Burn Notice
Chapter 1: Groceries
Guns make people nervous. They're heavy, loud, and when used incorrectly, or correctly, for that matter, are almost always lethal. That's why as soon as a gun is drawn, people tend to scatter. On most occasions, this is ideal. The gunman will get caught up in the confusion of the crowd and will either fire a warning shot, or will simply panic. When this happens, it usually gives the local police force enough time to pull up and detain him. Granted, this scenario only involves a single man waving around a Glock 17 or a 9mm Beretta. Not three men in masks wielding AK-47s. This tends to complicate things a little.
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It started as a Saturday morning, and because my mother, Madeline, called and had all but yelled at me saying there was 'an emergency and I needed to come over now!' I had jumped into the Charger, (a 'gift' from good ol' dad), and sped down to her house. Only to find that nothing was wrong. Only to find that the so called 'emergency' was nothing more than an absence of groceries.
"Michael!" My mother began, as I rolled my eyes and started towards the front door. "Michael, I have a poker game at four with the girls! How am I supposed to host a poker game without snacks and beverages? I'd feel like a horrible person." I was still trying to recover from hearing her use the word 'girls,' (since all of her friends were easily over sixty), and obviously, I wasn't quick enough in answering, because she glared at me and launched into another tirade about how 'most sons would gladly shop for their elderly, incapable mothers.' I wanted to point out that I was not like most sons. I wanted to point out that she was far from incapable. (The shotgun hidden in the back of her closet backed that up.) I wanted to leave – to head back home and salvage whatever sleep I could get. But I couldn't, and didn't, because at that moment, she pulled the 'guilt-trip' card on me, meaning that she sat down in the nearest chair, and proceeded to cry.
You'd think that after twenty odd years of working as a spy and having to deal with death and misery on a daily basis – you'd think that I would've built up some sort of immunity against my mother's tears. Of course, you've never met Madeline.
"Fine, ma, I'll go buy your groceries," I relented with a sigh. "Do you have a list of the things you need?" She perked up immediately, jumped out of her chair, and scampered into the kitchen.
"I've got one right here!" She called back to me. A minute later, she was back in the living room, pressing twenty bucks and an exceedingly long list into my hands. "Thank you, Michael," she said sweetly. I stared down at the list. For one thing, there was no possible way that she was able to write the list up so fast, which lead me to believe that the action was premeditated. She must have known that I'd eventually cave in. I examined the list closer, making mental calculations in my head, and arriving to an unsurprising conclusion.
"You do know that a twenty is nowhere near enough to cover the cost of all this, right?" She reached into her back pocket, pulled out a cigarette, lit it, and stuck it in her mouth.
"It was all I could find lying around." She blew the smoke off to the side.
"What about the rest?" I inquired. Madeline shrugged.
"Oh, you'll think of something." In other words, 'Oh, you can pay the difference.' I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and counted to ten. Some things just weren't worth the fight.
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A/N: This is most likely going to be a short fanfiction. I'd guess that it will have about...three chapters at most. The second chapter will be posted soon, depending on how fast I finish my Bio project. Anyways, please read and review! I'd love to hear what you guys think, since this is my first time writing a Burn Notice fanfiction. I'm not sure if I got his 'tone' down, though--Michael Westen is a hard man to write!