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Prison Break. 2 ficlets
Title: “Insight”
Author: Shaitanah
Rating: G
Timeline: by the end of Season 1
Summary: “Did you see angels, John?” Michael’s thoughts about Fox River and one weird conversation with Abruzzi the Preacher.
Disclaimer: Prison Break belongs to FOX and Paul Scheuring.
A/N: Wow, this one was written all the way back in 2007, but for some reason, never posted. Not that I’m particularly proud of it, but as it is complete, I feel it’s unfair to leave it unposted.Алекс, это, конечно, не Лёша/Коба, but it’s the closest thing)))
INSIGHT
The little isolated world that called itself Fox River was a miniature model of society with its own hierarchy, rules and players. And it was the most frightening thing of all.
Michael had planned everything, but that turned out to be beyond his calculations. He had been wrong in regarding prison as a building where a number of criminals were simply doing their time. It was no mere building. The building remained in those blueprints tattooed upon his upper body. The place Michael had got into was an entire world.
In its own twisted way, Fox River might have been a wild life model. Every day here was not living, but survival. But the more Michael observed the inmates, the more he came to realize that they were not real predators. The predators lived beyond the bars and garbed themselves in the guards’ uniforms. The men inside the cells had long since broken their teeth in a violent transition from masters of life to dim-eyed herbivores. The walls reeked of unsatisfied rage. Wary eyes blazed like hot coals from behind the bars.
Michael was scared of it. So scared he screamed silently into the pillow at night, and bit his lips to contain another scream.
No one knew what lurked beneath Michael Scofield’s confident façade. No one except perhaps Lincoln who could always read Michael like a book, at least the first few pages. That was precisely what Lincoln had said when he had seen the blueprints. “You look like a picture book.”
The stench of Fox River was overwhelming. It made Michael’s heart beat faster. It forced his brain to work harder. When he peered outside through identical rhombic openings in the fence during the day walk, he saw freedom. Not separate fragments of the surroundings like any normal man would. Not even bits and pieces of a giant mosaic like his brain usually did. He saw freedom in general. The vast blue abyss of the sky, occasional glimpses of Dr Tancredi’s fiery red hair…
Freedom. And all that mattered was to get Lincoln there. Where that freedom reigned. Michael was ready to tolerate anything for that.
“What’s on your mind, Fish?” Abruzzi asked, snapping Michael out of his depressing reverie. “The plan, I hope?”
“The world,” Michael prevaricated.
“The world is beautiful,” Abruzzi said, thoughtfully. “What makes it ugly is the devil that intrudes and makes things rot with a single touch.”
Michael flashed the gangster a curious look. He had put aside any attempts to see through his mask of a preacher. There were far more important things. But Abruzzi just kept pushing him into that subject with all his eccentric sermons about Jesus, forgiveness and the meaning of life.
“Don’t let the devil get you,” Abruzzi said.
Michael nodded, slightly bewildered. His mouth twitched upwards as he swallowed a question.
“The devils will get us all if we’re not lucky,” Michael mused aloud. “And pretty soon we’ll need all the luck we have.”
Abruzzi snorted humourlessly. Every single one of them was on edge these days. Michael rubbed his hands absentmindedly and asked:
“Tell me, John, when you were… you know, dying, what did you see?”
Abruzzi’s gaze became blank. Michael didn’t like discussing such fickle subjects as faith or the near-death experience, but right now he felt compelled to ask:
“Did you see angels? Or Jesus? Or white light, at least?”
“I didn’t see anything but my life, Fish,” Abruzzi replied with grim conviction. “I looked back at my life and I saw how unworthy it had been. Like a foul swamp amidst a dark forest.”
One of the guards urged them to get back to work. Michael smiled. He could tell where Abruzzi was heading, and he hastened to walk on before John brought up the issue of ‘forgiving’ Fibonacci again.
“Life is a powerful thing,” Abruzzi said behind Michael’s back. “The world crashes against us in all its shining glory. We resist it, we mistrust it, but it takes over anyway. That’s inevitable.”
Fox River was a maze, and sometimes you couldn’t help but wonder just how many extraordinary people you would meet in its depths. Michael dwelt on Abruzzi’s words for a while. What did the man mean? That the past would always catch up with you?
Michael knew that even if the plan worked, he’d never wash the filth of Fox River off his hands.
June 21–22, 2007
Title: “Can’t Resurrect Men with Mighty Hymns”
Author: Shaitanah
Rating: PG-13
Timeline: post-epilogue, 4x22, “Killing Your Number”.
Summary: They have one day to mourn and the rest of the year to live their lives. [Alex, Sara, ensemble]
Disclaimer: Prison Break belongs to Paul Scheuring and FOX, etc. Title, with a minor change, from Secrets of the Undersea Bell by Astronautalis.
A/N: Just drawing some parallels. ;)
CAN’T RESURRECT MEN WITH MIGHTY HYMNS
As former addicts they should probably have some kind of an understanding. The truth is, there is no such thing as ‘former’ when it comes to addiction. Being clean does not mean you are through with it. It simply means you have moved on to less obvious things to depend on.
Grief is a form of addiction.
Alex knows instantly, from the look in Sara’s eyes, from her bearing, from the way she clutches MJ’s hand in hers, that it must take all of her willpower to keep away from that grave throughout the rest of the year. When he thinks back to the convulsions of grief jolting violently through his body, which was a little like coming off of Sona’s dirty heroin, that’s when that understanding kicks in.
Things were rotten with grief back then. Shattered and soaked in acid that ate through every link of the never-ending chain.
“Origami?” Alex frowns as he watches MJ fold a paper crane out of a frayed newspaper sheet. “Seriously?” He flashes twenty years forward and thanks whichever deity is listening that he might as well be dead by then because a Scofield and an extra sheet of paper equal a gunshot in a room filled with propane.
“Before your imagination runs wild,” Sara chuckles, “I’ll have you know that he tears up paper faster than I can buy it.”
The boy chooses to look up just then and grins. His eyes are familiar, but none of that gut-wrenching intensity is in yet. He reminds Alex a little of Cameron (because every kid this age will forever be a little like Cameron) and a lot of Michael – which hurts no less.
There is only one day when they let grief overrun them, but even so they make sure it does not decompose them. They have seen both sides of it – the destructive and the unifying – just like they have seen both sides of the sizzling Panamanian sun.
“MJ, though?” This is something Alex has long since wanted to remark upon, but you have to be careful with such things, you need to choose your timing well. “You named him after–.”
“Well, I sure as hell wasn’t gonna call him Aldo.” Sara and Lincoln trade glances. It’s a very old injoke that Alex is somehow half in on. It’s a matter of trust, a matter of how far they have come to be exchanging stories like this. Old stories from the days before when people like Aldo Burrows and Michael Scofield and so many others weren’t fiction.
Halfway down the road, Alex takes a humourous turns, too. “So you named him after Michael Jackson?”
Sara’s smiles are rare and have a sense of fall about them.
* * *
There is one day a year when it all comes rushing back. When she calls MJ by his full name, Michael, and does not wince. And they all have a beer and trade stories and occasional laughs – and maybe Alex will stay up after Lincoln and Sucre are fast asleep, and they will sit next to each other in Sara’s living-room, TV on, a glimpse of Kellerman who is a bigwig congressman now, and their hands will rest on the sofa just short of brushing against each other–
and everything is a little like a distant dream. Which leaves no room for Felicia’s warm hand cupping the back of his neck or an echo of Pam’s kisses in the corner of his mouth – exactly where the two parts of his life collide, sending ripples all over his heart. It’s just one day when nothing of the sort actually exists.
Somewhere in the house Sara keeps photos of Michael. Snapshots of their wedding. Newspaper clippings, maybe. Alex never asks to have a look.
Sometimes MJ falls asleep right next to him, relinquishing his inherited wariness. His warm weight rests against Alex in those numbered moments of miscalculation. Alex sits still. The old, soiled photo of Cameron that has been through Sona and the sea and whatnot is still in his wallet.
When MJ feels like it, he calls him Uncle Alex. It may be inappropriate, but neither Sara, nor Lincoln seem to mind, at least not verbally. Alex eases himself into that new skin. Looking for a reason to stay away from the kid because he cannot bear the idea of helping him throughout school and college and life. It’s not his job.
The one time he ignores that is when he and MJ go stargazing one night when Sara works the night shift at the hospital. It happens when MJ is good with paper cranes and is moving on to something more complex, and Lang brings up the idea that maybe she and Alex should start a real family. She doesn’t say the words, but he knows exactly what she means. Real families are impossible without kids.
“Thank you,” Sara says about the stargazing, sounding earnest.
So many things are rooted in the past.
There is a recurring joke that MJ should not have any siblings because he might want to go to prison for them. Alex always remembers it when Lang talks about ‘real family’.
When it’s time to go, he kisses Sara on the forehead, just above the nosebridge – precisely the spot he had once threatened Michael to put a shank into – and takes his leave, grateful that they don’t have eternity to spare.
December 27, 2010
Author: Shaitanah
Rating: G
Timeline: by the end of Season 1
Summary: “Did you see angels, John?” Michael’s thoughts about Fox River and one weird conversation with Abruzzi the Preacher.
Disclaimer: Prison Break belongs to FOX and Paul Scheuring.
A/N: Wow, this one was written all the way back in 2007, but for some reason, never posted. Not that I’m particularly proud of it, but as it is complete, I feel it’s unfair to leave it unposted.
The little isolated world that called itself Fox River was a miniature model of society with its own hierarchy, rules and players. And it was the most frightening thing of all.
Michael had planned everything, but that turned out to be beyond his calculations. He had been wrong in regarding prison as a building where a number of criminals were simply doing their time. It was no mere building. The building remained in those blueprints tattooed upon his upper body. The place Michael had got into was an entire world.
In its own twisted way, Fox River might have been a wild life model. Every day here was not living, but survival. But the more Michael observed the inmates, the more he came to realize that they were not real predators. The predators lived beyond the bars and garbed themselves in the guards’ uniforms. The men inside the cells had long since broken their teeth in a violent transition from masters of life to dim-eyed herbivores. The walls reeked of unsatisfied rage. Wary eyes blazed like hot coals from behind the bars.
Michael was scared of it. So scared he screamed silently into the pillow at night, and bit his lips to contain another scream.
No one knew what lurked beneath Michael Scofield’s confident façade. No one except perhaps Lincoln who could always read Michael like a book, at least the first few pages. That was precisely what Lincoln had said when he had seen the blueprints. “You look like a picture book.”
The stench of Fox River was overwhelming. It made Michael’s heart beat faster. It forced his brain to work harder. When he peered outside through identical rhombic openings in the fence during the day walk, he saw freedom. Not separate fragments of the surroundings like any normal man would. Not even bits and pieces of a giant mosaic like his brain usually did. He saw freedom in general. The vast blue abyss of the sky, occasional glimpses of Dr Tancredi’s fiery red hair…
Freedom. And all that mattered was to get Lincoln there. Where that freedom reigned. Michael was ready to tolerate anything for that.
“What’s on your mind, Fish?” Abruzzi asked, snapping Michael out of his depressing reverie. “The plan, I hope?”
“The world,” Michael prevaricated.
“The world is beautiful,” Abruzzi said, thoughtfully. “What makes it ugly is the devil that intrudes and makes things rot with a single touch.”
Michael flashed the gangster a curious look. He had put aside any attempts to see through his mask of a preacher. There were far more important things. But Abruzzi just kept pushing him into that subject with all his eccentric sermons about Jesus, forgiveness and the meaning of life.
“Don’t let the devil get you,” Abruzzi said.
Michael nodded, slightly bewildered. His mouth twitched upwards as he swallowed a question.
“The devils will get us all if we’re not lucky,” Michael mused aloud. “And pretty soon we’ll need all the luck we have.”
Abruzzi snorted humourlessly. Every single one of them was on edge these days. Michael rubbed his hands absentmindedly and asked:
“Tell me, John, when you were… you know, dying, what did you see?”
Abruzzi’s gaze became blank. Michael didn’t like discussing such fickle subjects as faith or the near-death experience, but right now he felt compelled to ask:
“Did you see angels? Or Jesus? Or white light, at least?”
“I didn’t see anything but my life, Fish,” Abruzzi replied with grim conviction. “I looked back at my life and I saw how unworthy it had been. Like a foul swamp amidst a dark forest.”
One of the guards urged them to get back to work. Michael smiled. He could tell where Abruzzi was heading, and he hastened to walk on before John brought up the issue of ‘forgiving’ Fibonacci again.
“Life is a powerful thing,” Abruzzi said behind Michael’s back. “The world crashes against us in all its shining glory. We resist it, we mistrust it, but it takes over anyway. That’s inevitable.”
Fox River was a maze, and sometimes you couldn’t help but wonder just how many extraordinary people you would meet in its depths. Michael dwelt on Abruzzi’s words for a while. What did the man mean? That the past would always catch up with you?
Michael knew that even if the plan worked, he’d never wash the filth of Fox River off his hands.
June 21–22, 2007
Title: “Can’t Resurrect Men with Mighty Hymns”
Author: Shaitanah
Rating: PG-13
Timeline: post-epilogue, 4x22, “Killing Your Number”.
Summary: They have one day to mourn and the rest of the year to live their lives. [Alex, Sara, ensemble]
Disclaimer: Prison Break belongs to Paul Scheuring and FOX, etc. Title, with a minor change, from Secrets of the Undersea Bell by Astronautalis.
A/N: Just drawing some parallels. ;)
As former addicts they should probably have some kind of an understanding. The truth is, there is no such thing as ‘former’ when it comes to addiction. Being clean does not mean you are through with it. It simply means you have moved on to less obvious things to depend on.
Grief is a form of addiction.
Alex knows instantly, from the look in Sara’s eyes, from her bearing, from the way she clutches MJ’s hand in hers, that it must take all of her willpower to keep away from that grave throughout the rest of the year. When he thinks back to the convulsions of grief jolting violently through his body, which was a little like coming off of Sona’s dirty heroin, that’s when that understanding kicks in.
Things were rotten with grief back then. Shattered and soaked in acid that ate through every link of the never-ending chain.
“Origami?” Alex frowns as he watches MJ fold a paper crane out of a frayed newspaper sheet. “Seriously?” He flashes twenty years forward and thanks whichever deity is listening that he might as well be dead by then because a Scofield and an extra sheet of paper equal a gunshot in a room filled with propane.
“Before your imagination runs wild,” Sara chuckles, “I’ll have you know that he tears up paper faster than I can buy it.”
The boy chooses to look up just then and grins. His eyes are familiar, but none of that gut-wrenching intensity is in yet. He reminds Alex a little of Cameron (because every kid this age will forever be a little like Cameron) and a lot of Michael – which hurts no less.
There is only one day when they let grief overrun them, but even so they make sure it does not decompose them. They have seen both sides of it – the destructive and the unifying – just like they have seen both sides of the sizzling Panamanian sun.
“MJ, though?” This is something Alex has long since wanted to remark upon, but you have to be careful with such things, you need to choose your timing well. “You named him after–.”
“Well, I sure as hell wasn’t gonna call him Aldo.” Sara and Lincoln trade glances. It’s a very old injoke that Alex is somehow half in on. It’s a matter of trust, a matter of how far they have come to be exchanging stories like this. Old stories from the days before when people like Aldo Burrows and Michael Scofield and so many others weren’t fiction.
Halfway down the road, Alex takes a humourous turns, too. “So you named him after Michael Jackson?”
Sara’s smiles are rare and have a sense of fall about them.
* * *
There is one day a year when it all comes rushing back. When she calls MJ by his full name, Michael, and does not wince. And they all have a beer and trade stories and occasional laughs – and maybe Alex will stay up after Lincoln and Sucre are fast asleep, and they will sit next to each other in Sara’s living-room, TV on, a glimpse of Kellerman who is a bigwig congressman now, and their hands will rest on the sofa just short of brushing against each other–
and everything is a little like a distant dream. Which leaves no room for Felicia’s warm hand cupping the back of his neck or an echo of Pam’s kisses in the corner of his mouth – exactly where the two parts of his life collide, sending ripples all over his heart. It’s just one day when nothing of the sort actually exists.
Somewhere in the house Sara keeps photos of Michael. Snapshots of their wedding. Newspaper clippings, maybe. Alex never asks to have a look.
Sometimes MJ falls asleep right next to him, relinquishing his inherited wariness. His warm weight rests against Alex in those numbered moments of miscalculation. Alex sits still. The old, soiled photo of Cameron that has been through Sona and the sea and whatnot is still in his wallet.
When MJ feels like it, he calls him Uncle Alex. It may be inappropriate, but neither Sara, nor Lincoln seem to mind, at least not verbally. Alex eases himself into that new skin. Looking for a reason to stay away from the kid because he cannot bear the idea of helping him throughout school and college and life. It’s not his job.
The one time he ignores that is when he and MJ go stargazing one night when Sara works the night shift at the hospital. It happens when MJ is good with paper cranes and is moving on to something more complex, and Lang brings up the idea that maybe she and Alex should start a real family. She doesn’t say the words, but he knows exactly what she means. Real families are impossible without kids.
“Thank you,” Sara says about the stargazing, sounding earnest.
So many things are rooted in the past.
There is a recurring joke that MJ should not have any siblings because he might want to go to prison for them. Alex always remembers it when Lang talks about ‘real family’.
When it’s time to go, he kisses Sara on the forehead, just above the nosebridge – precisely the spot he had once threatened Michael to put a shank into – and takes his leave, grateful that they don’t have eternity to spare.
December 27, 2010