Timeline: According to the shows, Michael is actually born in 1974, and Sam in 1983 which would set them nine years apart; but for other possible one-shots in this universe I needed to have their ages a bit closer together, so Michael is born in 1976 and they are only seven years apart. Also, Prison Break takes place mostly over 2005 and the action on Supernatural begins on November, 2005 so this would be a little over a year before Dean comes for Sam.

About the universe: This one-shot is set on an universe where Sam and Michael met as children, and Michael learned about the supernatural then; however there aren't great changes in pre-series canon for either of the shows, at least for now.

... ... ...

Consciousness came with a rush of sunlight and the sound of the alarm sending flashes of pain through his mind.

Even after he managed to shut it off and maybe send it to the ground, for the third time in his life the incessant ringing in his ears convinced Michael to never, ever drink himself into oblivion again. He groaned and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes in a futile attempt of stopping the marching band inside his brain, and tried to piece together the events of last night.

"You look like shit." A deep voice distracted his line of thought, and with far more effort than it should have taken, he managed to open his eyes to slits and peer at the tall student holding some kind of vile looking, foul smelling slop in a glass in front of his face. "For the hangover."

"Good morning to you too."

Sam huffed a laugh and put the glass and a couple of aspirins on the table near the couch where the engineer had crashed last night. His shirt was still ruffled from sleep and his eyes a bit bloodshot, but in general the twenty year old was a much better sight that his senior, and Michael wondered if it was the years or the stress of the last months doing him in.

With difficulty he managed to sit upright and waited until the blood rush faded and there weren't any more black spots in his vision, before downing the hangover remedy in one go.

"Ugh."

"That's what I said when Brady made it the first time."

Michael grunted in agreement, not quite up to remembering who Brady was just yet; probably one of Sam's fellow college students. Now that he was marginally more awake, he was able to wonder what exactly was the other man doing in his flat; he hadn't let anyone in since he started- Oh, damn.

"Sam, ah..." What kind of excuse could he give? Even if he tried to hide it, the wors Fox River were repeated over a dozen times, it wouldn't take a genius to put two and two together. "About those diagrams…"

"I don't want to know," Sam interrupted him, sounding a bit smug. When Michael cut himself off and stared at him dumbfounded, he added, "That way I've got plausible deniability."

And that was apparently all the pre-law student was going to say on the matter, as he very pointedly turned his back to the diagrams and articles on the wall and ducked inside the kitchenette again. "Coffee?"

Michael stared at the space the younger man had just left, feeling uncomfortably out of his depth at the complete lack of judgment he was suddenly faced with. He had not expected anyone to accept this, not even his brother, not without a fight and he wondered why he wasn't more worried about Sam having seen the proof all there hanging from the walls of a plan that could still collapse in itself within a moment's notice, one that he couldn't afford anyone else to know.

Maybe it was because Sam understood, in a way that not even Veronica could understand. Understood what it meant to have always lived under the shadow of something so big you couldn't really remember a time it wasn't there, even when you did everything in your power to break out. To have grown distant to the most important person in your life, but to still need to know that they were still there somewhere, getting drunk and breaking the law and generally going against the image of the superhero you believed them to be ages ago, while at the same time being so much more than that.

About betrayal and sacrifices and lies and family, all tangled together until it was impossible to tell where it all began or where it would end, only that it wouldn't be like this, never like this.

"Coffee sounds good."

Sam grinned.

... ... ...

Michael grimaced as he left the tattoo shop, lifting the collar of his shirt in order to hide the bandages underneath. After the last session his back and chest were finally done, and only the area near his wrists remained undone, something he wasn't looking forward to as the continuous sessions had done nothing to dull the pain; if anything the anticipation made it worse. It might have been easier if he hadn't had to leave such a sensitive area for last, but it would have been only too easy to slip up and let someone glimpse it otherwise.

Either way, he was ready to get to his couch and get some more sleep while he waited for the lingering pain to abate.

Sam, however, had other plans.

When Michael entered his apartment, he had barely made it into the kitchen when Sam came from somewhere inside the house and planted a garishly decorated bag in canary yellows and purples on the table. Michael blinked, for once completely lost. "What's that?"

With a near feral grin that did not reassure the older man in the slightest, Sam turned the paper bag around, finally allowing him to see the name printed on the front. Michael frowned in growing confusion, "Is that from a prop house?"

Peering inside he took out an object at random, which turned out to be a stunt knife. Before he took conscious note of it, the engineer had already noted the cogs were the blunt blade retracted into the hilt and formulated three different ways to dissemble it, before he realized what Sam was getting at with a bit of trepidation.

"Yeah, and there goes my book budget for the next couple of months. Just so you know." Indecision must have been clear on his expression, because Sam nearly growled at him, something dangerous flashing behind his eyes. "Look, Mike, you are not going in there without at least knowing how to keep yourself from being stabbed."

"Sam-"

"No, don't 'Sam' me. I'm not telling you to start dislocating kneecaps and breaking necks, but you are not getting yourself killed if I have anything to say about it. We have two and a half weeks before your last tattoo session, and I need to be back to Palo Alto by then anyway. Self-defense one-oh-one, dude. That's all I want, "The taller man crossed his arms and leveled a glare when Michael didn't answer fast enough for his tastes, "and I'm not asking."

Realizing that at this point he might as well concede defeat with at least some dignity left, Michael sighed and gave a nod, setting the fake knife on the table. It was at moments like these when it was hard to remember that, for all that Sam had a few inches on him (though to be fair, Sam had a few inches on everyone) he was still seven years his junior.

"At least give me a day, until I can take the bandage off," he sighed, having no delusions about the ex-hunter holding back for anything short of actually maiming or killing him.

... ... ...

He was wrong. Sam did hold back, since about five minutes into the first lesson he started sporting a smile that didn't waver for the first hour and a half, until Michael groaned and admitted defeat, sporting quite a few more bruises that he had had at the beginning of the session.

"Come on, that was barely a warm-up!" Sam was saying, and even with his eyes closed Michael could hear that stupid smile still there.

"Maybe for you, but us geniuses don't fight with our brawn, you... you Goliath!" Michael muttered, and he had to fight an involuntary smile at the snort his comment got from the guy who had gotten into Stanford with a full ride. Michael shifted and let out a louder groan when his whole back rebelled against the movement thanks to a particularly nasty tumble at the beginning of their little exercise. "Seriously though, what is the point of this? Just two weeks of conditioning isn't going to mean anything once I do get convicted. I might as well use that time productively."

Sam interrupted him so quickly, he had clearly been expecting a similar argument, "And that's why, my dear friend, I propose a deal."

No one should be allowed to sound that gleeful while saying something like that. Michael took his arm away from his eyes and lifted an eyebrow questioningly. The former hunter looked even more amused even as he walked to his backpack and took a slim folder from within; Michael recognized it as one of the many stationary he had laying around his house, and he straightened on the couch, but refused to let his friend get anymore satisfaction from what he clearly saw as an upper hand in the conversation.

"I know I said I wouldn't ask about your notes; but I saw something interesting yesterday, actually. I had to make a few calls to make sure, to some..." his mood dampened a bit as Sam looked for the right term before settling on, "family friends. Charles Westmorland, your money insurance? He was a hunter before prison, and a damn good one at that. The rumors around the community say that he was trying to get out of the life, that's why he needed the five million. So, deal?"

He waved the folder over his head, one that Michael was now sure contained information he could not afford to pass upon; still… "A hunter? That's… an incredible coincidence."

"An useful coincidence. It's not so surprising, really; if you want to find a retired hunter there's only three places to go: the asylum, the prison or the morgue."

"You got out."

"I was never a real hunter in the first place." A shadow crossed his face and Michael cleared his throat in an effort to bring him back from the memories he was obviously reliving. The older man still remembered the ten year old he had met for the first time in a children's home, just for a few days before he vanished from the system and the disfigured grotesque spirit that had nearly killed them both and shown him how much greater and terrible the world was, even compared to what he had already seen before. Sam blinked twice, and looked back at the files with a sigh, the sound shaking Michael from his reverie too.

"Another half-hour, and I'll give them to you, alright?"

"Then how will you blackmail me into this tomorrow?" Michael asked, genuinely curious.

Sam let out a mischievous smirk, and Michael wished he had kept his mouth shut.

"Well, unless you want to look like an idiot in front of him, you should at least know the differences between a rugaru and a ghoul…"

Michael groaned and fell further into the couch.

... ... ...

"If… Dean called. If he called now, I'm not sure I would… pick it up either."

The statement came that evening, completely out of the blue. Sam was sprawled on the couch, the TV running some kind of sitcom neither was watching and he had a book of Michael's collection resting open on his lap. Michael was re-running the algorithms for the chemical formula that would be their escape ticket, feeling particularly down at the thought of all the things that could go wrong, but at the brunet's words his fingers froze over the laptop and he straightened unconsciously.

"Not even after all this?" He waved vaguely at the wall behind him, not quite lifting his gaze from the screen.

"… Maybe after all this. But you know it's not your fault, don't you?"

"… Yes."

"I mean it, Mike." Sam straightened, clearly not above intimidating the engineer into agreeing with him.

"I could have talked him out of it."

"Or he could have done it anyway."

"He should have told me about the loan. I would have given him the money back, and I wouldn't have been so condescending towards him, if I had known he..." Michael said, letting all the recent weeks of guilt and frustration bled into his words. "Then he wouldn't have walked into that damn parking lot."

Sam shrugged, a similar note of bitterness creeping into his own tone, "Our brothers are idiots."

Michael scoffed, "Aren't we even bigger idiots, then?"

The college student flipped him off, and Michael closed his notes for the night with a small smile.

... ... ...

The following two weeks were grueling, even harder than the careful planning of the months before. Michael was right in that a few days would not be enough to give him a proper advantage once his plan was set into motion, but Sam had managed to drill some stronger survival instincts into him; though they both hoped there was never any need to actually use them.

At the same time, the engineer also felt lighter than he had before; whether it was just for the simple act of letting go and losing himself for a few hours in the thrill of physical exercise, the extra card he had to play (both on Westmorland and, hopefully, if he needed inconspicuous help in between Fox River and Panama) or because he now had someone who knew, and approved, of his plans, he could not say; but then again, it didn't really matter anyway.

Both men stopped at the last crossroads, Michael once again heading back to the tattoo shop for the last of his preparations and Sam to the bus station that would take him back to his life. It wasn't the first time that they didn't know if their paths would ever cross again, but something different, heavier was passed in the silence this time. For good or for worse, it was the end of a period on their lives and if they did meet again, it wouldn't be unchanged.

"Well," Sam said, hitching his backpack higher on his shoulder. "Don't get shot."

Michael rubbed his still unmarked wrists, and nodded, "Watch out for the news."