Title:Moonshine

Author: SneetchesToo

Pairing: n/a

Rating: General

Summary: Day 6: Michelle Begins – Pre-Season 1 Michelle

Author's Note: #MichelleBlakeWeek2020. For this story's sake the age difference between these guys is only 2-3 years. I'm sure it's probably more on the show, but I wanted them all to be trouble makers together.

"Come on 'Chelle, you can't be serious right now." Michelle rolled her eyes at Carlos' comment as she kicked her foot against the muddy driveway.

"You're daddy's gonna kill ya." Not that she didn't doubt Judd's words, but her father could only be mad if he caught on.

"Well then how about we make sure that he doesn't find out." Iris hissed from her spot beside her and she heard Carlos and Judd both let out a groan.

"You get us arrested, I'm blaming you in a heart beat." Her best-friend was a real peach wasn't he?

"We're not gonna get arrested." She whispered back, watching as the car pulled out of the driveway and onto the road. "We give them five minutes to make sure they're gone and then we go in."

"We can't break into their house 'Chelle, that's against the law." Judd was beginning to sound like a real party pooper and she hated it.

"We're not breaking in." Iris held up the golden key she had hanging around her neck for the past two weeks. "I have a key."

"Where did you get that?" Grace had been unusually quiet during this whole endeavor, but now, well now she was ready to make a scene.

"I watched their dogs for them a few weeks ago." The younger girl shrugged and Michelle smiled at her nonchalant attitude about the whole thing. "They never asked for it back."

"We're going to go to jail." Michelle shot Carlos a look as she rolled her eyes.

"Only if we get caught." She was really tired of them all trying to knock on her plan.

They had all been okay with it earlier that day.

She guessed that maybe they didn't think she'd go through with it.

"Come on," Iris stood up from her place in the bushes and started making her way down the drive, "in and out, the quicker, the better."

"You know there are easier ways to get alcohol." Judd was one to talk, trying to steal whiskey out of his brother's dresser hadn't worked out too well for him the last time.

Hell, he still had the scar on his arm to prove it.

"Really? How?" It's not that they needed the liquor, no, they'd be just fine without it.

But Michelle happened to know that the Betz's had quite the surplus of some of the finest moonshine in Travis County, much less in all of Texas.

They also were old and senile and most certainly wouldn't notice a few bottles were missing.

"Look, they won't notice anything is gone, I promise." Besides, Iris had had a few days to stake out the place and take inventory.

And if Iris was good at anything, it was remembering just how much of something someone had.

"I don't think this is a good idea." Well of course Carlos didn't think it was a good idea, he was the most upstanding citizen of them all. "If I get in trouble, I'll never be able to try out for the police academy's summer program."

"Oh would you shut up about that already?" Judd was awfully hostile tonight wasn't he. "Why you gotta go and be a cop huh? What's wrong with being a firefighter?"

"I don't like fire…" Carlos shrugged and Iris and Grace couldn't help but chuckle, causing Michelle to roll her eyes.

"If you guys don't stop bickering and start walking I'm gonna leave you all here and keep the liquor for myself." She had no problem with that arrangement either, she could find plenty of uses for it.

She heard a series of groans from behind her but then everyone picked up the pace and followed her lead.

They were in the house, the giant liquor cabinet staring back at them, in no time.

And Michelle felt an odd sense of accomplishment.

They grabbed a few bottles each and then made their way back out the back door, sneaking back through the woods and toward the barn at the tail end of the Reyes' property.

After making themselves comfortable in the loft Michelle had been the first one to take a long swig of the unlabeled bottle she had grabbed, letting the burn coat her throat as she leaned back against the hay.

"Why did we really do all this 'Chelle?" Judd was giving her that 'big brother' look and she knew he meant business.

There was no lying to get her ass out of this one.

Not with her friends at least.

"I didn't get into Texas State." The four pairs of eyes that stared back at her were full of emotions that she couldn't label.

Sure, they probably felt sorry for her.

But she doubted that any of them were really that surprised.

"Michelle…" She held up a hand as Grace offered what was sure to be sympathetic words.

"It's fine." In reality, it wasn't fine.

She was going to be graduating high school in less than two months and now she had no idea what she was going to do with her life.

"So we stole liquor because you couldn't get into college?" Iris wasn't always the brightest one of them now was she?

"I think Michelle stole the liquor because she's feeling some kinda way." Judd was right about one thing, she was feeling some kind of way.

"So what now?" Carlos had been the one to reassure her a thousand times that she was going to get in.

That they wouldn't look at her long list of reprimands and suspensions, that her grades would speak for themselves.

Carlos had been wrong.

"I don't know, junior college I guess." She shrugged as she took another swig, her eyes closing as she tried to not get emotional.

Her daddy had always warned her that all those fights would finally come back to bite her in the ass.

She hated it when her daddy was right.

"What about becoming a paramedic?" She snapped her eyes open and turned to Grace. "I mean, you can always try again in a few years right? Maybe getting your foot in the door to medicine is a start."

She shook her head back and forth.

She really didn't want to be a paramedic.

"It's a good idea 'Chelle." Judd thought that anything that Grace said was a good idea, this didn't appear to be any different.

"I'm sure I'll think of something." She sighed as she closed her eyes again, letting the sounds of her friends talking quietly amongst themselves fade out as she started to doze.

She needed to think of something soon though.

Summer was almost here and her parents were going to be moving her out, whether she liked it or not.