Fic: Killer (Prison Break)
Jan. 22nd, 2008 10:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seriousficTitle: Killer
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Michael Scofield, Alex Mahone
Spoilers: For episode 3x10: Dirtnap.
Word Count: 531
Summary: "It never gets any easier."
In Sona the wind carried in the jungle; smelt like freedom. If you closed your eyes, and kept your nose away from the sweat and the shit and the blood, you could smell right past the jungle to the sea. And the sea always smells of freedom. Sail it, swim in it, bathe in it.
Michael couldn't smell the freedom. He hadn't smelt anything for the last few days but the adrenaline coming off his own skin and the stink of his clothes. Now he smelled something real. The ruddy scent of the earth as it buried Sammy. An alive smell. The cave-in hadn't wanted to give Sammy up, and it'd been Mahone who'd pitched in to pull his dead body from the burial mound. Michael had almost wanted to scream at him to stop, but Lechero needed to make a point. Then there’d been the thud of Sammy and his men, hitting the ground. Michael didn’t want to think of what that did to their bodies, their corpses. Jolted the pooling blood, jarred the bones… it was all so messy, all so part of the sweat and dirt and grime that made Sona a prison… and him, an inmate.
“It never gets any easier,” Mahone said, as if he understood, and Michael wanted to scream (he so often wanted that, these days) that it didn’t matter because it wouldn’t happen again. But then he remembered. Sara. Gretchen. Others, whose names he didn’t know yet. And as bad as he felt at that moment, for Sara he could get used to it. For Sara, he could relish it.
“Don’t talk like you know me,” he told Mahone later as they worked on the tunnel. Whistler was away, so there was no more need to present a unified front. No reason to be civil. “I’m not like you.”
“Oh?” Mahone sounded vaguely amused, with that broken-bone sense of humor of his. “How’s that?”
“I’m not a killer,” Michael whispered. The words were hollow.
“Sure you’re not. You’re just a person who kills. Real big difference.” Again, the wry insinuation. Michael almost liked the guy better when he was on drugs.
“You were there. I had no choice. It was him or all of us. And if we die, my nephew dies.”
“Your family, my family, Whistler’s family…” Mahone whistled a bar or two as he worked. “You think that woman, Susan B…”
“Gretchen,” Michael corrected. Her name was Gretchen Morgan, and that was important because it brought him one step closer to her.
“You think she has a family?”
“I don’t care.”
“Neither does she.”
“I’m really not a fan of moral relativism, Alex.”
“Says the man who freed T-Bag.” Mahone firmly planted another brace. “I don’t really care, one way or the other. But you are my ticket out of here. So I would… really like your head in the game.”
“It’s never been anyplace else.”
Whistler came back and they started working again, not another word passing between them until Mahone moved to help Michael with a brace, suddenly jamming his face up to Michael’s ear.
“It’s a good thing that it doesn’t get easier, Michael. Trust me on that.”
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Michael Scofield, Alex Mahone
Spoilers: For episode 3x10: Dirtnap.
Word Count: 531
Summary: "It never gets any easier."
In Sona the wind carried in the jungle; smelt like freedom. If you closed your eyes, and kept your nose away from the sweat and the shit and the blood, you could smell right past the jungle to the sea. And the sea always smells of freedom. Sail it, swim in it, bathe in it.
Michael couldn't smell the freedom. He hadn't smelt anything for the last few days but the adrenaline coming off his own skin and the stink of his clothes. Now he smelled something real. The ruddy scent of the earth as it buried Sammy. An alive smell. The cave-in hadn't wanted to give Sammy up, and it'd been Mahone who'd pitched in to pull his dead body from the burial mound. Michael had almost wanted to scream at him to stop, but Lechero needed to make a point. Then there’d been the thud of Sammy and his men, hitting the ground. Michael didn’t want to think of what that did to their bodies, their corpses. Jolted the pooling blood, jarred the bones… it was all so messy, all so part of the sweat and dirt and grime that made Sona a prison… and him, an inmate.
“It never gets any easier,” Mahone said, as if he understood, and Michael wanted to scream (he so often wanted that, these days) that it didn’t matter because it wouldn’t happen again. But then he remembered. Sara. Gretchen. Others, whose names he didn’t know yet. And as bad as he felt at that moment, for Sara he could get used to it. For Sara, he could relish it.
“Don’t talk like you know me,” he told Mahone later as they worked on the tunnel. Whistler was away, so there was no more need to present a unified front. No reason to be civil. “I’m not like you.”
“Oh?” Mahone sounded vaguely amused, with that broken-bone sense of humor of his. “How’s that?”
“I’m not a killer,” Michael whispered. The words were hollow.
“Sure you’re not. You’re just a person who kills. Real big difference.” Again, the wry insinuation. Michael almost liked the guy better when he was on drugs.
“You were there. I had no choice. It was him or all of us. And if we die, my nephew dies.”
“Your family, my family, Whistler’s family…” Mahone whistled a bar or two as he worked. “You think that woman, Susan B…”
“Gretchen,” Michael corrected. Her name was Gretchen Morgan, and that was important because it brought him one step closer to her.
“You think she has a family?”
“I don’t care.”
“Neither does she.”
“I’m really not a fan of moral relativism, Alex.”
“Says the man who freed T-Bag.” Mahone firmly planted another brace. “I don’t really care, one way or the other. But you are my ticket out of here. So I would… really like your head in the game.”
“It’s never been anyplace else.”
Whistler came back and they started working again, not another word passing between them until Mahone moved to help Michael with a brace, suddenly jamming his face up to Michael’s ear.
“It’s a good thing that it doesn’t get easier, Michael. Trust me on that.”
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-01-22 07:49 pm (UTC)Excellent job.
One minor nitpick though: Smelt *never* means smelled. They aren't interchangeable. I even looked it up, just to be sure. Smelt always means a specific small, pungent fish. So seeing it used in the fic sort of took me out of it a little. I don't know that it will bother anyone else ... I'm just a nazi about stuff like that.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-23 06:29 am (UTC)Excellent!
Date: 2008-01-27 04:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-16 01:29 am (UTC)with that broken-bone sense of humor of his
Perfect description.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-16 01:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-18 07:32 am (UTC)Spot-on dialogue and you have the characters nailed, as per usual.