Prison Break - Double-Edged Sword
Title: Double-Edged Sword
Author: clair-de-lune
Rating: R
Category: Slash
Characters: Michael/Lincoln
Warnings: Incest
Word Count: ~ 7380
Disclaimer: Not mine. Just borrowing them for a while.
Prompt: Written for pbfic_exchange2. foxriverinmate requested anything with Michael but preferably slash, and hurt/comfort and/or fluff. The elements to be included were: Michael is hurt (physically or emotionally). The other character needs to display a great deal of patience. Some kind of argument that results in tears.
Summary: When Lincoln was seven, he discovered that he had an interesting power over Michael: he could make him cry and he could make him smile.
Author’s Notes: Many thanks to niennanou for the first quick beta and to recycledfaery for the beta and the suggestions.
(Read entry in light format)
-I-
Right from the start, there have been warnings. Red flags that Lincoln disregarded because he thought that eventually everything would be fine, even though each flag was redder and bigger and more blatant than the previous one. Denial at its finest.
He admits he’s probably not the world’s most careful person when it comes to red flags. If he had been, he would have spared himself a whole lot of trouble, wouldn’t he?
-II-
The first red flag... wasn’t really a first flag; it was more like a sudden awareness. Lincoln was seven and he discovered that he had an interesting power over Michael - two interesting powers: he could make him cry and he could make him smile. With the passing years, he would use and sometimes abuse both of these abilities. It was a double-edged sword but Lincoln would need a few years to figure it out. Making Michael cry would never really be deliberate or ill-intentioned, just casual and a bit careless because Lincoln wasn’t as much a bad brother as an oblivious yet loving one; sometimes, he would just act first and think later or not think at all. No bad intentions. Making Michael smile... stroke of luck, guilt or every now and then gratitude; on occasion, Lincoln’s mere presence would be enough to achieve the desired effect.
Michael always sought and sometimes found comfort in Lincoln - possibly against his better judgment, Lincoln believed. It started in quite a common way and got a bit out of hand.
OK. Totally out of hand.
* * *
He initially noticed the crying-and-smiling thing when he accidentally broke Michael’s favorite toy, some red and silver tricycle. It was an accident insofar as he did kick the thing - he was angry at something, whatever it might have been, and sadly the bike was in his way - but didn’t mean to break it. Mike looked at the damaged tricycle, its useless handlebars and its small ruined trailer, and he started crying. He was a quiet child and his crying, usually scarce, was nothing spectacular - no screaming or wailing or howling, nothing that Mom would have noticed hadn’t she been paying a bit of attention. Just quivering lips and chin and a few silent tears rolling down his cheeks. And well... a pissed-off glare at Lincoln.
Mom punished Lincoln, of course. She sent him to his and Mike’s bedroom and told him that he wouldn’t get out of there until dinner. She sternly pointed out that you just don’t kick things like that: he’d better think about it and come up with an apology to his brother.
Lincoln didn’t have the time to even close the door on his way out when Michael began to sniffle, his soundless tears becoming audible. From the threshold of their shared bedroom, he observed with fascination his baby brother crying because he had been punished while their mother stood, baffled and indecisive, in the middle of the living room.
Making Mike cry appeared to be awfully easy for Lincoln.
Making him smile was apparently almost as easy. All it took was Lincoln threatening to give a nasty little bully the beat-up he deserved if Michael ever came back from school again with bruises on his legs; the promise he would play with him after they finished their homework elicited a burst of glee; even a shared cookie when Michael dropped his was enough to bring out a smile. Thoughtful carefulness did the trick as well as small tidbits of attention, and Lincoln milked that for what it was worth. Had he been a less nice person, he would have reveled in this ability; being who he was, he just relied on it, not always consciously, when necessity arose. Necessity arose quite a few times.
There were the countless times when they had to move from one foster home to another because Lincoln screwed up again, Lincoln being sent to juvie or jail, hanging out with the wrong people, doing stupid, stupid things... Sure, it didn’t systematically end up with Michael crying, but it did end up with Michael sad, angry or in an intermediary state of mind. Yet, no matter the number of times Lincoln made him cry or pissed him off, he almost always managed to make it because in the end, he also made him smile. More important, from time to time, he tricked him into smiling when someone else was responsible for the tears. Those were definitely Lincoln’s favorite smiles.
Like with that Jenny girl.
* * *
Jenny was pretty - really pretty; Jenny was smart - not Michael-smart, but still; Jenny was nice - at least Lincoln thought so until she unceremoniously dumped Michael.
This kind of thing just happened sometimes, Lincoln said for a lack of better explanation or support. He was sitting on the floor of the living room with his back against the couch, and Michael was lying and brooding on the sofa behind him, awfully silent. Lincoln kept on talking, unable to find the words that would ease Michael’s pain, but also unable to shut the hell up. Finally, Michael pointed out that “It doesn’t happen to you” and Lincoln wondered about the downside of being on the receiving end of unconditional brotherly adoration - it had happened to him, it just hadn’t meant a lot, except of course when... With a sigh, he urged Michael down, next to him. Michael reluctantly slid down the couch and leant against his shoulder, Linc’s arm tightly wrapped around him. He wriggled a bit until his head was in the crook of his brother’s neck and he settled there, his breathing smooth and slow. Too close for comfort, Linc thought, but given the circumstances, he couldn’t deny him any kind of comfort.
“When Veronica...,” he began.
Michael didn’t even let him finish his sentence. “That was different. You were a jerk to Vee.”
Okay, so much for unconditional brotherly adoration - it was good to know that it didn’t totally cloud Michael’s judgment, though.
He cleared his throat and tried another approach. “This girl - Jenny - was an idiot.”
“It was idiotic to date me, that’s for sure.”
Michael’s voice was laced with self-contempt and dejection, a tone Lincoln was all too familiar with. He twisted his neck to try to look at his brother’s face, but Michael wouldn’t allow that. He buried his face deeper in Lincoln’s shirt, closed his fingers on the fabric, poked his nose into the small opening between two buttons and inhaled. The in-take of air made Lincoln’s skin tingle, but he refused to pay attention or even acknowledge the sensation.
“Have you been skipping your appointments with your therapist?” Lincoln asked, narrowing his eyes with suspicion. He got no answer; there was nothing more than a small hitch in Michael’s breathing, which was as good as a confession. “You don’t skip the frigging appointments, Michael!” He kept quiet and Lincoln shook him. “Hey!”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
Lincoln grabbed him by the nape of his neck, intending to tilt his face up and keep on lecturing him. This was an argument that they had had a fair amount of times and apparently, Michael needed a reminder. But the instant he met his eyes - sad eyes gleaming with unshed tears - he gave up the idea. He could ignore, yell at and even hit a smug or angry or condescending Michael, but he really couldn’t... When Michael was hurt, he just wanted to bring him whatever sort of comfort he was able to.
“This girl was an idiot,” he repeated.
“Linc...”
“Stupid.” A small smile grew on his face. “Dumb. Dumber than me when we did this bet last week - and that means something!”
“I liked her,” Michael stated calmly.
“I know you did,” he breathed out and finally shut up. He bent forward and placed a light kiss on the corner of Michael’s right eye, tasting the salted tears on his eyelids, thinking irrationally that maybe he could drink and swallow his pain, absorb it and make it disappear. Another kiss, then one on the left eye, and Michael was smiling shakily. Lincoln felt his cheeks moving, his lips curling and a small puff of air against his own jaw. He savored the victory and hugged Michael tighter.
“It tickles,” Michael half-protested when Lincoln kissed his eyes again. Still gripping the fabric of the shirt, he moved and shifted in the circle of Linc’s arms and angled his head up. Before Lincoln could process what was going on, Michael pressed warm lips to the side of his mouth. Just a hint of lips on lips and a soft breath in his ear, but the intent was pretty hard to miss.
Lincoln jerked slightly. He was used to most of Michael’s quirks and sometimes excessive demands. He was used to Michael sleeping in his bed even when he wasn’t home. He was used to Michael borrowing his clothes and giving them back - or not. He was used to Michael sitting next to him and watching him - just watching him, his look focused and intense. He was used to going to bed alone and waking up with Michael plastered to his back, clinging to him and breathing in his neck. Shit, he was even used to Michael biting him and leaving marks and hickeys that really were a pain in the ass to explain to whoever his current girlfriend was. He was used to an intimacy that was neither normal nor perfectly sane, and he could deal with it - he would even admit that he liked it. He liked the notion that, no matter how many times he screwed up, he was still able to give some kind of solace to Michael.
But this - this was definitely crossing a line. He moved his head to the side and mumbled, “Michael, don’t.” It appeared to be a bad idea since Michael seized this opportunity to kiss him. To really kiss him, full on the mouth, sucking on his lower lip, licking it and trying to push his tongue past Lincoln’s teeth.
That was a red flag, evidently. And if Lincoln hadn’t been sure, Michael rising up on his knees and pushing Lincoln’s head backwards to have better access would have given him a confirmation. Another red flag, the fact that instead of dislodging Michael and getting up, Lincoln rested the back of his head on the couch, parted his mouth under his brother’s and let him do whatever he felt like. In a matter of seconds, Michael was straddling him, the heat of his body seeping into Lincoln, kissing him, stroking his neck and the short stubble on his head with as much tenderness as determination. The kiss was deep, thorough and meant to arouse, and to Lincoln’s dismay, it perfectly achieved its goal, leaving him restless and longing for something he wasn’t keen to say out loud.
“Love you,” Michael whispered feverishly between a brush of lips and a sweep of tongue, and with a small resigned groan, Lincoln held him closer and rubbed the small of his back. Maybe it was one of these inconsiderate statements uttered in the heat of the moment, yet Lincoln doubted it. Michael had never done anything inconsiderate in his life. He would always think and re-think everything, and with a surge of bewilderment, Lincoln wondered to what extent he had been thinking about this. There was no possibility to consider that he got carried away, and no frigging way to misunderstand the kind of love he was talking about: the evidence was hard, hot and pushing against Lincoln’s thigh. And damn if it didn’t make Lincoln hard, hot and edgy.
“I can tell,” he mumbled. Almost unconsciously, he moved his leg to tease Michael just a bit. A dumb thing to do, but he hadn’t been able to resist the temptation and he was rewarded by a gasp and Michael pressing himself harder against his thigh. The sensation, burning and way too pleasant, freaked him out and he forced Michael to back off. “Sorry. I shouldn’t... You’d better go to bed.” He straightened up, the couch pressing painfully against his shoulders, Michael still warm and heavy in his lap. “Go to bed, Mike.”
Michael jumped to his feet and stood there for a few seconds, hands in his pockets, his lower lip sullenly pushed forward. From the look of it, Lincoln thought he would argue, press on or just refuse to comply.
“You liked it as much as I did,” he let drop before he retreated to his bedroom.
A couple of hours later, he entered Lincoln’s dark room, moving swiftly and with practice. He slipped into the bed, snuggled between the blankets and scooted on the mattress closer and closer to Lincoln. When he was lying flush against his brother’s back, he murmured, “Is it okay?”
It shouldn’t have been - it really shouldn’t have been, but the hope and trust in Michael’s voice totally obliterated any coherent judgment. He shifted in the bed, rearranging his legs and arms so Michael could settle comfortably behind him.
“Shut up and go to sleep.”
A hand tentatively slid down his stomach, the fingertips a tad rough on his skin. He gripped it before it could reach the elastic belt of his pajamas and brought it to higher, safer territory, putting it to his chest and entwining his fingers with Michael’s. Just to be sure it wouldn’t go down again.
Michael smiled in his neck and lightly bit him.
The worst red flag of all? Michael was right: Lincoln liked it - from the kissing to the rubbing on his lap to the way Michael hugged him as if his life depended on it. He liked it.
* * *
They never talked about it even though once it had started, Lincoln discovered that they were unable to stop. There were more kisses, a wide variety of kisses, from mere brushes of lips to full necking sessions, on a wide variety of occasions, from Michael claiming a reward to Michael needing a comfort that Lincoln was too eager to provide. They usually broke apart flushed and panting, Lincoln slightly freaked out, Michael oddly calm, soothed with a soft enigmatic smile curling the corners of his lips. It wasn’t systematic and yet it happened way too frequently to rely on the reassuring idea that it was nothing but highly inappropriate accidents. Red flags, a bunch of red flags all along the way, and Lincoln disdainfully ignored them, because it was just kissing and fondling - and, well, maybe a tiny bit of petting... occasionally a dash of rubbing - and it felt good; it felt good in itself and it felt even better to watch Michael enjoying it.
Anyway, even though it was already pretty far, it never went further than kissing and fondling.
That is - not until it did go further.
* * *
Sometimes, people hurt Michael - Lincoln first on that list - without having the slightest idea they did. Despite his best efforts, he wasn’t always able to keep at large the hundreds of stimuli that daily hammered him, and when someone said the wrong thing or made the wrong gesture, it stuck with him. Sooner or later, all the tiny tidbits just conglomerated, and Michael eventually shut his brain off. At least this was what Lincoln could gather and understand. When that happened, he could stay still and silent for hours - mumbling under his breath in the worst cases - apparently locked up in his own head and not letting anyone in. Then nobody knew what to do: Chris, his roommate at Loyola, didn’t depart from that principle. This was why Lincoln was once woken up late at night by a worried phone call and found himself driving to Michael’s dorm on the campus.
“He’s been like that since this morning,” the kid told Lincoln. “I’m going home and I didn’t want to leave him alone.” He cast a glance at Michael, who was lying on his side, perfectly still and eyes open. “He scares the hell out of me when he does that.”
“Yeah,” Lincoln agreed, “it can be pretty creepy. Just... go home, I’ll take care of him.” He was focused on Michael’s prone form and almost forgot to add, “Thanks for calling.”
There was a complete routine that Lincoln already had to run a few times. Lighting up the room, talking, moving, seeking eye contact, laying a hand on Michael’s back or shoulder, all that in a soft and smooth way, no brisk movement, no rising of the voice and no abrupt silence either - and doing all of that until he got a reaction, a look, a gesture or sometimes a word letting him know that Michael was back from wherever he had retreated. Lincoln had come to the conclusion that the over stimulation eventually caused Michael to turn off his brain and stop feeling, hearing, watching and tasting: he just fused and sort of needed to be carefully, slowly rebooted. But really? Linc didn’t have the slightest idea of what was going on in his brother’s head during those episodes. Michael’s shrink had tried to explain it to him in simple, precise and vivid terms and after a twenty minutes long explanation, Lincoln’s most intimate conviction was that Dr. Brighton - as kind and dedicated he might be - had no better knowledge than him about what actually happened in Michael’s own little world.
Since it was all he could do, he performed the ritual and lit up the room, moved, sought eye contact, put a hand on Michael’s shoulder and soothingly rubbed it, and he talked, talked, talked about anything and everything, trying to break into Michael’s head and snap him out of his state of mind. When he had exhausted each and every trick, he crammed himself on the bed next to Michael, lying face to face with him. With almost everybody else in the building gone home, the bedroom was awfully silent and Lincoln had nothing but Michael to concentrate on - the heat radiating from his body; his light breathing on Lincoln’s face; the odor mixing hints of sweat, faint traces of soap and a scent typically Michael; the way their bodies were touching from thigh to chest, not quite pressed together but almost. He felt that if he paid enough attention, he would be able to count Michael’s heartbeats; he pressed a hand to his brother’s chest and even though he couldn’t hear them, he was definitely able to feel them, pounding beneath his palm.
He brought his other hand up and rubbed the pad of his thumb against Michael’s cheekbone, wondering if everything was always like that for him, precise, sharp and overwhelming. If that so, no surprise he would from time to time blank out and disconnect.
“Michael?” He traced the lines of his face, following the shape of his eyebrows, trailing down his cheek to his chin and finally grazing his lips. The skin was warm and slightly moist, and he suddenly worried that Michael ran a fever - never happened before, he wouldn’t know what to do.
He reached out behind Michael to grab the bedspread and pull it around him. Then he rolled on his back and, wrapping Michael in his arms, he carefully tugged him forward until he was half on his side and half on top of Lincoln. No movement of his own but he did seem to relax a bit, his body slackening against Lincoln’s.
“You know, Veronica called the other day. She’s coming back. I think we might, you know, try again.”
His hand stroked up and down Michael’s spine a few times before he slid it under the shirt and touched some skin. Hot and moist even there, absurdly smooth and making his fingertips tingle. The tingling traveled up his arm to his chest, curling there and radiating to his gut. He grumbled under his breath. Shit. Not that. Not now. Not that there was a right moment, but this was definitely the worst possible one. He kept on stroking, up and down, up and down, slickly and regularly.
“I’ll try to... not screw everything up this time around. You think I can do that?” No answer. But then it didn’t mean anything since Michael wouldn’t have answered such a question anyway. “Yeah,” he said, talking to himself. “Tough chance, huh?”
Michael moved on him, nothing more than a small gesture of his head, maybe a mere reflex because he needed more room to breathe, but Lincoln held onto it. His stomach churning, he braced himself and - since all reasonable ideas have been exhausted and he was left with the unreasonable ones - he touched his lips to Michael’s and waited for a response. Just a touch of lips and he took care not to enjoy it because the line was too damn fine between an unreasonable idea and abusing the situation.
He did get a response - eventually. It necessitated a few more barely-there kisses and light squeezes on Michael’s waist, but the blank look on his face finally subsided and he blinked, his eyes focusing on Lincoln, his breath caught in his throat when Lincoln hugged him a bit more forcefully.
“You with me, Mikey?” Still silent, he tilted his chin up to offer his lips to Lincoln who chuckled, relief and amusement mixing. “Now, you’re just being greedy.”
He shifted on the small bed to allow Michael to totally rest on him, heavy and there, his head nestled in the crook of Lincoln’s neck, his legs between Lincoln’s. He ground his hips down against Lincoln’s who jerked under the pressure, having almost forgotten about the wrong reactions at the wrong moment.
“Shit! Michael...”
“’s okay,” he whispered, his voice rough and unsteady.
“You okay?”
“Sure.”
“What happened?” He laid both his hands on Michael’s neck and started to knead and rub.
“Nothing.” Lincoln lightly dug his thumbs and traced the line of Michael’s shoulders, making him groan a bit. “Keep doing that,” he pleaded.
“It wasn’t nothing. You snapped.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
His delivery was still sluggish but he was slowly pulling himself together, gathering his thoughts, and Lincoln knew that the window to get an explanation - if there was any that he could actually understand - would close as soon as he would be back to his usual self. And Lincoln wanted to know but couldn’t bring himself to push harder as long as Michael was that vulnerable. Not for the first time, he wondered about vulnerability as a weapon.
His hands slid down Michael’s back inch by inch, working the muscles to ease the stiffness out of them. By the time he had reached the small of his back, Michael was almost purring in his neck and Lincoln - dammit - had all but forgotten about the questions he wanted to ask.
“Lower,” he requested when Lincoln’s fingers halted on the belt of his sweatpants. His lips wetly browsed the hollow of Lincoln’s throat and there was no way it wasn’t absolutely intentional.
“I don’t think the muscles are that tense down there, Mike.”
There was a very obvious and crude comeback regarding tension under the belt and, if Michael didn’t utter it, he did think it, Lincoln was positive about that, because he looked up and his eyes were suddenly sparkling with amusement. Lincoln smiled and shook his head.
“Don’t say it. It’s supposed to be my kind of joke.”
He let his hands wander on Michael without purpose, smiling inwardly as Michael squirmed in protest because the hands were going up when he so badly wanted them to go down. When the squirming became shameless humping movements and Michael dug his knees in the bed on each side of Lincoln’s thighs, he pulled on the elastic band of the sweatpants and slipped his hands inside Michael’s pants and boxers, palming his buttocks. The muscles suddenly clasped beneath his fingers - and Lincoln absolutely enjoyed the reaction - a pleasantly shocked gasp warmed the skin of his neck, and Michael lifted his head to kiss him, eager and impatient. Lincoln enfolded him in his arms, crushed him down, suddenly remembering the first time this kind of thing had happened. He realized how fast the situation was getting out of hand and that Michael wouldn’t let him stop tonight.
“Want me to get you off?” he whispered bluntly and bumped his hips up, hoping for the lesser of two evils. Maybe, maybe he could convince him to follow this path and then things wouldn’t get too messy - not messier, anyway.
Michael moved fluidly on top of him and, for a few seconds, Lincoln almost thought that he had won the battle - until Michael leant on his elbows, lifting above him.
“I want it all or I want nothing at all.”
They locked eyes and Lincoln struggled not to look away. There was Michael’s body covering his - hands fumbling on Lincoln’s shirt and fly because he was already so damn sure of his victory - his lips swollen from the kisses they had exchanged, his cheekbones flushed on the still pale skin of his face. There was the weight, welcome and upsetting, hot and growing, against his lower stomach. Lincoln registered all that, gathering the sensations and feeling right away the appropriate parts of his anatomy react to the stimuli.
There was also in Michael’s eyes this pain that Lincoln could never really understand, and the outrageous hope that Lincoln would be able to make it go away at least for a while. It made them shine and gleam - and that made Lincoln answer almost out of his volition, “All right.”
He’s not quite sure he remembers precisely what happened next, and he’s not quite sure that he wants to...
Bullshit. He remembers. He remembers even a bit too perfectly on some nights. It’s embedded in his memory, his skin, his bones.
* * *
He asked questions.
Michael was usually the one who asked and wondered, but Lincoln retrieved a pack of condoms and a small tube in the night table, and he asked Michael what the hell he was doing with that stuff - well, not the condoms, that, he could figure it out pretty well.
“You probably don’t want to know,” Michael told him.
“Is your roommate...”
“Chris.”
“Whatever. Has he got anything to do with this?” The kid was nice, pretty - as pretty as a guy could be as far as Lincoln was concerned - and seemingly a bit too interested in Michael. And Lincoln knew his brother: even though this was probably not his flavor of choice, he was prone to experiment. So the question totally made sense, didn’t it?
A slow, pleased - smug - smile grew on Michael’s lips.
“You jealous?”
“No,” he lied grumpily.
He knew Michael had had a few girlfriends. That was fine. Normal. Healthy. Lincoln experienced neither want nor need to compete with them - not to mention that he wasn’t equipped for that: women felt, smelled, tasted good, they were soft and curvy. He wanted that for Michael, he wanted him to enjoy that. Lincoln sure did. But men? Totally different story. Lincoln didn’t like at all the idea that Michael could get from somebody else what he couldn’t get from him; didn’t like at all the idea that somebody could get from Michael what Lincoln wasn’t supposed to want and get.
“But if he fucked you...”
“Or the other way around,” Michael cut him off mischievously.
Lincoln did a double take at that, heat creeping up his neck, and he swallowed hard. For the first time, he wondered how exactly things would turn out.
“... or the other way around,” he corrected slowly, “and ran home when you collapsed, I’ll kick his ass. Hard.”
“We don’t do that.”
“Fucking?”
“We don’t... do anything pertaining to this sort of thing.” Lincoln rolled his eyes - Michael’s typically twisted fancy phrasing. “No need to break a few bones or throw a fit.” He nuzzled Lincoln’s collarbone. “I don’t want...”
“What?”
“I don’t want anyone but you around me when I do collapse, anyway.”
Lincoln felt his throat constrict dumbly and his heart swell even more dumbly. Damn him. That kind of statement was precisely the reason why they were doing what they were doing.
“Linc?” He looked up at Michael smirking at him. “Don’t worry. I won’t ask you to take it up the ass.”
“Don’t be crass.”
Still. It was good to know.
* * *
He received instructions.
Fairly detailed ones. He knew that Michael liked to be in control, but being in control of the way to lose control? Twisted. So Michael. It started... well, when he started to kiss, lick and nibble his way down Michael’s body and it came to a peak when he settled between Michael’s legs and hovered above his belly. He complied as best as he was able to - except for the moments where it was way more fun to hear him pant and watch him writhe - and thought that it was amazing how some people, when properly motivated, could make ring so dirty words as common as kiss, fingers, tongue, squeeze (decency forbade that he mentioned please), lower or yes, just there.
His mouth went lower, closed on Michael’s member and leisurely worked up and down, kissing and licking until the whispered directives morphed into strangled breaths, hands gripping his shoulders and hips trying to thrust upwards. Humming with satisfaction, he gently pinned Michael to the bed and looked up to watch him as he let out a single, startled pant.
* * *
He gritted his teeth.
At some point, Michael bit sharply in his earlobe, cutting through the fog of kisses, sighs and caresses, and asked him in a breathless voice, “How do you want me?”
With a small knowing smile, Lincoln rolled on his back and coaxed Michael into rising up on his knees until he was above him, straddling his hips. He watched him as he moved, still slightly languid and drowsy from the episode, and he needed this to finally realize that they actually wouldn’t halt the whole thing, this time. Kissing and fondling was something. Agreeing to a lot more than kissing and fondling was something else entirely. Reveling in the display of skin, muscles and blatantly provocative gestures as Michael was lifting above him and then slowly, cautiously lowering himself was a totally different universe - one where so-right and totally-wrong and fucking-do-it-already were obnoxiously mingling.
Lincoln adjusted his position, trying to guide Michael the best he could, and gritted his teeth because - although if one of them should have experienced any physical pain, it would logically have been Michael - that caused him a perfect blend of ache and pleasure.
* * *
He shut up and fought to keep his eyes open.
When Michael leant forward, his hands on the pillow to brace himself, his face a few inches above Lincoln’s, Lincoln thought that he was beautiful. The idea surprised and upset him even more than the feeling of Michael’s body gliding on him, above him, around him - this wasn’t something he was supposed to see, to know and even less to appreciate - and he had to hold hard onto Michael’s hips, digging his fingers into the flesh not to push him away. But when he met his eyes, he found them clear, so totally focused on him and for once free of any kind of pain.
He just shut up and fought to keep his eyes open and trained on Michael. Reaching up, fighting Michael who tried to pin his hands on the pillow, he stroked and fondled, relishing the warm skin and the smooth roll of the muscles under his fingertips, and he tugged him forward to kiss him, messy and urgent. When they broke apart, Michael smiled down at him and mumbled something about Lincoln letting him take care of everything. He laid back and complied, watched and didn’t utter a word. So there was silence all the time Michael moved above him, slow and restrained at first, more erratically as he started losing it - sort of a silence, hardly disrupted by groans and moans, occasional begging, gasps and wet sounds - and then just the sound of harsh breathing.
* * *
He was stretched out between Michael’s rumpled sheets, on Michael’s small bed, in Michael’s freakishly silent bedroom. He was stretched out under Michael, between Michael’s thighs, still buried to the hilt into Michael. It was Michael everywhere, there was no way for Lincoln to escape him: he could see him, feel him, smell him; he could even taste him, the flavors lingering on his tongue. It was overwhelming and he really couldn’t make up his mind between So fucking wrong and So fucking good, let’s do it again just to be sure, so when he finally broke the silence, he settled for:
“How the fuck did we get here?”
Slowly, Michael rose up from his slumped position, his forehead leaving Lincoln’s shoulder as his hands pushed him up unsteadily. They were both breathing hard, although Lincoln was quite satisfied to notice that his brother was panting and couldn’t yet manage to speak.
To be fair, maybe it was because he had done most of the work.
There was a strange wet sound when he rolled off him. Lincoln winced, and winced again when the warm and moist body slouched heavily next to him. This was not going to be easy, there were no guidelines for this kind of thing.
For a split second, he missed Michael’s weight on him enough to be tempted to grab him and roll him back. He only repeated, “How the fuck did we get here?”
“Why,” Michael said dryly, “I’m glad you enjoyed it. It was good for me too. Thanks.”
The retort made Lincoln flinch and recoil. It had been good. More than good. It had been... not something he felt like reflecting on, right now. He glared at Michael and noticed that he was still flushed, his eyes shiny and lips swollen; he realized that it would probably be wiser not to look at him. He tried, he really tried to focus on the ceiling, the furniture, the stupid poster on the wall - whatever. Didn’t work. As always, it was the light in Michael’s eyes that totally got him and he let his head roll on the pillow until he could look him in the eyes.
“We got here because I wanted something and you were okay with it,” Michael reminded him. Pretty smart-ass way to answer a totally valid question. Lincoln kept on glaring. Not that it did any good, since Michael added in a rather condescending tone, “Come on, Linc. There have been - you know...”
“What?”
Michael gave him an exasperated look. “There have been times when... It didn’t come out of the blue.”
Lincoln opened his mouth to protest loudly, thought about what he was going to say for a couple of seconds and closed it again. Right. Michael was right. There had been times. Red flags that Lincoln had disregarded because he thought that eventually everything would be fine, even though each flag was redder and bigger and more blatant than the previous one. Denial at its finest.
With a sigh Lincoln turned on his side and Michael moved in behind him, spooning him and clinging to him; the sensation was familiar and oddly comforting.
“Actually, the question isn’t really how we got here, but where we go from here?”
Lincoln turned around in the bed and faced Michael; not a good idea. Eye contact. Lots of contact, actually, more or less incendiary. He tried to back off a bit but ended up with his ass poking out of the bed and decided that falling on the floor wouldn’t do much for his dignity.
“We go nowhere. This,” He moved his hand back and forth between Michael and him in the small vacant space separating their chests, “can go nowhere.”
“So kissing and making out is fine, but having sex is not.” He raised his eyebrows, just a tad challenging.
“Don’t do this, Michael,” Lincoln warned him.
“No, really. I’d like to know where you draw the line.” He talked and kept on talking, and Lincoln stared at his mouth, the lips moving so awfully close to his own, fighting the impulse to smack him. Or kiss him. Kissing him would have been a lot more effective way to make him shut up, that was for sure. “Are hand-jobs permitted? Blow-jobs? How many times a year? Are both of us allowed to get on their knees or...”
“Stop it.”
Frustration grew on Michael’s face, but Lincoln didn’t care. He was slowly crashing down from the tension accumulated during the previous hours and he really couldn’t take one of his brother’s moods right now.
“You liked it as much as...,” Michael stubbornly started.
“Yes! I know: I liked it as much as you did.”
He snapped, unable to restrain himself, as pressure burst out at the accusatory reminder. As if he could have ignored that he liked it, how much he liked it.
“You know what? You’re right. And from the look of it, you seemed to enjoy yourself too, so you can imagine how I liked it. But if you really need to know, I loved it. I loved your damn bossy ways. I loved this thing you did with your tongue when you kissed me. I loved how you taste. I loved how you smell. I loved how you asked me if you were doing it right, as if you couldn’t figure it out on your own.” He poked at Michael’s forehead. “I loved how you looked at me when I touched you in just the right spot. Above all, I loved the way your fucking little ass gripped my cock and I loved the look on your face when you came.”
He stopped to breathe in and suddenly realized what he was saying, that he was talking way more than normal, was a lot more verbal and explicit than he should have been; he just stopped talking. Michael stared at him with incredibly wide eyes, his mouth slightly parted and his cheeks flushed in a mixture of embarrassment and pleasure, so totally taken aback by the outburst that he couldn’t manage to come up with a retort. This was a first, really. Quite a pleasant one and Lincoln added it to the growing list of things that he loved.
“I loved it and I’d love to do it all over again. How does that feel for your self-worth?” he grumbled, more quietly.
“Um... good, I guess,” Michael admitted with his cheekbones absurdly red.
“Great. But notwithstanding the fact...”
“Notwithstanding?”
Apparently Michael was quickly collecting his thoughts because he sneered at the atypical choice of words; Lincoln just glared at Michael’s sneer.
“...notwithstanding the fact,” he repeated pointedly, “that you’re my fricking brother, I find just a little bit disturbing to get off on your pain. On easing it.”
Michael stared at him as if he didn’t have the slightest idea of what Lincoln was talking about - and maybe he really didn’t.
“You did? I thought you got off on...”
“Shut up.” He tried to disentangle from Michael, not a small task since each time he managed to unwrap a hand, an arm or a leg, another one snatched him or draped over him. “I’d better go.”
“Where?”
“Home. What do you think!”
He scanned the room for his clothes, spotted them a few feet away from the bed, and tried to get up. Michael’s hand halted him, holding hard onto his arm.
Michael looked up at him and Lincoln felt the urge to either hit him or hug him. He wasn’t sure. Possibly both at the same time. He pushed the covers away and actually stood. Not a word was said.
Pain and hurt clouded Michael’s eyes.
Lincoln thought about tears, smiles and inappropriately comforting touching; paper cranes and foolishly borrowed money; fucking red flags and double-edged swords.
He gave in with barely a sigh.
* * *
“Just for tonight,” Lincoln warned while settling back in the small bed, in the messy sheets that were so unlike Michael, but smelled so much like him. Michael wrapped his arms and legs around him and kissed his neck, soothing the skin he had bitten and sucked an hour earlier. Lincoln shivered under the caress.
“This isn’t normal,” he mumbled, and as if in retribution, Michael was suddenly back to biting and sucking, rolling the flesh between his teeth. Lincoln obligingly tilted his head and resigned himself to display yet another hickey. “This is totally fucked up.”
“Thanks for pointing that out, Linc. I didn’t notice,” Michael answered, his tone excessively derisive for someone who had recently gone from catatonic to ecstatic.
It was helpful information though, since Lincoln wasn’t so sure his brother was fully aware of that.
“You do realize that normal people don’t do this kind of thing, huh?” he asked him.
“Normalcy is overrated. We do a lot of things normal people will never do.”
“Yeah?”
He was almost afraid to actually get an example so he was relieved when Michael didn’t elaborate and just answered:
“Yeah.”
-III-
Now Michael is standing in front of him in Fox River’s chapel with the hint of a smile on his lips and a twinkle of self-satisfaction in his eyes. Lincoln remembers that a few months ago, Michael’s lips had been pressed together and his eyes glistened with tears when he had asked him to swear that he was innocent. Lincoln realized then that he could lie to Mike if he had been guilty, just to make the tears go away. The thick glass separated them. He couldn’t hold him, tell him that everything would be all right; he couldn’t touch him. Michael wasn’t a touchy-feely person, but every now and then, he needed it - hence the mess they ended up in a few times. Not like anybody else needed human contact, but because it helped to keep him grounded, it made the connection between reality and... God knows what was going on in Michael’s mind.
“Most of the time, I barely understand you,” Lincoln had told him once. “I’d like to get it. Get into your head.”
“What makes you think that you’d like what’s in there?”
“I don’t want to like it, I want to get it.” Michael tugged him forward and kissed him on the lips. “I’m serious, Michael.”
“So am I. You wanted to know what I had in mind.”
Lincoln laughed. “It’s not your mind talking, there.”
“See, that’s the point: you think that it is two different things when really, it’s not.”
He ground himself against Lincoln’s belly - eliciting a smirk - and let out a small strangled noise when Lincoln snuck a hand in his pants and started to fondle him.
“You have a dirty mind, then,” he joked.
He lets the guard take him back to his cell, still too stunned to react. He barely feels the hand of the guy tightly wrapped around his arm and he’s not sure how he is going to make it out of the chapel and through the hallways to his cell.
The door closes behind him with a loud thump but he barely notices it. He heavily leans against the wall, then slides down it to the floor, the hopeful and pleased look on Michael’s face burnt to his mind. A single thought swirls in his brain, threatening to make it implode. There had been red flags. Bunch of them. So much that Lincoln couldn’t have kept track even if he tried to. But never in his life would he have imagined that it would get so much out of hand, would lead him to ask the wrong things of the wrong people for the right reasons, and that he would end up in a damn mess because of that; that the dynamics would reverse and lead Michael to get himself locked up in a high security prison; that both of them would end up here. Lincoln needed a few years to understand that the fucking, almost funny and sweet crying-and-smiling thing was a double-edged sword, but in the end, he got it.
-END-
End notes: Out-takes
Comments make Michael me happy.
Author: clair-de-lune
Rating: R
Category: Slash
Characters: Michael/Lincoln
Warnings: Incest
Word Count: ~ 7380
Disclaimer: Not mine. Just borrowing them for a while.
Prompt: Written for pbfic_exchange2. foxriverinmate requested anything with Michael but preferably slash, and hurt/comfort and/or fluff. The elements to be included were: Michael is hurt (physically or emotionally). The other character needs to display a great deal of patience. Some kind of argument that results in tears.
Summary: When Lincoln was seven, he discovered that he had an interesting power over Michael: he could make him cry and he could make him smile.
Author’s Notes: Many thanks to niennanou for the first quick beta and to recycledfaery for the beta and the suggestions.
(Read entry in light format)
-I-
Right from the start, there have been warnings. Red flags that Lincoln disregarded because he thought that eventually everything would be fine, even though each flag was redder and bigger and more blatant than the previous one. Denial at its finest.
He admits he’s probably not the world’s most careful person when it comes to red flags. If he had been, he would have spared himself a whole lot of trouble, wouldn’t he?
-II-
The first red flag... wasn’t really a first flag; it was more like a sudden awareness. Lincoln was seven and he discovered that he had an interesting power over Michael - two interesting powers: he could make him cry and he could make him smile. With the passing years, he would use and sometimes abuse both of these abilities. It was a double-edged sword but Lincoln would need a few years to figure it out. Making Michael cry would never really be deliberate or ill-intentioned, just casual and a bit careless because Lincoln wasn’t as much a bad brother as an oblivious yet loving one; sometimes, he would just act first and think later or not think at all. No bad intentions. Making Michael smile... stroke of luck, guilt or every now and then gratitude; on occasion, Lincoln’s mere presence would be enough to achieve the desired effect.
Michael always sought and sometimes found comfort in Lincoln - possibly against his better judgment, Lincoln believed. It started in quite a common way and got a bit out of hand.
OK. Totally out of hand.
* * *
He initially noticed the crying-and-smiling thing when he accidentally broke Michael’s favorite toy, some red and silver tricycle. It was an accident insofar as he did kick the thing - he was angry at something, whatever it might have been, and sadly the bike was in his way - but didn’t mean to break it. Mike looked at the damaged tricycle, its useless handlebars and its small ruined trailer, and he started crying. He was a quiet child and his crying, usually scarce, was nothing spectacular - no screaming or wailing or howling, nothing that Mom would have noticed hadn’t she been paying a bit of attention. Just quivering lips and chin and a few silent tears rolling down his cheeks. And well... a pissed-off glare at Lincoln.
Mom punished Lincoln, of course. She sent him to his and Mike’s bedroom and told him that he wouldn’t get out of there until dinner. She sternly pointed out that you just don’t kick things like that: he’d better think about it and come up with an apology to his brother.
Lincoln didn’t have the time to even close the door on his way out when Michael began to sniffle, his soundless tears becoming audible. From the threshold of their shared bedroom, he observed with fascination his baby brother crying because he had been punished while their mother stood, baffled and indecisive, in the middle of the living room.
Making Mike cry appeared to be awfully easy for Lincoln.
Making him smile was apparently almost as easy. All it took was Lincoln threatening to give a nasty little bully the beat-up he deserved if Michael ever came back from school again with bruises on his legs; the promise he would play with him after they finished their homework elicited a burst of glee; even a shared cookie when Michael dropped his was enough to bring out a smile. Thoughtful carefulness did the trick as well as small tidbits of attention, and Lincoln milked that for what it was worth. Had he been a less nice person, he would have reveled in this ability; being who he was, he just relied on it, not always consciously, when necessity arose. Necessity arose quite a few times.
There were the countless times when they had to move from one foster home to another because Lincoln screwed up again, Lincoln being sent to juvie or jail, hanging out with the wrong people, doing stupid, stupid things... Sure, it didn’t systematically end up with Michael crying, but it did end up with Michael sad, angry or in an intermediary state of mind. Yet, no matter the number of times Lincoln made him cry or pissed him off, he almost always managed to make it because in the end, he also made him smile. More important, from time to time, he tricked him into smiling when someone else was responsible for the tears. Those were definitely Lincoln’s favorite smiles.
Like with that Jenny girl.
* * *
Jenny was pretty - really pretty; Jenny was smart - not Michael-smart, but still; Jenny was nice - at least Lincoln thought so until she unceremoniously dumped Michael.
This kind of thing just happened sometimes, Lincoln said for a lack of better explanation or support. He was sitting on the floor of the living room with his back against the couch, and Michael was lying and brooding on the sofa behind him, awfully silent. Lincoln kept on talking, unable to find the words that would ease Michael’s pain, but also unable to shut the hell up. Finally, Michael pointed out that “It doesn’t happen to you” and Lincoln wondered about the downside of being on the receiving end of unconditional brotherly adoration - it had happened to him, it just hadn’t meant a lot, except of course when... With a sigh, he urged Michael down, next to him. Michael reluctantly slid down the couch and leant against his shoulder, Linc’s arm tightly wrapped around him. He wriggled a bit until his head was in the crook of his brother’s neck and he settled there, his breathing smooth and slow. Too close for comfort, Linc thought, but given the circumstances, he couldn’t deny him any kind of comfort.
“When Veronica...,” he began.
Michael didn’t even let him finish his sentence. “That was different. You were a jerk to Vee.”
Okay, so much for unconditional brotherly adoration - it was good to know that it didn’t totally cloud Michael’s judgment, though.
He cleared his throat and tried another approach. “This girl - Jenny - was an idiot.”
“It was idiotic to date me, that’s for sure.”
Michael’s voice was laced with self-contempt and dejection, a tone Lincoln was all too familiar with. He twisted his neck to try to look at his brother’s face, but Michael wouldn’t allow that. He buried his face deeper in Lincoln’s shirt, closed his fingers on the fabric, poked his nose into the small opening between two buttons and inhaled. The in-take of air made Lincoln’s skin tingle, but he refused to pay attention or even acknowledge the sensation.
“Have you been skipping your appointments with your therapist?” Lincoln asked, narrowing his eyes with suspicion. He got no answer; there was nothing more than a small hitch in Michael’s breathing, which was as good as a confession. “You don’t skip the frigging appointments, Michael!” He kept quiet and Lincoln shook him. “Hey!”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
Lincoln grabbed him by the nape of his neck, intending to tilt his face up and keep on lecturing him. This was an argument that they had had a fair amount of times and apparently, Michael needed a reminder. But the instant he met his eyes - sad eyes gleaming with unshed tears - he gave up the idea. He could ignore, yell at and even hit a smug or angry or condescending Michael, but he really couldn’t... When Michael was hurt, he just wanted to bring him whatever sort of comfort he was able to.
“This girl was an idiot,” he repeated.
“Linc...”
“Stupid.” A small smile grew on his face. “Dumb. Dumber than me when we did this bet last week - and that means something!”
“I liked her,” Michael stated calmly.
“I know you did,” he breathed out and finally shut up. He bent forward and placed a light kiss on the corner of Michael’s right eye, tasting the salted tears on his eyelids, thinking irrationally that maybe he could drink and swallow his pain, absorb it and make it disappear. Another kiss, then one on the left eye, and Michael was smiling shakily. Lincoln felt his cheeks moving, his lips curling and a small puff of air against his own jaw. He savored the victory and hugged Michael tighter.
“It tickles,” Michael half-protested when Lincoln kissed his eyes again. Still gripping the fabric of the shirt, he moved and shifted in the circle of Linc’s arms and angled his head up. Before Lincoln could process what was going on, Michael pressed warm lips to the side of his mouth. Just a hint of lips on lips and a soft breath in his ear, but the intent was pretty hard to miss.
Lincoln jerked slightly. He was used to most of Michael’s quirks and sometimes excessive demands. He was used to Michael sleeping in his bed even when he wasn’t home. He was used to Michael borrowing his clothes and giving them back - or not. He was used to Michael sitting next to him and watching him - just watching him, his look focused and intense. He was used to going to bed alone and waking up with Michael plastered to his back, clinging to him and breathing in his neck. Shit, he was even used to Michael biting him and leaving marks and hickeys that really were a pain in the ass to explain to whoever his current girlfriend was. He was used to an intimacy that was neither normal nor perfectly sane, and he could deal with it - he would even admit that he liked it. He liked the notion that, no matter how many times he screwed up, he was still able to give some kind of solace to Michael.
But this - this was definitely crossing a line. He moved his head to the side and mumbled, “Michael, don’t.” It appeared to be a bad idea since Michael seized this opportunity to kiss him. To really kiss him, full on the mouth, sucking on his lower lip, licking it and trying to push his tongue past Lincoln’s teeth.
That was a red flag, evidently. And if Lincoln hadn’t been sure, Michael rising up on his knees and pushing Lincoln’s head backwards to have better access would have given him a confirmation. Another red flag, the fact that instead of dislodging Michael and getting up, Lincoln rested the back of his head on the couch, parted his mouth under his brother’s and let him do whatever he felt like. In a matter of seconds, Michael was straddling him, the heat of his body seeping into Lincoln, kissing him, stroking his neck and the short stubble on his head with as much tenderness as determination. The kiss was deep, thorough and meant to arouse, and to Lincoln’s dismay, it perfectly achieved its goal, leaving him restless and longing for something he wasn’t keen to say out loud.
“Love you,” Michael whispered feverishly between a brush of lips and a sweep of tongue, and with a small resigned groan, Lincoln held him closer and rubbed the small of his back. Maybe it was one of these inconsiderate statements uttered in the heat of the moment, yet Lincoln doubted it. Michael had never done anything inconsiderate in his life. He would always think and re-think everything, and with a surge of bewilderment, Lincoln wondered to what extent he had been thinking about this. There was no possibility to consider that he got carried away, and no frigging way to misunderstand the kind of love he was talking about: the evidence was hard, hot and pushing against Lincoln’s thigh. And damn if it didn’t make Lincoln hard, hot and edgy.
“I can tell,” he mumbled. Almost unconsciously, he moved his leg to tease Michael just a bit. A dumb thing to do, but he hadn’t been able to resist the temptation and he was rewarded by a gasp and Michael pressing himself harder against his thigh. The sensation, burning and way too pleasant, freaked him out and he forced Michael to back off. “Sorry. I shouldn’t... You’d better go to bed.” He straightened up, the couch pressing painfully against his shoulders, Michael still warm and heavy in his lap. “Go to bed, Mike.”
Michael jumped to his feet and stood there for a few seconds, hands in his pockets, his lower lip sullenly pushed forward. From the look of it, Lincoln thought he would argue, press on or just refuse to comply.
“You liked it as much as I did,” he let drop before he retreated to his bedroom.
A couple of hours later, he entered Lincoln’s dark room, moving swiftly and with practice. He slipped into the bed, snuggled between the blankets and scooted on the mattress closer and closer to Lincoln. When he was lying flush against his brother’s back, he murmured, “Is it okay?”
It shouldn’t have been - it really shouldn’t have been, but the hope and trust in Michael’s voice totally obliterated any coherent judgment. He shifted in the bed, rearranging his legs and arms so Michael could settle comfortably behind him.
“Shut up and go to sleep.”
A hand tentatively slid down his stomach, the fingertips a tad rough on his skin. He gripped it before it could reach the elastic belt of his pajamas and brought it to higher, safer territory, putting it to his chest and entwining his fingers with Michael’s. Just to be sure it wouldn’t go down again.
Michael smiled in his neck and lightly bit him.
The worst red flag of all? Michael was right: Lincoln liked it - from the kissing to the rubbing on his lap to the way Michael hugged him as if his life depended on it. He liked it.
* * *
They never talked about it even though once it had started, Lincoln discovered that they were unable to stop. There were more kisses, a wide variety of kisses, from mere brushes of lips to full necking sessions, on a wide variety of occasions, from Michael claiming a reward to Michael needing a comfort that Lincoln was too eager to provide. They usually broke apart flushed and panting, Lincoln slightly freaked out, Michael oddly calm, soothed with a soft enigmatic smile curling the corners of his lips. It wasn’t systematic and yet it happened way too frequently to rely on the reassuring idea that it was nothing but highly inappropriate accidents. Red flags, a bunch of red flags all along the way, and Lincoln disdainfully ignored them, because it was just kissing and fondling - and, well, maybe a tiny bit of petting... occasionally a dash of rubbing - and it felt good; it felt good in itself and it felt even better to watch Michael enjoying it.
Anyway, even though it was already pretty far, it never went further than kissing and fondling.
That is - not until it did go further.
* * *
Sometimes, people hurt Michael - Lincoln first on that list - without having the slightest idea they did. Despite his best efforts, he wasn’t always able to keep at large the hundreds of stimuli that daily hammered him, and when someone said the wrong thing or made the wrong gesture, it stuck with him. Sooner or later, all the tiny tidbits just conglomerated, and Michael eventually shut his brain off. At least this was what Lincoln could gather and understand. When that happened, he could stay still and silent for hours - mumbling under his breath in the worst cases - apparently locked up in his own head and not letting anyone in. Then nobody knew what to do: Chris, his roommate at Loyola, didn’t depart from that principle. This was why Lincoln was once woken up late at night by a worried phone call and found himself driving to Michael’s dorm on the campus.
“He’s been like that since this morning,” the kid told Lincoln. “I’m going home and I didn’t want to leave him alone.” He cast a glance at Michael, who was lying on his side, perfectly still and eyes open. “He scares the hell out of me when he does that.”
“Yeah,” Lincoln agreed, “it can be pretty creepy. Just... go home, I’ll take care of him.” He was focused on Michael’s prone form and almost forgot to add, “Thanks for calling.”
There was a complete routine that Lincoln already had to run a few times. Lighting up the room, talking, moving, seeking eye contact, laying a hand on Michael’s back or shoulder, all that in a soft and smooth way, no brisk movement, no rising of the voice and no abrupt silence either - and doing all of that until he got a reaction, a look, a gesture or sometimes a word letting him know that Michael was back from wherever he had retreated. Lincoln had come to the conclusion that the over stimulation eventually caused Michael to turn off his brain and stop feeling, hearing, watching and tasting: he just fused and sort of needed to be carefully, slowly rebooted. But really? Linc didn’t have the slightest idea of what was going on in his brother’s head during those episodes. Michael’s shrink had tried to explain it to him in simple, precise and vivid terms and after a twenty minutes long explanation, Lincoln’s most intimate conviction was that Dr. Brighton - as kind and dedicated he might be - had no better knowledge than him about what actually happened in Michael’s own little world.
Since it was all he could do, he performed the ritual and lit up the room, moved, sought eye contact, put a hand on Michael’s shoulder and soothingly rubbed it, and he talked, talked, talked about anything and everything, trying to break into Michael’s head and snap him out of his state of mind. When he had exhausted each and every trick, he crammed himself on the bed next to Michael, lying face to face with him. With almost everybody else in the building gone home, the bedroom was awfully silent and Lincoln had nothing but Michael to concentrate on - the heat radiating from his body; his light breathing on Lincoln’s face; the odor mixing hints of sweat, faint traces of soap and a scent typically Michael; the way their bodies were touching from thigh to chest, not quite pressed together but almost. He felt that if he paid enough attention, he would be able to count Michael’s heartbeats; he pressed a hand to his brother’s chest and even though he couldn’t hear them, he was definitely able to feel them, pounding beneath his palm.
He brought his other hand up and rubbed the pad of his thumb against Michael’s cheekbone, wondering if everything was always like that for him, precise, sharp and overwhelming. If that so, no surprise he would from time to time blank out and disconnect.
“Michael?” He traced the lines of his face, following the shape of his eyebrows, trailing down his cheek to his chin and finally grazing his lips. The skin was warm and slightly moist, and he suddenly worried that Michael ran a fever - never happened before, he wouldn’t know what to do.
He reached out behind Michael to grab the bedspread and pull it around him. Then he rolled on his back and, wrapping Michael in his arms, he carefully tugged him forward until he was half on his side and half on top of Lincoln. No movement of his own but he did seem to relax a bit, his body slackening against Lincoln’s.
“You know, Veronica called the other day. She’s coming back. I think we might, you know, try again.”
His hand stroked up and down Michael’s spine a few times before he slid it under the shirt and touched some skin. Hot and moist even there, absurdly smooth and making his fingertips tingle. The tingling traveled up his arm to his chest, curling there and radiating to his gut. He grumbled under his breath. Shit. Not that. Not now. Not that there was a right moment, but this was definitely the worst possible one. He kept on stroking, up and down, up and down, slickly and regularly.
“I’ll try to... not screw everything up this time around. You think I can do that?” No answer. But then it didn’t mean anything since Michael wouldn’t have answered such a question anyway. “Yeah,” he said, talking to himself. “Tough chance, huh?”
Michael moved on him, nothing more than a small gesture of his head, maybe a mere reflex because he needed more room to breathe, but Lincoln held onto it. His stomach churning, he braced himself and - since all reasonable ideas have been exhausted and he was left with the unreasonable ones - he touched his lips to Michael’s and waited for a response. Just a touch of lips and he took care not to enjoy it because the line was too damn fine between an unreasonable idea and abusing the situation.
He did get a response - eventually. It necessitated a few more barely-there kisses and light squeezes on Michael’s waist, but the blank look on his face finally subsided and he blinked, his eyes focusing on Lincoln, his breath caught in his throat when Lincoln hugged him a bit more forcefully.
“You with me, Mikey?” Still silent, he tilted his chin up to offer his lips to Lincoln who chuckled, relief and amusement mixing. “Now, you’re just being greedy.”
He shifted on the small bed to allow Michael to totally rest on him, heavy and there, his head nestled in the crook of Lincoln’s neck, his legs between Lincoln’s. He ground his hips down against Lincoln’s who jerked under the pressure, having almost forgotten about the wrong reactions at the wrong moment.
“Shit! Michael...”
“’s okay,” he whispered, his voice rough and unsteady.
“You okay?”
“Sure.”
“What happened?” He laid both his hands on Michael’s neck and started to knead and rub.
“Nothing.” Lincoln lightly dug his thumbs and traced the line of Michael’s shoulders, making him groan a bit. “Keep doing that,” he pleaded.
“It wasn’t nothing. You snapped.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
His delivery was still sluggish but he was slowly pulling himself together, gathering his thoughts, and Lincoln knew that the window to get an explanation - if there was any that he could actually understand - would close as soon as he would be back to his usual self. And Lincoln wanted to know but couldn’t bring himself to push harder as long as Michael was that vulnerable. Not for the first time, he wondered about vulnerability as a weapon.
His hands slid down Michael’s back inch by inch, working the muscles to ease the stiffness out of them. By the time he had reached the small of his back, Michael was almost purring in his neck and Lincoln - dammit - had all but forgotten about the questions he wanted to ask.
“Lower,” he requested when Lincoln’s fingers halted on the belt of his sweatpants. His lips wetly browsed the hollow of Lincoln’s throat and there was no way it wasn’t absolutely intentional.
“I don’t think the muscles are that tense down there, Mike.”
There was a very obvious and crude comeback regarding tension under the belt and, if Michael didn’t utter it, he did think it, Lincoln was positive about that, because he looked up and his eyes were suddenly sparkling with amusement. Lincoln smiled and shook his head.
“Don’t say it. It’s supposed to be my kind of joke.”
He let his hands wander on Michael without purpose, smiling inwardly as Michael squirmed in protest because the hands were going up when he so badly wanted them to go down. When the squirming became shameless humping movements and Michael dug his knees in the bed on each side of Lincoln’s thighs, he pulled on the elastic band of the sweatpants and slipped his hands inside Michael’s pants and boxers, palming his buttocks. The muscles suddenly clasped beneath his fingers - and Lincoln absolutely enjoyed the reaction - a pleasantly shocked gasp warmed the skin of his neck, and Michael lifted his head to kiss him, eager and impatient. Lincoln enfolded him in his arms, crushed him down, suddenly remembering the first time this kind of thing had happened. He realized how fast the situation was getting out of hand and that Michael wouldn’t let him stop tonight.
“Want me to get you off?” he whispered bluntly and bumped his hips up, hoping for the lesser of two evils. Maybe, maybe he could convince him to follow this path and then things wouldn’t get too messy - not messier, anyway.
Michael moved fluidly on top of him and, for a few seconds, Lincoln almost thought that he had won the battle - until Michael leant on his elbows, lifting above him.
“I want it all or I want nothing at all.”
They locked eyes and Lincoln struggled not to look away. There was Michael’s body covering his - hands fumbling on Lincoln’s shirt and fly because he was already so damn sure of his victory - his lips swollen from the kisses they had exchanged, his cheekbones flushed on the still pale skin of his face. There was the weight, welcome and upsetting, hot and growing, against his lower stomach. Lincoln registered all that, gathering the sensations and feeling right away the appropriate parts of his anatomy react to the stimuli.
There was also in Michael’s eyes this pain that Lincoln could never really understand, and the outrageous hope that Lincoln would be able to make it go away at least for a while. It made them shine and gleam - and that made Lincoln answer almost out of his volition, “All right.”
He’s not quite sure he remembers precisely what happened next, and he’s not quite sure that he wants to...
Bullshit. He remembers. He remembers even a bit too perfectly on some nights. It’s embedded in his memory, his skin, his bones.
* * *
He asked questions.
Michael was usually the one who asked and wondered, but Lincoln retrieved a pack of condoms and a small tube in the night table, and he asked Michael what the hell he was doing with that stuff - well, not the condoms, that, he could figure it out pretty well.
“You probably don’t want to know,” Michael told him.
“Is your roommate...”
“Chris.”
“Whatever. Has he got anything to do with this?” The kid was nice, pretty - as pretty as a guy could be as far as Lincoln was concerned - and seemingly a bit too interested in Michael. And Lincoln knew his brother: even though this was probably not his flavor of choice, he was prone to experiment. So the question totally made sense, didn’t it?
A slow, pleased - smug - smile grew on Michael’s lips.
“You jealous?”
“No,” he lied grumpily.
He knew Michael had had a few girlfriends. That was fine. Normal. Healthy. Lincoln experienced neither want nor need to compete with them - not to mention that he wasn’t equipped for that: women felt, smelled, tasted good, they were soft and curvy. He wanted that for Michael, he wanted him to enjoy that. Lincoln sure did. But men? Totally different story. Lincoln didn’t like at all the idea that Michael could get from somebody else what he couldn’t get from him; didn’t like at all the idea that somebody could get from Michael what Lincoln wasn’t supposed to want and get.
“But if he fucked you...”
“Or the other way around,” Michael cut him off mischievously.
Lincoln did a double take at that, heat creeping up his neck, and he swallowed hard. For the first time, he wondered how exactly things would turn out.
“... or the other way around,” he corrected slowly, “and ran home when you collapsed, I’ll kick his ass. Hard.”
“We don’t do that.”
“Fucking?”
“We don’t... do anything pertaining to this sort of thing.” Lincoln rolled his eyes - Michael’s typically twisted fancy phrasing. “No need to break a few bones or throw a fit.” He nuzzled Lincoln’s collarbone. “I don’t want...”
“What?”
“I don’t want anyone but you around me when I do collapse, anyway.”
Lincoln felt his throat constrict dumbly and his heart swell even more dumbly. Damn him. That kind of statement was precisely the reason why they were doing what they were doing.
“Linc?” He looked up at Michael smirking at him. “Don’t worry. I won’t ask you to take it up the ass.”
“Don’t be crass.”
Still. It was good to know.
* * *
He received instructions.
Fairly detailed ones. He knew that Michael liked to be in control, but being in control of the way to lose control? Twisted. So Michael. It started... well, when he started to kiss, lick and nibble his way down Michael’s body and it came to a peak when he settled between Michael’s legs and hovered above his belly. He complied as best as he was able to - except for the moments where it was way more fun to hear him pant and watch him writhe - and thought that it was amazing how some people, when properly motivated, could make ring so dirty words as common as kiss, fingers, tongue, squeeze (decency forbade that he mentioned please), lower or yes, just there.
His mouth went lower, closed on Michael’s member and leisurely worked up and down, kissing and licking until the whispered directives morphed into strangled breaths, hands gripping his shoulders and hips trying to thrust upwards. Humming with satisfaction, he gently pinned Michael to the bed and looked up to watch him as he let out a single, startled pant.
* * *
He gritted his teeth.
At some point, Michael bit sharply in his earlobe, cutting through the fog of kisses, sighs and caresses, and asked him in a breathless voice, “How do you want me?”
With a small knowing smile, Lincoln rolled on his back and coaxed Michael into rising up on his knees until he was above him, straddling his hips. He watched him as he moved, still slightly languid and drowsy from the episode, and he needed this to finally realize that they actually wouldn’t halt the whole thing, this time. Kissing and fondling was something. Agreeing to a lot more than kissing and fondling was something else entirely. Reveling in the display of skin, muscles and blatantly provocative gestures as Michael was lifting above him and then slowly, cautiously lowering himself was a totally different universe - one where so-right and totally-wrong and fucking-do-it-already were obnoxiously mingling.
Lincoln adjusted his position, trying to guide Michael the best he could, and gritted his teeth because - although if one of them should have experienced any physical pain, it would logically have been Michael - that caused him a perfect blend of ache and pleasure.
* * *
He shut up and fought to keep his eyes open.
When Michael leant forward, his hands on the pillow to brace himself, his face a few inches above Lincoln’s, Lincoln thought that he was beautiful. The idea surprised and upset him even more than the feeling of Michael’s body gliding on him, above him, around him - this wasn’t something he was supposed to see, to know and even less to appreciate - and he had to hold hard onto Michael’s hips, digging his fingers into the flesh not to push him away. But when he met his eyes, he found them clear, so totally focused on him and for once free of any kind of pain.
He just shut up and fought to keep his eyes open and trained on Michael. Reaching up, fighting Michael who tried to pin his hands on the pillow, he stroked and fondled, relishing the warm skin and the smooth roll of the muscles under his fingertips, and he tugged him forward to kiss him, messy and urgent. When they broke apart, Michael smiled down at him and mumbled something about Lincoln letting him take care of everything. He laid back and complied, watched and didn’t utter a word. So there was silence all the time Michael moved above him, slow and restrained at first, more erratically as he started losing it - sort of a silence, hardly disrupted by groans and moans, occasional begging, gasps and wet sounds - and then just the sound of harsh breathing.
* * *
He was stretched out between Michael’s rumpled sheets, on Michael’s small bed, in Michael’s freakishly silent bedroom. He was stretched out under Michael, between Michael’s thighs, still buried to the hilt into Michael. It was Michael everywhere, there was no way for Lincoln to escape him: he could see him, feel him, smell him; he could even taste him, the flavors lingering on his tongue. It was overwhelming and he really couldn’t make up his mind between So fucking wrong and So fucking good, let’s do it again just to be sure, so when he finally broke the silence, he settled for:
“How the fuck did we get here?”
Slowly, Michael rose up from his slumped position, his forehead leaving Lincoln’s shoulder as his hands pushed him up unsteadily. They were both breathing hard, although Lincoln was quite satisfied to notice that his brother was panting and couldn’t yet manage to speak.
To be fair, maybe it was because he had done most of the work.
There was a strange wet sound when he rolled off him. Lincoln winced, and winced again when the warm and moist body slouched heavily next to him. This was not going to be easy, there were no guidelines for this kind of thing.
For a split second, he missed Michael’s weight on him enough to be tempted to grab him and roll him back. He only repeated, “How the fuck did we get here?”
“Why,” Michael said dryly, “I’m glad you enjoyed it. It was good for me too. Thanks.”
The retort made Lincoln flinch and recoil. It had been good. More than good. It had been... not something he felt like reflecting on, right now. He glared at Michael and noticed that he was still flushed, his eyes shiny and lips swollen; he realized that it would probably be wiser not to look at him. He tried, he really tried to focus on the ceiling, the furniture, the stupid poster on the wall - whatever. Didn’t work. As always, it was the light in Michael’s eyes that totally got him and he let his head roll on the pillow until he could look him in the eyes.
“We got here because I wanted something and you were okay with it,” Michael reminded him. Pretty smart-ass way to answer a totally valid question. Lincoln kept on glaring. Not that it did any good, since Michael added in a rather condescending tone, “Come on, Linc. There have been - you know...”
“What?”
Michael gave him an exasperated look. “There have been times when... It didn’t come out of the blue.”
Lincoln opened his mouth to protest loudly, thought about what he was going to say for a couple of seconds and closed it again. Right. Michael was right. There had been times. Red flags that Lincoln had disregarded because he thought that eventually everything would be fine, even though each flag was redder and bigger and more blatant than the previous one. Denial at its finest.
With a sigh Lincoln turned on his side and Michael moved in behind him, spooning him and clinging to him; the sensation was familiar and oddly comforting.
“Actually, the question isn’t really how we got here, but where we go from here?”
Lincoln turned around in the bed and faced Michael; not a good idea. Eye contact. Lots of contact, actually, more or less incendiary. He tried to back off a bit but ended up with his ass poking out of the bed and decided that falling on the floor wouldn’t do much for his dignity.
“We go nowhere. This,” He moved his hand back and forth between Michael and him in the small vacant space separating their chests, “can go nowhere.”
“So kissing and making out is fine, but having sex is not.” He raised his eyebrows, just a tad challenging.
“Don’t do this, Michael,” Lincoln warned him.
“No, really. I’d like to know where you draw the line.” He talked and kept on talking, and Lincoln stared at his mouth, the lips moving so awfully close to his own, fighting the impulse to smack him. Or kiss him. Kissing him would have been a lot more effective way to make him shut up, that was for sure. “Are hand-jobs permitted? Blow-jobs? How many times a year? Are both of us allowed to get on their knees or...”
“Stop it.”
Frustration grew on Michael’s face, but Lincoln didn’t care. He was slowly crashing down from the tension accumulated during the previous hours and he really couldn’t take one of his brother’s moods right now.
“You liked it as much as...,” Michael stubbornly started.
“Yes! I know: I liked it as much as you did.”
He snapped, unable to restrain himself, as pressure burst out at the accusatory reminder. As if he could have ignored that he liked it, how much he liked it.
“You know what? You’re right. And from the look of it, you seemed to enjoy yourself too, so you can imagine how I liked it. But if you really need to know, I loved it. I loved your damn bossy ways. I loved this thing you did with your tongue when you kissed me. I loved how you taste. I loved how you smell. I loved how you asked me if you were doing it right, as if you couldn’t figure it out on your own.” He poked at Michael’s forehead. “I loved how you looked at me when I touched you in just the right spot. Above all, I loved the way your fucking little ass gripped my cock and I loved the look on your face when you came.”
He stopped to breathe in and suddenly realized what he was saying, that he was talking way more than normal, was a lot more verbal and explicit than he should have been; he just stopped talking. Michael stared at him with incredibly wide eyes, his mouth slightly parted and his cheeks flushed in a mixture of embarrassment and pleasure, so totally taken aback by the outburst that he couldn’t manage to come up with a retort. This was a first, really. Quite a pleasant one and Lincoln added it to the growing list of things that he loved.
“I loved it and I’d love to do it all over again. How does that feel for your self-worth?” he grumbled, more quietly.
“Um... good, I guess,” Michael admitted with his cheekbones absurdly red.
“Great. But notwithstanding the fact...”
“Notwithstanding?”
Apparently Michael was quickly collecting his thoughts because he sneered at the atypical choice of words; Lincoln just glared at Michael’s sneer.
“...notwithstanding the fact,” he repeated pointedly, “that you’re my fricking brother, I find just a little bit disturbing to get off on your pain. On easing it.”
Michael stared at him as if he didn’t have the slightest idea of what Lincoln was talking about - and maybe he really didn’t.
“You did? I thought you got off on...”
“Shut up.” He tried to disentangle from Michael, not a small task since each time he managed to unwrap a hand, an arm or a leg, another one snatched him or draped over him. “I’d better go.”
“Where?”
“Home. What do you think!”
He scanned the room for his clothes, spotted them a few feet away from the bed, and tried to get up. Michael’s hand halted him, holding hard onto his arm.
Michael looked up at him and Lincoln felt the urge to either hit him or hug him. He wasn’t sure. Possibly both at the same time. He pushed the covers away and actually stood. Not a word was said.
Pain and hurt clouded Michael’s eyes.
Lincoln thought about tears, smiles and inappropriately comforting touching; paper cranes and foolishly borrowed money; fucking red flags and double-edged swords.
He gave in with barely a sigh.
* * *
“Just for tonight,” Lincoln warned while settling back in the small bed, in the messy sheets that were so unlike Michael, but smelled so much like him. Michael wrapped his arms and legs around him and kissed his neck, soothing the skin he had bitten and sucked an hour earlier. Lincoln shivered under the caress.
“This isn’t normal,” he mumbled, and as if in retribution, Michael was suddenly back to biting and sucking, rolling the flesh between his teeth. Lincoln obligingly tilted his head and resigned himself to display yet another hickey. “This is totally fucked up.”
“Thanks for pointing that out, Linc. I didn’t notice,” Michael answered, his tone excessively derisive for someone who had recently gone from catatonic to ecstatic.
It was helpful information though, since Lincoln wasn’t so sure his brother was fully aware of that.
“You do realize that normal people don’t do this kind of thing, huh?” he asked him.
“Normalcy is overrated. We do a lot of things normal people will never do.”
“Yeah?”
He was almost afraid to actually get an example so he was relieved when Michael didn’t elaborate and just answered:
“Yeah.”
-III-
Now Michael is standing in front of him in Fox River’s chapel with the hint of a smile on his lips and a twinkle of self-satisfaction in his eyes. Lincoln remembers that a few months ago, Michael’s lips had been pressed together and his eyes glistened with tears when he had asked him to swear that he was innocent. Lincoln realized then that he could lie to Mike if he had been guilty, just to make the tears go away. The thick glass separated them. He couldn’t hold him, tell him that everything would be all right; he couldn’t touch him. Michael wasn’t a touchy-feely person, but every now and then, he needed it - hence the mess they ended up in a few times. Not like anybody else needed human contact, but because it helped to keep him grounded, it made the connection between reality and... God knows what was going on in Michael’s mind.
“Most of the time, I barely understand you,” Lincoln had told him once. “I’d like to get it. Get into your head.”
“What makes you think that you’d like what’s in there?”
“I don’t want to like it, I want to get it.” Michael tugged him forward and kissed him on the lips. “I’m serious, Michael.”
“So am I. You wanted to know what I had in mind.”
Lincoln laughed. “It’s not your mind talking, there.”
“See, that’s the point: you think that it is two different things when really, it’s not.”
He ground himself against Lincoln’s belly - eliciting a smirk - and let out a small strangled noise when Lincoln snuck a hand in his pants and started to fondle him.
“You have a dirty mind, then,” he joked.
He lets the guard take him back to his cell, still too stunned to react. He barely feels the hand of the guy tightly wrapped around his arm and he’s not sure how he is going to make it out of the chapel and through the hallways to his cell.
The door closes behind him with a loud thump but he barely notices it. He heavily leans against the wall, then slides down it to the floor, the hopeful and pleased look on Michael’s face burnt to his mind. A single thought swirls in his brain, threatening to make it implode. There had been red flags. Bunch of them. So much that Lincoln couldn’t have kept track even if he tried to. But never in his life would he have imagined that it would get so much out of hand, would lead him to ask the wrong things of the wrong people for the right reasons, and that he would end up in a damn mess because of that; that the dynamics would reverse and lead Michael to get himself locked up in a high security prison; that both of them would end up here. Lincoln needed a few years to understand that the fucking, almost funny and sweet crying-and-smiling thing was a double-edged sword, but in the end, he got it.
-END-
End notes: Out-takes
Comments make Michael me happy.