Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/ works/7297195. Rating: Explicit Archive Warning: Underage Category: F/M Fandom: Prison_Break Relationship: Lincoln_Burrows/Veronica_Donovan, Veronica_Donovan/Michael_Scofield Character: Michael_Scofield, Veronica_Donovan, Lincoln_Burrows Stats: Published: 2016-06-25 Words: 5033 ****** The Last Cigarette ****** by badboy_fangirl Summary Michael and Veronica get into Lincoln's stash. Your love’s like one last cigarette Last cigarette, I will savor it Take it in and hold your breath, hope it never ends But when it's gone, it's gone ~from Last Cigarette by Bon Jovi When Michael opened the door, Veronica stood there, and she looked angry. Not that it was surprising, because lately, every time he saw her she looked angry, and the anger was always directed at Lincoln. And Lincoln deserved it, but this time, Lincoln had escaped the wrath. He had left hurriedly about 15 minutes earlier, and Michael should have guessed that it was because Veronica was on her way over to tear a strip off him. They were officially “broken up” right now, but that really only meant Linc wasn’t getting any from her. Because she was mad. As much as she nagged him about not smoking weed, or not doing deals on the corner, or not hanging around with a bunch of hoodlums, Lincoln said he could live without the sex. He didn’t miss the sex that much. Or at least, that’s what he’d said to Michael just the night before. Michael couldn’t imagine not missing the sex. Especially the sex with Veronica. But then nobody knew of the secret fantasies he utilized during his alone moments in the shower that involved his brother’s sometime-girlfriend. He’d known Veronica since he was a small child; in fact, he couldn’t remember not knowing her, but he knew the moment Lincoln had discovered she was a girl Michael had also become quite aware of her amenities, even though he was 4 years younger than his brother. Since then, as he got older, his fantasies, which had at first just been holding Vee’s hand or kissing her pink lips, progressed with his knowledge of sex. The older he got, the more regularly he found himself closing his eyes, envisioning her against the inside of his eyelids while he wrapped his own long-fingered hand around his provoked anatomy and stroked himself to bliss. In fact, at 17, Michael did it at least once a day. Linc complained that he didn’t need to take a shower everyday, but Michael knew how very necessary it was. He flushed guiltily now, looking at her angry face as she pushed her way into the house. “Where is he?” she demanded. “He’s gone,” he answered as she strode across the small apartment and checked the bedroom, just to make sure Linc wasn’t hiding in there. “He left a while ago. After your fight on the phone.” “Great, that’s just great,” Veronica huffed, coming back out of the bedroom to face Michael. She propped her hands on her hips and asked, “Do you know where he keeps his stash? The stuff he sells, or the stuff he smokes himself?” “I’m sure he wouldn’t have left it here for you to find,” Michael answered factually. “But if there is any, it’s in that old jewelry box on the top of the dresser.” He pointed to the darkened room behind her. He followed her slowly as she spun around to investigate the possibility. Standing in the doorway, he watched as she opened the brown, wooden box that had been his mother’s but never held jewelry now. She lifted the inner box out and said, “Ah ha!” as she pulled out a baggie filled with marijuana. Michael pursed his lips and said nothing. Whatever that was, it was hardly Linc’s ‘stash.’ There wasn’t very much; from the distance between the doorway and the dresser where Veronica stood, Michael judged there might be enough left for Linc to get pleasantly laced, but not enough to be considered a great loss should Veronica decide to flush it so Lincoln couldn’t smoke it. As though Michael could read her mind, she spun on her heel again and started back towards him, and he was sure she intended to pass by him and head for the toilet in the bathroom next door to Linc’s bedroom. Reaching out, Michael wrapped a hand around her arm, effectively stopping her journey. She looked up at him expectantly, but said nothing. Something quite devilish possessed him in that moment and Michael said, “If you really want to piss him off, don’t flush it, Vee. Smoke it. Smoke it yourself. Man, that would get him good.” Veronica stilled completely, her body sagging somewhat against the doorframe. She lowered her gaze to the baggie in her hand and then looked back into Michael’s face. “We both smoke it,” she said. “Both of us. Together, right here.” Grabbing his arm, she led him into the room and they both sat on the end of the bed. They both stared at the baggie of weed for a few moments, and then Michael asked, “You know how to roll it?” Biting her lip, Veronica’s eyes came up to his again, uncertainly this time. “Don’t worry, I know how. I’ve watched Linc do it before.” With an expertise not befitting a novice weed smoker, Michael found the rest of Linc’s paraphernalia at the bottom of the jewelry box and rolled the joint deftly. When he finished, he looked up at Veronica who had wide eyes and sat staring at him. “You’ve smoked before?” she asked. “I’ve taken a couple hits off of Linc’s—when I caught him doing it once or twice. Okay, it happened three times. Usually he just rolls his stuff to take it with him easily, but sometimes, when he has friends over, you know, Derek Sweeney? Anyway, they’ll share a pipe, and that’s when he let me have some of it. Every time I told him if he let me have some I wouldn’t tell you.” Michael got up from the bed one more time to find a lighter or a matchbook, fumbling for a moment when he realized what he’d just said. “Why did you want to do it?” she asked, watching him closely as he came back to the bed with a lighter. Michael shrugged, pausing to formulate a response. The fact that she hadn’t asked the more interesting question: Why are you telling me now? didn’t go unnoticed, though he felt some relief. “I guess I just wanted to know why he did it. But he’s such a hypocrite. He would only let me a have one hit.” “I don’t know if hypocrite’s the right word,” Veronica murmured as Michael lit the joint and took a puff off it. “I do,” he said, choking slightly. The burning sensation he remembered from his previous experience flared through him. He held the smoke in his lungs as long as he could and then released it. Handing her the joint, he instructed, “Do it just like that. Hold it as long as you can.” By the time the joint was nothing more than a tiny stub that burned Michael’s fingers he was feeling no pain. He had never been allowed—due to the hypocrisy of Lincoln—to feel more than a slight buzz, which he’d found he could get from a can of beer just as easily, since he hardly ever used anything mind altering. Linc had even called him a ‘lightweight,’ but then refused to let him become a ‘heavyweight.’ Not that Michael really wanted to; even now he knew he was only doing this with Veronica so they shared something that Linc wasn’t a part of. But this ‘high’—this was more. Different. This was enjoyable. It had taken Veronica a few tries before she could hold the smoke inside long enough to achieve anything. She had coughed and spluttered, and Michael ended up rolling another joint from the rest of the weed in the baggie, so there’d be something left for her to actually get the full effect. He knew she’d finally caught up with him when he asked, “You okay?” and she started laughing as though he’d made the funniest joke. So Michael found himself smiling as Veronica giggled helplessly at absolutely nothing. He flung himself back on the bed, bouncing slightly with the impact. The world felt wider, broader. He felt wiser, somehow, as if his thoughts were of more value. And he wondered if Lincoln liked this feeling. Feeling smart. Michael knew he was smart, but he could feel it now, and he knew his brother was smart, but Linc always put himself down. Yeah, for sure, if getting high made you feel smart, it had to be one of the reasons Linc liked it. He had forgotten about Veronica momentarily, lost in his thoughts, but she came back into sharp focus the moment her hand slid up his thigh. As if he didn’t already normally achieve a raging hard-on with the smallest thought about Vee, her hand on his leg did more for him than a multitude of thoughts all run together. “Michael…” she whispered, “I feel so…strange.” “I know,” he responded, and he knew he shouldn’t want her to notice the bulge in his khakis, but he somehow didn’t care at all. From his prone position, he watched her as she turned, using her hand on his leg as leverage to scoot further back on to the bed. Then she lay down on her side next to him, touching his chest tentatively. “Wanna fool around?” she asked, and another giggle erupted from her. He turned his head so their eyes were even. “Is that funny?” he asked. “No,” she said, her green eyes taking on a solemn quality for a split second. “I mean…it would be funny to fool around on Linc’s weed, in Linc’s bed, don’t you think?” The helpless laughter continued to tumble out of her mouth. He turned onto his side so that his whole body faced hers. He didn’t say anything, he just kept thinking of how smart he was. This was the best idea he’d ever had, smoking Lincoln’s weed, and telling Veronica to do it too. He reached for her hand and drew it down his body to where his cock strained against the confines of his zipper. Biting his lip to hold in the moan of complete helplessness bubbling in his throat prevented him from saying anything. As it turned out, she didn’t need instruction at this juncture. In movements that seemed to be happening in slow motion, Michael felt Veronica unfasten his pants and slide her hand inside his underwear. He hissed and groaned at the sensation because he’d never thought he’d be lucky enough for Veronica to touch him there. Later, he might realize just how embarrassingly short the whole interlude was, but at the moment each stroke of her fist down the length of his cock was delicious torture that made him reach up and wrap his hand in her hair, bringing her mouth to his. He kissed her slowly too, or maybe it just seemed like the longest, slowest, best kiss he’d ever had, but their tongues entwined and their breaths heated the world between them until Michael knew he was about to explode into her hand. “Oh, God,” he breathed, dragging his lips from hers, “I’m coming, I’m coming, I’m coming…” he chanted, partly to warn her, but also because it was the most delightful thing that had ever happened to him. When the spasms passed, he gasped, panting, with wonder coating his body from head to toe. An orgasm while high—that had to be another reason Linc smoked. That was so much better than alone in the shower with just his own hand. His eyes blinked open, he didn’t even remember clenching them shut, and Veronica stared at him with a sense of the spectacular etched into her features. Lifting her hand to her lips, she rubbed his semen across her mouth like Vaseline and then did the same thing to his lips. When they kissed again, with Michael’s essence sealing their passion together for the moment, he unbuttoned her shirt, fumbled open her bra and then dropped his head down to kiss her breasts. Holding one of her nipples between his teeth, he flicked it with his tongue rapidly until her wet hands were digging in his shoulders and she was crying in this gasping, moaning way that indicated to Michael what he was doing was just right. He slid his hand into the front of her unsnapped jeans, curving his fingers down between her thighs, and she accommodated him as much as the restrictive cloth would allow her. Forcing her on to her back to give his hand more room, he finally got his fingers into position, and the wet miracle of her wanting him felt more glorious than even his orgasm from the moment before. He attempted to push his fingers inside her, but only one would fit at first, so he rubbed his thumb carefully at the top of her sex while his forefinger stroked inside her. The crazy thought that his health class had actually taught him something useful floated through his brain as the silky wetness and tightness of her body further intrigued him; but then he remembered Daryl Sweeney, who’d sat next to him (and who had repeated 10th grade health as a senior) and the information Michael utilized right then, with his finger deep inside Veronica Donovan, was more from what Daryl had said than anything the teacher had taught. Her hips lifted against the pressure of his hand and she shifted her legs restlessly, unwittingly giving him more room to move. He lifted his mouth from her breast and watched her face as he inserted two fingers inside her, stretching her slightly as he wiggled and shifted his trajectory to shove his fingers inside her with some force. Suddenly her fingers was there, wrapping around his wrist, showing him just how to move, and how quickly, and then she keened, long and desperately, and he felt the walls of her vagina contract tremulously around his fingers. It was her face, though, and the flushed quality of her cheeks that really affected Michael, though all the rest of it had been wonderful. He would never forget the way her face looked as she came, and in the mellow drug-induced euphoria of afterglow, Michael lay with Veronica, on Lincoln’s bed, never fearing or wondering if they ought to get up and clean things up. Instead, all he wanted was for it to go on, he wanted days to spend like this, with her, not just hours. He started drifting even further, hoarding the delicious memory of what had just happened, wondering if it would seem different when he came down from the high. He gently removed his fingers from inside Veronica and rubbed her lips with his fingers, imitating her earlier action. Her tongue darted out and then her arms snaked around his neck and they were kissing again. The slow, wonderful kisses that a nearly empty baggie of weed had brought to him. His tongue weaved in and out of her mouth, parrying with her tongue, her teeth, the beautiful taste of her on both their lips that he was drinking up as greedily as he could. He remembered Linc saying that he was always hungry after he smoked, but Michael didn’t want food, he simply wanted to devour his brother’s girlfriend, eat her up, soak her into his body so that he never stood alone again with just his thoughts of her driving him crazy.     Veronica awoke very sluggishly, unsure of where she was. The first clue was the feel of the bed beneath her, the bed she’d actually lost her virginity in, and then she realized she was at Linc’s. She started mentally berating herself for getting back together with him, for having no will power as far as he was concerned, and as she reached down to pull his arm from around her waist, she remembered. In a strange, slow succession of memories, she remembered Michael’s cock in her palm, and his fingers inside her and then, in an even slower, more pleasurably distant manner, his mouth on her—she reached down, flattening her hand over the tops of her thighs, and sure enough her pants were gone. Turning her head slowly, she saw that he slept deeply next to her, and that his pants were—thankfully—still on. Yes, they had fooled around—she vaguely remembered that being her idea—but they hadn’t had sex while they were high. Which was good, because she knew neither of them would have been thinking of birth control. She slid out from under his arm quietly, pulling the cups of her bra closed over her breasts and then buttoning her shirt up. What had she done? Looking down at the sleeping boy on the messy bed, she knew exactly what she’d done, though it felt very far away and very strange. This is why she’d never had anything to do with drugs. Bad things happened when people did drugs; she knew this, this was not new information, yet, in a perverse moment, she’d let Michael talk her into this. Talk her into it? Yeah, hardly. He’d suggested it, and she’d jumped on it like it was the best idea she’d heard in years. Because anything that could possibly make Lincoln feel as bad as she did every time she thought about him throwing his life away was the best idea she’d heard in years. The more she’d smoked, and the longer she’d sat there next to Michael, floating so pleasantly that even the sound of his voice tickled her ears and made her laugh, she’d known it was the best idea ever because for once she didn’t care what Lincoln was doing. She didn’t care, she couldn’t bring herself to care, and she remembered the tumbling thoughts scattering as Michael’s mouth opened against her clitoris and his tongue swirled languorously through her most delicate flesh. Lincoln had been obliterated, and his little brother had not only gotten her intoxicated, but then he’d sexed her up—quite willingly. And quite well, Veronica acknowledged, feeling the heat and spiraling sensation of coming against his mouth flow through her all over again. It had been her idea, she knew that, and Michael was a little younger than her, though no one would say she was an adult except the State of Illinois. Her father would say this was just par for the course for hanging around with two orphan kids who had grown up more out of necessity than by any logic or order. Her best girlfriends would think she was a slut, messing around with her ex- boyfriend’s younger brother. Linc…what would Linc think? Veronica glanced around frantically at the clock, the sense of not caring evaporating much more quickly without the fog of the marijuana. She had arrived maybe a little after two o’clock and it was now almost six. She was unsure how long they’d been sleeping—passed out? But she assumed, as long as he could see her car parked out front, Lincoln wouldn’t come up to the apartment anyway. He had no desire to hear her go off on him yet again, and for once that was to her advantage. He would assume she was just up here waiting for him. She didn’t want to get caught…did she? No, because it would be far worse for Michael than it would be for her. If Michael was anyone else, she might have found herself not caring. She knew Linc well enough to know that the anger would be channeled toward the offender who had touched her when he shouldn’t have, not at her. If she hadn’t known that with absolute certainty, she could have lifted the hem of Michael’s t-shirt that partially covered his exposed genitalia, that which he hadn’t bothered to zip back into his pants before he fell asleep, and she could have awakened him with the reciprocal gift of her mouth on him. She would do that now if she wanted Linc to catch her doing something she shouldn’t. But she knew what he would do if he came in and found her blowing his brother, and that was reason enough not to do it. She found her panties and jeans and pulled them back on because she could feel an answer heating between her legs, a throbbing that told her how good it felt to be bad. The idea of getting caught was nearly as arousing as the feeling of suddenly not caring what happened to Lincoln after she had finished smoking with Michael. She’d found herself unbearably turned on, and even now that her head was clear again she could remember the feeling, the need. And Michael had been right there, next to her, his own arousal evident when she’d looked at his crotch. She turned her back on his sleeping form and finished getting dressed by tucking her blouse back into her jeans and fastening the zipper and button quickly. She wasn’t going to let Michael be the victim of her weird need to provoke his brother. Just because Lincoln had been provoking her for months now…she shook her head. No. No. “Vee?” Michael’s sleepy voice came from behind her. She was fully clothed now, and ready to go, so as she turned to face him, she tried to plaster a look on her face that might convince him she didn’t know what the hell had happened. “Hey,” she said softly, gesturing at his still unkempt person. “Uh, you might want to cover up,” she murmured, dragging her eyes upward towards the ceiling. “I think we sort of—um, you know, really crossed a line we wouldn’t normally—“ “No, I know,” he interrupted her rambling speech. He rolled on to his back and lifted his hips up to straighten his khaki pants. Zipping and buttoning them, he got to his feet and dragged the top blanket off Lincoln’s bed. He looked at the clock, just as she had, then back to her. “I guess smoking weed makes you both stupid and sleepy, huh?” he joked. Veronica was a little taken aback by his blasé attitude, but at the same time extremely grateful for it. “Now we know,” she offered. He wadded up the blanket and held it against his chest. “And we’re the only ones who have to know.” She nodded. “That would probably be for the best.” “You wanna wait for him?” Michael asked, his head tipping, pointing towards the outer room. Veronica shook her head quickly. “No. This has to be a sign, right? What a bad idea this was in the first place to come over here—I’ve just got to let Linc do whatever he’s gonna do.” She hardly had a leg to stand on now. The first—and only, she told herself firmly—time she had gotten high, she’d engaged in behavior that certainly put her in competition with Lincoln for stupid stunts. To call him to repentance seemed the height of hypocrisy. Michael had enough of that in his life, didn’t he? she thought bitterly. “I’ll just go,” she finally said, moving around the end of the bed. Michael followed her out into the living room, but said nothing. At the door, she turned, needing to say something, but as she did so, Michael dropped the blanket he still held and leaned down, kissing her solidly on the mouth. She stood there, accepting the kiss, though she didn’t embrace him. When he lifted his head, he murmured, “It wasn’t the high.” She wasn’t sure what he meant, but neither did she want to find out. “I have to go,” she said. He just nodded, stepping back from her so she could open the door.     Lincoln stood with his back against the hot bricks, one foot resting against the wall of his apartment building. He smoked a cigarette, not a ‘funny’ cigarette as Derek called them when he thought he was being particularly hilarious, just a regular cigarette—just a plain old tar and nicotine cylinder that everyone said caused cancer. It was his last one, of any kind of cigarettes. Or at least that’s what he told himself as he stood there looking at Veronica’s car parked at the curb. He knew she loved him, and that all of her bitching and moaning stemmed from that love. In fact, today as he’d all but run from the house to avoid another ugly argument he’d realized the irritation he felt was in part due to the memories it stirred. He kept Veronica around, antagonized her even, because in a small way it reminded him of his mother shouting as he walked out the door to school, “Remember who you are! Be good. I’m counting on you!” Of course, basically since his mother had died, he didn’t know who he was, he wouldn’t be good, and he couldn’t be counted on. Just ask Michael. He’d grown tired of her tirades months before, but now he was doubly tired of the ache that enveloped his chest every time he saw her but couldn’t touch her or have her because of the hands-off precedent she’d set. If he wanted her, loved her, then he needed to get his act together. But maybe it wasn’t too late to get a clue, and turn his life around. The fact that Veronica was upstairs in his apartment right now while he hid from her ate at him, so when he finished the last cigarette, he dropped it to the sidewalk. Grinding it under his boot heel emphatically, he took a deep breath and started for the stairwell. He’d go up there, tell Vee she was right about everything, and together they’d figure out a way to fix it. At the door, he heard Michael’s voice, though he couldn’t make out the words, and as he turned his key in the lock and pushed the door open, he heard Veronica say, “I have to go.” She turned towards him, but jumped back, startled. As he looked at her, he noticed her flushed cheeks reddened even further, her pale skin looking warm and luminescent, the way she appeared when she first awoke. His eyes shifted immediately to Michael, who stood just a few feet away, his sharp gaze focused on Veronica. “Hey,” Linc said, his voice warm and low, intended as an invitation for Veronica. She looked at him, but only for a small moment and then her eyes bounced away, landing on Michael for even less time before coming back to Lincoln. “Hi,” she responded, obviously uncomfortable. Lincoln had a million things to say, but looking at her face, and letting the ensuing silence drift over him somehow stole the words away. There was something weird here, and before his mind could rest on anything particular about it, Michael piped up, “We smoked your weed, Linc. It’s all gone.” Lincoln jerked his head towards his brother, and the defiant expression there would have made him laugh normally. It was so reminiscent of a much younger Michael; the precocious child he’d been before their mother’s death had stunted that aspect of his personality. “Oh yeah?” he responded. “We were experimenting, trying to figure out why you like it so much,” Michael explained, and the words seemed helpful, but there was bite to their tone that let Lincoln know this was Michael at his meanest. “You figure it out?” Lincoln asked, his eyes going back and forth between his brother and his ex-girlfriend. They answered at the same time, but Michael uttered an emphatic “Yes,” and Veronica breathed a sad “No.” His eyes continued to travel between them as their contradictory answers caused them to look accusingly at each other. He didn’t ask anything else, but he suddenly knew he didn’t want to know what they were talking about. Knowing what had been the catalyst for this behavior, in addition to his own shit- headedness, wasn’t something he wanted. Instinctually, he knew that better than any of the bright ideas he and Derek had ever come up with while they were loaded. Instead he said what he knew would make Veronica leave so he could smoke the stuff he had in a less obvious hiding place, so he could forget the thoughts forming at the back of his mind. “Well, I guess that ends the lecture series on ‘You Shouldn’t Do That, Linc.’ I mean, hello pot, it’s me kettle, right?” Veronica’s eyes snapped to his with a ferocity that made him want to back up a step, but he stubbornly held his ground and looked at her, piercing her with his gaze. He could guess what she’d done, even why she’d done it, but he didn’t want to know. Lincoln looked back at Michael, who stood there expectantly with his gaze still resting largely on Vee, though his eyes darted toward Lincoln when Lincoln looked at him. Lincoln wondered what the hell he thought was going to happen, but he was sure it was not anything nearly as big as his brother’s fantastic imagination could cook up. “The thing about this is,” Veronica said, drawing Lincoln’s eyes back to hers, “it was my last time. Can’t say the same for you, now can we?” Lincoln nodded his agreement. “We have a winner.” That she managed to look as hurt as he felt said a lot for the power they held over each other. Standing aside so she could walk out, he didn’t even watch her go, he just shut the door behind him and rested against it, his eyes following Michael’s form as he bent at the waist and picked up a blanket from the floor. Michael turned, walking towards his bedroom without even an explanation for the crumpled fabric Lincoln was used to seeing on the bed he slept in. Curling his fingers into his palms, he went to his own bedroom, and rummaging in his closet, he pulled out the paper bag that held the stuff he would try to sell later that night. But first, he got out enough for himself, and as he lay back on his bed several minutes later, he honestly didn’t care what had happened there. Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed their work!