Indelible - Burn Notice

[jebbypal]

Title: Indelible
author: jebbypal
rating: everyone
summary: Michael doesn't collect souvenirs.
author note: Unbeta-ed. Written for challenge five of winter_deaddrop: Souvenirs.
word count: 237

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Anyone that knows him will tell you unequivocally that Michael Weston is not sentimental. He remembers birthdays out of a desire to not be given grief about it. Calls or writes home so Mom won’t worry. But he doesn’t do anniversaries, graduations, or anything else that might involve celebrations or memories.

Those that like him will say it’s because he’s a spy. Having a photo of friends fall into the wrong hands would not only blow his cover, but it would also endanger those he cares about. There’s truth in that.

The other truth is that when he does look through Mom’s photo album, he can’t see the happy times that are captured there without remembering all the worse times that are hidden beneath the cracked façade. Any gift he received as a kid was soon followed by a beating for losing it, or breaking it, or leaving it in the wrong damn place. He stopped putting much thought into gifts he gave Mom after he realized that anything she cared about was always the first thing thrown by Dad.

So it’s a no brainer to say that Michael Weston is not the type to collect souvenirs. At least, that’s to say he never spends any money on them and he doesn’t have any souvenirs that require packing.

And every day, he wishes he could escape the dozens of souvenirs that he carries silent on his skin.

Comments

[poisontaster]

Ooooh. Nice. Atmospheric and really true to character.