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tamingthemuseTitle: Chimera
Fandom: Burn Notice
Prompt: 93 - chimera at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
tamingthemuse
Warnings: Contains slash relationships. This chapter has violence and bad language.
Rating: Teen
Summary: Micheal Westen exists because of his parts.
Disclaimer: I don't own Burn Notice, but oh how I wish I did.
A/N: Thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sabacebeanbabe for the beta!
As always, feedback is welcome and appreciated.
*************
When Michael was five, he quit having nightmares about monsters under the bed, or aliens outside his windows. He also started spending every moment he could outside playing with old Mrs. Wiggin’s dog.
“Michael, dear,” Mrs. Wiggins would call him over and give him cookies or popsicles, depending on how hot or cold it was, and would fuss over him just like he was her old wiener dog. “How did you get that bruise on your cheek?”
“I fell down playing baseball,” Michael replied solemnly, his mouth full of chocolate chip cookies.
Mrs. Wiggins would laugh and start telling stories about her son, Joshua, who had died in far away country called Vietnam and how much Joshua had loved to play baseball. Michael, sneaking bits of cookie to the dog, would listen and hope that someday he would get to see far away countries, too. Dying away from home didn’t seem so bad, not really.
He was an accomplished liar at five years old.
**************
When Michael was eight, he got into a fight at school with a Hispanic boy named Manuel. Manuel had just moved into the neighborhood, and he had glanced knowingly at a bruise that circled Michael’s wrist.
During morning recess, Michael had broken Manuel’s nose. It wasn’t very hard – make a fist, throw the punch, hear the sickeningly familiar crunch. The only difference was that it wasn’t Michael’s blood flowing down and dripping stains on a white tee-shirt. It was Michael gasping for breath and refusing to fall down and cry.
When Manuel and Michael were both dragged into the principal’s office, Michael refused to tell them anything. Manuel shrugged, holding a cotton towel up to his nose, both eyes blackening, and told the principal that it was an accident.
“Is that true, Michael?” Principal Puckett had looked at him seriously and Michael nodded, thinking about how the older kids called him Principal Fuckit. “I’m not sure how you accidentally break someone’s nose,” Principal Fuckit observed sternly and Michael looked up to meet his eyes.
“You’d be surprised at how easy it is.”
He was an accomplished fighter at eight years old.
****************
When Michael was ten years old, he stole his first car. There was no finesse involved, only urgency and desperation. In the end, it was a smashed window and the luck of finding keys in the sun visor that mattered. He could reach the pedals easily enough – he had grown a lot over the past summer – and Michael drove the car down the streets towards his house at what had felt like a terrifying speed.
He misjudged the driveway and knocked down the mail box when he drove into the front yard. Wincing at what he knew that would cost him later, Michael got out of the car and sprinted inside to find Nate and his mom, both huddling in the bathroom.
“There’s a car. We’ll take him to the hospital,” Michael gasped and his mom had looked at him with a strange, but resigned expression and picked up Nate to carry him to the door.
“Get my purse, Michael.” She had called back and Michael paused long enough to grab the tan leather bag slung over the back of the kitchen chair. An empty whiskey bottle lay in the center of the table and the whole room reeked of booze and cigarettes and desperation.
He was an accomplished thief at ten years old.
**************
When Michael was fourteen years old, he kissed a girl for the first time. She was older – sixteen – and when she pushed her tongue in his mouth, Michael nearly backed away in disgust.
But then she took his hand and brought it up to cup her breast and Michael forgot about being disgusted. He could taste the waxy lipstick she wore and her breath smelled faintly of cinnamon and sugar cereal. Her tank top was easily removed and if she seemed uncomfortable or uneasy, Michael neither noticed nor cared.
She stopped him only once to hand him a small foil wrapped package that she told him she’d swiped from her brother’s room and she didn’t laugh at him as he tried to figure out how to get it on.
It was over too fast – Michael thought it was supposed to take longer, but the ending satisfied him and that was enough for now. He never did find out if her name was Melinda or Belinda and he never really cared. He never saw her again after that night.
He was accomplished at not caring at fourteen years old.
***************
When Michael was seventeen, he ran away for good. There had been yet another fight with the old man and Michael was pretty sure that one of his ribs was broken. His mother was sobbing in her bedroom and Nate had simply rolled his eyes and slammed his bedroom door when the shouting had begun.
Michael shoved a few changes of clothes in an old gym bag and stole the money he found in his mother’s wallet. Walking down the hallway, he had paused and looked at himself in the mirror that hung on the wall over the small table where they always left their keys. His lip was bleeding and his hair stuck up in all directions, but it was his eyes the rage in his eyes that was most noticeable.
A grunt by the door captured his attention and Michael looked over to see his father standing there with a contemptuous sneer. “You have my eyes, boy. You always did.”
“I’m leaving,” Michael announced dully and his father stepped to the side, leaving the doorway open.
“You’ll be back, eventually. And you’ll beg me to take you back in, you ungrateful bastard.”
“I’ll rot in hell first,” Michael answered, walking through the door in carefully measured steps. He didn’t look back.
He was accomplished at leaving at seventeen years old.
***************
When Michael was twenty years old, he killed a man for the first time. He didn’t have a choice, not if he wanted to survive to tell the tale and he decided, with the hilt of his knife stinking out from another man’s throat, that he’d rather have survivors’ guilt than nothing at all.
His mentor had bought him a beer that night and told him that he’d done a good job on his first difficult mission.
“Isn’t easy, this job,” Sam had philosophized, already well into his own booze. “You have to be good at lots of things most people aren’t good at. Lying. Fighting. Stealing. Not caring what others think of ya. And you have to be able to walk away from it all without any notice.”
Michael sipped his beer slowly, still seeing blood bubbling around a steel blade, still hearing the rattling wheeze of a last breath. He looked over at Sam with a small smile. “I think I’m going to be fine with this job.”
Sam nodded, studying him with bleary eyes. “Yeah, Westen, I think you will be.” He clinked his glass against Michael’s. “Drink up.”
Michael did as he was told, catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror behind the bar. The man who looked back at him seemed amused and Michael lifted his glass in a silent toast. Here’s to embracing the monster inside, he thought as his father’s eyes mocked him from his own reflection.
Fandom: Burn Notice
Prompt: 93 - chimera at
tamingthemuseWarnings: Contains slash relationships. This chapter has violence and bad language.
Rating: Teen
Summary: Micheal Westen exists because of his parts.
Disclaimer: I don't own Burn Notice, but oh how I wish I did.
A/N: Thanks to
sabacebeanbabe for the beta!As always, feedback is welcome and appreciated.
*************
When Michael was five, he quit having nightmares about monsters under the bed, or aliens outside his windows. He also started spending every moment he could outside playing with old Mrs. Wiggin’s dog.
“Michael, dear,” Mrs. Wiggins would call him over and give him cookies or popsicles, depending on how hot or cold it was, and would fuss over him just like he was her old wiener dog. “How did you get that bruise on your cheek?”
“I fell down playing baseball,” Michael replied solemnly, his mouth full of chocolate chip cookies.
Mrs. Wiggins would laugh and start telling stories about her son, Joshua, who had died in far away country called Vietnam and how much Joshua had loved to play baseball. Michael, sneaking bits of cookie to the dog, would listen and hope that someday he would get to see far away countries, too. Dying away from home didn’t seem so bad, not really.
He was an accomplished liar at five years old.
**************
When Michael was eight, he got into a fight at school with a Hispanic boy named Manuel. Manuel had just moved into the neighborhood, and he had glanced knowingly at a bruise that circled Michael’s wrist.
During morning recess, Michael had broken Manuel’s nose. It wasn’t very hard – make a fist, throw the punch, hear the sickeningly familiar crunch. The only difference was that it wasn’t Michael’s blood flowing down and dripping stains on a white tee-shirt. It was Michael gasping for breath and refusing to fall down and cry.
When Manuel and Michael were both dragged into the principal’s office, Michael refused to tell them anything. Manuel shrugged, holding a cotton towel up to his nose, both eyes blackening, and told the principal that it was an accident.
“Is that true, Michael?” Principal Puckett had looked at him seriously and Michael nodded, thinking about how the older kids called him Principal Fuckit. “I’m not sure how you accidentally break someone’s nose,” Principal Fuckit observed sternly and Michael looked up to meet his eyes.
“You’d be surprised at how easy it is.”
He was an accomplished fighter at eight years old.
****************
When Michael was ten years old, he stole his first car. There was no finesse involved, only urgency and desperation. In the end, it was a smashed window and the luck of finding keys in the sun visor that mattered. He could reach the pedals easily enough – he had grown a lot over the past summer – and Michael drove the car down the streets towards his house at what had felt like a terrifying speed.
He misjudged the driveway and knocked down the mail box when he drove into the front yard. Wincing at what he knew that would cost him later, Michael got out of the car and sprinted inside to find Nate and his mom, both huddling in the bathroom.
“There’s a car. We’ll take him to the hospital,” Michael gasped and his mom had looked at him with a strange, but resigned expression and picked up Nate to carry him to the door.
“Get my purse, Michael.” She had called back and Michael paused long enough to grab the tan leather bag slung over the back of the kitchen chair. An empty whiskey bottle lay in the center of the table and the whole room reeked of booze and cigarettes and desperation.
He was an accomplished thief at ten years old.
**************
When Michael was fourteen years old, he kissed a girl for the first time. She was older – sixteen – and when she pushed her tongue in his mouth, Michael nearly backed away in disgust.
But then she took his hand and brought it up to cup her breast and Michael forgot about being disgusted. He could taste the waxy lipstick she wore and her breath smelled faintly of cinnamon and sugar cereal. Her tank top was easily removed and if she seemed uncomfortable or uneasy, Michael neither noticed nor cared.
She stopped him only once to hand him a small foil wrapped package that she told him she’d swiped from her brother’s room and she didn’t laugh at him as he tried to figure out how to get it on.
It was over too fast – Michael thought it was supposed to take longer, but the ending satisfied him and that was enough for now. He never did find out if her name was Melinda or Belinda and he never really cared. He never saw her again after that night.
He was accomplished at not caring at fourteen years old.
***************
When Michael was seventeen, he ran away for good. There had been yet another fight with the old man and Michael was pretty sure that one of his ribs was broken. His mother was sobbing in her bedroom and Nate had simply rolled his eyes and slammed his bedroom door when the shouting had begun.
Michael shoved a few changes of clothes in an old gym bag and stole the money he found in his mother’s wallet. Walking down the hallway, he had paused and looked at himself in the mirror that hung on the wall over the small table where they always left their keys. His lip was bleeding and his hair stuck up in all directions, but it was his eyes the rage in his eyes that was most noticeable.
A grunt by the door captured his attention and Michael looked over to see his father standing there with a contemptuous sneer. “You have my eyes, boy. You always did.”
“I’m leaving,” Michael announced dully and his father stepped to the side, leaving the doorway open.
“You’ll be back, eventually. And you’ll beg me to take you back in, you ungrateful bastard.”
“I’ll rot in hell first,” Michael answered, walking through the door in carefully measured steps. He didn’t look back.
He was accomplished at leaving at seventeen years old.
***************
When Michael was twenty years old, he killed a man for the first time. He didn’t have a choice, not if he wanted to survive to tell the tale and he decided, with the hilt of his knife stinking out from another man’s throat, that he’d rather have survivors’ guilt than nothing at all.
His mentor had bought him a beer that night and told him that he’d done a good job on his first difficult mission.
“Isn’t easy, this job,” Sam had philosophized, already well into his own booze. “You have to be good at lots of things most people aren’t good at. Lying. Fighting. Stealing. Not caring what others think of ya. And you have to be able to walk away from it all without any notice.”
Michael sipped his beer slowly, still seeing blood bubbling around a steel blade, still hearing the rattling wheeze of a last breath. He looked over at Sam with a small smile. “I think I’m going to be fine with this job.”
Sam nodded, studying him with bleary eyes. “Yeah, Westen, I think you will be.” He clinked his glass against Michael’s. “Drink up.”
Michael did as he was told, catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror behind the bar. The man who looked back at him seemed amused and Michael lifted his glass in a silent toast. Here’s to embracing the monster inside, he thought as his father’s eyes mocked him from his own reflection.
