PB Fic: Doctors and Dentists and Bravery

[out_there]

Title: Doctors and Dentists and Bravery
Fandom: Prison Break
Pairing: Sara/Michael/Alex
Notes: I'm officially calling this the Jason-verse. I really, really adore the idea of a happy, domestic future for these characters. Thanks to sdwolfpup for betaing.
Rating: G
Word count: 3051

Summary: Every time, Michael tries to talk around it -- claims he's feeling fine, claims there's no point in investigating if he's not showing any symptoms, claims it's his health and his life and he should get to decide whether or not he needs medical attention -- but it always comes down to one thing: it scares Michael.




Alex shifts against the headboard, sitting higher, and pulls the covers up. He slides his fingers up the bridge of his nose, pushing his reading glasses out of the way, and rubs his eyes. Behind him, he can hear Sara and Michael. Their voices are low and hard; the words are mostly muffled by the wall but the tone, the anger, is loud and clear.

Sara and Michael don't fight often. They don't scream, don't yell. They keep the disagreement to a simmering growl of words, a slow patient attack that can take days to resolve.

If this was another night -- if Alex didn't know the issue being fought -- he'd put aside his book and knock on Sara's door, then try to negotiate a truce. (The same way Sara has when Alex and Michael haven't seen eye to eye.) But he knows what this is about and already he knows that he agrees with Sara. He definitely, absolutely agrees with her, so knocking on her door wouldn't help tonight. It would make Michael feel ambushed, trapped between their supposed teamwork, and that's the last thing they want.

Eventually, the voices will soften. The silences will stretch. Michael will either give in or go downstairs, take a few hours away from Sara and stretch the fight across another night. Alex knows Michael won't win because this is about Michael's health, and that's the one subject that Sara will never surrender, never compromise, never let Michael talk his way around.

After Scylla, after everything, they'd all been so relieved they were giddy. They were thankful to be alive and relatively unharmed, and promises were made so easily. Alex had promised to stay, and he's never regretted it; Michael promised to look after his health, to get check-ups every two years, and Michael's clearly regretted it since. Every second year, Sara has to fight him for it, has to force him to keep his word. And every time, Michael tries to talk around it -- claims he's feeling fine, claims there's no point in investigating if he's not showing any symptoms, claims it's his health and his life and he should get to decide whether or not he needs medical attention -- but it always comes down to one thing.

It scares Michael.

Despite the brilliance, despite the things they've seen and done, this is what terrifies Michael. It's irrational and emotional, but the sketchy memories of his mother's illness scare Michael past the point of reason. He can't think calmly or objectively about it. In the end, Alex is fairly sure Michael only agrees to the check-ups because it upsets Sara so much when he ignores his health.

Afterwards, when the scans come back clear, Michael will apologise for being difficult. But in another twenty-four months, the same cycle will play out and these fights will happen all over again. So Alex tries to read, tries to give them the illusion of privacy and keeps his lamp on, in case Michael decides he wants a second opinion.

***

They fight a little louder the second night. Alex finds himself reading the same page twice, and still can't follow the plot of his novel. He keeps the book open on his lap, stares at the dark words on pale paper (finds himself remembering the ink on Michael's skin, curving around wrists and sliding over his shoulders; wishes he'd had the time in Sona to trace every line before they disappeared forever) and listens to the flow of voices. Michael's low rumble is intense and certain; knowing Michael, he's planned a speech and is trying a specific angle to get Sara to agree.

Sara doesn't sound like she's agreeing. She sounds scared, desperate and very angry. Each year, she loses a little more tolerance for this horse-and-pony-show. Michael's wilful disregard towards his own health hits too close to home for her; Alex can tell by the way she talks about her father, the way she compares Michael to him, and he hopes Michael notices too. He hopes that Michael has the common sense not to let this be the thing that shatters their reasonably happy family apart.

There's a long quiet pause, and Alex finds himself knitting his fingers in the covers, holding them tight as he waits. There's the sound of a door being closed firmly and Michael's footsteps in the corridor, so Alex knows it's not over yet.

He puts his glasses back on. Reads his book. Doesn't look up when his bedroom door creaks open but waits for Michael to come in and close it behind him. The door stays open and then Alex hears, "Uncle Alex?"

He glances at the door and smiles. Jason's standing in the doorway, one hand curled around the wooden frame. (There's a part of Alex that can't help noticing the proportions of Michael's hands, long fingers and square palms, tiny on a child's body.) "Isn't it past your bedtime?"

Jason shrugs, a gesture he's inherited from Sara along with her dark hair and sweet smile. The shape of Jason's eyes comes from Sara too, but the intense colour and the serious frown he gets when he's concentrating, that's all Michael.

"Why don't you come over here?" Alex offers, patting the empty space beside him. Jason hovers, looks over his shoulder like he's worried, so Alex adds, "Come on, buddy. Let's see if we can get you back to sleep."

Jason gives a short nod. He walks over seriously and climbs onto the bed. When Alex lifts up an arm, inviting a cuddle, Jason smiles and dives to Alex's side. He holds tight to Alex -- there's not much pressure from the six-year-old arms around Alex's chest -- but there's still something about it that makes Alex worry.

"Is everything okay?" Alex asks.

Jason shrugs again, buries his head into Alex's t-shirt. "Guess so."

"What's wrong?"

"Luke at school," -- the kid who's currently Jason's third best friend, according to what Jason told Alex last Wednesday -- "said that his parents fought all the time and then they got separate houses."

Alex waits but Jason doesn't say anymore. He only gives a hint of what's worrying him and avoids asking outright for help. Alex would blame that trait on Michael, but he's pretty sure Jason gets that from all three of them. "That's not going to happen. Mommy and Daddy don't fight all the time, just... sometimes. Now and then."

"Why?"

"Because," Alex says but he knows he needs more of an answer than that. "You know how you were scared about going to the dentist, but you were really brave and went anyway?"

"And she looked at my teeth and really wasn't mean and gave me a bouncy ball after?"

"But it seemed scary before you went," Alex says, dropping a kiss against Jason's hair. "This is the same thing."

Jason cranes his head up, gives him Michael's narrow stare. "They're fighting about the dentist?"

"The doctor. Daddy's scared and doesn't want to go for his check-up. Mommy and I know that it's okay. The doctors will be nice to Daddy and whatever happens, we'll still love him."

"Yeah?"

"Always. Daddy doesn't need to be frightened but he doesn't believe us. Sometimes it's hard to be brave when you're feeling scared."

Jason nods and snuggles under the covers. He's still and Alex thinks he's falling asleep, until a little voice asks, "Do you think it would help if I told Daddy about the dentist?"

"I think you already told me about the dentist, Jay," Michael says, hovering by the doorway. There's a tight expression on his face, a tension to his shoulders, but for Jason, Michael pastes a smile over it.

"Oh, yeah. I did." Jason sits up, pulls away from Alex and pats the bed beside him. "Why don't you come over here, Daddy?"

Alex nearly laughs at imitation of his own actions. Jason's a sponge, constantly soaking up information and behaviour models; sometimes, Alex forgets that.

Michael's smile suddenly looks a little more real and Alex wonders if Michael recognises the mannerisms too. "What are you doing up so late, Jay?" He slides between the covers on that side of the bed and wraps an arm around Jason's shoulders.

"You were fighting," Jason says matter-of-factly. "I didn't want to lie in bed awake, so I came to talk to Uncle Alex."

"And what did Uncle Alex tell you?"

"He said you were scared of the doctor," Jason says, and Alex doesn't need to look up to know Michael's staring at him. He's cowardly enough not to meet Michael's gaze, so he keeps watching Jason's hands, Jason's small fingers holding tight to the covers. "And you shouldn't be, Daddy. I think they'll be like the dentist and really nice, but with a really scary waiting room."

"He asked why you were fighting." It's not quite an apology, but it's honest. "I wanted Jason to know that it's not like his friend Luke's parents, who now live in separate houses."

There's a tiny nod from Michael and Alex knows the situation's been understood.

"Daddy?" Jason asks, and then keeps talking before Michael can reply. "Why are you scared of the doctor?"

"I'm not scared of doctors," Michael says, too fast and too loud. He softens his tone and then adds, "It's not the doctors. It's the hospitals."

"Why?"

Michael swallows, looks down and away. So Alex says, "Sometimes, things just feel scary. There isn't always a reason," because Alex hates seeing Michael look so trapped. No one should feel so pained in front of their kid.

Michael pulls Jason closer. He takes a deep breath and lets it out slow. "When I was a kid, a year older than you, my mom got sick. She wasn't feeling well and she went to the hospital, and they wouldn't let her out for weeks. She came home but she got sick again and had to go back. For the next few months, it kept happening. She'd come for a while, and then she'd have to go back, and eventually they didn't let her come home."

Alex worries that that's going to be too much for Jason, that it'll scare him, but Jason looks confused, not upset. "Who looked after you?"

"Uncle Linc. Uncle Linc was six years older than me and he looked after me. He made sure I got up for school and had lunch, and he made me dinner at night. Like Uncle Alex does for you."

Alex knows Linc's ability to cook is pretty much limited to toast, eggs, and instant macaroni and cheese. He suspects Michael must have lived off the stuff for a few years, but he has to give Linc points for just remembering to pack Michael a lunch. At fourteen, Alex was buying comics and arguing for a new bike, and complaining that he had to be home from his friends' places by dark. It's sobering to think of Michael's childhood; people around him cared as much as they could but he deserved so much more.

"Are you scared the hospital will make you stay?" Jason asks, screwing up his face in concentration. "Because we wouldn't let them keep you if you didn't want to be there, Daddy. We'd come and take you home."

Michael smiles and the hand nearest Alex reaches out and gives Alex's hand a quick squeeze. "It isn't that. It's that... whenever you go for a check-up, there's always a chance that they'll find something wrong."

"But they can't fix it until they find it," Alex says, knowing Sara's been saying the same thing for days now. "And Jason's right. We wouldn't let them keep you there. We'd find a solution. Somehow."

"You should go to the doctor, Daddy." Jason nods knowledgeably and then spoils it with a yawn that stretches his little mouth wide. "If you're really brave, they might even give you a bouncy ball."

***

When Alex opens his eyes, there's faint pre-dawn light sneaking past the edges of the curtains. He's curled on his side with a warm body behind him and the weight of Michael's arm draped over his ribs. Alex yawns and closes his eyes again. "Where's Jason?"

"I carried him back to bed," Michael says against Alex's back, voice slurred and sleepy.

"Mmm-hmm." Yawning, Alex shifts and twists onto his back, then rolls away from the light. He pulls the pillow closer and slides a knee over Michael's thigh. He's warm and comfortable, and means to fall back asleep with his hand curved behind Michael's hip but after a few minutes of absently dragging fingertips over the thin cotton of Michael's shorts, Alex knows he's awake. He slides his thumb over the smooth skin of Michael's back, brushing knobs of spine, and then slips under the gathered waistband.

"It's too early," Michael mutters, eyes still closed.

Alex presses a kiss to the freckle on Michael's left temple and says, "We need to talk about the check-up."

"No." Michael opens his eyes and stays very, very still. "We don't."

"I get that you don't want to, but this needs to be sorted."

"Hard as it may be to understand, Alex, I'm an adult and that means when it comes to my health, I get to decide what happens."

Alex sighs. He doesn't want to talk about this either; personally, he'd rather sit back and let Sara talk Michael into it, let Sara deal with the defensive sarcasm and dismissive attitude. But that's hardly fair. "Because it's not like you've got a family. It's not like you've got a son who'd be pretty damn devastated to find you collapsed and bleeding. It's just your decision."

Alex doesn't flinch at the intensity of Michael's glare. He doesn't let himself.

"It might be a cheap shot," Alex acknowledges, trying to keep his voice steady and unemotional, "but it's the truth. Our best chance of beating this is catching it early, fix it before you start to feel it. So don't argue that you feel fine, because that's got nothing to do with this. And don't tell me that this decision only affects you."

"Worst case scenario--" Michael starts, and Alex kisses him, closed-mouthed and insistent.

When he pulls back, Alex says, "Worst case scenario, it's grown back and you get surgery. You use that health insurance of yours and take time off work to recover. You lie around the house for a few weeks and discover the joy of Jason taking fifteen minutes to summarise a half hour show." He doesn't expect Michael to laugh, but he's hoping for a smile.

Michael doesn't do either. "That's not the worst case scenario. Worst case, it's inoperable. I go in there, they tell me I've got weeks to live and my son remembers me as the guy lying in the hospital bed. My son gets to stand in that room and watch, alone and scared, while his dad dies. That's what could happen."

"We wouldn't let it."

"It's not like you can control--"

"We wouldn't let it happen," Alex says over him. "If that was the case, if there was nothing they could do, we'd get you out of there. We'd take you home. We'd contact Linc and Sucre, and you would spend those last few weeks surrounded by people who loved you."

Michael shakes his head, tucks his chin close to his chest like he's trying to hide. "Jason…"

Alex slides his hand up the length of Michael's back until he's gripping Michael's shoulder. "Jason will grow up loved and protected, no matter what. This isn't like you and Linc. Doesn't matter what happens, there will always be someone to love and look after Jason. I promise you that."

They lie like that for a while. Michael breathes slow and steady, and Alex keeps his hand on Michael's shoulder. When he feels the muscles start to relax, Alex says, "I know it scares you but if this was happening to me, or to Sara or Jason, you wouldn't let us talk our way out of it. Why should we accept that crap from you?"

To take the sting out of the words, Alex pulls Michael close and wraps one arm tight behind his shoulders. He curves his other hand around the back of Michael's head, toying with the short curls.

"Know what I remember most about my mom?" Michael asks as his cold fingers work their way under Alex's t-shirt. "The colour of her skin. The way her lips were so pale and the circles under her eyes were so dark, and the rest of her was so... In the end, it was all tubes and machines, stuff beeping and breathing for her. There wasn't anything of her left."

Alex nods. He could say that Michael isn't his mom, that technology's changed, that the situation isn't the same, but Michael knows all that. "I once told someone that the reason you got to me, how you stopped me in my tracks and caught my attention, was because you brought the fight to me. You knew the best defence was a good attack."

Michael stays quiet, so Alex adds, "Imagine a Company agent in your city. You know he's not up to anything at the moment but every now and then you stop by his favourite bar, ruffle a few feathers, make sure he's lying low. And if he's not, you rough him up a bit, put the fear of God into him, make sure he knows better than to mess with you. You don't turn your back on him and ignore he's there, because if you do that, eventually he'll sneak up behind you with a gun."

Michael's shoulders hitch, and Alex has a second of worry until Michael raises his head and chuckles. "Really? That's how you're going to convince me? Imagine the tumour's a Company agent?"

Alex grins. "Did it work?" he asks, and Michael shakes his head, still smiling.

"What do you think Sara will say when I tell her about the gun analogy?"

"As long as you stop fighting us on this," Alex says, pausing to kiss the amused curl of Michael's lips, "she won't care."

"I'll test that later," Michael replies, and Alex knows they've won this one.

Comments

[dodificus.livejournal.com]

Loved the analogy at the end:) And yet again, someone has made me love kidfic. Totally against my will!

[out-there.livejournal.com]

I think discussing health threats in terms of violent thugs who may shoot you in the back of the head... is something only Alex would do and consider *appropriate* bedroom talk.

And yet again, someone has made me love kidfic. Totally against my will!

It's one of those terribly sneaky things that creeps up on you. One minute, you're all about the slash adn the boykissing, next, you're wondering how the teacher-parent interviews go and how in the world they'll deal with the teenage-years of parenting.

[isagel.livejournal.com]

♥♥♥

I can't believe how happy domestic fic in this fandom makes me. But... *beams with happiness*

[out-there.livejournal.com]

Hee! Your icon makes me hum that song. That's going to be stuck in my head for hours, now.

I can't believe how happy domestic fic in this fandom makes me. But... *beams with happiness*

It's a guilty little pleasure in this fandom. It really is.

[lamentalone.livejournal.com]

Aww, I love the Jason-verse!

He only gives a hint of what's worrying him and avoids asking outright for help. Alex would blame that trait on Michael, but he's pretty sure Jason gets that from all three of them.
That is SO true.

"Why don't you come over here, Daddy?"
Alex nearly laughs at imitation of his own actions.
Adorable. ♥

I wanted Jason to know that it's not like his friend Luke's parents, who now live in separate houses.
I really love how Alex uses Jason's own words. It fits really well.

I love this fandom. *sigh* <3

[out-there.livejournal.com]

Aww, I love the Jason-verse!

Me too! Uncle Alex makes me so happy.

"Why don't you come over here, Daddy?"
Alex nearly laughs at imitation of his own actions.
Adorable. ♥

There is something insanely cute about the way that little kids mimic adults. It's frightening how much they absorb but it's still adorable.

I really love how Alex uses Jason's own words. It fits really well.

I think it's an example of Alex quite consciously choosing to edit his behaviour/wording depending on his audience. It's one of those things you notice through the series, that Alex is capable of physical threat and yet modifies his body language around Michael not to appear as a threat, and I think that as a parental figure, Alex would be quite adapt at picking up on Jason's language use and using it to portray information (in this case, to alert Michael to the concerns of divorce and split homes, without letting Jason realise he's warning Michaal about the situation).

I love this fandom. *sigh* <3

It's pretty damn awesome. I watch a show for the tension and action, and then write fics about happy, fluffy, emotionally-stable and comfortable times in their lives. *laughs* The awesome thing about fandom is that there's always other people to squee with you.

[lamentalone.livejournal.com]

I watch a show for the tension and action, and then write fics about happy, fluffy, emotionally-stable and comfortable times in their lives.
Lol. :D

The awesome thing about fandom is that there's always other people to squee with you.
Oh, that's so true. I don't know how I managed before I found it.

[fairlyironic.livejournal.com]

Very cute, and I'm with everyone else; I didn't think that I'd like kids in this fandom, but I do, I do!

[out-there.livejournal.com]

Hee! It's surprising, but I guess it makes sense. After watching these guys spend four seasons where things keep getting worse, and worse, and worse no matter how hard they scheme and how much they sacrifice, I think we all feel they deserve a happy ending.

[flurblewig.livejournal.com]

::beams with joy: So much love. Uncle Alex is all sorts of awesome.

I suspect Jason is going to grow up to be the world's greatest superhero :-)

[out-there.livejournal.com]

Uncle Alex is all sorts of awesome.

He really is!

I suspect Jason is going to grow up to be the world's greatest superhero :-)

Hee. Maybe. I don't know. He might, as isagel suggested, grow up to join the FBI and be all inspired by his Uncle Alex. Or I also suspect he might grow up to be something numbers/calculation heavy like an actuarian or a theoretical physicist. Something that requires high IQ but has the luxury of not being a purely "practical" job.

[sdwolfpup.livejournal.com]

I love how you ended this. It's such a sweet little fic, but it never feels cloying.

[out-there.livejournal.com]

*sends Uncle Alex over to your place to bake you cookies*

[cybel]

Totally off topic: If I'm given permission to compile the podfic of Celli's story Fireball into podbook format, may I use your graphic as the 'book's cover? I like it a lot!

[out-there.livejournal.com]

Feel free! I'm pretty sure Slod did a cover/graphic for it too. (Which is not a "don't use mine" comment, just a "celli deserves whichever will look best" one!)

[(Anonymous)]

For this purpose, yours will definitely look best, not that slodwick's isn't wonderful as always. Podbook covers are small, and all the detail in hers would be lost. Yours is perfect.

Thanks!