Fic: Party of Two (Prison Break)
Michael spends most of his time with his eyes closed, hands over his ears. Blocks out everything, whenever he can get away with it. That's how the days pass, mostly. He's tired of how his mind races, assimilating detail after detail, constructing every thought from bits and pieces and yes, the thoughts, the finished products, they're beautiful and elegant and perfect, but he always has to go faster, go higher, be better, and that's why he's in here, isn't it?
The knowledge of his failure is omnipresent. Lincoln is already dead, and Michael wasn't even there to see it. He caged himself in this place on purpose, knowing that he'd never have to see what it was like to die by electric chair.
Lincoln is dead, Lincoln is dead, LJ is in prison, and Michael's mind is fighting against his senses in the absurd, impossible hope that he'll wear himself down enough that he can't feel anymore.
~
He finds himself, one morning, in the cafeteria. Next to someone new, he thinks, someone he hasn't seen before. A man, older than him, hand trembling as he touches the plastic fork. His eyes close; he's hunched, like he has to defend against the entire world.
He doesn't look at Michael, and nor does Michael precisely look at him, but - even so, Michael knows that the noticing, the observing is mutual.
It intrigues him, repulses him. All at once, he wants to stretch out his senses again, absorb the stranger like water, construct the idea of him from observation and inference. Like he always used to. Like he should be able to, but it broke him, it broke him, why would he ever want to do it again?
~
He makes no effort to hide the tattoo, though, on reflection, maybe he should have. It's only half-finished, though, and a half-finished project is worse than no project at all.
No one asks him about it. There are rules, here.
~
Michael sees the stranger everywhere. He doesn't talk much, just like Michael, and he's cornered, wary, trapped, just like Michael. Michael sees so many echoes of himself there he wonders if he's chasing an illusion; he watches the man so often, now, that he wonders if it's him following the stranger, or the stranger following him.
Or both.
~
He's slipped into silence, in the corner of the rec room (the only noise a quiet game of pool, at the far end), when there's a touch, on his arm.
Michael twists, grabbing at the offender, and has the stranger's hand in his before he remembers how real people, how sane people, should react.
"What's it for?" asks the stranger, nodding towards the tattoo.
Up close, his eyes are blue, intense blue, and Michael wonders how he didn't see it before. - and it's not accusing, not predatory, but just fascination with a little silver-white edge of understanding and maybe even sympathy, though how that's possible Michael doesn't know.
"It isn't just a tattoo," says the stranger (is he a stranger, really?), in a statement, not a question.
"No," says Michael. "It's not," wondering what on Earth could have possessed him to admit the truth.
"Good," says the stranger. “Good.”
“What’s your name?” asks Michael, in dread, somehow, that the question won’t be answered.
The stranger ducks his head, and meets Michael’s eyes again. “Alex,” he says. “My name’s Alex.” He says it like he’s only just remembered; like he’s tried to forget.
“Michael,” returns Michael. He wonders if he should be grateful that he didn’t share a last name with Lincoln. Nothing of Lincoln remains, in Michael’s life. He could just pick up and leave it all -
Except for the tattoo.
“You gonna tell me what it’s for?” asks Alex. A challenge.
“No,” says Michael.
“I’ll wait.” Alex settles beside him.
This is the beginning, Michael thinks.
~
“What landed you in here?” asks Alex, over a plate of mostly-unidentifiable food.
Michael flinches. It’s a rule, another rule; you don’t ask other patients why they’re here. Talk about it if you want. Don’t talk about it if you want. But don’t ask.
Alex has focused on him, though. Honed in like a predator, to the exclusion of Alex’s own problems. -Michael sees the way his hands shake, even after days inside. Withdrawal, it has to be.
“Low latent inhibition,” enunciates Michael, trying to ignore the way the pans clang, inside the kitchen. Trying to ignore the woman behind him complaining of the lack of nail files in the asylum. “It’s when-”
“I know what it is,” interrupts Alex. “That won’t do it, not by itself.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” snaps Michael.
“Fine,” says Alex.
~
There’s a movie playing, then, in the rec room. Alex pays more attention than Michael; if Michael watches, he’ll start watching everyone, start thinking again, and if he looks to the side, to the wall, it’s just quiet enough -
“Is that even possible?” mutters Alex, derogatory, about a maneuver involving the detonation of a bomb and collapse of a building.
Michael gives it one glance. “No,” he says. The explosives are placed wrong; they’re too low-powered. It’s for visual effect rather than actual efficacy; it’s Hollywood, not real life.
He almost misses - almost, but not quite - the strange, suspicious look Alex shoots his way.
~
It’s late that afternoon before they talk again. Alex spends his time carefully away from Michael, letting him have just enough space that he gets tired of the loneliness.
“What brought you in here?” asks Michael, having a seat next to Alex on a couch, in one of the common areas.
Alex’s mouth thins. He traces along his lip with the edge of his thumb, restless enough to jump right out of his skin. “I broke,” he says, finally.
“Drugs?” asks Michael.
Alex recoils, like he’s been slapped. Inhales, because if he’s breathing in it means the words that threaten him with escape have to stay inside.
He leaves, without another word.
~
When Michael joins him, that night, after dinner, Alex doesn’t speak. Doesn’t look at him.
“I’m sorry,” says Michael.
Still nothing. Alex drops his head, rests his forehead in his palm. Twists against it, like he can leech the darkness out of himself and still stay intact.
“I tried to save my brother,” says Michael, “and it didn’t work. It didn’t work because I broke down, and I couldn’t get past -” Get past the walls, was what he was going to say. The prison walls. But that’s too much to say, right now. “And now my nephew is in prison, paying the price.”
When he glances up, Alex is looking at him.
“Low latent inhibition can lead to breakdown,” corrects Michael, finally. “If combined with certain stress factors.”
“Or a limited intellect,” muses Alex. “In those of high IQ, low latent inhibition usually enhances natural creativity. And we all know what high IQ and creativity means.” He tilts his head. “Genius.”
“I told you mine,” says Michael. “You tell me yours.”
“You know, Michael,” says Alex, “here’s what I think. And this is mostly from your mention of prison, so bear with me.” - the last is sarcastic, caustic. “You couldn’t save your brother. ‘Save’, you know, doesn’t usually mean actually save, as in rescue, but hey. Would you check it out. An engineer with an unhinged and brilliant mind with an incredibly elaborate but unfinished design tattooed over his upper body - I’m guessing what you were ‘saving’ your brother from wasn’t drugs or alcohol, a nasty girlfriend or a bad job. You were planning a prison break. And that you’re so utterly convinced that you’ve failed means that all hope for escape is gone - which is unlikely, as given how broken up you are about this whole thing, you probably wouldn’t stop or give up until you’d permanently, absolutely failed. So your brother is dead. Dead by execution. Am I getting close?”
Michael rounds on him. “And what’s your story, Alex? Some yuppie, some cushy white-collar job, but, oh no, it’s too stressful, you turned to drugs. Narcotics, maybe? Or, wait, maybe the stress isn’t from your job but from your childhood. What, Alex, did your father beat on you?”
Alex lunges at Michael, slamming him up against the wall.
“Hey!” yells an orderly. “Hey!”
By the time he gets there, Alex has already stepped back, hands raised. Breathing rough, and he’s not looking at Michael.
“You both know the rules,” says the orderly. “No physical contact.”
“It’s all right,” says Michael. “He won’t do it anymore.”
“You bet I won’t,” in a rush of words, and Michael can’t tell if it’s promise, sarcasm, or threat.
“Come on, Mahone,” says the orderly. “You need to get some quiet.”
Alex hisses, through his teeth, and he turns away. Follows the orderly out.
Mahone, thinks Michael. He has a whole name, now.
~
“Scofield,” says Michael, sitting next to Alex at breakfast.
“I’m sorry?”
“It’s my last name,” says Michael. “Only fair, right? I know yours now.”
Alex’s eyes linger on Michael’s face.
~
Alex finds Michael in his room - Michael stands, as Alex enters, because he’s jerky and too fast, and looks on edge, like he might attack Michael again.
“No orderlies here,” says Alex.
Michael tenses.
But Alex doesn’t attack - reaches out and tugs Michael, roughly, into a kiss.
It wasn’t something that crossed Michael’s mind at all, in regards to Alex. Not something he planned for; not something he observed. Nothing, nothing at all, but it’s perfect the second it happens.
Alex pulls away.
“I, uh,” says Michael.
“What prison?” asks Alex.
Michael can’t think of how to respond.
“What prison?” asks Alex, again, with insistence. “Is it the same one your brother was in? Will your plan still work?”
“Yes,” manages Michael - “yes, it’s the same-”
“My full name, and title, is Special Agent Alexander Mahone. Of the FBI.” Alex shifts, looks away, then back. “I didn’t have a desk job.”
Michael’s breath freezes in his throat.
“You need,” says Alex, then, calmer, “you need someone who knows how it works. Not just how the building works, or how the cons work, but how the cops work. I can do that.”
“I don’t need your help.”
“You do,” says Alex. “You don’t know it, but you do.”
“Why?” hisses Michael. “You expect me to believe that you’d really-”
“Please, Michael,” begs Alex, softly. “Is it worth it, rescuing your nephew?”
“Of course,” says Michael, though some voice in the back of his mind reminds him that he hadn’t considered it. He’d let Lincoln’s death give him the chance to fall apart. He hadn’t thought about LJ-
“Then let’s do it,” says Alex. “You and me. You need me.”
Michael is astonished, distantly, at how fast he can shift gears. At how his blood warms, flows, comes alive at the realization that he has real direction, now. “We need to get out of here, first.”
“It’s an asylum, not a prison,” Alex points out. “You leave any time you want.”
~
Alex’s eyes trace over the wall - sketches, news articles, blueprints, sticky notes. Michael can see him - can feel him understanding. Comprehending, piece by piece, the feel of the plan.
“This is astounding,” says Alex. When he turns back, to Michael, they’re too close. Far too close.
~
“Explain this?” asks Alex, tracing the rose on Michael’s elbow. Sprawled on top of him, half naked. They can touch each other, now.
“Botanical gardens,” says Michael. “Where I hid what we’ll trade for a plane over the border to Mexico.”
“And this?” Ripe Chance Woods, around Michael’s wrist.
“A graveyard,” says Michael. “Supplies. Plan B.”
“There’s a Plan B?”
“There’s a Plan C,” counters Michael.
Alex dips down, touching his forehead to Michael’s. Eyes closed. Kisses him, just once, so lightly. “You can’t have a plan for everything.”
Michael twists, rolling Alex underneath him. “I can improvise,” he says, with a little bit of a smile. His turn to kiss Alex, then, deeper and deeper, until he drags a moan from Alex’s throat. Scrambles at the clasp of Alex’s jeans, hand slipping inside, and like magic, like magic Alex loosens underneath him, shifts open, like he’s just let down his shields, just relaxed, just let Michael in.
And sex has never been quite like this. It’s admittedly awkward, wriggling out of his clothing while keeping Alex trapped, held down, because he’s half afraid that Alex will vanish at any moment. Disappear, like Lincoln did.
But, even with the awkwardness, it’s strangely fluid. Michael can hear what Alex is thinking, almost as though it was happening inside his own head -
So, when Alex’s legs shift open, his back arched, it’s all too clear what he wants. Even if Alex, maybe, isn’t quite sure of it himself, because at Michael’s first touch to his hole, he jerks, almost pulls away. Fear and desire, both conscious and subconscious, but Michael can read it all in the set of his body, like stress points on a skyscraper.
“Michael,” gasps Alex -
“Shut up.” Michael leaves no room for argument, just stretches, brutally, one finger at a time. While Alex closes his eyes and makes helpless noises he tries to swallow away, so Michael won’t hear them.
Michael is surprised, shocked at how easy it is to press inside Alex. At how badly Alex needs it, the devastating effect it has on him.
This isn’t just physical, Michael is aware, as he touches his fingers to Alex’s chest, at his heart. It hurts too much for it to just be physical.
~
Michael has the gun, loaded and ready. His personal effects are together. The tattoo is just finished, days ago.
Alex shivers, against the rail of the balcony. “Don’t point the gun anywhere near the officers,” he says, again. “Any justification you give them-”
“I’ll be fine,” says Michael. Answering questions Alex left unasked.
“I know,” Alex lies. “I know.”
Michael steps forward, and presses a single kiss against Alex’s mouth. “I’ll see you soon,” he promises.
The knowledge of his failure is omnipresent. Lincoln is already dead, and Michael wasn't even there to see it. He caged himself in this place on purpose, knowing that he'd never have to see what it was like to die by electric chair.
Lincoln is dead, Lincoln is dead, LJ is in prison, and Michael's mind is fighting against his senses in the absurd, impossible hope that he'll wear himself down enough that he can't feel anymore.
~
He finds himself, one morning, in the cafeteria. Next to someone new, he thinks, someone he hasn't seen before. A man, older than him, hand trembling as he touches the plastic fork. His eyes close; he's hunched, like he has to defend against the entire world.
He doesn't look at Michael, and nor does Michael precisely look at him, but - even so, Michael knows that the noticing, the observing is mutual.
It intrigues him, repulses him. All at once, he wants to stretch out his senses again, absorb the stranger like water, construct the idea of him from observation and inference. Like he always used to. Like he should be able to, but it broke him, it broke him, why would he ever want to do it again?
~
He makes no effort to hide the tattoo, though, on reflection, maybe he should have. It's only half-finished, though, and a half-finished project is worse than no project at all.
No one asks him about it. There are rules, here.
~
Michael sees the stranger everywhere. He doesn't talk much, just like Michael, and he's cornered, wary, trapped, just like Michael. Michael sees so many echoes of himself there he wonders if he's chasing an illusion; he watches the man so often, now, that he wonders if it's him following the stranger, or the stranger following him.
Or both.
~
He's slipped into silence, in the corner of the rec room (the only noise a quiet game of pool, at the far end), when there's a touch, on his arm.
Michael twists, grabbing at the offender, and has the stranger's hand in his before he remembers how real people, how sane people, should react.
"What's it for?" asks the stranger, nodding towards the tattoo.
Up close, his eyes are blue, intense blue, and Michael wonders how he didn't see it before. - and it's not accusing, not predatory, but just fascination with a little silver-white edge of understanding and maybe even sympathy, though how that's possible Michael doesn't know.
"It isn't just a tattoo," says the stranger (is he a stranger, really?), in a statement, not a question.
"No," says Michael. "It's not," wondering what on Earth could have possessed him to admit the truth.
"Good," says the stranger. “Good.”
“What’s your name?” asks Michael, in dread, somehow, that the question won’t be answered.
The stranger ducks his head, and meets Michael’s eyes again. “Alex,” he says. “My name’s Alex.” He says it like he’s only just remembered; like he’s tried to forget.
“Michael,” returns Michael. He wonders if he should be grateful that he didn’t share a last name with Lincoln. Nothing of Lincoln remains, in Michael’s life. He could just pick up and leave it all -
Except for the tattoo.
“You gonna tell me what it’s for?” asks Alex. A challenge.
“No,” says Michael.
“I’ll wait.” Alex settles beside him.
This is the beginning, Michael thinks.
~
“What landed you in here?” asks Alex, over a plate of mostly-unidentifiable food.
Michael flinches. It’s a rule, another rule; you don’t ask other patients why they’re here. Talk about it if you want. Don’t talk about it if you want. But don’t ask.
Alex has focused on him, though. Honed in like a predator, to the exclusion of Alex’s own problems. -Michael sees the way his hands shake, even after days inside. Withdrawal, it has to be.
“Low latent inhibition,” enunciates Michael, trying to ignore the way the pans clang, inside the kitchen. Trying to ignore the woman behind him complaining of the lack of nail files in the asylum. “It’s when-”
“I know what it is,” interrupts Alex. “That won’t do it, not by itself.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” snaps Michael.
“Fine,” says Alex.
~
There’s a movie playing, then, in the rec room. Alex pays more attention than Michael; if Michael watches, he’ll start watching everyone, start thinking again, and if he looks to the side, to the wall, it’s just quiet enough -
“Is that even possible?” mutters Alex, derogatory, about a maneuver involving the detonation of a bomb and collapse of a building.
Michael gives it one glance. “No,” he says. The explosives are placed wrong; they’re too low-powered. It’s for visual effect rather than actual efficacy; it’s Hollywood, not real life.
He almost misses - almost, but not quite - the strange, suspicious look Alex shoots his way.
~
It’s late that afternoon before they talk again. Alex spends his time carefully away from Michael, letting him have just enough space that he gets tired of the loneliness.
“What brought you in here?” asks Michael, having a seat next to Alex on a couch, in one of the common areas.
Alex’s mouth thins. He traces along his lip with the edge of his thumb, restless enough to jump right out of his skin. “I broke,” he says, finally.
“Drugs?” asks Michael.
Alex recoils, like he’s been slapped. Inhales, because if he’s breathing in it means the words that threaten him with escape have to stay inside.
He leaves, without another word.
~
When Michael joins him, that night, after dinner, Alex doesn’t speak. Doesn’t look at him.
“I’m sorry,” says Michael.
Still nothing. Alex drops his head, rests his forehead in his palm. Twists against it, like he can leech the darkness out of himself and still stay intact.
“I tried to save my brother,” says Michael, “and it didn’t work. It didn’t work because I broke down, and I couldn’t get past -” Get past the walls, was what he was going to say. The prison walls. But that’s too much to say, right now. “And now my nephew is in prison, paying the price.”
When he glances up, Alex is looking at him.
“Low latent inhibition can lead to breakdown,” corrects Michael, finally. “If combined with certain stress factors.”
“Or a limited intellect,” muses Alex. “In those of high IQ, low latent inhibition usually enhances natural creativity. And we all know what high IQ and creativity means.” He tilts his head. “Genius.”
“I told you mine,” says Michael. “You tell me yours.”
“You know, Michael,” says Alex, “here’s what I think. And this is mostly from your mention of prison, so bear with me.” - the last is sarcastic, caustic. “You couldn’t save your brother. ‘Save’, you know, doesn’t usually mean actually save, as in rescue, but hey. Would you check it out. An engineer with an unhinged and brilliant mind with an incredibly elaborate but unfinished design tattooed over his upper body - I’m guessing what you were ‘saving’ your brother from wasn’t drugs or alcohol, a nasty girlfriend or a bad job. You were planning a prison break. And that you’re so utterly convinced that you’ve failed means that all hope for escape is gone - which is unlikely, as given how broken up you are about this whole thing, you probably wouldn’t stop or give up until you’d permanently, absolutely failed. So your brother is dead. Dead by execution. Am I getting close?”
Michael rounds on him. “And what’s your story, Alex? Some yuppie, some cushy white-collar job, but, oh no, it’s too stressful, you turned to drugs. Narcotics, maybe? Or, wait, maybe the stress isn’t from your job but from your childhood. What, Alex, did your father beat on you?”
Alex lunges at Michael, slamming him up against the wall.
“Hey!” yells an orderly. “Hey!”
By the time he gets there, Alex has already stepped back, hands raised. Breathing rough, and he’s not looking at Michael.
“You both know the rules,” says the orderly. “No physical contact.”
“It’s all right,” says Michael. “He won’t do it anymore.”
“You bet I won’t,” in a rush of words, and Michael can’t tell if it’s promise, sarcasm, or threat.
“Come on, Mahone,” says the orderly. “You need to get some quiet.”
Alex hisses, through his teeth, and he turns away. Follows the orderly out.
Mahone, thinks Michael. He has a whole name, now.
~
“Scofield,” says Michael, sitting next to Alex at breakfast.
“I’m sorry?”
“It’s my last name,” says Michael. “Only fair, right? I know yours now.”
Alex’s eyes linger on Michael’s face.
~
Alex finds Michael in his room - Michael stands, as Alex enters, because he’s jerky and too fast, and looks on edge, like he might attack Michael again.
“No orderlies here,” says Alex.
Michael tenses.
But Alex doesn’t attack - reaches out and tugs Michael, roughly, into a kiss.
It wasn’t something that crossed Michael’s mind at all, in regards to Alex. Not something he planned for; not something he observed. Nothing, nothing at all, but it’s perfect the second it happens.
Alex pulls away.
“I, uh,” says Michael.
“What prison?” asks Alex.
Michael can’t think of how to respond.
“What prison?” asks Alex, again, with insistence. “Is it the same one your brother was in? Will your plan still work?”
“Yes,” manages Michael - “yes, it’s the same-”
“My full name, and title, is Special Agent Alexander Mahone. Of the FBI.” Alex shifts, looks away, then back. “I didn’t have a desk job.”
Michael’s breath freezes in his throat.
“You need,” says Alex, then, calmer, “you need someone who knows how it works. Not just how the building works, or how the cons work, but how the cops work. I can do that.”
“I don’t need your help.”
“You do,” says Alex. “You don’t know it, but you do.”
“Why?” hisses Michael. “You expect me to believe that you’d really-”
“Please, Michael,” begs Alex, softly. “Is it worth it, rescuing your nephew?”
“Of course,” says Michael, though some voice in the back of his mind reminds him that he hadn’t considered it. He’d let Lincoln’s death give him the chance to fall apart. He hadn’t thought about LJ-
“Then let’s do it,” says Alex. “You and me. You need me.”
Michael is astonished, distantly, at how fast he can shift gears. At how his blood warms, flows, comes alive at the realization that he has real direction, now. “We need to get out of here, first.”
“It’s an asylum, not a prison,” Alex points out. “You leave any time you want.”
~
Alex’s eyes trace over the wall - sketches, news articles, blueprints, sticky notes. Michael can see him - can feel him understanding. Comprehending, piece by piece, the feel of the plan.
“This is astounding,” says Alex. When he turns back, to Michael, they’re too close. Far too close.
~
“Explain this?” asks Alex, tracing the rose on Michael’s elbow. Sprawled on top of him, half naked. They can touch each other, now.
“Botanical gardens,” says Michael. “Where I hid what we’ll trade for a plane over the border to Mexico.”
“And this?” Ripe Chance Woods, around Michael’s wrist.
“A graveyard,” says Michael. “Supplies. Plan B.”
“There’s a Plan B?”
“There’s a Plan C,” counters Michael.
Alex dips down, touching his forehead to Michael’s. Eyes closed. Kisses him, just once, so lightly. “You can’t have a plan for everything.”
Michael twists, rolling Alex underneath him. “I can improvise,” he says, with a little bit of a smile. His turn to kiss Alex, then, deeper and deeper, until he drags a moan from Alex’s throat. Scrambles at the clasp of Alex’s jeans, hand slipping inside, and like magic, like magic Alex loosens underneath him, shifts open, like he’s just let down his shields, just relaxed, just let Michael in.
And sex has never been quite like this. It’s admittedly awkward, wriggling out of his clothing while keeping Alex trapped, held down, because he’s half afraid that Alex will vanish at any moment. Disappear, like Lincoln did.
But, even with the awkwardness, it’s strangely fluid. Michael can hear what Alex is thinking, almost as though it was happening inside his own head -
So, when Alex’s legs shift open, his back arched, it’s all too clear what he wants. Even if Alex, maybe, isn’t quite sure of it himself, because at Michael’s first touch to his hole, he jerks, almost pulls away. Fear and desire, both conscious and subconscious, but Michael can read it all in the set of his body, like stress points on a skyscraper.
“Michael,” gasps Alex -
“Shut up.” Michael leaves no room for argument, just stretches, brutally, one finger at a time. While Alex closes his eyes and makes helpless noises he tries to swallow away, so Michael won’t hear them.
Michael is surprised, shocked at how easy it is to press inside Alex. At how badly Alex needs it, the devastating effect it has on him.
This isn’t just physical, Michael is aware, as he touches his fingers to Alex’s chest, at his heart. It hurts too much for it to just be physical.
~
Michael has the gun, loaded and ready. His personal effects are together. The tattoo is just finished, days ago.
Alex shivers, against the rail of the balcony. “Don’t point the gun anywhere near the officers,” he says, again. “Any justification you give them-”
“I’ll be fine,” says Michael. Answering questions Alex left unasked.
“I know,” Alex lies. “I know.”
Michael steps forward, and presses a single kiss against Alex’s mouth. “I’ll see you soon,” he promises.