Chapter 1: Sugary
The first time it happens is under mitigating circumstances. All right, maybe it isn't exactly the first time but the circumstances were mitigating back then as well.
It's been three years since Lincoln has been with someone, after all. The adrenaline of life on the run and the hardships of prison life would make any man crumble under the need for comfort. And whether it's from the loneliness of solitary at Fox River, or from an unpleasant-looking motel room he shares with Paul Kellerman, it so happens that Sara is the only woman in the confined universe he is currently restricted to. It seems the universe just wants to punish him more than it already has, for being a lousy brother –
What says 'Thank you for breaking me out of prison' better than 'I have a thing for your girlfriend'?
At the beginning, Lincoln would not have considered that he was attracted to Sara. Before Michael showed up at Fox River – and if he's going to be entirely honest, a few times after that – there were occasions when Lincoln noticed particularly attractive details about the prison doctor, not just the obvious fact that she was a great looking woman but little, irresistible things.
Say, when she tucked a lock of red hair behind her ear with a gloved hand and he discovered a minuscule beauty spot below her earlobe, or when the fabric of her shirt was thin enough that he could make it a game of guessing the material of her bra.
These were the kind of things that Lincoln tried to ban, when he realized what was going on between Sara and his brother. They were, he told himself, excusable things, things a man on death row was almost invited to notice, enjoying the beauty in this world wherever he could find it.
When Michael spoke with her on the phone, while Lincoln waited in the car with Kellerman, he couldn't say that he was actually expecting for Sara to agree to join them. Granted, he did feel surprisingly excited when he broke the news, but that was still a reasonable reaction. She would make a far better companion than the ex-government-agent they were currently stuck with, and one is entitled to enjoying the presence of someone already spoken for. Besides, Lincoln had always appreciated being around beautiful women, whether or not there was anything for him to expect.
By now, he can tell you exactly when it happened, when the line was crossed and Sara became more than a beautiful face – and body – for Lincoln to look at, and innocently enjoy.
They had arrived to Chicago in the afternoon. The trip had been eventful, to say the least, what with Sara sneaking past him and Michael to unsuccessfully strangle Kellerman. In the end, booking two motel rooms instead of one was a risk worth taking, one that the ex-agent was reluctant about.
"I'm only saying. One man asking for two separate rooms is shady enough, and it's undoubtedly noticeable."
Lincoln could not help himself from thinking that was a reasonable argument. Then he looked at the determination and self-control on Sara's face, and he reckoned she was still very few inches away from murder.
"We're taking two." She said, and Lincoln would have liked to see anyone call her bluff.
"You're sleeping in the tub," he told Kellerman when the ex-agent got out of the car, then for a few minutes, it was just him, his brother and his brother's girl.
"You don't have to put yourself through that," Sara said considerately. "I mean, the three of us can share a room –"
"No, I want to keep an eye on the bastard." Lincoln told himself he was saying this out of charity. His brother deserved to have a moment of privacy with the woman he loved. She probably did too.
Michael gave him a thankful nod and that was the end of it.
Though as it turned out, Lincoln did end up spending much of the evening in his brother's room, over a somewhat delicious unelaborate dinner which had been purchased earlier that day at the supermarket. The three of them shared ham and cheese sandwiches, a pack of caramels and a couple of two-dollar pies.
This was a good moment, Lincoln reflected, watching his brother laboriously chewing on a caramel, as Sara bit into a slice of apple pie. Still innocent, and still he did not feel guilty for enjoying the couple's presence.
"Hadn't seen you eat any candy since kindergarten, Mike," he decided now was an okay time to tease. "You know what? Maybe being on the run is finally starting to make you fun."
Michael unconvincingly glared and Sara's lips broke into a smile – it was one of the things that Lincoln had always thought made her look most charming.
"Try not to encourage him, okay?" Her reply startled them both, but she didn't pay any mind to their reaction. "You probably shouldn't be having those, when we can't handle your condition better."
"What?"
Sara frowned at their puzzlement and then it hit them both simultaneously, that she was worried about Michael's diet, that too much sugar was bad for the diabetes he didn't have.
Lincoln watched a twinge of guilt pop into his brother's eyes, when he decided not to tell her, not yet, not to ruin the moment with another one of his lies.
"She's right," Lincoln said, flying to his brother's rescue and grabbing the pack of caramels from his hands. "I'm cutting you off."
Michael gave him a half-embarrassed smile and Sara – out of sympathy or whatnot – put down the slice of pie that she'd been eating. Suddenly it struck Lincoln that the sugary flavor was still there, on her lips, and he knew that Michael wanted to taste it, to kiss the sweetness right out of her lips, because the same thought was sprouting in his mind, pulsating in his blood.
That's when it happens, really.
When Lincoln knows, in a blink, that this has just become a moment that they can no longer fully enjoy when they're three.
He's clearly the odd man out here and yet there is something so mesmerizing about the casual way in which Sara licks the sugary syrup from her fingers that he just sits there, fascinated, unmistakably aroused and strangely unashamed by it.
She is beautiful, he thinks, and the thought does not set off a world of guilt into his head. He's had it so many times, in an unaware consciousness, that it feels familiar and factual, a truth of the universe, and so he doesn't immediately realize what is happening.
That he is feeling exceedingly attracted towards a woman who loves his brother and is loved by him, and the only thing for Lincoln to do right now is to make some excuse to leave.
Sara indifferently wipes her hand on her jeans and the magnetism of her every movement is so conspicuous, so blatantly sensual to Lincoln's mind that he almost convinces himself that the only desire he is sensing is his brother's.
"It's getting a little late." Michael says – actually manages to sound like he means it. "We should probably call it a night. It's been a hard couple of days and we got to stay sharp."
Really, all that they need to expect from the next week is laying low while they wait to make a move on that key that Sara's father left her, but Lincoln doesn't point that out.
They really should call it a night. The most unwise things that Lincoln's ever done, the most thoughtless things he's ever thought, all happened after midnight.
"I'll get going," he says, and fancies the polite disappointment on Sara's face is a little bit genuine. "You kids take care."
He takes his leave without further ado and doesn't turn around, which does him little good, because it's the fruity sweetness of Sara's lips on his mind, the glistening wetness of her fingers when she sucked them one by one, the mindless innocence of her whole behavior, involuntarily attractive.
The second motel room – the one where Kellerman has already settled in – is only a couple of doors away, with very few dissimilarities from the one he just left, and yet the atmosphere is so strikingly different from that heated, sugary place haunting his mind that Lincoln has to take a step back to endure the change.
"Home already?" Kellerman says, without looking up from the screen of his telephone.
There is something about his voice when he says this sort of thing that Lincoln especially dislikes. Tonight is no exception and he replies coarsely, "Mind your own business."
He sits down on the bed even though the gesture is awkward, in front of Kellerman, specifically because of the thoughts he is currently entertaining.
The ex-agent has settled in an armchair at the other end of the room. He still sounds in between wry and detachedly arrogant when he replies, this time raising one eye to Lincoln, "I sure hope that's going to be possible."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"Minding my own business, when we're just a couple of steps away from the pair that insisted on getting a separate room. Ridiculous extravagance, in times like these. And these walls seem pretty thin."
Lincoln doesn't say anything for a while, desperately staring at the orange-wallpapered barrier between his room and his brother's, and for a second, it doesn't even matter that Kellerman is being a jerk.
He is ruining everything. His brother went to prison to save his life and here he is, coveting the first woman Michael has truly loved, wanting her for no better or nobler reason than any man would have to want a woman.
He didn't fry on the electric chair, but he'll fry in hell all right.
"Just keep your mouth shup, Kellerman." He says and feigns to go to sleep.
This morning only, their trip to Chicago and meeting Sara at the train station actually felt like a good beginning.
