36. ♞ MAKE SOME NOISE

       SUCRE HELD A SMALL MIRROR OUT through the bars of their cell, looking out into the hall to make sure no officer was nearby. He pulled the mirror back into the cell, looking back at Michael and Phoebe, whom were sitting together on Phoebe's bunk, and nodding.

       "You're clear." Sucre whispered to them. Michael took the bolt out from Phoebe's book, approaching the toilet and unscrewing it. Meanwhile, Sucre approached Phoebe on the bed, picking up the empty tubes of toothpaste that Michael had previously filled with metal-eating chemicals. Michael had dumped the chemicals in a drain in the infirmary, giving it time to eat thought the pipes. Sucre held one of the tubes up to his nose and sniffed it, the strong smell making him scrunch his face in disgust. Phoebe chuckled.

       "Careful there, Sucre. You don't wanna have those all over your face and the inside of your nose." She teased with a chuckle, to which Sucre chuckled softly and tilted his head.

       "If the chemicals can eat through the iron pipes, how come they can't eat through the toothpaste tube?" Sucre asked, head tilted as he continued to hold onto the empty tube of toothpaste. Michael turned his head slightly to look over at Sucre, still crouched down by the toilet.

"It's only when the chemicals are combined that they become a corrosive." Michael explained in a quiet tone as he worked quickly yet quietly, making sure no one from other cells could hear them. Phoebe's heart raced. She was nervous. This was the first real part of the plan, the part where they could now actually get caught and possibly kept in jail for life, where they could so easily mess up the mission and Lincoln Burrows would be no more. She was nervous.... Scared. No. She was terrified. Her heart raced, the air in the cell felt thick and heavy. Pull it together, Phoebe. You've got this. Trust the plan. Trust Michael.

       "You studied chemistry or something?" Sucre asked curiously, wondering how it was that Michael knew so much. Michael shook his head slowly.

       "Not in school. But... This one actually wasn't my idea. It was Phoebe's." Michael said quietly, still looking down at the toilet. Phoebe blushed slightly as Sucre turned to face her. She chuckled and shook her head.

       "It wasn't." She said with a chuckle to Sucre. "All I suggested when we were still planning was using a corrosive." She said with a shrug. Sucre smiled at her, patting her shoulder.

       "That's smart as hell, mami. I don't think I would've been able to think of that." He said with a smile, which Phoebe mirrored. She missed having Sucre around. Sucre approached the cell door with the mirror again, and Michael took this as a chance to turn back to face Phoebe with a small smirk. Phoebe cocked a brow, mouthing, what? To which Michael simply smiled wider and turned back to what he was doing. Phoebe jumped when she was caught off guard by Sucre approaching them again.

       "But what you're doing up there in the infirmary, what has that got to do with what we're doing here?" Sucre asked, still confused about the plan and how everything they were doing was connected. Michael sighed.

       "Getting through this wall is just the beginning." Michael said. "There's whole lot of real estate in between here and the outside walls." Phoebe nodded in agreement.

       "The infirmary is the closest building here to the outside walls. We get through the infirmary, we get out." Phoebe explained, "And there's not much security back there either." She added. Michael nodded in agreement, as he finally pulled away the toilet from the wall.

       "It's the weakest link in the security chain." He said. Sucre nodded along slowly.

       "Cool..." Sucre whispered in awe at the explanation. He was impressed by how much thought the duo had put into their escape plan. He knew he'd never be able to do something like that on his own. He looked back and forth between Michael and Phoebe, seeing their similar yet massively different ways of acting and thinking. They were both incredibly smart, he knew it, and he knew Phoebe more often than not, hid that part of herself deep down. Why? He didn't know. It was a mystery to him. Phoebe cocked a brow.

       "What's cool?" She asked quietly, leaning against the bunk bed, standing directly behind Michael. "The toilet?" She joked. Sucre shook his head

       "No, mami. Your explanations for these things. You two always make it sound so smart and complicated. Specially this guy." Sucre said, nudging Michael softly, to which the partners in crime both chuckled at.

       "Oh, trust me, I know. Been that way since we were kids." She said with a chuckle. Michael turned to face her with a smile, his heart warming at the sound of her laugh. He enjoyed the sound. Sucre watched Michael closely. It was no secret to him that they liked each other. He knew it ever since they had arrived in the prison. But he also knew neither of them had admitted it, to each other nor to themselves. He caught the look in Michael's eyes, a light that shone only when Phoebe was around. It was more noticeable than usual, and he noticed this in Phoebe, too. He wondered if something had perhaps happened between them while he was gone...

       But then again, they were acting the same as they always had. The only difference was the look in their eyes, the way they looked at each other, and the energy that they gave off when they were together. Sucre had always felt a certain tension when the duo was around, he could feel the love they had for each other, but it was different now. It was a heavier tension.

       "I think I've removed enough grout to bust through." Michael said as she ran his fingers across the grout-less cracks in the wall behind the toilet. "I'm gonna need you to make some noise." He said as he turned to face Sucre with a small smirk. God, how Phoebe loved this man's smirk. Sucre smiled from ear to ear in excitement at the task, bouncing in his spot as he rushed to the cell door and cleared his throat.

       "What do you have in mind?" Phoebe asked Sucre as she sat on her bed, knowing it would be best to get out of Michael's way. Sucre smirked.

       "Just watch and listen, mami." He said as he leaned against the wall, tilting his head back. "Como una promesa, eres tú," Sucre began to sing in Spanish. "Como una mañana—"

[ You are like a promise.]
[ Like a morning— ]

"Is that the best you can do?" Michael asked in disbelief and slight annoyance as he turned back to face Sucre with a serious look on his face, which made Phoebe chuckle.

"Have some faith, papi. Have some faith." Sucre said with a smirk, tilting his head back again as he got back into his song. "Como una sonrisa, eres tú."

[ You are like a smile. ]

"Shut up!" An inmate shouted from below them in the cell block as Sucre kept singing. Phoebe placed her hands over her mouth to keep herself from laughing as she examined Sucre close his eyes, feeling the song.

"Eres tuuuu, asiiiii asiiii."

[ It's youuuu, like thaaat, like thaaaat. ]

The inmates all around the cell block began shouting in annoyance and anger at Sucre's horrible singing, shouting and screaming as they tightly held onto the bars on their cell doors and shook them, the cell block erupted into chaotic shouts of rage, but despite this, Phoebe couldn't help but laugh quietly as Sucre still continued to sing.

Meanwhile, Michael took the noise as an opportunity to start kicking in the wall, the noise of the bricks coming apart being drowned out by the noise of Sucre's obnoxious singing and the inmate's shouts. Phoebe's heart raced as she watched Michael, the bricks finally giving in and tumbling into the other side of their cell block. Phoebe smiled, rushing over and crouching down beside Michael as she put a hand on his shoulder and shook him lightly.

"You did it!" She cheered quietly with a smile. Michael returned the smile.

"We did it." He responded, looking down at her lips before looking back at her eyes. Phoebe blushed, and turned to face Sucre, who was still standing with his eyes squeezed shut tightly and screaming in song with a grin on his face. As Phoebe turned back to face Michael, Michael took the opportunity to quickly lean in and peck Phoebe's lips.

[ DEDICATED TO aguacate_en_tanga & aaaazzzzuuuu ]