Disclaimer: Burn Notice and all of its characters belong to Matt Nix and the USA Network.
I'm not going to lie to you guys. I've been seriously making forward effort on "What We Fight For", but my life has been so crazy scattered lately that I haven't gotten a chance to form a complete chapter idea yet. You have to understand something; this is my writing process- sit down, write for 1-3 hours until I finish the chapter/One Shot, then post it. If the dots aren't connecting in my head within that time frame to create something I'm happy with, I get frustrated and walk away from it for a day or so until I have a clear head. So, that's basically the issue that I've been having...I apologize.
That being said, I have a crazy infatuation with dog tags, be it my friend who is a SEAL or husband's that I've worn every day since he passed, so this seemed to be a reasonable transition. I hope you guys enjoy it.
Michael cursed quietly under his breath before sucking the droplet of blood off the end of his thumb before scowling down at the listening device on the workbench. He had been twisting and untwisting and retwisting wires for the better part of an hour and one of the sharp metal ends had punctured his skin.
The loft was peacefully silent for the first time in quite a few days, thanks to Sam and Jesse running in and out to relay intel for their job. He felt as though he hadn't even seen Fiona since the job had started, she had been busy running in and out of his mother's house doing...well, he wasn't actually sure what the hell she'd been doing. As if she sensed that he'd been thinking about her, the door to the loft swung open and Fiona swept in, her arms full of shopping bags and a smile on her face.
"Hello, Michael." She smiled, setting the bags on the floor and coming around the workbench and wrapping her arms around his waist, her chin settling onto his shoulder. He turned in her arms and looked down at her curiously, quirking an eyebrow.
"Fi," He started cautiously. "You're wearing a sweatshirt. You never wear a sweatshirt."
"So? I can wear what I like, Michael, I'm a grown woman." Fi protested, pulling away and crossing her arms petulantly over her chest.
"It's ninety-five degrees outside. No one wears sweatshirts in ninety-five degree weather. What's going on?"
"Do you have to know every inane detail of every situation?" She said, heaving a sigh.
"When it comes to you acting weird I do." He responded, his eyes roaming over her in 'full on spy mode'. There was something off about the way that Fiona was acting and he wasn't going to stop until he got to the bottom of it. "This has something to do with going to my mother's doesn't it?"
"Michael Westen," She chastised, wagging her finger at him. "You should know better than to go against the wishes of a lady."
"You fail to remember that I've seen you naked, and I've seen what happens when your dress hits the floor. You are anything but a lady." He gave her a positively filthy smirk, refusing to let her deter him from his line of questioning. A rose colored blush crept up her neck and she stifled a smile into the sleeve of the jersey-grey sweatshirt with the word 'Miami' stretched across the front. "Now, what's with the get up?"
"Michael, can you please just drop it?"
"You'd think you'd know me better than that by now."
"I'm a slow learner, so humor me." She countered, her brow set in a solid line once again.
"I'm not going to drop it, Fi. If there's nothing to tell, take off the sweatshirt." He felt a slight bubble of panic forming in the back of his throat as he took a step closer. "Did something happen, Fi?"
"No, nothing happened, Michael, you don't have to worry about that." She chuckled, shaking her head. He couldn't help the way that his hand reached out of it's own accord and his fingers closed over the bottom of the sweatshirt. Fiona eyed him a moment, her green eyes wild as if she was getting ready to bolt before she seemed to decide that it wasn't worth arguing with him and lifted her arms over her head.
He slowly lifted the sweatshirt over her head, his fingers brushing her sides and sending a shudder through her. When he got it all the way over her head, he let the sweatshirt fall to the floor. His breath caught in his throat when he caught sight of why she'd been wearing the sweatshirt.
"Where...where did you find..." He stammered, unable to find the words that he was searching for. Fiona looked at a spot on his chest pointedly before pulling a shy shrug.
"They were in a box in the garage at your mother's and she asked me to bring them to you." He reached out and touched the small metal tags, hefting their weight in his palm. The rubber silencers were slick with the sweat that had gathered on Fi's chest under the sweatshirt. He ran the pad of his thumb over the skin-warmed metal slowly, a flood of memories hitting him like a tsunami.
"You're wearing my tags." He whispered, his voice sounding unlike anything she'd ever heard. It was low, and rough, and so possesive that it sent a chill through her body.
"I'm sorry, I just thought that...I don't know what I thought." She ran her hand over the back of her neck, only stopping the uncharacteristic shyness when Michael reached out and placed his finger over her lips. She looked at him, confused, and quirked an eyebrow.
"You're wearing my tags." He repeated, lifting the tags between them and looking at them. This was what he'd boiled down to when he was in the Army. Letters and numbers. He hadn't been a man. He hadn't been completely checked into his life until he saw the matte silver tags on the end of the steel bead chain against soft tanned skin. He remembered how they'd felt after boot camp; heavy and solid around his neck as they rested over his heart. They'd been with him through hell and back in places that angels wouldn't even dare to tread, and they'd made it back stateside every time.
When he'd gotten out of the Army and joined up with the CIA, they had lost their place around his neck. There was no room for positive identification in covert intelligence.
"Are you mad, Michael?" Fi's quiet voice shook him out of his reverie and he turned his gaze back to her face.
"No, I'm not mad, Fi. Why didn't you want me to see?"
"I just didn't know how you were going to react."
"Fi, you've got my tags on. You're basically wearing a neon sign that says 'Michael Westen Parking Only'." He chuckled, running his fingers over the chain until he reached the tags before twisting the chain around his fingers and tugging her forward lightly. "C'mere." He smirked, nuzzling her nose with his before placing a deep kiss to her lips, his tongue flicking out and running over the roof of her mouth once.
"'Michael Westen Parking Only', huh?" She chuckled, carding her fingers through his hair when they finally pulled apart.
"Hey, I was going to say 'Property of Michael Westen, touch at risk of disembowelment'." He pulled a halfhearted shrug and smirked at her, reaching out to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear.
"You know, if I wasn't so content, I would kick your ass."
"I have no doubt."
"Michael, you know that you don't need your dog tags around my neck to confirm that I'm 'yours'." She muttered, her face shifting to serious.
"I...yeah, I know that." He nodded.
"They're just metal and rubber. What matters is this," She lifted his hand and placed it over her heart so that he could feel the strong beats. "Right here. This is what matters. I love you, Michael, and no amount of metal and rubber is ever going to define what I feel for you." Michael hesitated, just watching the smile on her face.
"Metal and rubber, huh?" He whispered, brushing his thumb over her cheek bone gently.
"Metal and rubber. That's it." She replied, her smile never waivering.
"You know I love you too, right, Fi?"
"Of course I do. If you didn't I wouldn't still have these on."
Michael couldn't help but silently acknowledge the statement. He hadn't seen his dog tags in over fifteen years. They had always held too many bad memories. But, seeing them around Fi's neck, all of that faded away. Maybe she was right.
Maybe they were just metal and rubber.