"Under a Green Sun" for winterqueen
Title: Under a Green Sun
Rating: G
Character/Pairing: Michael, Abruzzi
Requested By: winterqueen
Summary: The prompt asked for Michael, Abruzzi gen with a driver’s license, sunrise, and lime juice - I got two out of the three.
It starts with the two of them in the car - he in the passenger seat, Abruzzi, unfortunately, behind the wheel - though he has no idea how they’ve ended up here.
Truly, not a clue.
He has a vague memory of Lincoln throwing up his hands and saying something like you brought it up, you teach him when he’d looked imploringly at his older brother.
And now he’s sitting in a car with John Abruzzi.
John Abruzzi, John Abruzzi.
And John Abruzzi, John Abruzzi is looking at him expectantly, with an expression that says, well? Teach me.
“Uh…” Michael mumbles and looks away, stares out the windshield at an oddly shaped tree whose branches look almost like a head.
Almost like Pope’s head. Which is a strange thought.
Michael shakes the bizarre image out of his head and blows out a breath of air before turning back to the man sitting next to him.
“Can I ask why you’ve never learned to drive before?”
“You can ask.”
Michael clenches his teeth carefully and bites back the urge to roll his eyes.
“It’s just that you’re…” he doesn’t really want to guess Abruzzi’s age, suspecting that it may be akin to asking a woman her age, and he knows what happens when a mobster gets pissy.
“I just would’ve thought that most people would have gotten a driver’s license by now,” he amends carefully, pressing his foot against the car floor until he can feel the dull pain lace through it.
“Hey, why would I need to drive myself anywhere?” Abruzzi says, cocking his head back as if to remind Michael of what an absurd idea that is. “I got people who do that for me. Had people,” he adds and looks away, turns to look out the window.
“Uh huh,” Michael replies, unprepared to feel any sympathy for a murder’s loss of social status and comfort.
“And anyway,” Abruzzi continues, turning back to Michael and waving a hand between them. “Driver’s license, that government shit - I don’t need that hassle. Don’t need them keepin’ track of me like that.”
It’s slightly paranoid, but for a guy in Abruzzi’s line of work it makes sense, and Michael says so.
“Then are we done asking stupid questions?”
Michael exhales loud and long again, and nods, trying to work out the best way to go about this in order to get it done fast and easy.
He still can’t figure out why he agreed to teach Abruzzi how to drive, though he’s starting to suspect that he was drunk at the time.
Maybe that, at least, might explain why he can’t really remember actually agreeing to it.
“Okay,” Michael sighs, shifting in his seat to face Abruzzi and thinking over what Lincoln had said to him the first time he’d let Michael drive his car. “First check your mirrors.”
Abruzzi stares at him and makes no move to do so.
“…Okay,” Michael continues hesitantly, tapping a thumb nervously against the dashboard, worrying that he’s already pissed off the other man.
“You want to keep your hands at ten and two,” he tells Abruzzi, nodding at the steering wheel.
“What the hell is ‘ten and two’?” Abruzzi speaks in his slow, drawling accent, no real sign of irritation coming from him aside from a vague wave of his hand once again.
“The, um - on the wheel. If you picture it like a clock, your hands should be where the ten and two would be.”
Abruzzi looks slowly at the wheel, then back at Michael, and Michael’s patience begins to fray. He’s starting to feel restless, and really, really wants out of this car.
And it’s starting to occur to him that he should be wondering where they even got this car from, but somehow it’s just not that important to him.
“You know, this might go a bit more smoothly if you’d listen to what I say,” Michael calmly states, feeling a sudden sharp pain in his foot again.
“We’re not in prison anymore, Fish,” Abruzzi tells him firmly, causing Michael to wonder why he still gets such a nickname anymore.
His eyes narrow and he glares for a moment at Abruzzi before turning to stare out the window, toying with the idea of giving up on this right now. The two of them communicated well enough before - once Michael had lost a couple of toes and things were then understood between them - but now that they’re all on the outside, Michael’s no longer in charge; he has no more control over any of them anymore. It makes it impossible, somehow, for Michael and Abruzzi to talk to one another without a common enemy, and Michael has no interest in what Abruzzi wants unless it affects him or his brother. There’s nothing for in this for him aside from another person to drive a getaway car, should they need it, and at this point he doesn’t need Abruzzi for anything really.
And he wonders when he began to base all of his actions on what he could get in return.
There’s a sharp pain in his foot again, and Michael opens his mouth to tell Abruzzi he can teach himself how to drive, when he turns to look back at the other man and the angry grumble gets stuck in his throat.
Abruzzi is staring out the windshield at the sky, carefully watching the sun set against the trees surrounding them. Michael swallows his words and watches the sun go down, stares at the green and brown and purple light filtering through the branches.
He watches the sky, then watches Abruzzi for a moment.
“It’s been a while since I’ve seen that,” Abruzzi says quietly, as if knowing exactly what Michael’s thinking about, and Michael would nod and say something like me too, except that he was only locked up for a month, and it’s been years - years - since Abruzzi saw such a sight. It really is inhuman to lock a man away like this for years and years on end.
But then, it’s inhuman to take another life, so maybe it balances out.
He wonders, vaguely, why the setting sun is green.
His foot is hurting again and it’s driving him crazy.
And suddenly he’s opening his eyes, and the car is gone, and Abruzzi is gone, and the daytime is gone, and the green and purple sunlight is gone.
He’s laying on the floor of a the barn where they decided to stop for the night, Lincoln a few feet away where he’d fallen asleep hours before.
Michael looks around groggily, trying to wake himself up, and feels the sharp stabbing in his foot again. He glances down to see Lincoln’s feet tangled with his own, one of Lincoln’s boots pressed into his injured foot.
“Linc,” Michael calls softly.
Lincoln snores in reply.
“Lincoln,” Michael says again, loudly, and his brother finally rolls over and picks his head up, glaring sleepily. “You keep kicking me,” Michael tells him.
Lincoln looks at him for a minute, and Michael can almost see on his face the exact moment when his words sink in.
“…Oh,” Lincoln replies and shifts to move away.
They both lay staring at the barn’s ceiling for a while, and Michael knows that Lincoln hasn’t fallen back asleep, and probably won’t again tonight.
“I had the strangest dream,” he tells Lincoln.
Lincoln grunts.
“Dreamt I was… teaching Abruzzi to drive. Or something.”
“Huh.”
“Yeah.”
They’re silent for a while longer before Lincoln sighs and pulls himself up from the floor and shuffles to the window. Michael watches him for a while before rising to join him and see what it is Lincoln’s looking at.
Pink light mixes with orange, spilling over the grass and through the few trees spotting the yard outside. The sun rises slowly and Michael leans against the window frame to watch it.
“Been a while since I’ve seen that,” Lincoln says softly.
Michael glances at him quickly, then gives a soft, “Yeah,” in reply, and they continue to stare silently at the sky.
Thank you for participating! :)
Rating: G
Character/Pairing: Michael, Abruzzi
Requested By: winterqueen
Summary: The prompt asked for Michael, Abruzzi gen with a driver’s license, sunrise, and lime juice - I got two out of the three.
It starts with the two of them in the car - he in the passenger seat, Abruzzi, unfortunately, behind the wheel - though he has no idea how they’ve ended up here.
Truly, not a clue.
He has a vague memory of Lincoln throwing up his hands and saying something like you brought it up, you teach him when he’d looked imploringly at his older brother.
And now he’s sitting in a car with John Abruzzi.
John Abruzzi, John Abruzzi.
And John Abruzzi, John Abruzzi is looking at him expectantly, with an expression that says, well? Teach me.
“Uh…” Michael mumbles and looks away, stares out the windshield at an oddly shaped tree whose branches look almost like a head.
Almost like Pope’s head. Which is a strange thought.
Michael shakes the bizarre image out of his head and blows out a breath of air before turning back to the man sitting next to him.
“Can I ask why you’ve never learned to drive before?”
“You can ask.”
Michael clenches his teeth carefully and bites back the urge to roll his eyes.
“It’s just that you’re…” he doesn’t really want to guess Abruzzi’s age, suspecting that it may be akin to asking a woman her age, and he knows what happens when a mobster gets pissy.
“I just would’ve thought that most people would have gotten a driver’s license by now,” he amends carefully, pressing his foot against the car floor until he can feel the dull pain lace through it.
“Hey, why would I need to drive myself anywhere?” Abruzzi says, cocking his head back as if to remind Michael of what an absurd idea that is. “I got people who do that for me. Had people,” he adds and looks away, turns to look out the window.
“Uh huh,” Michael replies, unprepared to feel any sympathy for a murder’s loss of social status and comfort.
“And anyway,” Abruzzi continues, turning back to Michael and waving a hand between them. “Driver’s license, that government shit - I don’t need that hassle. Don’t need them keepin’ track of me like that.”
It’s slightly paranoid, but for a guy in Abruzzi’s line of work it makes sense, and Michael says so.
“Then are we done asking stupid questions?”
Michael exhales loud and long again, and nods, trying to work out the best way to go about this in order to get it done fast and easy.
He still can’t figure out why he agreed to teach Abruzzi how to drive, though he’s starting to suspect that he was drunk at the time.
Maybe that, at least, might explain why he can’t really remember actually agreeing to it.
“Okay,” Michael sighs, shifting in his seat to face Abruzzi and thinking over what Lincoln had said to him the first time he’d let Michael drive his car. “First check your mirrors.”
Abruzzi stares at him and makes no move to do so.
“…Okay,” Michael continues hesitantly, tapping a thumb nervously against the dashboard, worrying that he’s already pissed off the other man.
“You want to keep your hands at ten and two,” he tells Abruzzi, nodding at the steering wheel.
“What the hell is ‘ten and two’?” Abruzzi speaks in his slow, drawling accent, no real sign of irritation coming from him aside from a vague wave of his hand once again.
“The, um - on the wheel. If you picture it like a clock, your hands should be where the ten and two would be.”
Abruzzi looks slowly at the wheel, then back at Michael, and Michael’s patience begins to fray. He’s starting to feel restless, and really, really wants out of this car.
And it’s starting to occur to him that he should be wondering where they even got this car from, but somehow it’s just not that important to him.
“You know, this might go a bit more smoothly if you’d listen to what I say,” Michael calmly states, feeling a sudden sharp pain in his foot again.
“We’re not in prison anymore, Fish,” Abruzzi tells him firmly, causing Michael to wonder why he still gets such a nickname anymore.
His eyes narrow and he glares for a moment at Abruzzi before turning to stare out the window, toying with the idea of giving up on this right now. The two of them communicated well enough before - once Michael had lost a couple of toes and things were then understood between them - but now that they’re all on the outside, Michael’s no longer in charge; he has no more control over any of them anymore. It makes it impossible, somehow, for Michael and Abruzzi to talk to one another without a common enemy, and Michael has no interest in what Abruzzi wants unless it affects him or his brother. There’s nothing for in this for him aside from another person to drive a getaway car, should they need it, and at this point he doesn’t need Abruzzi for anything really.
And he wonders when he began to base all of his actions on what he could get in return.
There’s a sharp pain in his foot again, and Michael opens his mouth to tell Abruzzi he can teach himself how to drive, when he turns to look back at the other man and the angry grumble gets stuck in his throat.
Abruzzi is staring out the windshield at the sky, carefully watching the sun set against the trees surrounding them. Michael swallows his words and watches the sun go down, stares at the green and brown and purple light filtering through the branches.
He watches the sky, then watches Abruzzi for a moment.
“It’s been a while since I’ve seen that,” Abruzzi says quietly, as if knowing exactly what Michael’s thinking about, and Michael would nod and say something like me too, except that he was only locked up for a month, and it’s been years - years - since Abruzzi saw such a sight. It really is inhuman to lock a man away like this for years and years on end.
But then, it’s inhuman to take another life, so maybe it balances out.
He wonders, vaguely, why the setting sun is green.
His foot is hurting again and it’s driving him crazy.
And suddenly he’s opening his eyes, and the car is gone, and Abruzzi is gone, and the daytime is gone, and the green and purple sunlight is gone.
He’s laying on the floor of a the barn where they decided to stop for the night, Lincoln a few feet away where he’d fallen asleep hours before.
Michael looks around groggily, trying to wake himself up, and feels the sharp stabbing in his foot again. He glances down to see Lincoln’s feet tangled with his own, one of Lincoln’s boots pressed into his injured foot.
“Linc,” Michael calls softly.
Lincoln snores in reply.
“Lincoln,” Michael says again, loudly, and his brother finally rolls over and picks his head up, glaring sleepily. “You keep kicking me,” Michael tells him.
Lincoln looks at him for a minute, and Michael can almost see on his face the exact moment when his words sink in.
“…Oh,” Lincoln replies and shifts to move away.
They both lay staring at the barn’s ceiling for a while, and Michael knows that Lincoln hasn’t fallen back asleep, and probably won’t again tonight.
“I had the strangest dream,” he tells Lincoln.
Lincoln grunts.
“Dreamt I was… teaching Abruzzi to drive. Or something.”
“Huh.”
“Yeah.”
They’re silent for a while longer before Lincoln sighs and pulls himself up from the floor and shuffles to the window. Michael watches him for a while before rising to join him and see what it is Lincoln’s looking at.
Pink light mixes with orange, spilling over the grass and through the few trees spotting the yard outside. The sun rises slowly and Michael leans against the window frame to watch it.
“Been a while since I’ve seen that,” Lincoln says softly.
Michael glances at him quickly, then gives a soft, “Yeah,” in reply, and they continue to stare silently at the sky.
Thank you for participating! :)