Okay: One of my loyal reviewers, the super fabulistic Nika, brought my attention to this particular song that she felt portrayed the emotion behind the latest chapters wonderfully. And I have to say, I totally agree with her!
So babes, work with me here. Open a new internet-window, go to youtube, search for it's not over daughtry, and click on the first hit ... (WTF, this video has been removed due to terms of use violation...oh crap!) Okay, scroll down a little and click on any video that features the song, like the forth video or something, just DON'T pick any live or acoustic version.
Okay, turn up the volume and close your eyes and think about Michael, Sara and Linc in WFA at this moment!
Do you feel it babies, do you feel the vibe, well get on reading then! SHOO!
ENJOY!!!!
PSS: Lots of stars for Pemphredo who has her hands full with me, but is truly the most awesome Beta-mommy out there! And for RDG too, 'cause me misses her very much.
Blowing away (Part One)
Lincoln tensed and started to approach Michael slowly, but stopped abruptly when his brother jumped from the couch. She really hadn't wanted to, but her instincts had kicked in the second he'd pushed himself erect. A sudden surge of fright had made her jump upright too and step backwards. She wanted to scream that she wasn't afraid of him, but her bodily actions conveyed a very different story. It felt like her mind knew the difference between the two but her body couldn't yet distinguish Michael from the man who'd raped her.
After her initial shock had passed she watched him carefully. She didn't know why he had answered so eagerly, but he had obviously realized the misunderstanding his question had created, because he'd clearly jumped up out of panic, with his eyes impossibly wide and full of pain, eager to explain what he'd really meant.
She cursed inwardly because her shying away like that must have felt like another blow to his already swollen nose. What happened next only confirmed her fears because his eyes glazed over with unshed tears and he looked away from them for a second to compose himself.
"It wasn't about...about that, I mean," The desperation lined his face and his hands came up in defence "I...I'm sorry... It wasn't about that."
They all visibly calmed a little but they kept on standing while Michael continued. "I meant, what if I won't go to the doctor? What if I refuse to talk about Sona?"
"Mike, you went to a psychologist all your life up to Fox River. You know it's good for you, that they can help you to cope with all of this. You know, with your condition and stuff."
"Linc." The name left his mouth in an urgent desperate plea, before he shifted his anguished eyes to her for a moment. She couldn't believe him, after all they'd been through he was still pleading with his brother to stop talking about his past, about who he was, in front of her. It was as if he was ashamed of it and was afraid that she'd bail the minute she realized what a screwed up person he really was.
"No Michael, I won't budge on this one, you're going to that chic and you're going to talk about what happened. I won't let you bottle it up and have a meltdown again. You're gonna talk, even if I have to drag you there myself and strap you to that chair."
She saw Michael's body tense while Lincoln prepared himself for another set of forceful statements, and felt she had to intervene.
"Michael," Her soft and calm voice drew his attention "maybe this doctor can help you with dealing with this trauma. She can show you ways to relieve the stress. You don't have to tell her everything, just a little bit."
His troubled eyes portrayed the inner struggle he was having. Should he give in to their request or should he stand his ground?
"Michael?" She pleaded again.
"I... can't." He whispered while a few tears broke through his barrier and slipped down his cheeks. "You have to understand... the things that happened...I...I just can't."
Her heart cracked a little more seeing Michael so fearful and his spirit so broken. She knew pushing him was not helping and hoped Lincoln could see it too and end his verbal onslaught. Unfortunately Lincoln had something entirely different in mind.
"Michael, bro, you have to, it's eating you alive. And if you keep going like this, who's to say something like last week won't happen again? Do you want that to happen again Michael? Do you?"
Michael flinched like he'd been slapped and backed away from them. She wanted to slap Lincoln for that comment. That was such a low blow. And Lincoln looked as smug as could be expected in this kind of situation, like he was slapping himself on the back for finding the words that would finally get through to his brother. This realisation made her blood boil with a combination of frustration and fear.
Michael backed away further. "Please, Linc, don't make me tell, I can't talk about it."
Lincoln moved in closer "Yes you can, Mike, you have to let it out."
Michael's back was almost pressed against the French window "I've found a way to let it out, Linc. I promise, it won't happen again. I can cope now." He sounded so afraid and desperate, it almost distracted her enough to forget about what he'd just said, almost.
With no more room to back away, Lincoln was able to close the distance between him and his brother. "I told you. NO more fleeing this time. No more lying. You're going to that doc!" He was getting angry and it was transferring a little to his younger brother because the next words that came out of Michael's mouth were stronger and more determined than the previous frantic whispers.
"I said, I can handle it now, I will cope on my own!"
"Mike." The warning in Lincoln's voice was so low and deadly it made goosebumps appear on her arms.
"I won't go!" The younger brother countered with less controlled emotions.
"You will!" Oh boy, Lincoln had time bomb written all over his face.
"I won't!" Crazy deluded 'lets pull the pin out of the grenade' Michael countered again.
She felt like a spectator at a tennis match, constantly shifting her gaze from one brother to the other.
"Mike! YOU WILL!" In different circumstances, she would be amused beyond belief right now, because these two adult men in front of her had forsaken all their 'mature conversation' skills in a matter of minutes. But she wasn't amused in the least, in fact, she was scared to death because this bomb was going to blow any second now.
"No!" He hadn't exactly screamed but his negation had sounded loud and persistent enough to make Lincoln stop.
For a second she felt exuberated, seeing Michael stand up against Lincoln, with his posture straight and his head held up high. Seeing his eyes in particular elated her enormously. They were on fire, burning with strength and stubborn determination which overshadowed the guilt and pain momentarily. She liked what she saw, but the situation, of course, was too dire for her joy to surpass the well-known dread in her stomach for long.
Suddenly Michael started striding towards the passageway between their living room and the hall way, but Lincoln was hot on his heels instantly.
"Oh no you don't, you're not running away from this!" With five large steps he'd caught up with his brother and in an uncontrolled manner he grabbed Michael's left forearm in a vice grip and yanked him backwards forcefully to stop him from walking out.
A sudden heartbreaking scream filled the room and it made all three of them stagger back visibly. Lincoln released his brother's arm at once and Michael immediately clutched it protectively against his chest. She saw no sign of the previous anger when her concerned eyes fell on both brothers. They looked truly miserable. Michael's face was contorted with pain as unshed tears were gathering to fall, while Lincoln looked confused, guilty and shocked.
"Mikey...I'm sorry, I'm so sorry...I didn't mean to do it so hard!" Lincoln pleaded desperately while approaching his brother timidly.
"It's okay." The words sounded a little slurred and she didn't believe him one bit, because he kept on backing away from Lincoln instinctively, which made the older brother stop and put his hands up in surrender.
God, they both looked so crushed and she wanted nothing more than to hug them silly.
For a few moments their harsh breathing was the only thing that resonated in the living room, but suddenly Lincoln's heavy voice broke the silence "Michael."
She frowned and looked at Lincoln. Where had the guilt and confusion gone, and why did he now look the most threatening she'd ever seen him, with fire blazing in his eyes and fingers that twitched alive, eager to hurt something.
"Michael. Let me see!"
Why was she suddenly afraid of Lincoln?
She heard a couple of broken whimpers from Michael but couldn't stop looking at the other brother while she inched closer to him.
"Michael?" So low and deadly, it made her shiver.
"Please Linc,...I...I had to let it out." So frightened and frantic.
What the fuck was going on here? She was clueless and she hated it. She wanted to scream until the windows rattled for them to tell her what she was missing out on. Suddenly she noted that Lincoln's stare was fixed much lower than Michael's face. What the hell was he looking at? She followed his gaze until her eyes fell on Michael's heaving chest, and his arms clutched against it, and his right hand busily trying to cover up the bloodstained sleeve of his left arm, and his rumpled t-shirt, and his, wait a minute.
"What the hell!" There was no time for elegance when all she saw was dark red spots appear on light grey fabric.
"Linc, I can cope now ... please understand... I just had to... let it out...it was killing us." Michael whimpered on, but she was too transfixed by the red to notice.
Suddenly Lincoln propelled himself towards Michael, who tried to escape but was blocked within seconds by his older brother.
"Let me see!" He sounded more frantic now, while he was trying to get a hold of Michael's hand, which didn't look like an easy task with the younger man twisting and turning to get away.
"No! It's filth Lincoln, don't touch me." Even this heartbroken whisper wasn't enough to bring her back from her paralysed state.
"MICHAEL!" They were struggling for real now. Michael's pained cries finally made her able to move towards them, but ultimately she could do nothing more than watch as they both struggled to get a hold of his left arm.
Michael was obviously out of control while he tried resisting against his brother, who, in his turn, looked torn between using brutal force and being as gentle as he could to attain what he wanted. But when Michael half started to sob while saying he had to cut the filth out over and over again, she couldn't hold back her own sobs anymore. This was horrid, truly horrifying! She was almost full blown crying within seconds, she tried to control it but the tears just kept on coming. She wanted feet cuddles and shower embraces, not bloodstained shirts and swollen noses, she wanted 'yippikaye's' and boyish high fives on movie night, not watching these two broken men fight and hurt each other.
Then, like a horror movie playing in slow motion, she saw Lincoln finally succeeding in grabbing Michael's hand, while stretching his arm in the same movement and pushing the sleeve up with his other hand.
The sight that was uncovered seemed to burn her retina and made her stop crying immediately. Her mouth dropped open in silent shock and her eyes felt like they were going to explode. The two men stood frozen like statues in front of her. Michael was a little hunched over, crippled by exhaustion from the struggle and mortification that they'd found out his secret, while a horrified Lincoln was still gripping his brother's hand and stretching their joined arms in between them. Three pairs of eyes were fixed on the massacre on Michael's arm. Old and fresh cuts, a multitude of dark crusts mixed with reopened bloody trails, swollen and red skin, so many scars, too many. All she could think of was too many.
"Mikey..." Lincoln's voice sounded exactly like she felt, desperate and stupefied.
"I had to Lincoln. It was killing me." While whispering it she saw his fingers softly fall out of Lincoln's paralysed hand as he started backing away slowly to leave the living room.
Moments passed before they heard the front door click shut. This sound seemed to wake them from their dazed stupor. They both shifted their gaze from the place where Michael had disappeared from their sight, to lock eyes with each other. She didn't need words to know what they both were thinking. What the hell just happened? And then after she saw Lincoln's eyes widen simultaneously with hers. He's getting away!
Before she had time to think about it, she was running towards the front door with Lincoln hot on her trail. If Michael seriously thought he could disappear like that after dumping that on them, he had another thing coming!
----------------------------------
"Michael!" They both screamed at the same time while running towards him on the beach. He wasn't running away but he didn't stop walking either.
"Michael!" They tried again, and this time he stopped and turned towards them. He let out a deep sigh and she saw a sliver of disappointment pass through his eyes. Had he really thought they would just drop the matter?
"What?" He couldn't hide the annoyance from entering his voice.
"What do you mean WHAT!" Lincoln asked incredulously "You can't just drop something like that on us, and expect us to be fine with it! I mean, have you even looked at the war that's raging on your arm?"
"Please Michael, you have to let me take a look at those cuts. Some of them look infected. You could get sick because of that, and the scars, some of those wounds need stitching or they won't heal properly." She knew she was babbling, but she really didn't care. She had to get through to him.
"Michael please, this is exactly why you have to go to that doctor lady. She can help you deal with with all of this. You cutting yourself isn't healthy." Lincoln was only a few feet away from Michael now. "Please, Mikey." All their desperate pleading seemed to be working, because he'd stopped backing away from them.
God he looked terrible and heavenly at the same time and she had to swallow hard to keep it together while looking at him. His jeans hung low on his hips because of the little weight loss he'd suffered, but she still wanted nothing more than to straddle those hips.
Her eyes moved downwards along his lean legs to stop at his sock-covered feet. He hadn't even taken the time to put his shoes on while leaving the house but she didn't mind at all, because she could picture his beautiful warm feet much better with his boots off. She was pretty sure she would sell one of her own kidneys to be able to cuddle her feet with his right this minute.
His long sleeved shirt was crumpled from the struggle but it still fit in all the right places, doing justice to his broad shoulders and his trim waist.
His exposed forearm hung limply beside his body, gravity's pull on the droplets of blood had created fine red lines that continued past his wrist and onto his knuckles and fingers. The dried-up streaks of blood made his lean fingers look even longer, impossibly long, heavenly long. And though she should feel ashamed and dirty for forgiving him so easily, she already wanted to feel those fingers on her body again, squeezing her, caressing her, moving inside of her.
And then his face, god that face, it was slightly red from crying and marred by sticky dried up tear-marks, his nose showed a nasty swelling, and on top of that his eyes looked muddled by both unshed tears and turbid feelings, but god, stunning was the only word doing his face justice at the moment. Seriously, absolutely stunning.
She broke out of her reverie on hearing his soft voice. "Please Linc...Sara, don't make me tell about Sona. The things that happened... god, I just don't want to think about it, let alone talk about it. Just give me some more time, I'll get over it, I promise, I'll find a way."
Oh, she was ready to submit alright, she would give him a life time to get over it, really. His both divine and dishevelled appearance had already weakened her commitment to make him talk, but it was the brokenness of his stammering voice that sealed the deal.
"I can't allow that Michael." She was torn between wanting to slap Lincoln for his stubborn persistence and hug him for his determination to fix his little brother. She didn't know their history together, and to her it seemed like Lincoln was pushing too hard, but maybe, hopefully, this was the way to go to break down Michael's obstinate defences. She'd learned to trust Lincoln with her life, so maybe she should have a little faith in him.
"You have to understand that it's no longer me and you, Mike. You're not my only concern in this matter anymore. We need to fix this bro, if we ever want to get out of this shit, then we need to fix this, we need to fix..." Lincoln hesitated slightly, trying to rephrase what he'd almost said but Michael beat him to it. "Me... you need to fix...me."
She didn't dare speak, still slightly dazed by what Lincoln had implied, that she was irrevocably part of their family now, and Lincoln's silence too only affirmed Michael's statement. His head dipped in defeat, and his shy eyes lowered to the ground where his left foot started to draw small circles on the powdery sand.
She forced a heavy sigh from her lungs. Was this the turning point? Were they finally where they needed to be to stop all the anguish?
"You're gonna hate me Linc. You're gonna think I'm nothing but a pathetic coward. I've always been weak, but I fought it Linc, I swear, I fought it, like you've shown me, you've got to believe me... but they were too strong."
These brothers had no idea what so ever how much love they had for each other. Just seeing them standing there only a couple of feet from each other, with so much desperation to fix one another oozing from their body, made her chest squeeze tighter and tighter each passing second.
Tall, gentle and graceful versus buff, rough and straightforward. She too had been fooled by their obvious differences, but deep down they were so much alike. They both were hopelessly devoted to each other, and they both thought they weren't worthy of that kind of adoration. She just couldn't fathom how they couldn't see that.
"What ... are you talking about? Michael, seriously. You're THE strongest man I know. You stood up against the mob fearlessly, you got beaten up without giving a sound, you fought against countless bastards, Kellerman, Mahone, Bellick, T-bag." With every name he tabbed a different finger to amplify his speech, "and you won, man, YOU WON!"
"For crying out loud, Abruzzi cut off your freaking toes, and you still wouldn't budge! And you did it all for me, for ME! Do you understand that! You gave up your life for a slob like me. While everybody had dropped me like a bag of crap, you made me promise I hadn't killed Steadman. I did and that was it, just like that, two fucking words and you believed me! Nobody anywhere, has done something amazing like that for anyone! But YOU did it for ME! You're my fucking hero, brother. And if you think I'm just gonna let you grovel and suffocate in your own guilt, than you have vastly underestimated me!"
She'd already realised that she wasn't going to be a very active participant in this confrontation. Sure, the rape-part would be her load to bear, but the more she observed the brothers the more she understood that this went way deeper for the both of them. This rollercoaster-ride had started years before she even considered buying a ticket for it, and although she'd worked her way up to the front seat over the past months, she ultimately still was a spectator. Therefore she tried to sit back and watch it all unfold before her eyes.
"And fuck Mike, Sona? Surviving that place alone is the bravest thing anyone could ever hope to achieve. Nobody comes out of there alive, but YOU did bro, you proved them all wrong. And god, man, I don't even want to consider what it would do to me if I got raped, I would die, honestly..."
She wasn't even surprised when those words left Lincoln's mouth and she didn't blame him in the least. They had both tried so hard to be ready for this confrontation, but they couldn't have foreseen the turmoil of emotions that would hit them so fast and so hard. Lincoln, in all his determination and anxiousness to help Michael, hadn't even seem to notice he'd given away their big secret until he saw his brother's eyes widen with disbelief.
"What?" The look of horror on Michael's face ignited the fire of dread in her stomach again with a vengeance.
Lincoln cursed himself out loud before glancing her way for a second, silently pleading for help. She shook her head slightly, feeling the first signs of heartburn creeping up her chest. They couldn't lie, if they wanted him to let it all out, they had to come clean too. She knew this conversation was about to go monumental awry, but there really was no turning back now.
Chapter End Notes:
The ugliness will continue and end (hopefully) in the next chapter?
Xxx Mikey