Author's Notes: First and foremost, I am not a doctor. I don't have personal medical knowledge. As this is set in the past, I didn't look up information on actual bullet removal because what is available now would not have been the same thing. Remember, this story is set pre-series. This is my idea of why Michael would have known to use cayenne pepper (and why Linc didn't question him about it) to stop the bleeding in Prison Break 2x03 - Scan. It's my own look into the relationship of Michael and Lincoln before all of this Steadman mess happened.

Michael Scofield stared at the ceiling and was curious. Why was he awake? He rolled to the side and the flashing red digits of the clock read 3:07. Ante Meridiem. Three hours and seven minutes past the witching hour. Seven minutes past the occult's twisted witching hour. Two hours and fifty-three minutes before the alarm would go off, signalling that it was time for Michael to begin another day. Why was he awake?

BANGBANGBANGBANGBANG

That would be it. The incessant nuisance of someone banging at his door. There was only one person who would come calling so late, and that was almost enough to make Michael roll over, throw the blankets over his head, then go back to sleep. Almost, if he didn't know his brother better than that. Lincoln Burrows avoided his brother whenever possible, only coming around when he was in trouble. If Lincoln was banging on his door at 3am, then he was in trouble. And if he were in trouble, serious trouble, then he wouldn't just go away. He would keep knocking on the door until Michael answered or one of the neighbors called the police on him.

"Dammit!" Michael threw back the covers and swung his long legs over the side of the bed. The hardwood floor was cold against the bare soles of his feet. As he stood up, Michael hopped from side to side, letting the soft and tender skin of his feet adjust to the change in temperature.

"I'm coming!" Michael grabbed a black robe from the chair on his way out of the room and slid his arms inside. He pulled the robe together and started to tie the sash. This was just like his brother. No consideration for anyone else. No thought that maybe Michael was sleeping, and maybe he had an early morning. Unlike Lincoln, Michael was perfectly capable of holding on to a job and had to be there the next morning.

Michael stopped and shook his head. He knew better than that. If this were one of Lincoln's usual screw-ups, he'd just call and leave a message. He would huddle in the snow and wait for him to call or stop by, not come banging on his door at all hours of the night. That meant that this had to be serious. That was, of course, assuming that it was actually him. For all Michael knew, this could be a drunken person with the wrong address.

Not hardly. Logically, and most probably, it was Lincoln.

BANGBANGBANGBANGBANG

"Michael, I can hear you at the door. Come on, man, open up."

Of course. Logic and probability almost always won out. Michael sighed and started to pull the door open. "It's three in the morning, Lincoln. I swear to God, you'd better be almost--" He stopped as he caught sight of his brother. "Oh my God!"

"I know, I better be almost dying." Lincoln grunted as he leaned heavily on the door frame. "For all I know, I just might be."

Lincoln was bleeding heavily from his side. Though he wore a black leather jacket, it was pushd back far enough on the side that Michael could see inside to the white shirt he wore underneath. His left side was covered in blood, the large oval on his side spreading quickly all the way around. Michael pulled his eyes away from the blood to look at his brother's face. Snow was falling hard outside, hard enough to still be in thick layers on his shoulders, but Lincoln's face was covered in sweat. And his eyes were heavy with pain.

"Jesus, Linc, what happened?" Michael reached for him and the moment they touched, Lincoln collapsed onto him. "What did you do?"

Lincoln grunted. He jumped slightly as Michael kicked the door shut behind them and it slammed. "Who said I--" He grunted again. "Fine. I was in the wrong place at the wrong fucking time. Gonna help me, or what?"

"No, I'm going to drop you at the door." Michael grunted as he pulled Lincoln across the room. Though Michael was taller by a few inches, Lincoln was definitely heavier. He was bulky and more muscular than Michael, and the extra weight made it hard for him to get him across the room.

Finally, Michael reached the sofa and dropped him down. "I have to call you an ambulance."

"No!" Lincoln leaned forward, as though he would get up to stop him, but stopped. He held onto his side and fell back, visibly biting back a scream on his lips. He took in shallow breaths between his teeth, then opened his mouth and let the breaths grow deeper. When he could speak, he said, "No hospitals."

"Linc..."

"No." He shook his head. "If I go into a hospital with a gunshot wound, I'm going back to jail. They have to call the cops, and there's no good reason for me to have been where I was when I got shot."

"Dammit, Linc!" Michael put his hands to his head and squeezed. "Why do you keep doing this? Why can't you stay out of trouble?" His hands started to fall, but the pull from his head was sticky. Michael looked at his hands. He hadn't realized that they were covered with Lincoln's blood. And now, his blood was on Michael's head. "Why do you keep doing these things?"

"Can you save the lecture for later, Michael? I really need your help, now."

"My-- What do you expect me to do?"

"Get the bullet out and stop the bleeding."

Michael stared at him. His jaw dropped. Lincoln had asked a lot of him over the years, but never anything as preposterous as this. "Are you kidding me?" He shook his head. "The science at the end of my degrees isn't a medical science, Lincoln. How am I supposed to do this? I'm not a doctor."

"You have an internet connection, don't you?" He groaned and turned halfway to the side. "The answer to everything is on the internet. You just have to look it up."

That son of a bitch. Michael turned away from Lincoln, unable to look at him. Despite common belief, he couldn't do everything. There were some things that were out of the realm even for Michael Scofield.

Why did he have to put him in this predicament? This was a situation that could have easily been avoided. All Lincoln had to do was stay out of trouble. It couldn't have been that hard. Get a job. Stick to that job. Stop being a criminal. It seemed easy, as far as Michael was concerned. Of course, he couldn't remember when Lincoln had ever made things easy. If there were a time in existence, then it was too far back for Michael to recall.

Michael turned to look at his brother. His eyelids were drooping. His body was sagging. His blood was starting to drip off of his shirt and onto the sofa. Michael ran his blood splattered hands over his head, then let his arms fall. He couldn't just let him bleed to death.

"Dammit." Michael turned and stomped across the room. He turned on the computer, and waited impatiently for it to load. Then he had another long, impatient wait for his internet connection to start. "I can't believe I'm doing this. For the trouble you put me through, Linc, the least you could do was stop by when you're not planning to ask me for something."

"I'll remember that," he said, his voice weaker. "As long as you remember that you told me that when I show up."

"Oh, shut up. Save your strength." Michael pulled up a search engine and did searches on gunshot wounds and bleeding. Lincoln spoke to him in a soft voice, but he never got more than a few words out before Michael told him, "Shut up, I'm reading."

His eyes skimmed page after slow-loading page. There were too many pictures for the pages to load quickly, but on some of them, especially pulling out the bullet, he was glad to have the diagram. This was going to be hard, but at least he had the necessary items. Or at least he hoped that he did. Otherwise, Lincoln was just going to end up in trouble. He didn't want to be the one to send his brother back to lock-up, but neither was he going to let him bleed out in his living room.

"Got it." Michael ran from the room picking up things as he went along. When he came back, his arms were loaded, and he handed Lincoln the things he would need the most. A bottle of painkillers and a decanter of Scotch. Lincoln looked at him curiously and Michael shrugged. "It's the strongest liquor I have, and you're going to need it."

Lincoln took both from him and immediately swallowed four pills followed by a long pull of Scotch. "Now what?"

"Now..." Michael sighed and pulled the shirt enough so that he could slide two fingers into the scorched hole. He ripped the shirt open. It probably would have been better to take it off, but he didn't know if Lincoln had the strength to move that much. As it were, he was just glad that he'd managed to get the jacket off. "Okay..." He stared at the wound then up at Lincoln. "...this is gonna hurt."

"What are you about to--" Lincoln stuffed his fist in his mouth to muffle the pained scream as Michael poured alcohol over the wound. "Goddammit! Fuck!"

"Sorry," Michael said with a wince, "but I have to see it." He'd never heard such a cry from his brother, and had never seen such pain in his eyes. He looked like he was going to cry. The last time he had that look was when their mother died, but this was an entirely different kind of pain. This was an entirely different side of his brother. A side that he'd never wanted to see and that he was almost sure Lincoln had done his best to never show him.

"You remember all those times you made fun of me because I had such long fingers?"

"Yeah."

"You're about to stop mocking and start cursing. Put your fist back in your mouth."

The second Lincoln's teeth clamped down around his knuckles, Michael stuck his fingers inside. Lincoln writhed beneath him and the screams that came out around his fist weren't deep and grizzled like before. They were high-pitched and pitiful. Michael felt tears burning in his eyes. He'd always tried to make people feel better, and though he'd cursed him for it, he always tried to help his brother. And even though he knew that's what he was doing, it still hurt him to have to cause Lincoln so much pain.

Michael's fingers touched the bullet, but he couldn't grab it. "Shit. I'm going to have to... This is going to hurt." He looked up at Lincoln. His eyes were barely open. He removed his fist and swallowed half of the Scotch. He popped two more pills, then put his fist back in. Lincoln nodded.

Michael took in a deep breath and started to scoop, doing his best to keep the bullet coming forward. He pushed it to the side. Then, when his fingers could touch around to the head of the bullet, he pushed it until it popped out. Michael quickly pulled his fingers out and pressed a thick, white towel against the wound. He looked up at Lincoln and was amazed that he was still conscious.

Michael said as much, and Lincoln's response was a simple, "Tough guy."

For the first time, Michael really believed that. He'd seen his brother at his lowest too many times before. He'd seen him shivering outside of his apartment because he lost his keys. He'd seen him behind bars, unable to do anything in his own defense. He'd seen him about to have a mental breakdown because he knocked up Lisa Rix and didnt' know what to do about it. He'd seen him punch a wall because he missed his son's birthday when he was in county. For years, Michael had used all of that as a validation of Lincoln's weakness. Right now, though, he saw that his brother was anything but weak. He was flawed. He was a screw-up. But, he wasn't weak.

Michael held up a little bottle and Lincoln squinted. "Cayenne pepper?"

"Ironically, gunpower works best to stop bleeding, but cayenne pepper was a remedy listed."

"You actually have cayenne pepper? You don't cook."

Michael shrugged. "I had a girlfriend that cooked."

"Had a girlfriend? When?"

"Doesnt' matter." Michael shrugged again. "She didn't last long. I didn't like what she cooked with the cayenne pepper and I admitted that." Michael shook his head and looked up at Lincoln with a shy grin. "Not the best answer to 'How was it' huh?"

"No, definitely not." Lincoln groaned and his head rolled to the side. "Should've just plead the fifth."

"I'll remember that." Michael sighed and poised himself over the wound. "Hold tight. This is going to burn."

He sprinkled the pepper heavily onto the wound. Lincoln cried out again, but this time it was weaker. He was barely conscious, and losing that battle quickly. Michael was skeptical that this would actually work, but the more pepper he put on the wound, the quicker the bleeding stopped. He pulled back when half the bottle was gone and waited a few minutes. The slow trickle clumped in the pepper, but didn't fall any heavier.

Michael pulled out gauze and Lincoln asked, "Since when did you become a boy scout?"

"Always prepared is a wonderful motto, even if you don't have the uniform." Michael leaned Lincoln forward enough to rip his shirt off in shreds and wrap his body with multiple rolls of gauze, until all of it was gone and there was enough to form a barrier. He sealed the gauze with tape, then used the scissors to cut off the rest of the shirt. When he was done, he sat back on his haunches and sighed. "Alright," he said, "I think that's it."

"Great." Lincoln tried to stand, but fell back down. "Help me get outta here, will ya?"

"Not a chance in hell. You will not come in here, force me to stick my hands into your torso, and then stumble out of here to die in the snow." Michael stood up, then pulled Lincoln to his feet. He put an arm around his waist and turned him towards the back. "You're going to lay down in my bed and go to sleep."

"Michael--"

"Shut up. You came here, and now you're going to do what I tell you to do. I'll wake you up every hour or so to make sure that you don't go into coma or a shock from the blood loss. I'll get fluids into you, lots of Vitamin C should help you, and I have plenty of that."

"I like the Scotch."

"No more Scotch." Michael took the decanter and set it on a passing table. "I'll call in tomorrow--"

"No."

"Shut up. You come to me expecting me to play big brother, now shut up while I do it. I'll call in and make sure you're alright. Then, when I'm positive you won't die on me in the streets, you can get the hell out and let me get back to my life."

"Ya know, it's a good thing you didn't go into medicine."

"Why?"

"Because your bedside manner sucks."

Michael rolled his eyes and grunted as he dropped Lincoln down onto the bed. "You want excellent bedside manner, go to a hospital." He pulled off Lincoln's shoes and tossed his legs up. "You came to me, so you take what you can get."

Michael pulled the covers up to Lincoln's chest, then sighed. He watched as his brother closed his eyes and his body seemed to sink into the bed. Michael was angry at him for bringing this mess into his life, but he was angrier at him for nearly getting himself killed. If he wouldn't stay out of trouble for himself, couldn't he do it for his little brother? Lincoln was all he had left, and he came close to leaving him with nothing. And yet, as angry as he was, he couldn't help but be glad that he was alright, and elated that he'd actually come to him, come to someone safe, instead of burrowing deep into the depths of the neighborhood and those people he kept friends with lately.

"Thanks, Mike," Lincoln said softly. His eyes didn't open and the only movement he made was to roll slightly to his right. "Thanks, bro."

Michael sighed. "You're welcome." He turned and left the bedroom. He needed a shower, and he needed one fast. It was finally dawning on him that he was covered in his big brother's blood, and all that did was drive home the fact that he could have lost him. This had been a long enough night. He didn't need it to be any longer.