope’s secretary.
“See, I been observin’ the way you watch people,” T-Bag continues, dropping his arms and rubbing his fingers along the top of his wrist. Lincoln catches a glimpse of the tattoo. xoxoxo. It’s amusing, in a gruesome way. “Me-you watch me like we’re predator and prey. Makin’ sure I don’t touch your brother or try to pull a shank on anyone. Understandable. Bit flatterin’ too,” he adds, winking. “Now, the other boys, you don’t really watch ‘em that much. You don’t really pay too much attention to the spic and the nigger and the old man, but I see you watchin’ John every once in awhile. He’s clever, that one. Never know what’s up those sleeves.”
“T-Bag, you can shut the fuck up any time now-”
“You’ve been watchin’ Michael carefully.”
Lincoln’s breath catches in his throat, and he has to pause before saying, “Yeah. He’s my brother. I keep an eye on him to keep fuckers like you away.”
The noise that comes from T-Bag’s throat sounds vaguely like a laugh as he picks up his clipboard. “Sink, I know he’s off-limits to me-for now, anyway,” he adds, showing plenty of teeth in a feral grin. “But you-you been watchin’ him real close.”
“That so.” Lincoln can feel his palms begin to sweat. “Well, you’d know, since you’re watching his ass all day.”
T-Bag flips through a few papers on his clipboard. “And a fine ass it is. You’d know, ‘course.”
Well, fuck.
T-Bag can’t know; he couldn’t have picked up on it. He can’t be that smart-no, no, Lincoln can’t be that stupid to let his emotions show so plainly that a fucking freak like T-Bag could notice.
“Come on, Burrows,” says T-Bag, flashing that grin again. He licks his lips, pausing to suck the bottom one into his mouth and bite. “You’re starin’ at your brother like…well, we don’t need a simile here-you know what I’m sayin’, don’t you?”
Anger boils in Lincoln’s belly. He considers taking the clipboard out of T-Bag’s hands and smashing it into the dumb hick’s heroin-hollowed face until Lincoln’s hands are stained red with similar blood.
“It’s amazin’ that nobody has noticed,” T-Bag continues. “Guess it takes a one to know one, huh?”
Lincoln wants to say something, but what the hell is he going to say? No, T-Bag, I don’t want to fuck my brother or Yes! We finally have something in common aren’t exactly things that will easily roll off Lincoln’s tongue, especially since he’s not quite sure which one is true.
“Don’t worry. Ain’t gonna say anything.” T-Bag fingers the edge of his clipboard. His eyes have hardened, and his words are quickly gaining speed, slipping into that skip-jump speech. “But you’re pretty fucked up, ain’t you? And you look at me like I’m trash. Least I don’t want to fuck my own-”
The punch directly into T-Bag’s stomach floods Lincoln with something that makes him feel so good it’s ridiculous.
Bellick and Louis don’t notice-or pretend not to-that T-Bag is doubled over, clutching at his belly and gasping, and Bellick shoots a pointer finger at Lincoln as if to say thanks.
Lincoln grins, feeling euphoric for a brief moment before he remembers the reason T-Bag started talking to him.
D.
Michael’s seventeenth birthday is the first time something almost happens.
Since Michael has never been drunk before and he wants to experience the sensation before college, Lincoln takes him to Jill’s apartment. Jill, who Lincoln knew from high school, towers over most people at six foot one and prefers to spend weeks inside, painting canvases with stolen paint. There’s a dealer in the city that buys her work, which allows her to live from painting to painting. Jill lives a few blocks away, so the walk to and from won’t be too bad.
Except Jill coerces Michael into doing more shots than necessary, so on the way back home, Lincoln ends up nearly carrying his brother down the street. He’s definitely not as drunk as Michael, who probably won’t remember certain portions of the night, and in truth, all night, Lincoln’s had only a decent buzz that’s slowly wearing off.
Once they reach the apartment building, Michael heaves his arm over Lincoln’s shoulders, fingertips sticky with beer. Guilt hangs around Lincoln like a dark cloud, and he has to stare at the stairs so he doesn’t concentrate on the way Michael is breathing in his ear.
“’m never letting you do this to me again,” says Michael in a low whisper, lips catching on Lincoln’s earlobe. Though his speech is slurred, he has no trouble walking up the stairs. “Never. Not partyin’ in college, either.”
Michael’s mouth is wet and warm. Lincoln lifts his shoulder up to his ear, ridding himself of shame.
“Good,” Lincoln replies when they reach their room. He unlocks the door, pushes it open, and steps inside, Michael right beside him.
He guides Michael to his room, where Michael collapses onto his bed without undressing and hugs his pillow. Lincoln goes to the kitchen to get a tall glass of water and a bowl, already mentally preparing for the morning. Maybe he could play loud music, or get the kid next door to scream piercingly all day.
“You need to puke, you do it here,” Lincoln instructs as he walks into Michael’s room, pointing to the bowl before setting it on the floor. Michael nods. “There’s water, too. You good?”
“May I have the water, please?” Michael mumbles into the pillow.
“Yeah.” Lincoln crouches by the side of the bed and holds out the water. “Here.”
As Michael’s reaching for the glass, he abruptly turns his head to the side and kisses Lincoln’s mouth, reaching one timid hand up to Lincoln’s shoulder.
Oh, fuck me sideways, Lincoln thinks, his eyes still open, and all he wants to do is-
No. No, he can’t do this now. Not now. Michael doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s inebriated.
Oh, fuck, it wasn’t supposed to happen like this.
Lincoln pulls away before Michael can coax a tongue in and tries to speak, but all that comes out is, “Ungh.”
Michael blinks a few times and breathes, “It’s what you wanted.” His eyes are too wide, jaw too slack. He squeezes Lincoln’s shoulder. “I know this is what you want-isn’t it? Lincoln?”
Lincoln’s head is going to burst. There are words he wants to say, things he’s been eager to say for a year or two, but they seem to be stuck on the back of his tongue. Yes, he wants to say. Yes, Michael, fucking yes.
But what he does say is, “You really are drunk, aren’t you?” and tug the blankets over his brother because then everything will be all better in the morning and Lincoln won’t feel guilty again.
II.
But they’re alone now, away from Fox River and the city and just people, and the urge to take advantage of the situation (and Michael, taunts Lincoln’s conscious) twists Lincoln’s morals into murky knots.
So, Lincoln is sitting beside his brother-so beautiful, how can someone be so beautiful?-and holding onto his wrist so he doesn’t reach out to touch Michael’s skin.
He desperately wants to touch his brother in a way that brothers aren’t supposed to touch. He wants to wrap his fingers, maybe his mouth, around Michael’s cock, and watch Michael’s face when he comes, see is he still makes that little breathy noise right before-they’re brothers, lived together most of their lives, so Lincoln knows what Michael sounded like when he was thirteen and spending his morning in the bathroom.
But if Lincoln does something and Michael refuses him, then they’re fucked. Their relationship would be permanently wrecked, leaving years of brotherly devotion in the dirt.
It’s a constant push-pull situation, and really, Lincoln wishes it were more on the push side.
Christ, he wishes this would just go away.
Thank you for participating! :)
Rating: R for language and non-graphic incest (except for one very brief scene)
Character/Pairing: Michael/Lincoln (one-sided)
Requested By: pamalax
Summary: There ain’t no need for ya/Go straight to hell, boys.
Author’s Notes: The lyric in the summary comes from the song “Straight to Hell” by The Clash.
pamalax, I hope you enjoy it, even though I couldn’t incorporate everything you asked for.
Thank you, circus_sands, for doing an awesome beta’ing job.
3399 words.
I.
They’re in a barn somewhere in Texas, hiding in the loft amidst hay and bird shit. The owners aren’t home, but Michael had insisted on staying in the barn, just to be safe.
Lincoln takes a step away from his place at the window to watch Michael. His brother is asleep on a dirty mattress, curled into the fetal position. The chaotic ink that networks his upper body is covered by a blanket Lincoln found in the tack room, because Michael’s body heat does weird things when he’s worried and Lincoln wants to make sure that he’s comfortable.
Michael’s sick, too.
By the second day after the escape, he’d caught a terrible cold that had him pausing every mile to clutch at Lincoln’s shoulder to cough and spit into the dirt. Must have been all that running in the bitter weather, Lincoln figures.
It’s evolved into a fever and something with Michael’s stomach-on the train down to Texas, Michael spent his time curled up on the floor, wincing every time the train bounced roughly on the tracks-so they took a chance to rest in a house that Abruzzi told them about.
“Friend of mine, he goes down there during the summer,” Abruzzi had said, consonants banging into each other on his awkward tongue. “He shouldn’t be down there ‘till the end of June, but I can make a call and make sure he doesn’t make a visit this year, if you want to stay.”
Michael doesn’t want to stay. Keep moving, he’s always saying. Keep moving. Don’t let the trail get hot. We have to stay secret, Lincoln.
Lincoln takes another step towards Michael and crouches on the ground, fingertips brushing against the hay-dusted floor.
“Don’t you worry,” Lincoln finds himself saying. He reaches out, craving the feel of Michael underneath his hand, but he stops himself before he’s halfway there. He bites his lip, digging the tooth into chapped skin.
This shit better not come back again.
“You’re going to feel better soon,” Lincoln continues. His fingers flex against his palm. “Don’t you worry.”
A.
Lincoln doesn’t know when it started. He’s glad. Knowing the exact date when he decided he wanted his brother would make him sicker.
He’s the big brother. The protector. Lincoln is the one who taught Michael how to ride a bike, the one who gave Michael a Band-Aid for the scrapes on his knees, the one who beat up anyone who looked at Michael the wrong way.
Lincoln has done everything for Michael, regardless of the cost. He’s always taken care of Michael, even when Mom was still alive, and there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for him.
(“I’d die for you,” Lincoln had said once. Fourteen-year-old Michael shook his head and said, “Don’t you dare.”)
But Lincoln knows it’s a colossal jump from making Michael dinner to this-this want.
This shreds Lincoln into pieces of useless junk, makes him exhausted from overthinking the situation. (Why’s he thinking so much? That’s Michael’s business.) But he can’t think about it anymore-he can’t try to think up ways that he could tell Michael about this, because it just won’t work.
Hey, Michael, I know we’re brothers, but have you ever thought about fucking?
Ha. No.
The thought of doing things to Michael makes Lincoln ill and gets him hard all at once. Every thought drags the guilt from Lincoln’s gut, binding it with the shame that’s been stewing for years (too many years). Lincoln keeps his fantasies locked away in the dark corners of his mind, allowing them to come out only in bursts of daunting arousal.
It’s a little weird to have to crouch by the toilet when he jerks off, but towards the end, he’s thinking of Michael (Michael, Michael, only Michael), and the word brother burns bright on the back of his eyelids; abruptly, even as his hand keeps moving, Lincoln remembers everything from Michael’s childhood in sudden sparks of recollection-bile rises in his throat, and maybe two-thirds of the time, Lincoln ends up gripping the toilet seat with come-slick fingers, emptying dinner or breakfast or whatever into the water.
Guilt tastes like vomit, Lincoln thinks, and spits in the toilet.
B.
The first time Lincoln really tries to think about it, he is twenty.
The playground is empty at night, save for the occasional group of teenagers, but tonight, it’s entirely bare, and Lincoln’s footsteps are too loud against the pavement.
He heads for the swings but stops before he’s halfway there, pivoting on his heel as he reaches into his pocket for a cigarette. (He only has a few more left, but he’s going to quit-Veronica’s making him-so he might as well smoke them all tonight.) Instead, Lincoln walks to one of the slides, taking a seat and leaning back, the cold metal soaking into his skin through the jacket he just bought. He kicks his feet at the dirt that surrounds most of the playground, heels digging into the ground.
Lincoln lights his cigarette and tries to think.
If Michael were here, he’d probably have some smartass comment to make-“You thinking, Linc?”-but Lincoln came here alone on purpose, because he can’t look at his brother anymore. He can’t, not without that thing twisting deep in his chest, wrenching up something that shouldn’t have been there in the first place.
Lincoln loves his brother too much.
He sees Michael-Jesus, the kid’s only sixteen-and doesn’t see Michael, the brother, the boy that Lincoln has raised since Mom died (Uncle Jared didn’t do shit, after all); no, Lincoln’s fucked up, because he sees Michael as-shit, he can’t even think of the words to describe it, because the idea of it makes his head spin.
Fuck.
He takes another drag and blows a smoke ring. (He practiced for hours, smoking cigarette after cigarette until he could finally do it, and Veronica said, “That’s great, Lincoln,” when he showed her, but Michael grinned and said something about Lincoln using his tongue that had Veronica whipping her head around to make sure she heard right.) It hovers awkwardly in the air-not so much a ring, but more of a gawky oval-until it melts into the sky.
Lincoln came out here to think about this, the thing that’s been bothering him for too long, but the idea also makes him feel queasy enough that he has to sit very still and squeeze his eyes shut.
He lights another cigarette with the butt of the other, tossing the spent one into the dirt. The nicotine is his comfort zone, something he can concentrate on, but in between inhales of smoke and the tobacco between his fingertips, there are flickers of Michael on his closed eyelids, and Lincoln doesn’t know what to think.
This disturbs him, but only certain parts.
Everyone’s had that one time when I was at summer camp-or, in Lincoln’s case, that one time when I was stoned with a friend and he started jerking me off-so that part doesn’t bother him as much as he thought it would.
(“Tell me-if you want me to stop this-but Jesus, you look so fuckin’ hot right now, I wish you could see yourself-here, here, take another hit-fuck, Lincoln-”)
But he doesn’t know about Michael, who has had one girlfriend and didn’t seem very interested in her. (“She’s not very smart.”) But Michael is all about the “new experiences” and all that shit, so maybe he wouldn’t mind. Just not with his brother, probably.
It’s the brother part that disturbs him (of course) because he’s known Michael since infancy-no, since the womb, because Lincoln remembers leaning against his mother’s swollen belly and feeling for Michael’s kick. He can’t ache for Michael’s touch and Michael’s looks and just plain Michael when he knows they share blood.
Lincoln exhales smoke, not bothering to try for a ring this time.
He knows that he can’t do anything, because even if-if Michael decided to ignore his morals, decided that this would be fine and dandy, and that’s a pretty big fucking if-if, if, if they were caught doing something (and, shit, there are so many somethings that run through Lincoln’s mind daily, he can’t decide on one) it would still be his fault. He’s the older one, the responsible one, even if Michael’s had to take care of him on more than one occasion.
It physically hurts, thinking about this. Thinking is Michael’s domain. Michael is the one that takes in every fucking detail and looks at every possibility. Lincoln takes one glance and says, “Fuck it,” because he doesn’t want to worry about the particulars. Really, it should be Michael that’s obsessing over this, not Lincoln. Lincoln should be rolling a joint or making some money or fucking Veronica. Something routine.
Lincoln sits up and drops the cigarette by his feet. His head feels abnormally heavy, and he doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
I am one fucked up person, Lincoln thinks, grinding the cigarette into the ground with his heel.
C.
Lincoln looks forward to P.I. every day. He’s allowed to leave his cell for a few hours a day, not to mention he gets to see Michael.
This one day, they’re working on the hole. They’re taking turns, and it’s Abruzzi’s shift now, so Lincoln stands by the wall and pretends to think about drywall.
Michael is standing across the room, monitoring Abruzzi’s progress. He balances a sledgehammer on a foot (the uninjured one) and speaks to Abruzzi. Lincoln watches, unable to hear the conversation, but he assumes it has something to do with planes and border patrol.
His mind travels to the eventual escape, and his fingertips itch just from thinking about being free (with Michael). He’ll be with his brother for the rest of his life, living in a hut on an island somewhere, safe and free.
They’ll be alone. Alone. Nobody has to know that they’re brothers; maybe that’ll make it easier for Michael, maybe it can work.
And then, from that thought, all Lincoln can focus on is the curve of Michael’s neck and the way he fingers the handle of the sledgehammer-
“Sink, pay attention.”
C-Note’s sharp voice snaps Lincoln back to attention. The other man is staring, raising his eyebrows perplexedly.
“Yeah,” says Lincoln, just to fill the silence. He drops his gaze from Michael’s neck and looks at C-Note.
“You all right?”
Lincoln repeats, “Yeah,” and scratches the back of his head.
C-Note moves closer, rubbing his stubble. He takes a look around the guards’ room, eyes flicking to and from the various other inmates, and then says, in a gentle whisper, “If you need a break, go ahead and take it, man. I know you’re probably having a nervous breakdown in your head right now and you’re tryin’ not to show it, so just go calm down, okay?”
“Okay,” Lincoln answers involuntarily. He offers a twisted smile to C-Note, who nods and turns to walk back to the hole, and walks past Sucre to the door.
Lincoln steps outside. A rush of wind raises the hair on the back of his neck, and he rubs the skin with a cracked, dry palm. The motion reminds him of Michael, and he swallows away another clench in his stomach, pushing his fingertips into the side of his neck.
“Why ain’t you workin’?”
Lincoln whirls around. The door is just closing behind T-Bag, who adjusts his hat and takes a step towards Lincoln. He’s carrying a clipboard underneath one arm.
“Needed a break,” Lincoln replies. His upper lip curls as T-Bag struts closer like a goddamn rooster, sliding his ever-present tongue along the top row of teeth. Fucking pervert. “You wanna leave me alone?”
“Not particularly,” says T-Bag, grinning. He places the clipboard on a stack of insulation and stretches one arm above his head, bending it at the elbow and tugging until there’s a popping noise. “Noticed some things ‘bout you today. Thought I might share ‘em.”
Lincoln really doesn’t want to deal with this now.
He turns his body slightly to look for guards (he’s learned not to turn his back on T-Bag), but Louis and Bellick are standing at the end of the road, talking with exaggerated hand gestures. Louis must be telling him about Pope’s secretary.
“See, I been observin’ the way you watch people,” T-Bag continues, dropping his arms and rubbing his fingers along the top of his wrist. Lincoln catches a glimpse of the tattoo. xoxoxo. It’s amusing, in a gruesome way. “Me-you watch me like we’re predator and prey. Makin’ sure I don’t touch your brother or try to pull a shank on anyone. Understandable. Bit flatterin’ too,” he adds, winking. “Now, the other boys, you don’t really watch ‘em that much. You don’t really pay too much attention to the spic and the nigger and the old man, but I see you watchin’ John every once in awhile. He’s clever, that one. Never know what’s up those sleeves.”
“T-Bag, you can shut the fuck up any time now-”
“You’ve been watchin’ Michael carefully.”
Lincoln’s breath catches in his throat, and he has to pause before saying, “Yeah. He’s my brother. I keep an eye on him to keep fuckers like you away.”
The noise that comes from T-Bag’s throat sounds vaguely like a laugh as he picks up his clipboard. “Sink, I know he’s off-limits to me-for now, anyway,” he adds, showing plenty of teeth in a feral grin. “But you-you been watchin’ him real close.”
“That so.” Lincoln can feel his palms begin to sweat. “Well, you’d know, since you’re watching his ass all day.”
T-Bag flips through a few papers on his clipboard. “And a fine ass it is. You’d know, ‘course.”
Well, fuck.
T-Bag can’t know; he couldn’t have picked up on it. He can’t be that smart-no, no, Lincoln can’t be that stupid to let his emotions show so plainly that a fucking freak like T-Bag could notice.
“Come on, Burrows,” says T-Bag, flashing that grin again. He licks his lips, pausing to suck the bottom one into his mouth and bite. “You’re starin’ at your brother like…well, we don’t need a simile here-you know what I’m sayin’, don’t you?”
Anger boils in Lincoln’s belly. He considers taking the clipboard out of T-Bag’s hands and smashing it into the dumb hick’s heroin-hollowed face until Lincoln’s hands are stained red with similar blood.
“It’s amazin’ that nobody has noticed,” T-Bag continues. “Guess it takes a one to know one, huh?”
Lincoln wants to say something, but what the hell is he going to say? No, T-Bag, I don’t want to fuck my brother or Yes! We finally have something in common aren’t exactly things that will easily roll off Lincoln’s tongue, especially since he’s not quite sure which one is true.
“Don’t worry. Ain’t gonna say anything.” T-Bag fingers the edge of his clipboard. His eyes have hardened, and his words are quickly gaining speed, slipping into that skip-jump speech. “But you’re pretty fucked up, ain’t you? And you look at me like I’m trash. Least I don’t want to fuck my own-”
The punch directly into T-Bag’s stomach floods Lincoln with something that makes him feel so good it’s ridiculous.
Bellick and Louis don’t notice-or pretend not to-that T-Bag is doubled over, clutching at his belly and gasping, and Bellick shoots a pointer finger at Lincoln as if to say thanks.
Lincoln grins, feeling euphoric for a brief moment before he remembers the reason T-Bag started talking to him.
D.
Michael’s seventeenth birthday is the first time something almost happens.
Since Michael has never been drunk before and he wants to experience the sensation before college, Lincoln takes him to Jill’s apartment. Jill, who Lincoln knew from high school, towers over most people at six foot one and prefers to spend weeks inside, painting canvases with stolen paint. There’s a dealer in the city that buys her work, which allows her to live from painting to painting. Jill lives a few blocks away, so the walk to and from won’t be too bad.
Except Jill coerces Michael into doing more shots than necessary, so on the way back home, Lincoln ends up nearly carrying his brother down the street. He’s definitely not as drunk as Michael, who probably won’t remember certain portions of the night, and in truth, all night, Lincoln’s had only a decent buzz that’s slowly wearing off.
Once they reach the apartment building, Michael heaves his arm over Lincoln’s shoulders, fingertips sticky with beer. Guilt hangs around Lincoln like a dark cloud, and he has to stare at the stairs so he doesn’t concentrate on the way Michael is breathing in his ear.
“’m never letting you do this to me again,” says Michael in a low whisper, lips catching on Lincoln’s earlobe. Though his speech is slurred, he has no trouble walking up the stairs. “Never. Not partyin’ in college, either.”
Michael’s mouth is wet and warm. Lincoln lifts his shoulder up to his ear, ridding himself of shame.
“Good,” Lincoln replies when they reach their room. He unlocks the door, pushes it open, and steps inside, Michael right beside him.
He guides Michael to his room, where Michael collapses onto his bed without undressing and hugs his pillow. Lincoln goes to the kitchen to get a tall glass of water and a bowl, already mentally preparing for the morning. Maybe he could play loud music, or get the kid next door to scream piercingly all day.
“You need to puke, you do it here,” Lincoln instructs as he walks into Michael’s room, pointing to the bowl before setting it on the floor. Michael nods. “There’s water, too. You good?”
“May I have the water, please?” Michael mumbles into the pillow.
“Yeah.” Lincoln crouches by the side of the bed and holds out the water. “Here.”
As Michael’s reaching for the glass, he abruptly turns his head to the side and kisses Lincoln’s mouth, reaching one timid hand up to Lincoln’s shoulder.
Oh, fuck me sideways, Lincoln thinks, his eyes still open, and all he wants to do is-
No. No, he can’t do this now. Not now. Michael doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s inebriated.
Oh, fuck, it wasn’t supposed to happen like this.
Lincoln pulls away before Michael can coax a tongue in and tries to speak, but all that comes out is, “Ungh.”
Michael blinks a few times and breathes, “It’s what you wanted.” His eyes are too wide, jaw too slack. He squeezes Lincoln’s shoulder. “I know this is what you want-isn’t it? Lincoln?”
Lincoln’s head is going to burst. There are words he wants to say, things he’s been eager to say for a year or two, but they seem to be stuck on the back of his tongue. Yes, he wants to say. Yes, Michael, fucking yes.
But what he does say is, “You really are drunk, aren’t you?” and tug the blankets over his brother because then everything will be all better in the morning and Lincoln won’t feel guilty again.
II.
But they’re alone now, away from Fox River and the city and just people, and the urge to take advantage of the situation (and Michael, taunts Lincoln’s conscious) twists Lincoln’s morals into murky knots.
So, Lincoln is sitting beside his brother-so beautiful, how can someone be so beautiful?-and holding onto his wrist so he doesn’t reach out to touch Michael’s skin.
He desperately wants to touch his brother in a way that brothers aren’t supposed to touch. He wants to wrap his fingers, maybe his mouth, around Michael’s cock, and watch Michael’s face when he comes, see is he still makes that little breathy noise right before-they’re brothers, lived together most of their lives, so Lincoln knows what Michael sounded like when he was thirteen and spending his morning in the bathroom.
But if Lincoln does something and Michael refuses him, then they’re fucked. Their relationship would be permanently wrecked, leaving years of brotherly devotion in the dirt.
It’s a constant push-pull situation, and really, Lincoln wishes it were more on the push side.
Christ, he wishes this would just go away.
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