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Live To Tell
Fandom: Burn Notice
Written for: wizefics in the Yuletide 2007 Challenge
by romanticalgirl
Thanks to oxoniensis and inlovewithnight for beta duty
Michael is five the first time he hears the word "drunk". He hears it from the ladies next door, whispered like a dirty word they can't quite make themselves say. It's followed by a look at Michael over the fence that they don't think he notices, a look he's used to, a look he's been seeing most of his life.
That day is the first time Michael realizes that the look is actually directed at him, that it's meant for him. He's smart enough not to ask them what they mean by the word or the look, smart enough not to ask. But he knows now, which means he's smart enough to find out.
**
Once he knows what it means, he knows who it means. It starts his lifetime of labeling things and people, categorizing them. Drunk is the word before "father" and eventually after "mean". As he grows older, he adds a few more like "bastard", but as a kid, it's just whispered under his breath when his father walks away, when he disappears for days on end.
Days without him are better and worse. There's less chance of an accidental explosion set off by the wrong word or a losing football pass on TV or too much salt in the goddamn soup. But when he's gone, Michael's mother smokes even more, drinks too much, and goes to bed crying. It's left to Michael to take care of Nate as best he can, getting him out of bed when their mom can't quite get out of hers.
Nate's too young to understand, but he still asks questions, usually ones Michael doesn't know how to answer. "Dad has problems" would be the closest thing to the truth, but Michael's pretty sure Nate might ask if they're the problem, and Michael's not sure the answer isn't yes.
**
When he's seven, Michael makes the mistake of coming home with a bloody nose. The fight itself wasn't much - an argument over who was a better coach, Shula or Noll, which led into a fight about Bradshaw and Griese, which led to punches thrown and Mr. Ogilvy, the PE teacher, lifting Michael up off the ground by the collar of his shirt - but it was enough to get Michael sent home with a note and spots of blood on his shirt and a wad of tissue crammed in his left nostril.
He gets home the same time his father does, only his father's been gone for three weeks and looks it. He rolls out of the car onto his knees, a few beer cans falling with him, the pull tabs curled like razor-edged question marks on the driveway. Michael watches him as makes his way up the short walk toward the house, moving past the car as quietly as he can. Not quite enough to stop his father from grabbing him by the shirt and shoving him inside, bringing the stale stench of beer and old vomit in with them.
"What the hell happened to you, boy?"
"Fight at school." Michael's become a professional in the art of giving just enough information to get by, a master at lies and half-truths. His mother pries and Nate keeps asking why, but most everyone else takes things at face value, takes the easy answers because they let them off the hook. Where the bruises come from, why he's got holes in his clothes, why sometimes there's no one there to pick him up from school. Tell people what they think they want to hear and you get away relatively unscathed.
"Didn't think you were stupid enough to walk into a wall, smart ass." His dad grabs his chin and angles Michael's head back. His hand is huge against Michael's jaw, but he learned a long time ago that size and strength aren't synonymous, are deceptive. He can run faster, hide in better places, it's just his father's big enough to kill him when he does find him. He jerks Michael's head from side to side, the motion causing waves of disorienting pain. "Gonna have one hell of a shiner."
"Two." Michael knows how it works. He's seen it enough times. His father, his mother. A punch in the nose means a black eye, a broken nose signs you up for two. He knows he's made a mistake nearly before the word is spoken, but he can't take it back. Not sure he would if he could. If he gets it started, gets it out of his father's system, dinner will be quiet and calm and his mother will go to bed happy, content and sober.
Sometimes you make sacrifices.
The backhand still catches him by surprise. His father never telegraphs his punches, never lets you know when or where they're coming. You can curl up into a ball and wrap up around yourself and he'll still find that weak spot, the one you didn't even know you had. Michael's learned not to try to hide anymore. Just take it as it comes and move on. It doesn't stop the tears from filling his eyes as pain blossoms, his nose throbbing again like a hot poker has been shoved between his eyes. His father shoves him away, sending Michael stumbling into the table beside the door, knocking the receiver off the phone, so Michael's rush up the stairs is accompanied by the pulsing rush of pain and the distant beeping of the open line.
**
By the time he's ten, Michael has a permanent scar on the side of his face, courtesy of his father's aim with a metal ashtray. Not his father's fault, Michael's mom assures him. She blames it on a bad string of gambling debts and a visit from the cops thanks to the same neighbor ladies that put Michael on this path. Michael knows the truth though, remembers it vividly as he looks at it in the mirror every morning, tracing his fingers over it and judging the color, figuring out if it's faded at all going from purple-red to pink to silver.
He's torn about being at the house when his father's home. He tries to be there because Nate's old enough now to understand what their father is and how things are, and he's more than old enough to himself in trouble, even though it seems that no matter what Nate does, he never finds the trouble Michael does. Michael imagines it's because he was first and it's only sometimes that he wishes Nate had that honor.
Nate hates him half the time, getting into trouble so that Michael takes the blame, because Nate knows he can get away with everything. If he and Michael both commit a crime - same crime, same time, same everything - Michael will be blamed by their father and Nate will be excused. It's even more fun when Michael's actually innocent of the crime. Nate seems to take the sort of perverse pleasure only a younger sibling can, making sure Michael takes fall after fall. Michael would call it hate if it weren't for the fact that Nate comes into his room each time afterwards and sits beside him, petting Michael's hair and shoulder, soothing away whatever pain he can.
When he can though, Michael disappears. He finds places to hide that no one can find him, small holes he can curl up in and lose himself in books from the library - always stolen, never checked out, always returned - reading about far off places and cultures, learning about villains and heroes from Ian Fleming books, mysteries from the Hardy Boys and good guys from Louis L'Amour. He recognizes the signs of a hero and knows he'll never be one. Heroes have moms and dads that love them; either that or one of their parents is dead. They have supportive families and easy lives, stumbling onto adventure with eagerness and excitement. Or sometimes they're bad boy heroes like Bond. He thinks he could do that, be that, but those kind of heroes aren't scarred, aren't afraid.
Not that he's afraid. There's no point. Fear is the nervous anticipation of something uncertain and Michael knows there's nothing uncertain. It'll happen. It always happens. It's inevitable. Nothing to fear when you know it's going to happen. It's just life at that point. The fear comes after when he thinks maybe he should have taken one more swing of the belt, one more fist to the stomach. The fear comes when he lies there in his bed and he still hears the fighting going on, words and screams and thrown dishes that make him afraid that his mother or Nate will defend him, say the wrong thing, say his name and bring hell down on their heads.
Hell should be his alone.
**
When he's twelve Michael realizes that none of this is his fault.
He overhears his mother talking to one of her friends, one of the few people who sneak over when the old man isn't around. Michael hates them, even though he knows how much his mom needs them. He hates them because they know and not a damn one of them does anything about it. They pretend they can't see anything, but Michael knows that one day his dad will go too far and they'll stand by the sidewalks, shaking their heads as the ambulance or medical examiner's car pulls out of the driveway, whispering, "I told you so" to each other like they couldn't have called someone before it got this far.
His mom talks about how she should do more, how she should leave. He'll forget the words eventually, because they'll stop meaning anything when he realizes that she could have left, but chose not to. But for now, they mean that she knows and part of it is her fault, her responsibility. She talks in cigarette roughened whispers about how he's a drunk and a louse - Michael has to look that one up - and a cheating bastard, but she loves him, and she can't help but stay. Michael doesn't understand any of the last part; because he's seen love in the movies and on TV and in his books and love is banter and sex and insecurity, but it isn't black eyes and broken bones and scars that never fade.
It really hits home when Michael wakes up and finds a note on the kitchen table in his dad's scrawled handwriting - Nate's sick. Gone for beer.. Michael doesn't so much make out the words as hear Nate whimpering in the bathroom. He walks in and sees his brother, flushed red with fever and lying in a pool of his own vomit where he was too weak to lift himself up to the toilet. Nate's eyes are closed and he's shaking like he's going to fly apart.
"Jesus, Nate." Michael kneels down next to his brother, not caring about the vomit soaking through his pajamas. He touches his brother's forehead and hisses at the heat radiating off Nate's skin. "Jesus."
"Dad went to get the doctor." Nate's voice is barely above a whisper, but Michael can hear the hope in it. He doesn't have the heart to tell Nate that he heard their dad's car peel out of the driveway two hours ago and that the only thing he went looking for was another drink, another woman, or another race to lose.
"Mom!" Michael gets up, rushing to his mother's bedroom. She's sitting in bed, paralyzed with something that might be fear. Michael doesn't have time for it anymore. "Nate's sick. Go take care of him." He grabs a jacket as he runs out the door, bare feet and pajamas wet at the knees. He runs until he hits the intersection and then veers left, grabbing a rock out of the edge of the playground and breaking a window on someone's Datsun hatchback. He unlocks it and uses the jacket to sweep the glass out of the seat before sliding in and angling under the dash.
He's seen kids do this and he knows there's a trick, but finesse takes a backseat to desperation. He'll figure out the logistics later; right now, he just needs a ride.
He sits on the very edge of the seat to reach the pedals as the engine sparks to life and he revs it, burning fuel and going nowhere. It's that same sort of desperate energy building in him as he pushes down, begging the car to go until he remembers to pop it into gear. It jerks forward and he dings the car in front, but a quick shift of the lever and he's backing up then out, squealing around the corner until he's idling in front of their house.
His mom's in the doorway, Nate in her arms, and Michael just looks at her through the passenger window. She nods once and hurries out to the car, dressed in her bathrobe and slippers with curlers in her hair. Michael keeps his eyes on Nate as she angles him into the backseat, climbing in with him to hold him against her. He protests softly, the words barely intelligible. It's all the encouragement Michael needs to floor it, pushing the gas down as far as it will go, fishtailing his way down the road, vowing under his breath to Nate that they're all going to be okay.
**
When his dad comes home, Michael doesn't look at him. He does everything he can to avoid him, because he knows when he can't, hell is going to rain down like a Miami hurricane. Rage boils inside him, burning away the lining of his stomach and throat as he tamps it down, refusing to let it out, holding it in as long as he can. His mother watches Michael with frightened eyes and Nate hides in his room, still not completely recovered.
He paces the floor of his room, listening to his father downstairs ordering his mother to turn up the TV, to get him another beer. He slams his fist into his pillow again and again until it's not enough and then he puts the pillow against the wall and hits it harder until his knuckles burn from the pressure, from the friction. He imagines his father's teeth - how they'd feel, how they'd sound. Imagines his father's face and the meaty thump of flesh on flesh he knows so well; he's heard it enough times in his life now.
"What the hell's wrong with you, kid?"
Michael turns and glares at his father, the familiar burn of tears that comes with facing him strangely absent. He expected to feel them, feel the frustration behind his eyes until it leaks out and makes his father laugh at the stupid, weak fucker that can't be his goddamn kid. Instead there's just purpose burning there, purpose and hate in equal measure.
"You're makin' a goddamn racket. Can't hear a single word of M*A*S*H. Sit your ass down or spit it out."
Words boil on Michael's tongue, spill over like the bile Nate lay in on the bathroom floor. He flies at his father with fists and fury and a diatribe of accusations and words. Anger floods through him and he rages like a tempest, half his words broken off and incoherent with emotion.
One solid uppercut to the jaw cuts everything off. Michael can taste blood in his mouth where he's bitten his tongue and he licks the front of his teeth, tasting it everywhere. His father stands there like an immovable object looking at Michael like he's a palmetto bug or a cockroach he's going to grind to shell and guts beneath his heel.
"You done?"
Michael leans against the bedpost, keeping himself on his feet as his father walks into his room. "With you?" Michael raises his hand and wipes his mouth, feeling the hot and cool sensation of blood on his cheek, the brittleness of it as it dries. "Been done with you for a long time now."
"Think you're so goddamn clever." He crowds Michael, broader and taller and too close, leaning in with beer-soaked breath. "You think I can't break you in two, kid?"
"Just leave me to die like you did Nate?"
"I didn't do a goddamn thing to your brother."
"To him or for him. Left a note saying he was sick and you were gone. I guess that's more than you normally do." The words taste coppery and thick around his swollen tongue. "To you I guess scrawling a illegible note on a napkin is the equivalent of calling an ambulance."
"You think you're so goddamn smart."
"Smart enough to get out of here as soon as I can." Michael's not sure if it's a threat or a promise or a mixture of both. "You'd better get your punches in while you can, old man, because eventually all you're going to see of me is the dust I leave behind."
"You'll never leave." There's something in his voice that makes Michael look at him, meet his eyes. He doesn't remember the last time he's done that - eye contact is just asking for something to be said, to go wrong. As much as Michael's fine with fighting the war, sometimes it's easier to avoid the battle when you know you can't win. His father looks at Michael with a strange smile, a knowing look that bothers Michael more than anything else he's ever thrown Michael's way. "People like you never leave."
"You're wrong." Michael can already see it in his mind. As soon as he can, he's on a bus somewhere else. He'll do research, he'll study, he'll get a job and save up every cent he can scrape together and he'll be gone before the door can swing shut behind him.
"I know you, kid. You'll stay here and you'll be the same. A drunk and a bastard, knocking your kid around until he's got a goddamn lick of sense in his head. You're just like me, Michael."
The sound of his name is jarring and Michael jerks back. He can't remember the last time he heard his father say his name, the last time he's been called something other than asshole or kid or dumb ass. "I'm nothing like you." He shakes his head and swallows, holding back the desire to cough at the slick, slippery taste of blood on his tongue, down his throat. "I'm not a goddamn thing like you."
"That's where you're wrong. Because if you stay, you end up like me, like this." He leans in further, his smile knowing. "And if you leave? You're just like me. Running from here like the hounds of hell are on your heels."
"You're wrong. There's a difference," Michael informs him coolly, straightening so he can look the old man in the eye. "The difference is I won't be coming back."
**
The day he turns seventeen, Michael leaves school and steals a car. He shoves his duffel bag in the back seat and drives himself to the bus station, paying for his ticket with a fistful of carefully folded one dollar bills. He's got ideas and he's got plans in the back of his mind, but right now, all he cares about is getting on the bus and staring straight ahead until not a single part of Miami lies in front of him.
He gets his ticket and boards, moving to the middle of the bus before sitting down. It's not crowded except for all the people he's carrying with him, the ones he's not going to get a chance to tell goodbye. He left a letter for his mom and a letter for Nate, and it's going to have to be enough for a while. Forever.
Michael closes his eyes as the bus starts, the whoosh of hydraulics signaling the start of the end of his life, the beginning of his life. After a few moments, he opens his eyes and looks out the window, watching Miami roll past in a wave of pinks and blues and whites.
Michael sighs and closes his eyes again until Miami's in the rearview mirror and all he can see is his future somewhere else, straight ahead.
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