Alright, I really don't want any criticism involving my kooky timeline. This takes place in 2001. Which means that Mike would be 17 in the 5 year flashback episode, which is obviously not true. So, here's what's going to happen. We're all going to pretend 2001 was a little more than 11 years ago. How about 16 or 17 years ago. Yeah, how about we split a couple years up into two, so we can have an accurate timeline. I would push the time back a little further, but I wanted 2001 for a reason. A lot of you Americans know where I'm going with that. Yes, I'm that horrible. You'll all forgive me, because I'm going to make that certain scene a really big turning point in their relationship. Anyways, forgive the time fart.
A ginormous thanks to Alice for making my chapter pretty. You all need to marry her. She's the best wife ever.
Also, I want to thank Selvet for betaing my work, as well as stetsonblack for helping me through some of my writers block. They both are amazing. Thank you so much.
So now that my Grammy acceptance speech is over and done with, I can tell you I fulfilled my promise. 4,000 words. The next chapter will probably longer. Not shorter, though.
Summary: Mike's grandmother could not be contacted when his parents died. Shipped off to a boys home, he was found my Harvey when his reputation called for extreme actions. The lawyer is clueless when it comes to caring for the quirky eleven year old. But he may soon find out that he won't be doing all the caring.
Warnings: there may be some slash. Nothing with Harvey/Mike (although I do have another story where that's the main pairing. It's in production at the moment). If you don't want me to add it, let me know and I won't. Nothing in this prologue, but there will be gore in the next one, and some dark themes. I mean, this is my take on mike after the accident. Lemme do what I want.
Disclaimer: I don't own it. If I did, shit would go down. So, USA shouldn't sue me. Because as much as I love to loan the characters, I don't want to buy them.
Thanks to an anon for pointing out a spelling fart in the summary. Really embarrassed. It's fixed now. I'm also putting a poll up, so I know how many want slash and how many don't. PLEASE, go to my profile and post your answer. Whatever the answer it, that's the way the story is going. I have the entire story planned out for each answer.
Wow... I didn't expect such a positive feedback on my story. I was shocked. 16 reviews and over 40 followers. It's... I can't even describe how happy that made me. As I said in the first chapter, A lot of my work doesn't get good reviews, so this really meant a lot to me. I responded to every one of you privately (because answering on the actual story is pointless) thanking you and answering any questions you had. You all made my year! I hope for at least three reviews for this chapter!
Now, I won't annoy the hell out of you any longer, on with the chapter.
(No Harvey in this one. Next one is all him though.)
{}-Chapter One-{}
Questions
{}-Start-{}
...
Creaking was one of the most irritating sounds in the world. It was maddening, nearly painful. The sound of two metal joints rubbing together with each step he took made the petite, fair-haired boy wince painfully. He was sore. His head ached, his arm throbbed, and his leg burned. The horrid screech that echoed with each labored step he took made him cringe. The beating in his head soon morphed into a painful pounding. He had no solution for the damned metal support, and didn't dare ask the nurses for one. They were too incompetent to give him a working brace in the first place.
There were two hours left until he was released into the custody of Emily and Mark Reese. Two hours until he was free; free from the horrendous white room, with antiseptic stained floors that burned his nose constantly. Free from the nurses that plastered smiles on their faces and pretended they could tolerate his company for the few moments they shared each day. Free from the damned needle that they stuck into his arm every night, feeding him pain medication that made him numb. Dead from his body and his mind. Numbness he could do nothing but endure.
He was ready to leave at that very moment. They had fitted him with the brace, an awkward splint-like device that connected to the pins and plates that held his destroyed bone in place, and told him the only way to get used to it was to walk with it. He obliged quickly, standing with the help of the bulky metal brace that now held his shattered leg in place, pins entering the skin around his shin and ankle, keeping the smaller bones in place as the metal contraption did its work. The crutches they gave him were nearly as painful as his throbbing arm. They did little to help him walk, considering his knee has such limited movement, but they kept him from leaning on the nurse. Anything was better than that.
The pudgy nurse that held onto his arm stopped abruptly as a stretcher wheeled past them, making him jolt suddenly, the bands on his metal brace digging into what little muscle he had on the long limb. He would have yelped, had he been alone. But instead, he dug his front teeth into his lower lip, nearly gagging when the taste of blood seeped into his mouth. The coppery substance spread like acid across his taste buds, metallic and sickening. Steely eyes darted over to her, his icy orbs boring into her dark brown ones with anger. She apologized hastily, slapping on yet another fake smile too sugary to hold any truth within. Mike narrowed his eyes.
That bitch isn't sorry.
They passed his old hospital room. Peeking in, he caught sight of a small girl. Red eyed and runny nosed, her arm was being wrapped tightly in a bright pink cast. He looked down at his black one, then back at her. Their eyes met for a brief second, before the nurse rushed him along to yet another room. Plain and white, like every other one in the building. A metal table was in the center surrounded by four uncomfortable looking chairs. He had been in one before, when his grandfather died. A woman sat at the far corner. Mrs. Shapiro, the social worker he'd met earlier. The nurse helped him to the chair before grabbing his crutches and setting them to the side. He stretched his leg out, sitting uncomfortably on the chair. There was little to no cushioning on the seat, making it brutally hard against his backside. The woman didn't look up from her clipboard, but did smile.
"Hello, my name is Allison Shapiro. We met once before, in case you didn't remember."
He did.
"Before you leave, we have to ask you a few questions. Some of them might be obvious, but you have to try to answer all of them truthfully, can you do that, buddy?"
"Don't patronize me, Mrs. Shapiro."
"Oh," she looked up at the boy for the first time, pausing. His eyes held none of the innocence she usually saw in an eleven year old boy. He spoke as if she were he was the same age as her. For a second, she debated what to say. "I apologize. Shall we begin?"
He waved his hand in the air, gesturing for her to begin her questions. He let his eyes wander every contour of the room: the white spackled walls, the painting of an orchid on the far partition. The table was clean, save for a small dent by his left pointer finger. He ran his nail across it a few times, before looking down at the desk, eyeing the silver engraved pen by her folder.
"Name?"
"Michael James Ross."
"Date of birth?"
"January 23rd."
"Alright, good. Tell me, where are we right now?"
Icy blue clashed with ruddy brown.
"How would you describe the situation we're in?"
"Unfavorable."
Scribbling echoed through the space. The clock ticked – the metronomic sound in rhythm with the jotting. His foot started to tap, the repetitive motion shaking the chair slightly. The legs creaked, like the brace had earlier that day. The fan shook, the long string connected to the metal base swaying as if it were a conductor in front of violins, violas and all those instruments that strum. He nearly smiled; he had himself an orchestra. A symphony of noises nobody but himself would take notice of. He closed his eyes, honing in on the groaning, whooshing, and ticking. The music drew him in, wrapping around him like a blanket. He was focused, he was safe. Nobody could interrupt him now that he was listening to his music.
"Michael?"
The music stopped.
"Hm?" the boy leaned back, looking down at the table once more.
She sighed, "Please pay attention."
A raised eyebrow. She hadn't noticed he had snatched her silver pen off of the desk until she reached down to grab it. Looking at the boy for a solid ten seconds, she bit back a groan. Shifting through her purse, she grabbed a cheap looking pencil from her bag and began to write once more, "Have you been energized, elated, happy, or out of control lately?"
"Oh, Mrs. Shapiro!" He leaned forward, his words dripping with sarcasm, "I'm just this big bundle of happiness and joy. Once we're done here I'm going to grab my mystical Pegasus and fly through the world spreading pleasure and bliss."
She snorted, trying to contain her laughter, "Let's be serious, Michael." She looked up at him, watching his movements. His right pointer finger was scratching at the metal table loudly while his other hand was flipping her yellow writing utensil. His eyes never stayed in once place, darting to every corner of the room, but never at her face. She swiveled the pencil in her hand, leaning forward slightly, "Try to keep the sarcasm at bay. I like you. I don't want you to be shipped off to some facility where you won't have a chance of living a relatively normal life. I'm sure you know about patient confidentiality. I won't tell anyone anything unless you're a harm to others or yourself. Now, what do you think of when you're angry or upset?"
Michael huffed, weighing his options. Either give her the bare minimum and go into a failing foster care system or spend the rest of his childhood sharing a room with eight boys who would make his life Hell on Earth.
"Did you know that only 54% of children in the foster care system graduate high school? Only two percent actually graduate from college. 25% of foster kids are homeless when they age out of the system, and 84% have their own kids before 24, exposing them to low income childhoods and repeating the cycle of neglect and abuse over and over again. Tell me, Mrs. Shapiro, how do you suppose the foster care system is better than a state facility?"
She looked up from her board, her pen stopped, "Because everyone deserves a childhood, Michael. You're smart. I can tell just by looking at you, never mind your file. You won't be in those statistics."
Silence.
"I think about everything when I'm upset. I get mad, and say things I know I shouldn't. I've ended up in the hospital once for it. November 13th, '98. Remember? You should, it was in my file." The words escaped him airily, like he was discussing the weather. Allison leaned forward a little more, her eyes looking over the boy. His vision was once again focused on anything but her own.
"Are you scared or worried about something?"
"Nope."
"Do you have any beliefs that aren't shared by others?"
"Well, I think Amelia Eairheart is playing poker in the Atlantic with Kennedy and Lincoln, does that count?"
"Michael."
"No, nothing of extreme importance."
"Have you been feeling depressed, sad or moody lately?"
Mike let out a dry laugh, leaning back as far as he could, the silver back of the chair chilling his skin through the thin shirt he had on. Looking over to the woman, he smiled. The sickly sweet gesture made her shudder. From the exaggerated cheek movements to the taught lower lip, his smile was anything but genuine. He knew exactly what that smile looked like – as did she. They both knew the meaning. It was the smile of liars, thieves, and cheats. It was the scapegoat for any situation. The boy played the part well, but it was only natural. His eyes flickered to the door where a nurse was sure to be waiting.
He learned from the best, after all.
"I said I'm fine, Mrs. Shapiro."
She narrowed her eyes and tucked a greasy lock of hair behind her ear, clearing her throat. Her pencil scribbled a mile a minute, the bright body of the device blurring with speed. The yellow paint clashed with her purple acrylics as she scribbled down some more, the scratching sound of a pencil much more irritating than the scrawling of a good pen. He snatched the silver rod from the table again and flipped it over his thumb. The gray blurred again as he did so, waiting for her to finish writing. Growing frustrated, he looked over at her, his eyes narrowed, "Planning on writing a novel about me, Shapiro?"
"Don't flatter yourself, Mr. Ross. You're not that interesting."
Double blink.
Lie.
With a smirk, he crossed his arms, dropping the pen into his lap.
"Now," she put her pencil down, looking back up at the bored teenager, "Tell me, what's been on your mind, lately?"
Everything.
"Oh, is this a slumber party?" Mike quipped, "Are we going to share our innermost thoughts and feelings? I won't share a bed with you, though. The one I've been using is too small for me."
Ignoring the jab, she continued on, "Has there been any sort of thought or image that you can't get out of your head?"
I hate you.
"Nothing of significance."
"Alright," she scribbled something down again.
"I will recite a series of numbers to you, and then I will ask you to repeat them to me, first forwards, and then backwards."
"Shoot," the boy flipped his pen once more, the simple movement quickening as their conversation progressed.
"3, 6, 13, 45, 100, 56, 17, 89, 44, 34, 78, 122, 78, 33, 234, 1344, 7," she looked down at her sheet, ready to check off the numbers she had just scrawled on her sheet.
He answered perfectly, forwards, then backwards, then forwards again. He flipped his pen as he did so, now flipping it over his pointer finger. She spouted off another stream of numbers, pleased when he repeated them perfectly, with no falter. She then asked him to recite the first series. He did so perfectly. She looked through the questions on her sheet, skipping the ones she knew he wouldn't answer.
"Tell me about the accident."
The pen dropped from Mike's fingers, hitting the table with a loud clang. Recovering as quickly as he could, Allison heard his brace squeak under his table, a sign he was growing uncomfortable. He leaned forward once more, a smirk etching its way onto his pink lips, "I didn't wet my bed, did I?"
"Michael, you need to answer this question. I've been lenient with you, but this is a question you need to answer truthfully," her voice was void of its usual exasperation. Now, it was flat, like an unturned piano. Her eyes were slightly narrowed and her lips were pursed. How dull.
Mike paused, not knowing if he should lie once more. Deciding against it, he leaned back, looking down at the tabletop, his façade beginning to falter.
"You little bitch!"
Michael flinched, clutching at the leather beneath him. The sound of his mother's sobs echoed through the car. It was hard to ignore the pleading and screaming coming from the front seat. The hurtful words thrown at his mother circled around him, torturing his mind as he tried to drown them out. He hummed softly to himself, and eventually, pulled his knees to his chest, sobbing into them softly. Rain pelted against the windshield, the roar of the engine drowned out by the torrential downfall. He sniffled as he tried to ignore the insults shot at him and his mother.
"Shut your son up!" his father growled, fury evident in his tone, "He's nothing but a coward. D'you lie about him, too? Is he my kid? I mean, look at him, he doesn't look like me!"
Mike looked up, his eyes wide with fear. His mother sobbed quietly, looking over at him, "It's alright, sweetie, just go to sleep, we'll be home soon."
He nodded, his pale lips trembling. He watched as his mother turned her sharp blue eyes over to his father, "Don't bring him into this, James. He's done nothing wrong; he's just a child."
"Thirteen years, Elizabeth. Thirteen goddamn years. How the hell do I know he's my kid? He's not, is he?! He's a goddamn lie, too! I treated him as if he were my own flesh and blood! You fucking liar!"
Mike flinched at the word, curling into himself more and letting out a loud sob. His father turned around, taking his eyes off of the road. Elizabeth let out a cry of terror and grabbed onto the steering wheel. He rapped his knuckles across Mikes exposed leg, his eyes bloodshot, "Shut your mouth, before I shut it for you. God, you little bastard. I should have known."
He laughed hoarsely for a moment, stopping the car in the middle of the road. He reached over to his wife, his fist grabbing at her shirt. He pulled her close, her face inches from his. He started screaming, his voice gruff and unintelligible. Elizabeth cried out, begging for him to start the car again. Her cries soon grew silent as she ran out of oxygen. Her mouth remained agape as she leaned over, her chest constricting as she attempted to regain composure. James pulled her back up by her hair, the messy bun it was in coming undone. Long red tendrils danced down her back and around her face. Her husband pulled her face up and pulled his free hand around, ready to hit her. Mike leapt forward, glad he hadn't unbuckled his seatbelt when he entered the car. He grabbed his father's wrist, shocking him out of his rage. He growled, letting go of his wife, grabbing Mike by the neck instead. His fingers dug into the soft flesh, bruising the skin around them and breaking the small blood vessels directly beneath.
"Don't hit her," he spoke clearly, in spite of the fear obvious on his face, "I don't care what you do to me, but do not hit my mother."
James Ross cackled, the sound sending shivers down both Mike and Elizabeth's spines. It sounded crazed, on the edge of hysteria. Michael met his father's gaze once he was composed.
"And if I do? Pray tell me. What will you do?"
Mike just narrowed his eyes, nothing but abhorrence evident in the bloodshot orbs, "I hate you."
The man smiled, however, pushing his 'beloved' son back into the leather seats he was sobbing on before. He garbled a few curse words before starting the car once more.
Silence ensued.
Not the comfortable silences that soothed you and let your mind wander without interruption. Or the calm between two lovers, where they had so much to say, but only had to speak between careful eye contact and gentle touches. Not even the horrid stillness shared when there was nothing to talk about. This silence was composed of nothing but fear and hatred. The engine roar was silent in his ears. The rain was nothing but a whisper. There was nothing but ignored words hanging in the cold air. Apologies and lies. Fear and hate. Terror and utter revulsion.
This silence was perfidious.
The silence remained unbroken until the sound of screeching echoed through Mike's ears. Everything went black for a moment as he felt himself flung around the car like a rag doll. He had never wished he was wearing a seatbelt before, but he was at that moment. It wasn't until he felt the pain in his leg that he realized how bad the accident had really been. Horror built up inside of him as he strained to hear some sort of noise, any sign that he wasn't alone. But once again, there was only a dreadful silence.
"My father died on impact. His head was filled with glass and metal. It was quite bloody. My mother was alive, though. She was unconscious, bleeding a little. The car hit the side, that's how I got stuck; the door crunched like a paper bag and trapped my leg under it."
He fingered the top of the metal brace, the rods digging into the skin on his thigh. He sighed, knowing he would go through more meetings like this damn one because of what he had said. Begrudgingly, he shrugged, looking up at her, "I was stuck there for six hours. They had to get my mother and father out first. My mother was in critical condition. She was DOA. Bleeding in the brain."
Allison Shapiro looked at the boy, an unreadable expression on her face. She knew she had to report the obvious abuse to her superiors. She would hold it off as long as she could, though. It took him an hour to warm up to her, she didn't want to break that small smidge of trust they had developed over that time. She wrote his story down in shorthand, knowing there was already an official report on record, from a traffic cam that had picked up the entire incident. Looking through the questionnaire once more, she smiled softly, looking over to the boy.
"Well Michael, it seems as though we've reached the end of our conversation. I just have a few more questions. Try and interpret these sayings, alright?"
Mike showed no indication he had heard her.
"People living in glass houses should not throw stones."
"People shouldn't live in glass houses. It's stupid."
She raised an eyebrow, looking over the boy. She would have commented, but then realized; that was the exact answer an eight year old had told her a few weeks earlier. Hiding a smile, she continued, "What do you think of the phrase: two heads are better than one?"
Mike looked up, bitter eyes meeting the dull chocolate of Allison's eyes.
"I'd say it has proved true time and time again throughout history."
"And why would that be?"
He leaned forward, his hands grabbing the silver pen he had been flipping earlier. Without looking at her, he spoke.
"Isn't it obvious? Our society is ruled by men."
...
{}-End-{}
The test Mike was being administered was the MSE. It's an exam given to patients who were in traumatic accidents. It tests mental functioning, and pretty much makes sure someone is sane before they send them off into the world. I cut about 90% of the test off, because it's very lengthy. So, I gave you the ghetto version. Hopefully you all don't mind.
Remember to vote!
Love you all!
Muah!
Imaynotbesomeone,
~Imaybesomeone
