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Michael knows he's pretty, beautiful even – not because he cares much, but because, for as long as he can remember, everyone seems to have made it their personal mission to remind him.
//
It's one of the first things his foster father tells him after taking him and his brother in.
Richard Clark is an old drunk who worships President Reagan, loves guns, and Michael is really not sure how he ever got foster care approval.
Lincoln fights with him almost daily and when he starts hitting him, he runs away and leaves Michael behind.
Michael isn't like Lincoln, he's a quiet kid without any aggressive tendencies. Most days he doesn't even try to defend himself from Richard and when the man starts kissing him he just lets him.
"You owe me this, Michael", Richard whispers with his hand on the boy's tight, "I took you in, you and Lincoln. I let you stay even with your brother being such a shithead."
Michael nods wordlessly and tries not to gag at the man's smoker's breath.
"If you let me have this maybe I don't make them take away your brother. After all he's all you got left, right?"
Michael nods again and doesn't react when Richard lays a hand under his chin and tilts his face upward.
"You're so pretty, Michael", the man says and let's his gaze wander over him, "no idea where you got that from. Your mother wasn't nearly as stunning and your brother...", Richard chuckles, "well, let's say you definitely got both, the brains and the looks, in your family."
He kisses him and Michael's only thought is how much he wanted Anna from advanced math to be his first kiss.
Three weeks later Lincoln comes back and sees them together. He takes Michael and they run away.
When Lincoln asks him why he didn't fight back Michael only shrugs. He's never felt as if fighting back does him any good, so why bother?
//
Starting high school Lincoln is already in and out of Juvi every other month. He has no idea what goes on in his little brother's life and Michael can't bring himself to be sad about it. He has enough to worry about without getting involved in Lincoln's petty crimes.
They are transferred from one foster family to another. Michael changes schools so often that he has no chance to build real friendships with anyone.
He ends up with a family that keeps on forgetting he needs to eat while Lincoln is serving time. The only person that seems to care about him is his history teacher who lets him stay in his office for lunch breaks and brings him sandwiches when he notices Michael never has anything to eat.
One day he lets Michael stay after school to help him with a project on ancient Greek architecture. Mr Matthews' breath doesn't smell as bad as Richard's when he leans over his shoulder to look what Michael is drawing.
"You have real talent Michael", Mr Matthews says, "those sketches are better than anything I ever made."
Michael blushes as he looks up at his teacher. "Thank you, sir."
Mr Matthew smiles softly as he puts a hand on Michael's shoulder. " You know, when they told me I’d be getting a student who had been passed around between multiple foster families, I never thought it would be someone like you. You’re such a nice kid, nothing at all like the other students I’ve had who are in the system.”
He starts stroking Michael's back, and while every instinct in him screams against it, it's still so nice to be touched again without being hurt.
"You have a beautiful brain, Michael." Mr Matthews brushes hair out of his eyes. "And eyes. You are an incredibly pretty person."
Again, Michael doesn't do anything when he's kissed. This time he doesn't even think about anyone else. He doesn't think of anything at all.
He comes home to his foster mother screaming at him for not making dinner. She locks him into his room and when he looks at his brother's empty bed he wonders if there's anyone who would care if he wasn't there anymore.
//
When Michael turns sixteen, he already had his first girlfriend and shared a few drunken kisses with a guy from chess club. He's not repulsed by sex, but he also doesn't really care for it. It's just something that can be used to get people to do what he wants.
So, when someone offers him money for a blow job after his stepsister of the month breaks his calculator, he doesn't see a reason to say no.
"God, you're pretty", the guy whispers while tugging at Michael's hair who only hums in agreement.
The guy comes all over his face and Michael is thirty dollars richer.
It's not the first and by far not the last time someone comes up to him to ask for sexual favors in exchange for money and while he stands by his logic that sex is only a means to an end - he has to believe that - he doesn't really like it either.
//
At his first job as an architect it's his boss who doesn’t let him forget how pretty he is. She's a good-looking woman in her mid-thirties, and if she weren't his boss, Michael might have given her a chance.
A few of his colleagues think it's funny when she calls him pretty boy but most just look uncomfortable.
When she gropes him under the table at a work meeting, he decides it's time to quit.
//
Michael isn’t surprised when the ward leads him to his cell in Fox River and the first comment of the other prisoners aren’t threats of violence but vulgar hollers and whistles.
If even half the biases about prison are right, this is not the best place for him. Not that it matters. There’s no way he’d just let his innocent brother die. Not if there’s even half a chance, he’s able to save him.
//
Sucre’s first thought when seeing his new cellmate is, that he’s not gonna make it in here for very long. Not with that baby face and those bright eyes.
Obviously, he’s wrong, but he doesn’t yet know how crazy brilliant Michael Scofield is.
Sucre has never been interested in any of the other inmates. He has Maricruz and is terminally straight. But he’s been in prison long enough to know how it works and Michael tics all the boxes. Pretty, quiet and non-violent.
Sadly, he’s also a good guy. Or as good as anyone in prison is.
Grudgingly, Sucre admits to himself that he’ll look out for him. A bit at least.
//
At lunch Michael sits beside Sucre. His new cellmate doesn’t seem to mind. He also seems to be a decent guy that doesn’t belong to any gang. As far as it goes Michael really lucked out.
It doesn’t take more than a few minutes before the first guy approaches him. He’s a bit shorter than Michael but a lot broader with a poorly done tattoo of the American bald eagle on his upper arm. When he sits down in front of him, he slams his plate onto the table so hard that some of the unidentifiable goo on it lands on Michael. With an unimpressed glare he wipes his hands clean on his overall.
“You don’t mind if I sit here, do you?”, the guy says.
“By all means…”
“You’re new here, aren’t ya? Fish?”
Michael nods. “I am.”
“Could use someone to show you around, huh? Show you the ropes? Because I'd be willing to help.”
“While that’s awfully kind of you, I think I can handle myself.”
“Can you though?”, the man asks and leans forward right into Michael’s personal space, “look around and think again.”
Michael doesn’t have to look around to know that all eyes are on them. He gets the feeling that this conversation is important. It’s the first impression everyone gets of him.
“You know, I got this girlfriend, outside. Prettiest woman you’ll ever meet”, the con gives him a mean smirk, “doesn’t hold a candle to you, I tell ya.”
“Right”, Michael says drily.
“Well”, the man says and stands up, “if you think better of it, come find me. Name’s Rourke. I can help you out, protect you and believe me if I say, a pretty guy like you? Gonna need all the protection you can get in here.”
Michael just rolls his eyes before going back to poking at his un-edible-looking lunch.
Next to him, Sucre doesn’t exactly look impressed, but it seems like he has come to the conclusion that Michael might not be gone again by the end of the week.
//
Theodore Bagwell is everything that Michael detests. Though a child-murdering rapist is probably what everyone detests. He’s also not as scary as he likes to think.
He’s just like all the other inmates that offer Michael protection for certain complaisance.
Most of them stop after finding out that ‘Linc the sink’ is his brother, the rest when he settles his deal with Abruzzi.
T-Bag is the only one who keeps up with the innuendos, who keeps up calling him ‘Pretty’ even after he gets in on their Break-out-plan.
//
“When I imagined you on you knees, this was never how, though I can’t say I’m disappointed, Pretty”, T-Bag says and grins down at Michael who just came back up from the sewers, panting slightly from exertion.
He doesn’t dignify the man with an answer and only signals to Sucre and his brother to put the carpet back onto the hole in the floor.
“Really, don’t you sometimes regret that you refused my offer? I’m sure you must get lonely sometimes too”, T-Bag purrs into Michael’s ear, “you know, it’s not too late to rethink.”
“Back off, T-Bag”, Michael says at the same time as Lincoln pulls the man off him harshly.
“Will you fucking stop this”, he growls and pushes T-Bag against the wall, “we might be in this together, but I have no qualms about bashing your face in until even your inbred slut of a mother wouldn’t be able to recognize you anymore.”
The two men stare at each other: one with righteous fury, the other with fear poorly concealed as anger. Michael sighs and pats his brother on the back.
“Come on, Linc, he’s really not worth it.”
Lincoln’s eyes dart over to Michael. “Why the fuck doesn’t this bother you more anyway?”
Because this is by far not the worst thing anyone ever said to me, Michael thinks but only says: “Why the hell should I care about even one thing that comes out of his mouth? Especially with the tight schedule we have. Just let him be.”
“I don’t like him talking to you like that”, Lincoln says but still lets go of T-Bag.
Michael can’t help but think that it’s far too late for his brother to protect him.
T-Bag smirks at Lincoln. “Yeah, listen to Pretty. He knows he owes me for making me lay off Tweener. A man got needs.”
When he lays an arm around his shoulders, Michael frowns. “Don’t push your luck. You’re really not all that important to the plan. I'm sure you could end up having an accident at work.”
He really couldn’t. They can’t effort the investigation that would come with such an accident. Michael thinks T-Bag knows that too.
//
“Why do you really care what T-Bag calls me?”, Michael asks his brother later, “you know I can handle myself.”
“Yeah, I know”, Lincoln sighs, “it’s juts…”
When he hesitates, Michael raises an eyebrow and makes a go-on gesture.
“When you let him talk about you like that it sends certain signals, Mikey”, Lincoln explains, “and with your looks in prison it just… It worries me.”
Michael rolls his eyes.
//
That night T-Bag sings about Michael in his cell just as he did about Tweener a few nights ago. While the man still doesn’t scare him, a part of Michael wishes he let Lincoln beat him up.
//
To Michael’s surprise, the next morning Tweener sits down beside him at breakfast. Not that he minds the kid, but he thought that after screwing him over with the deal about the watch, he wouldn't like him anymore.
“So”, Tweener starts, fidgeting with the hems of his shirt, “Westmoreland… he told me what you did for me. With T-Bag.”
That also surprises Micheal. He didn’t think Westmoreland would care what anyone does about anything in here.
“And I just… uh, thank you”, Tweener continues without looking at Michael.
“No problem, kid”, Michael says, resisting the urge to ruffle the boy’s hair like he does with LJ.
“Last night…” Tweener bites his lips as if he’s unsure if he should say anything else. “You’re Pretty aren’t you?”
Right, T-Bag didn’t actually use his name in his little, nightly performance. Michael sighs.
“Yeah. But don’t worry about that. He’s just trying to annoy me.”
“You sure about that? I mean you really are…”
“Pretty?”, Micheal asks, when Tweener blushes and stops mid-sentence.
“Uh. Yeah”, he says uncomfortably, before waving his hands frantically, “I mean not that I’m into that shit it’s just… I would not be surprised if you were his type…?”
Michael rubs his face and sighs again.
“Kid, I could not care less what you are or aren’t into and while I appreciate this, I also really don’t need your help.”
“If you say so”, Tweener mumbles and starts eating silently.
Beside him Michael can see Sucre trying to hold back a laugh. He can’t blame him. Getting offered help from Tweener out of everybody is kind of hilarious.
//
Just like he told Tweener Michael can handle T-Bag. Can handle him in Fox River, in Sona and everywhere in between. As he could handle everyone before and everyone after him. Still, he sometimes wishes he didn’t have to. That he had just been born with a different face. A little less pretty.