Breathe

by mooyoo

He can’t wrap his head around this idea that his brother is a killer, and it leaves his heart hammering and a horrible ache in his chest.

Title: Breathe
Fandom: Prison Break
Characters: Michael, Lincoln
Prompt: 036, Smell
Word Count: 1,629
Rating: G ish
Summary: He can't wrap his head around this idea that his brother is a killer, and it leaves his heart hammering and a horrible ache in his chest.

Disclaimer: Paul Scheuring and a whole lot of other people who aren't me own Prison Break.

AN: Takes place just after the murder of the VP's brother.

-

Michael has never noticed a particular scent attached to Lincoln, so he rarely thinks about what his brother usually smells like. Sometimes he wears cologne, but usually not. His deodorant is always strong, but nondescript. Lincoln spent an entire summer one year working at a concessions stand in Comiskey Park and came home each night stinking of beer and fried food, but Michael continued to eat buffalo wings without any reminder of his brother.

But while Lincoln has never smelled particularly like any one thing or another, there are a few odors that attack Michael with thoughts of his brother when they invade his nose. Michael smells dirt and it makes him think of his face being pushed into the mud in the park, Lincoln sitting on top of his back with a laugh that Michael could feel rumble through him. When he gets a whiff of laundry detergent Michael remembers being small, sitting in a laundry basket while his brother stood next to him folding towels. Cigarette smoke brings him back to Lincoln's first car, a beat up old Honda that he got for $200 after saving up for a year. Lincoln started smoking when he was 15 and his clothes, his room, everything around him was permanently infested with the smell of cigarette smoke from then on. The scent attached itself to the inside of his car almost immediately and Michael would wrinkle his nose every time he got into it until Lincoln relented and started buying air fresheners to hang from the rear-view mirror. The ugly, artificial pine scent only made it worse, until the two offensive smells merged into one beast of an odor that Michael hated.

He dabbled briefly with cigarettes towards the end of high school, until Lincoln caught him with one, warned him never to touch the things again, caught him again and beat the shit out of him. He hated the smell of cigarettes and hated every time his brother would smoke around him, allowing the scent to attack Michael's clothes and hair until Michael smelled like him.

Pot has a slightly different smell, more bitter somehow, but he thinks maybe that's because it's not as common an scent as cigarette smoke. He ponders the odor that he caught a faint whiff of on Lincoln's neck when he'd grabbed onto him for a brief hug before Lincoln was led off, mulls over the lingering aroma that clung to his brother as he drives home after spending hours sitting in a musty police station. He wonders if Lincoln had been high, and wonders why he didn't at least take a shower to rid himself of the stink of pot and blood. Maybe he didn't have enough time before he was arrested – caught.

Murder echoes angrily through his head, murderer, your brother's a murderer, but that can't be true, can't possibly be true, there's just no way, and he's wound up so tightly with this unbearable news that he just can't process. He can't wrap his head around this idea that his brother is a killer, and it leaves his heart hammering and a horrible ache in his chest. He feels like he's running out of breath just sitting inside the car.

He walks heavily into his dark, empty apartment, dropping his keys to the table just inside the door. His aim is poor tonight, however, and they only catch the edge of the table before spilling onto the floor. He doesn't bother to pick them up.

He paces around the dark living room for a few minutes, exhausted but too wound up even to sit still and feels the need to keep moving. He needs something, needs something, needs something, but he can't figure out what, and he can't calm down, heart is beating harder now, harder even than the whole ride home. He feels sick, angry, heart-broken, scared, and he's missing something, but it can't be his brother because he lost him years ago.

He hasn't been home for more than ten minutes, but he has to get out, there's something he needs and it's not here. He dashes back out the door, down the hallway and into the elevator without even stopping to pickup his keys and lock the door.

You need to lock the door, he tells him self. Go back, pick up the keys, they're next to the table, lock the door, someone could get in – get past the doorman, up the stairs, try to break in, realize it's unlocked, slip in easily, stereo, TV, nice picture frame with Linc and Mom in it, silverware, stash of emergency cash, STOP IT.

He makes himself stop thinking and keep walking, tries to ignore the unlocked door he left upstairs, and moves his feet briskly past the doorman with a mumbled "thank you," as the door is held open for him. Breath comes a little easier once he's outside and heading for the all-night convenience store around the corner, stumbling inside with a ping of the bell on the door and eyes searching the shelves for something. Something.

His pace slows as he browses the shelves, wandering up and down the narrow aisles past a bearded man scratching a lotto ticket, a teenager sneaking a bottle of Pepsi into his jacket by the soda coolers, a young woman with blond hair – probably died – perusing the Ramen selection.

He runs his fingertips over the products lining the shelves, but nothing is right, this isn't it, any of it. He turns a corner and is facing the counter with a middle-aged man standing behind it leaning against a battered cash-register and looking bored. And cigarettes. Several racks of cigarettes lining the shelves behind the clerk, painting the wall with Marlboro, Lucky Strikes, Misty, Newport… a dozen others. He stops in his tracks, hand falling to his side. That's it. He needs a cigarette.

He hasn't smoked in years, but he's desperate for one now, and he breathes a heavy sigh, his stomach settling as his feet carry him towards the counter.

"Pack of Marlboros, please," he murmurs to the clerk, fishing in his back pocket for his wallet and pulling out a $10 to toss on the counter. The clerk slides the pack of cigarettes across the counter, gives him his change, and then he's out the door with a quick "thank you."

The cigarettes are shoved into his pocket as he walks home, and his hand closes hard around the rectangular package so that the corners dig sharply into his palm. He's calmer now as he walks back through the front door of he building, his "Thank you" to the doorman a little more heartfelt this time, though still distracted.

He watches the numbers above the elevator door light up as he glides past each floor and counts in his head 8…9…10…11…12, and the doors slide open to let him off. Nothing is amiss in the hallway, and once he's back in his apartment there doesn't seem to be anything wrong at all, no one broken in, everything still here and fine and the door's locked now, secure, and he's alone.

It takes him a few minutes of fishing though a drawer in the kitchen that is seldom used and far too messy and he'll have to clean that up tomorrow, but now he's found the small matchbook he was looking for, knew it was in there, and he's out on the terrace with the matches in one hand and a cereal bowl in the other before he stops thinking about what he can throw out from that drawer and how he can rearrange it.

One of the matches hits the back of the package with a sharp phht and he watches as the end gives a tiny burst for barely a second and then calms to steady burn. He pulls the cigarette pack from his pockets, crumpled ever so slightly from the weight of his hand, and pulls one out to light it. The end burns with a dull pulse and he brings it to his lips, but stops short just before the stick enters his mouth, wrinkling his nose with distaste.

He breathes in the scent coming from the cigarette and looks out at the dark city speckled with lights, then sinks down to sit on the floor of the terrace, leaning against the glass sides, and wedges himself into the corner. He's surrounded by glass and air and thinks about how hard he'd have to press against the glass to break it and tumble out into a freefall down twelve stories.

The bowl comes to rest on the floor beside him, the cigarette laid carefully inside it, still untouched by his lips. He watches it for a while, watches the end burn slowly, the smoke trailing off in curls that get lost in the touch of wind surrounding him. He breathes it in deeply, pulls in the burning air, and thinks that he doesn't really want to smoke it. He feels his chest loosen, his heart is slowing down, and he lets his eyes close, head falling back to rest against the glass wall with a soft thump.

He's not sure why this is what he needed, he hates these things, cancer, emphysema, asthma, high blood pressure, rotting lungs, yellow teeth, bad breath, infectious stink. But this is it, this is calming him, soothing. Not enough, nothing will ever be enough again, he thinks, because his brother might be a murderer, but this here, right now – cigarette smoke curling over his hands, sliding through his nose and inside him, the scent surrounding him – this is what he needs right now.

He hates that smell but he needs it, needs the smoke in his lungs like he needs air.

-end-