Nothing But Air

"When I was young, I couldn't sleep at night because I thought there was a
monster in the closet. But my brother told me there wasn't anything in the
closet but fear. And fear wasn't real. He said it wasn't made of anything
just…air. Not even that. He said you just have to face it. You just have to
open that closet and the monster would disappear."

"Brother sounds like a smart man."

"He is."

Later in his cell Michael thought again of the night when his brother gave
him the strength to conquer his fears. It was one of those rare moments
during their mother's sickness when Michael felt completely safe.

Not because he could open the closet door, but because his brother was
always there to open the door for him if he needed. It was one of the only
reliable things in his childhood. When it was only a matter of facing fear
and not of surviving monsters.

"Lincoln! Lincoln?"

Lincoln sighed heavily and turned back down the hall. He didn't want to be
leaving, but he'd promised his mother that he'd keep up his meetings with
Patrick. The fact that he had to leave Michael alone was not the only
downside to keeping his promise but it was the worst.

"Lincoln, I'm scared." Michael was sitting on his pillow with one of
Lincoln's flannels wrapped around his body. Because he was still small for
his age it went nearly double around him.

Lincoln moved over in the dim light to sit next to Michael. His eyes
flickered over Michael's face as he reached over to ruffle his hair. "What's
up, Mikey? There's nothing to be scared of."

Michael leaned a bit into his brother's hand and then his eyes darted over
to the closet door. "I'm scared Lincoln."

"What's there to be scared of? You know I won't let anything happen to you."

"But what about the monsters, Linc? How can you keep me safe from the
monsters?"

Michael wasn't an irrational child. He could be difficult sometimes, when
the stimuli became more than he could take, but because of the LLI he had
never been much for whimsical things. His logic made a fear of monsters all
the more disconcerting. Lincoln wasn't sure what to do, but he needed to do
something.

"What monsters, Mikey? There's nothing in here but 5 pounds of Legos and
your math homework."

"In the closet, Linc. They're in the closet."

Taking a deep breath, Lincoln racked his brain. Times like these were when
he wished that he had a dad to turn to; even more he wished that their mom
wasn't in the hospital again. And then it clicked. The thing that made all
his nights out doing strange things with Patrick bearable. It was
your nerves that made things hard. The consequences that might come, the
things that were lurking behind closed doors, the pain that would follow a
mistake. Nerves.

"Mike," He paused again. "Mike, there's nothing in the closet. I can prove
it to you. But you know what's better?"

"What?"

"Knowing what is in the closet."

Michael's eyes widened considerably. "What's inside the closet?" The
trepidation in his voice had Lincoln kicking himself, but he pressed on.

"The only thing in your closet is your fear. That means you control it.
That means you get to say what you do about it. Watch this." Lincoln got up
and knocked on the closet door. "Hello…any monsters in there?"

An abbreviated giggle escaped Michael's throat. "Monster's can't talk,
Lincoln. And you said it was just fear."

"I did, but you have to decide what to do about the fear. So, what are we
going to do about the closet?"

"What does fear look like? We have to open the door, right?"

"I think it would be a good idea, do you want to come over here and find
out?"

Michael started to shake his head but at a look from Lincoln squared his
shoulders and wiggled off the bed. "It's good if I open it myself, right,
Lincoln?"

Lincoln ruffled Michael's hair again. "It's brave if you open it yourself,
but I'll always be there if you want me to do it for you."

Michael shook his head and reached nervously for the door. Lincoln dropped
into a squat next to his brother and whispered into his ear, "Remember
Mikey, nothing but fear."

The door swung open in front of the two brothers and a belt clinked against
the door knob it was hanging against. "Linc, it's just air and my dress
clothes. I don't see any fear."

"That's the point. Your fear isn't anything either. All you have to do is
open the door and you'll remember that. Fear isn't anymore than air."

"But, Linc that means that fear isn't real. That it's nothing but air."

"That's right, Mikey. You gonna be okay, then? Need me to help you look at
anymore air?"

"Nope, Lincoln. I'm okay."

"Okay. Back into bed. I have stuff to do and you need to sleep."

Michael crawled back into bed and fluffed his pillow. Lincoln was just
turning into the hall when Michael's voice stopped him again.

"Lincoln?"

"Yes, Michael?"

"Can you close the closet anyway?"

"Sure, Mike, but remember, nothing but air."

"Not even that."

Patrick was scanning the street in his car waiting for Lincoln when he
finally exited his apartment building. When he saw Lincoln step off the
curb he slumped deliberately in his seat and affected a casual attitude as
he cracked his neck and lit a cigarette.

"You're late."

"So, what if I am, you could have just gone home."

"Now, what would you're mother think of that. After all those conversations
we've had. What would you do without me?"

Lincoln's faced hardened with disgust but he didn't say anything, merely
clicked his seatbelt and waited.

"We're going to try a little B&E. See if you've improved your choice of
merchandise. If you could ever make this worthwhile, maybe we'd have a
reason to try something a little more complex."

Lincoln stifled a barking laugh. Patrick was a first-class bastard, but he
had some kind of hold over Lincoln's mother and he was footing her medical
bills. That meant Lincoln had to be there every night. Had to make the
time and take the effort to learn these things that Patrick insisted he
know. Didn't mean he had to like it. And it most certainly didn't mean that
he had to make it easy on him.

"You ask me to get something identifiable from an occupied bedroom. I do.
If you have a problem with that, get the stuff yourself."

"You should really consider what we do a privilege. You're going to thank
me someday." Patrick started the engine and eased down the road. "You need
every defense against the world you can get, kid, and I'm it." These words
were the type that should have comforted the thirteen year old, but they
were delivered with a sneer that set his teeth on edge.

"Let's get this over with."

Three hours later, armed with a post-it note from the bathroom of the
house's occupants, Lincoln emerged angry and tired. It was one thing to
enter the low-rent apartments and run-down motels that Patrick usually took
him too, but when they went to the suburbs it always made Lincoln angry.

A couple of minutes later he turned down the alley where Patrick was
supposed to be waiting for him only to be ambushed from behind. It had been
three years since he started these clandestine outings with good ol'Patrick, the
friend of the family that they never talked about, that Michaelwasunaware even existed
Since then Patrick had either attacked him or set himup more than a dozen times.

Each time only Lincoln's blind rage at being
attacked saved him from serious injury. Each time the night ended with
Patrick handing him a new set of clothes and placing the old blood-spattered
ones in a trash bag.

Lincoln responded this time as he knew to do, with no regard to his own
well-being, but rather with the intention of causing the most damage as
quickly as possible. It took five minutes of dodging and more than a few
truly underhanded moves for Lincoln to escape down the aisle only to find
Patrick propped against a brick wall clapping slowly and with great
satisfaction.

"This is the one thing I don't really have to teach you, kid. That is one
amazing instinct for self-preservation you've got. I wonder how threatened
you would need to feel before you'd cease to have limits. Huh. Let's get
you home. It's a school night remember." Patrick chuckled again because it
was already 12 midnight and it was an hour drive back to Lincoln's
apartment.

Lincoln bit his lip and blinked back the last tears of his childhood.
Walking past Patrick toward the car he slapped the post-it note against the
car door and then moved around to the passenger seat and stripped off his
bloody shirt.

On the drive home Lincoln thought about what Patrick had said. About his
instinct for self-preservation. It might be true, but Lincoln didn't want
to know how far he'd go. Was truly afraid of the answer. Because it wasn't
his own life he struggled so desperately to keep on these nights. It was his
responsibilities that made him strong, and somewhere deep inside of himself
he knew that there was nothing that he wouldn't do, not if it meant living
up to the adoration in Michael's gaze. Not if it meant following through on
his promises to his mother. And that unspoken, unwanted realization was what
really changed Lincoln that night.

When Patrick pulled up in front of Lincoln's building, Lincoln's sprang from
the car and walked away without a backward glance. There was no need for
conversation, tomorrow would be like today which was like yesterday. The
only variance was what unpleasant things Patrick would demand he do. But he
would do them because for some reason this was a responsibility and Lincoln
knew the kind of damage that could be done when a man was too cowardly to
face his responsibilities. Lincoln would rather sell his soul to the devil
than wind up like his father.

After climbing an interminable amount of stairs, Lincoln unlocked his
apartment door and walked back down the hallway to Michael's open door. His
brother had opened the closet door sometime during the night and the sight
of Michael sprawled across his bed in unconsciousness brought a
smile to Lincoln's lips. He stood there for a time contemplating the
conversation they'd had earlier. Monsters and Fear and Air.

Lincoln knew that there were monsters in the world. But then and there,
standing in the dark, he made a promise to himself, one he desperately hoped
he'd be able to keep. He swore that Michael would never see the monsters he

had, would never stand in fear of something and know it could destroy him.

Michael was going to live in a world where Monsters and Fear really were
nothing but air.

The clink of the guard's keys sounded in the hallway outside of Lincoln
Burrows death row cell. The inmate in question stared into the inky
blackness trying to imagine what the stars must look like. Lincoln was not a
man to be trifled with but neither was he a heartless man. The guards often
commented on the oddities of a man who inspired so much fear who also
managed to make polite conversation and share stories about his kid.

However, on this night the mild-mannered death-row inmate was nowhere to be
found. Rather a violent and broken man mourned the loss of one of his only
great accomplishments. No matter how badly, how desperately Lincoln wanted
to be wrong, he knew that Michael had finally met a monster and this one was
real.

Lincoln Burrows felt agonized with each breath and he continued to breathe
because he knew he deserved the pain. Tonight he would dream of retribution
and destruction, he would dream of violently destroying John Abruzzi and
everything he held to be valuable. But until his dreams took him, he would
try to picture the stars in the sky and do his best to believe that Michael
was out under them, free and far away from the monsters that Lincoln never
wanted him to see.

And then for a brief moment as he drifted off, he smiled, because even if
the monster was real, Michael's fear wasn't. It had no control, and for that
Lincoln could not be sorry.

tbc...