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Mickey isn't quite clear on when and how during the last few months he and Lip turned into the Mommy and Daddy of the crazy Gallagher clan, but here they are.
Well. A Mommy and Daddy who argue a lot and exclusively screw other people. Sort of like him and Svetlana. Whatever. Works just fine for the Milkovich family, so it can't be that bad for the Gallaghers either.
Of course, there is something frighteningly bizarre about seeing Lip Gallagher in full mom mode every day: carrying Liam around on his hip, cooking dinner, folding laundry, like he's Suzy fucking Homemaker. Mickey still remembers what Lip was like, only three, four years ago, the way everyone in the neighborhood knew he'd throw his dick into any girl willing to bend over for him and then get pissed if they moved on, and the way he'd get into a fight with someone about every other day, over some chick, over his siblings, over a word. Mickey thinks it's a miracle that he actually had the brain cells left to go to college, with the frequency he used to get his face bashed in back then.
But then Fiona went off the rails and off to prison, sometime during that whole Ian Runaway Drama two years ago, and from where he stands, it doesn't look like she's been able to go right back to how things were: taking care of everyone, holding things together. So Lip is filling in for Fiona, which means someone needs to fill in for Lip. And maybe there was a time when that someone would have been Ian, but Fiona and Mickey and Lip may disagree a lot, but they all agree that Ian, first and foremost, needs to deal with his own shit.
So Mickey gets used to mornings like this, when he shows up at the Gallagher house at the crack of dawn, where Lip is already fixing breakfast and Debbie's lunch, while Mickey puts on a fresh pot of coffee and then sits down at the table and cuts toast into pieces for Liam.
"Toast, Mi-Mi," Liam says impatiently, banging his hands against the table when the food doesn't come quite fast enough. Two-syllable names are still a challenge. Which means Lip is the only one whose name the kid actually gets right. Life is just not fucking fair.
Mickey holds out a piece of toast and watches Liam devour it, enthusiastically and messily.
"You know that kid is not quite right in the head," he says conversationally, offering Liam another piece.
Lip looks up from spreading peanut butter on slices of bread. Mickey can see from the way his face grows tight that he has an angry retort on his tongue, and he shakes his head quickly before Lip can start to argue. It's too damn early for a fight.
"I don't mean it like that, man," he says, and combs his fingers through Liam's curls gently to make his point.
"Mi-Mi," Liam says happily and claps his hands. He has got strawberry jam all over his face.
"But man, he's what, like, four years old? Come on, don't tell me that’s normal for a kid that age."
Lip stares angrily for about two more seconds before he capitulates, and Mickey is surprised at how quickly he caves. He sighs and drags a hand across his face, then looks around the corner furtively to make sure that none of his siblings are around to hear.
"I know, dude," he says, and Mickey can see just how much that admission costs him. "I'm just scared shitless of telling Fiona. What if the cocaine actually did something to him? You know he was talking a lot more before the accident than he is now."
"Shit," Mickey says. He grabs Liam from his chair and sets him down on his knees. Liam grins and starts to reach for Mickey’s plate. "You taken him to a doctor yet?"
Lip looks like the idea is a particular painful one. "Thought about it," he says reluctantly, "but man, you know how much we pay for Ian's appointments and his meds. Since Fiona lost her health insurance, it's back to self-medication for anything but life-or-death emergencies. What if they tell us he needs expensive treatment?" He pauses. "At least he's happy, right?"
That's definitely not something Mickey's going to argue with. Brain damage or not, that kid's like the most at-peace person Mickey's ever seen, like sunbeams and glitter and unicorn farts all wrapped up in one tiny brown package. God knows where he got it from, in this family of addicts and sociopaths. It's no wonder all the Gallaghers dote on him that much.
Before he can say anything along those lines, footsteps on the stairs cut off whatever response he may have considered.
"Morning," Ian says and squeezes past Lip to get to the coffee maker.
"Morning, sunshine," Lip says and slaps his ass as he walks by, getting punched in the shoulder in return. Lip looks across the counter at Mickey, and they share a brief glance of relief. Every day Ian gets out of bed at a regular time is promising to be a good one.
Ian carries his coffee mug over to the table. He sits down next to Mickey and steals a piece of toast from his plate.
"Hey," Mickey protests, but without much heat. "Get your own damn breakfast."
Ian smirks. "And here I thought everything that was yours was mine and all that shit."
Mickey grunts and moves his plate out of Ian's reach. "Different rules when it's about food."
"Fine," Ian sniffs, but he's grinning. He's always smiling when Mickey is over these days, like he used to when they first started to fuck, that stupid moony smile that used to make Mickey feel invincible and utterly doomed at the same time. Now it also makes him feel wistful and wary, and he wishes he wasn’t feeling so much like he’s just sitting there waiting for the other shoe to drop.
"You working at the diner today?" Mickey asks, to distract himself from the memories, and sets Liam down on the floor when the boy starts to wriggle in his lap.
"Nope," Ian says and yawns, scratches his belly. "It's my day off. We are heading up to see Carl in juvie later today."
"Oh fuck," Lip says and drops his knife. Mickey and Ian turn around to see him stare at the planner on the fridge.
"What?" Ian asks alarmed, and Lip drags a hand through his curls with a frustrated sigh.
"Shit. I forgot that I have a physics test at four today. Fuck, how did I forget about that?"
He hits the fridge, half-heartedly.
Ian shrugs. "We could go next week," he says, but Mickey knows that he's disappointed in the way his shoulders hunch up, the corners of his mouth point downward, his voice turns flat. He knows Lip can hear it too because he pulls a helpless face at Mickey behind Ian's back.
"I guess," Lip says reluctantly. "But I promised I'd take you, and I think we really need to talk to Carl. That little fucker got into another fight last week. I just don't know what the hell is going on with him anymore. He keeps this up, he'll be an old man by the time they let him out."
"At least he doesn't cost you anything while he's in," Mickey says, and then grins when both Ian and Lip throw him identical nasty looks.
"Excuse me if I don't want my baby brother to end up on death row by the time he's twenty," Lip says acidly, "and right now that's where he's headed if he doesn't change his attitude soon. Man, you know how it is. They would have let him out on probation after 90 days if he'd behaved. Now they've already slapped another three months on top. Someone's gotta tell him that he's not doing himself any favors."
"I could go with Fiona?" Ian says hesitantly. "I bet Sean would give her the afternoon off if she asked."
Lip pulls a face. "Yeah, I don't know – god knows what's going on between those two right now. Plus, Carl's not going to listen to her. Remember when she tried to get him to behave during the hearing and he ended up insulting the judge? She talks to him about this, he'll turn around and stab a CO in the leg just to spite her."
Ian sighs in unhappy agreement and goes back to staring into his coffee. No one suggests that Ian could go up to the prison on his own, not even Ian himself. Mickey thinks it’s probably a sign of progress, but hell, what does he know?
"So why does he want to be in jail that badly anyway?" Mickey asks, because really, that's the part he cannot wrap his head around. It's not like he didn't do alright in juvie, because of course he did, but the place still sucked balls, and that's coming from someone who grew up under Terry Milkovich's roof.
"He thinks it's educational or some shit," Ian says. He pulls his feet up on the chair, holding his coffee mug in both hands. "Thinks they're going to award him with an associate's degree in petty theft and violent crime if he stays in there long enough."
"That's why he wanted to go to prison?" Mickey asks incredulously. "Dude. Why did he not just say so? He could have learned all that shit from me without having to worry about dropping the soap in the shower."
Ian and Lip stare at him, wide-eyed. Those two are starting to freak him out with their twin mime act.
"What?" he says, defensively. "I taught Mandy everything she knows about hotwiring cars and stealing shit."
Lip's expression turns thoughtful. "What are you up to today, Mickey?" he asks speculatively. "Wanna maybe take a little day trip?"
Mickey laughs. "Seriously?" he asks, "you want me to go and talk some sense into your kid brother? What makes you think he's going to listen to me?"
"Well," Lip says. "If you tell him what you just told us, he'll pretty much sign everything you ask him to. He'll sell you his soul without blinking once."
Mickey snorts, but Ian leans forward and nods seriously.
"He looks up to you," he says. "You wouldn't notice, of course, but he's totally digging the badass shtick. Besides, you’re the only one who actually knows what they’re talking about when you talk to him about jail."
"Fiona did time too," Mickey argues, and Lip coughs.
"Yeah, like 48 hours in a women's county jail. Her experience of prison amounts to burnt toast for breakfast and having to pee in front of a room full of delinquents."
Mickey drags a thumbnail over his bottom lip. "I'm not on the visitor's list anyway," he says finally, but Lip waves him off without breaking stride.
"I had them put your name on the list ages ago," he says, and Mickey frowns.
"Why the fuck would you do that?" he asks, and Lip raises his shoulders, unconcerned.
"I don't know, I just had them approve everyone in the family I could think of, and I wasn't going to put Frank on the list," he says, and Mickey doesn't even know what he's supposed to do with that kind of information.
"Please?" Ian says, and his look makes something complicated twist up in Mickey's chest. "V is taking care of Liam, and Kevin's going to give us the truck. It could be like a mini-road trip," he adds, tentatively hopeful.
Mickey frowns. In reality, the IYC is only a thirty minute drive away, and from where he stands, that hardly counts as a road trip. But somehow Ian makes it sound like one anyway, and that's exactly what Mickey is worried about. It's not like he has anything better to do today, and shit, it's not like he minds spending the day with Ian. But that right there is the problem. He's put down very clear rules about what's okay and what isn't, if Ian expects him to stick around, and he's been pretty good at enforcing them. To his surprise, Ian has, for the most part, been good about observing them, too. But lately Ian has gotten so much better, reminds him more and more of the sweet kid with the dopey smile and the cheeky retorts and the inexhaustible libido that used to bang him in the backroom of the Kash and Grab, and a road trip seems a little bit too much like some cheesy couple-y shit for Mickey not to worry about what it might make him do.
He's still pondering the decision, stuffing toast into his mouth to buy himself some time, when Debbie bolts down the stairs, dragging her backpack along behind her.
"What's up?" she asks and makes grabby hands at Lip until he hands her a mug full of coffee.
"Mickey is going to see Carl with Ian today," Lip says, and closes Debbie's lunch bag.
"Cool," Debbie nods and sits down on Mickey's other side at the table. "I bet you can convince him that he needs to keep his head down if he wants to get out any time soon."
Mickey groans and drags a hand through his hair. "Jesus," he says, "what's with you guys? Why does everyone think I'm the one who can talk sense into Hannibal Lecter Junior?" Four pairs of eyes look at him expectantly, and he exhales and sets down his mug.
"Alright, fine, whatever," he says. "Just don't fucking complain if I end up making it worse."
"We have faith in you," Lip says, completely straight-faced, and the worst thing is that Mickey simply cannot tell if he's shitting him or not.
"Visiting hours at four thirty, right?" he asks, "I need to go into the office first, but I can meet you at Kevin's around three."
"You know the visiting hours?" Lip asks, brows raised, and Mickey shrugs.
"Yeah man, I did spend enough time up there to remember," he says. "Not that anyone actually came to visit me," he adds, and then regrets it at once when everyone looks at him with that expression of horrible pity that makes him want to stab them in the eye with a butter knife.
"Fuck it," he says, if only to get them to stop staring. "I'll do it."
"Yay," Debbie makes, pumping her fist. Lip says "Thank you, man," and Ian smiles. Liam says "Mi-Mi" and wraps his arms around Mickey's left shin like a tiny octopus.
Someday, this family is going to be the death of him.
"So how's work?" Ian asks. He has his feet propped up on the dashboard and the window cracked open. He looks relaxed and calm. He looks happy. Mickey has to force himself to keep his eyes on the road.
"Alright, I guess," he says, checks the rear mirror, sets the blinker. He's not going to get pulled over today, not driving Kevin's truck with Ian in the passenger seat.
"Had some trouble with the fucking cops. New guy at the precinct didn't know about our arrangement, tried to stick his nose where it doesn't belong." He grins. "Had Tatiana fuck him in the storage room at the salon, the one with the security camera. Changed his mind pretty quickly."
Ian laughs. "You are really liking this job, aren't you?" he asks slowly, as if he's just realized something important. Mickey isn't entirely sure why he cares so much, but it's not worth getting into a fight.
"Sure," he shrugs. "Regular paycheck, I get first dibs on beating up every annoying fuckhead too stupid to follow the goddamn rules. And I’m actually starting to figure out this bookkeeping thing. Maybe I finally found my calling."
"You should get a business card,” Ian says. “Mickey Milkovich, professional pimp, specializing in Eastern imports," he jokes, but it doesn’t look like he's trying to making fun of him, so Mickey lets it slide. Secretly, he kind of likes the sound of that. Maybe he’ll talk to Sasha about it sometime.
“You talk to Mandy recently?” he asks, and Ian nods.
“Last week or so,” he says. “Sounds like Ohio’s been really good for her.”
Mickey huffs. “Yeah, still holding down the same job, still living with the same couple – and she doesn’t even bang them, how fucked up is that?”
Ian laughs. “Just wait, next she’ll send you a Save-the-date card for her wedding with an evangelical corn farmer.”
Mickey makes a gagging noise to tell Ian exactly what he thinks of that. “Right. That dude would be in for the surprise of his life on his wedding night, I can tell you that much.”
“She’d rock his world, that’s for sure.” In grins, then reaches for the 2-liter bottle of soda he’s stored underneath his seat. He tilts his head back to drink, his throat moving as he swallows. Mickey feels his face grow hot. When Ian offers him the bottle, he waves it off.
“She said we should come visit her sometime,” Ian says, screwing the lid back on and dropping the bottle onto the floor. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Oh yeah?” Mickey says, noncommittally. She’s told him the same thing, more than once, and it’s not like it wouldn’t be nice to see her. But Mickey’s never really been that far away from Illinois in his life, and it seems like an embarrassing thing to tell anyone how much the thought of traveling scares him.
Ian smiles, a small, private thing. “I think Ohio would count as a proper road trip,” he says lightly, as if he thinks Mickey cannot recognize the hints he’s dropping, the way he’s angling for a sign. “Maybe this summer? Could be fun.”
“Yeah, if being stuck with your stupid ass in a car without A/C at a hundred degrees is your idea of fun,” Mickey grunts, and Ian smiles as if he’s just recited a poem for him. It’s too much.
"How's the support group going?" he asks, a desperate attempt at distraction, and almost regrets it when the smile immediately drops off Ian's face.
"It's okay," Ian says slowly. "Getting used to it." He looks out of the window for a while, and Mickey has just started to think that he's done talking when he speaks up again.
"You know, I think I never took my meds long enough for me to realize that they are actually helping."
"What do you mean?" Mickey asks, throwing Ian a glance from the side.
Ian catches him looking and smiles wryly. "I just – you know what it was like. I'd start taking the pills, I'd feel like a zombie, I hated it, I'd stop taking them, I'd feel great for a while. Until I didn't." He starts picking at his cuticles, and Mickey wants to slap his fingers to make him stop, but he is wary to interrupt, so he keeps his hands on the wheel.
"But this time – it was still awful in the beginning, but I forced myself to stick with it, you know? I'd go to the doctor and tell her what it was like, and she'd be: Okay, well, let's adjust the dosage and try something else. And then one day, I woke up and felt okay. Not awesome, or super happy or anything, but just – okay, you know? It felt like I remember feeling before all this shit started. And now I actually – " He looks at Mickey again. "I get happy, and sad, and it's not the end of the world."
Mickey swallows. "That's good," he says hoarsely. "That's good."
"Yeah," Ian says quietly, and goes back to tearing off the skin around his finger nails. "Except now I can actually see how fucked up some of the shit was I got up to last year. And it fucking sucks. At first, I'd go to the group meetings and sit there listening to other people's stories, and I kept thinking about how screwed up they all were and how I had nothing in common with them." He pauses, looks out of the window. "And then, they'd start making me talk about myself, and I started telling them my story, and they were staring at me with this knowing look in their eyes, and I realized that I was exactly like them." He laughs unhappily. "Actually, turns out I was worse off than half of the people in the room."
"That's –" Mickey shakes his head quickly. "I bet that's not true. You never – you never tried to hurt yourself, right? You never hurt anyone else."
"Except you, you mean?" Ian says, and there is something ugly in his voice that makes Mickey grip the steering wheel harder.
"Shut up," he mutters weakly because he doesn't – he doesn't want to talk about it, not now, not here, not ever; but at the same time he knows it's inevitable. They'll never be able to go back to what they used to be if they do not talk about the past.
"There is this dude," Ian says slowly, staring straight ahead at the beat-up Ford in front of them. "Nice guy, you know? Solid, reliable, heart of gold, he’s like fucking Tenderheart Bear. He had a breakdown the other day about how he went off one night and cheated on his wife, and how he will never be able forgive himself for what he did."
"Shut up," Mickey says, a little bit louder, because he understands now where this is going and he knows what Ian is going to say and he does not know what he's going to do.
"And I kept trying to remember," Ian continues, as if Mickey hasn't said anything at all, "how many guys I jacked off in diner restrooms last year before coming home to you and changing Yevgeny's diapers and –"
Ian breaks off with a shocked little breath when Mickey jerks the steering wheel around and pulls up on the shoulder with screeching tires. Distantly, Mickey registers that the driver behind them honks angrily as he swerves around them. He couldn’t care less.
He hits his fists against the wheel until his knuckles start to hurt, then he lets his arms fall to the side and his head forward until his forehead rests against the wheel. He stays like this, pulling in harsh, angry breaths, the smell of rubber filling his nose, and clenches his eyes shut to fight down the tears.
It's not that he didn't suspect. It's not that he didn't know, that he couldn't imagine what Ian got up to on those days he was out alone, on those nights he came home late, but hearing him say it like this still hurts like a bitch.
"Shit," Ian says, and his voice sounds helpless and wrecked. "I'm so sorry, Mickey. I'm so sorry." A hesitant hand comes to rest on Mickey's neck, and Mickey wants to shake it off, he really does, except it feels so good to be touched, and he's so, so tired.
Eventually, he pulls himself up, and Ian snatches his hand back as soon as he starts to shift.
"Mickey –" Ian says, and Mickey raises his hands and shakes his head.
"Not – not now, okay?" he says, and hates that it sounds more like a plea than a command. "I'm not – let's just go visit Carl and get it over with, okay? We can talk about this later."
"Alright," Ian says quietly, even though he sounds like he's about to cry. His face is vulnerable and pale and soft, and Mickey looks away quickly before he does something stupid he will regret.
Carl looks happy, no, ecstatic, when he sees he has visitors, for precisely one second or two. Then he realizes what he's doing and the smile disappears, quickly replaced by an expression of bored indifference.
Mickey recognizes himself in the boy with so much clarity it hurts. He remembers that giddy feeling in his belly when they told him that Ian was there to visit him in jail, and the way he had clamped down on it, pushing it to the back of his mind where it wasn't going to get in the way, where it wasn't going to get him hurt. He watches the way Carl is keeping himself upright, tense, held together, as he sits down at the metal table in the visitor's room. He's got a black eye and a barely scabbed over cut on his lip, and he looks five years older than when Mickey saw him last.
"Lip?" is the first thing Carl asks, in a casual tone, as if he doesn't really care either way. Mickey can tell right away it's an act, so Ian can probably see through him, too.
"School," Ian says apologetically, "he had an exam. He felt really bad about it, though. Said to tell you he's sorry. He’ll be up next week for sure."
"That's alright," Carl says, waving it off, like he knows he's got no right to be disappointed, but can't help feeling it anyway.
"Are you still going to your crazy-people club meetings?" he asks Ian, and Mickey snorts. Everyone else in the family is tiptoeing around Ian, but Carl just isn't cut out for that kind of crap.
Ian laughs a little, even as he's shooting Mickey a careful look. "Every week," he says firmly, and Carl nods, apparently satisfied with the answer.
"So how are things in here?" Ian asks, and Carl pulls a face.
"Room service sucks," he mutters, and Mickey grins.
"Tell me about it," he says. "Don't you just start to hate Jell-O after the first two weeks?"
"Urgh," Carl says. "I hated Jell-O before I even went to prison." He smirks, leans forward a little so that the guard at the door can't hear what he's saying. "Trading mine for razor blades," he says. "You can hurt a guy with Jell-O too, but blades are a lot less messy."
Mickey raises his brows, trying to gauge how much of that is bluster and how much actual expertise. Ian sighs and runs a hand through his hair nervously.
"Carl, man," he says, and Mickey watches the boy withdraw at once.
"Don't tell me what to do in here," Carl hisses, and Ian flinches back at the sound of his voice, ugly and harsh.
"Fiona already does that every time she calls, and she's got no clue, okay?" Carl says. "I'm fine, I don't need people worrying about me. I'm not a little kid."
"Carl –" Ian starts, and Mickey puts a hand on his elbow without even thinking. Ian pauses, and freezes, and Mickey snatches his hand back, but it’s too late. Carl looks back and forth between them, suddenly not at all defiant, but alert and concerned.
"Look, man," Mickey says, because that crack in the façade is his opening, and he’s not going to waste it. "Here's the thing. I know you're a tough guy, I know you can make it in here. But your family's kinda hoping to get you back in time for Christmas, and you know that's not going to happen if you don't keep your head down in here."
"So what, you want me to just let the other guys beat me up?" Carl asks, and the sullen tone is already creeping back into his voice.
"I want you to be smarter about dealing with them, you little shit," Mickey snaps, and now Carl finally looks at him, not scared, but like he's actually paying attention. "Make friends with the right crowd," Mickey says. "Trade stuff to make people dependent on you. If you feel like fucking, find someone who doesn't hate you and do all the fucking yourself." He feels Ian stare at him open-mouthed, but he is not finished yet. "And if you don't feel like it, pretend that you do. If you've got to punch someone, do it where no one can see it, and let someone else take the fall. How do you think I got out of here with four months to spare?"
Carl doesn't respond, but he looks at him differently now, with something like awe and respect. "But," he says, much more hesitantly now, and Mickey shakes his head before he can even continue.
"Little extra incentive," he says under his breath, and makes sure the guard is still looking in the other direction. "If you make it out of here within the next three months, I promise I'm going to teach you everything I know about organized prostitution and credit card fraud." He could add a couple of other things to the list, but he figures those are the ones least likely to get the boy killed.
Carl gives him a suspicious look. "And Fiona is okay with that?"
Ian shrugs. "Not really, but Lip endorses it," he says, which is only partly a lie. Apparently it’s enough to convince Carl that they mean it.
He swallows. "Deal," he nods earnestly, and Mickey nods back in acknowledgment.
“Deal.”
The guard chooses that moment to shout: "Gallagher, time's up!", and to Mickey’s surprise, Carl holds out a hand for Mickey to shake as they get up.
"I'm not going to let you down," he says, and Mickey raises a brow. "You better not," he says, and squeezes his hand firmly before he lets go.
"Bye, Carl," Ian says, and Carl flings himself at his brother, hugging him tightly, all the bravado suddenly gone, leaving behind nothing but a lonely, desperate child. Ian squeezes back and meets Mickey's eyes over the top of Carl's head. Mickey can see that he's trying hard not to cry.
"Enough," the guard says, not entirely unfriendly, and Carl untangles himself reluctantly.
"See you soon," Ian says, and Carl bites his lip and nods, before facing the guard. His face turns blank, his shoulders fall back, his mask already shifting back into place.
Ian shudders violently. Mickey thinks of putting an arm around his shoulders. In the end, he doesn't.
"Thank you," Ian says quietly, back in the car. "I knew you could do it."
"Whatever," Mickey says, and rolls down the window to flick the ash off his cigarette. "No big deal."
"Hm," Ian says, as if he doesn't agree, but also knows better than to push it. He's been quiet since they left the facility, and Mickey knows he feels guilty for what he said to him on the way up. He just has no clue what he's supposed to do about it, so he keeps his mouth shut and smokes, and changes the radio station every time the music is interrupted by commercials or news. Which is about every five minutes or so.
"I haven't had sex with anyone since I got back from Monica’s," Ian finally says. He's fiddling with his seat belt, as if he doesn't know what to do with his hand.
"Uhuh?" Mickey says, and puts the cigarette back in his mouth. He is not trying to be cruel, he really is not, he simply doesn't know what to say. It's not exactly a shocking surprise: from what he's heard and seen, Ian spends a lot of his free time at home these days, watching Liam and Veronica's twins, cleaning out the turtles' water tank, reading Fiona's beat-up romance novels and Carl's comic books over and over again. His best chance at hooking up would be a random stranger passing through the Gallagher household, although from everything Mickey knows about the Gallaghers, that is much less unlikely than most people would suspect.
"Yeah," Ian continues, apparently not too bothered by Mickey's curt reply. "I think it's good for me. Not – not celibacy or some shit, but, you know. Not to use sex to distract myself from my problems. Not to use it to prove a point."
"Yeah," Mickey says, and flings the burnt-down cigarette butt out of the car, before rolling up the window.
"And I want to –“ Ian says. “When. If. When we get back together –"
"You don't owe me anything," Mickey interrupts, and then winces at his own words: he remembers how much they'd hurt when Ian had thrown them at him from his porch, back then, all those months ago.
"I do, though," Ian says urgently, and he twists in his seat. Mickey can feel his gaze on the side of his face. "I do owe you this."
Mickey swallows. “What’s done is done,” he says roughly, and blindly reaches for another smoke. Ian picks up the pack before he can and lights a cigarette for him with the cheaper yellow lighter Kevin keeps in the car. Their hands brush lightly when he hands it over.
“I miss you,” Ian finally says. It suddenly feels very hot in the car.
Mickey snorts. "You see me almost every day."
"It's not the same," Ian says, and there is a hint of bitterness in his voice, barely there, but unmistakable.
Mickey sighs, and drums the fingers of his left hand in a tense rhythm against the wheel. "I picked up a guy at a park once while you were gone," he says, because if they're going to talk about this, he might as well put it all out there. “And I got a few blowjobs from Hien.”
"Hien?" Ian asks, and his voice is carefully neutral. "Sasha’s Vietnamese twink?"
Mickey remembers too late that they’ve actually met, when Ian and Lip once came by the salon. He thinks he recalls them talking about pop bands he’d never heard of, songs that didn’t mean anything to him, while he stood by awkwardly, listening to the noise of Ilona fucking a customer in the room above his head.
"When I first started working for Sasha," he nods.
"He seems nice," Ian says, still in that same unreadable tone. "Are you –"
"He's a friend, alright?" Mickey snaps, defensive and guilty without really knowing why. "He's girly as fuck, but he's not so bad. He – he's helped me through some shit, okay?"
He can hear his voice getting louder, aggressive, tense. He thinks that if Ian decides to be a dick about this, he may have to pull over and get out of the car, because Ian's got no right, he's got no right –
"Fair enough," Ian finally says. He doesn't sound particularly happy, but also not like he's judging, and the ready acceptance takes all the wind out of Mickey's sails.
He glances over at Ian, who is curled up in his seat, looking small and miserable and resigned.
"That was months ago, though,” he says gruffly, and Ian looks up. “Besides, he knows that I'm not –"
He breaks off, annoyed with himself.
"That you are not what?" Ian asks hesitantly, when the silence drags on, and Mickey shrugs.
"That I'm not available," he says, and Ian straightens in his seat.
"You are not?" he asks, and there is so much hesitant hope in his voice, it takes Mickey's breath away.
"I'm not," he says firmly, and when he looks over, there it is again: that bright, glowing smile that makes Ian look so fucking dorky and five years younger than he is. It doesn’t matter how far Mickey thinks he could run. He’s never going to get over that smile.
"Cool," Ian says, and it looks like he tries to stop grinning but simply can’t. His voice is serious, though, when he says: "I'm not available, either."
Mickey lets himself smile, then, just a little. When they pass a sign for a Burger King drive-through, he pulls the truck over to the curb on a whim.
"You want some fries, asshat?" he asks, nodding his chin at the restaurant. "I'm buying."
Ian's smile turns shy, then, somehow, but it’s not any less bright. "Yes, man," he says. "I fucking love fries."
Dinner at the Gallagher house is over by the time they make it back – which is just fine, because they ended up splitting three cheeseburgers and two orders of fries, and kept re-filling their Sprite until they both started feeling sick.
The house is dark when they get in, but Lip is on the couch with Liam in his lap, watching an old sitcom on TV.
"How did it go?" he asks in lieu of a greeting, and Ian laughs, tired but happy, and falls down on the couch next to his brother.
"I think there is a good chance we'll have Carl back for the holidays," and Lip grins.
"Knew you could do it," he says, and toasts them with his beer.
"Where is everyone?" Ian asks, and puts his feet up on the coffee table. Mickey grabs himself a beer from the fridge. After a moment of hesitation, he joins the others on the couch, ending up wedged in between Ian and the arm of the couch. He can feel Ian’s leg rubbing against his when he moves.
"Fiona is at Veronica's, Debbie is out with friends," Lip says and yawns without bothering to hold a hand over his mouth. He fishes the remote out from underneath Liam's legs and points it at the television. "This is fucking boring," he says. "You wanna watch something else?"
They bicker over the channel for a while and eventually settle on a Swamp People rerun, which Mickey still thinks is kind of stupid, but hey, alligators, so whatever. Liam falls asleep against Lip's chest within minutes, and Ian isn't long to follow, his head heavy on Mickey's shoulder, his lashes fluttering with every slow breath. He is beautiful. For the first time in a while, the thought doesn’t feel like a punch to the gut.
Lip raises his brows at Mickey, and Mickey gives him the facial equivalent of a shrug. Lip mutes the TV, and for a while, they keep watching redneck hunters shoot massive alligators in silence. When the next commercial break comes on, Lip tilts his head toward the door.
"You up for some weed?" he whispers, and Mickey shrugs his consent. They worm their way out from underneath the sleeping boys, rearrange them until Ian is leaning against the arm of the couch, and Liam is leaning against Ian’s side. Neither of them even stirs during the procedure.
On the front stoop, Lip rolls them a joint. He’s always got the good stuff, and Mickey feels the tension drain from him with the first drag.
“How’d the exam go, college boy?” he asks, and Lip shrugs.
“I think I didn’t completely bomb it,” he says. “Guess I’ll find out next week if it was worth standing up Carl for.”
“We managed fine without you,” Mickey says, and Lip nods.
“Yeah, thanks again for stepping in, man.” He pauses, kicks some dirt off the stairs with the tip of his shoe. “How are things with Ian going?”
“Fine,” Mickey says, because he is so not ready to share that kind of information with Lip just yet.
Lip hums, but doesn’t push, just reaches over to take back the joint.
"I can pay for some of Ian's meds," Mickey says suddenly, and Lip stares at him, eyes wide.
"Yeah, you find a pot of leprechaun gold at the end of the rainbow?" he asks, and Mickey flips him off.
"Fuck you," Mickey says indignantly. "I’m not the one whose ancestors were digging up potatoes in fucking Ireland, Paddy. It’s my money, earned with Ukrainian sweat and blood. I get 45 percent now that Sasha and I are partners, and business is picking up.” He grins. “Best thing about mergers – no competition, no one to put pressure on prices. Say what you want about hookers, but recession or not, people always want to fuck."
Lip gives him a sharp look. "You sure about this? You and Ian aren't even –" He pauses, clearly not sure how to continue.
Mickey scowls. He is about to say something nasty, about how he and Ian are none of Lip’s business and can he please go fuck himself. He’s already opened his mouth when he realizes that Lip is not getting on his case about Ian. No, Lip is concerned about him. Huh. That takes a moment to digest.
"So?" he finally quips, as if he isn’t thrown by the realization. "Svetlana and I aren't fucking either, and she's still my wife. I can take care of my fucking family."
Lip's face does something complicated at his choice of words. "So what, Ian's gonna be your second wife?" he asks, then looks like he very much wants to take it back.
Just for that comment, Mickey steals back the joint and takes a deep inhale. "Yeah, well, maybe I'm a polygamist, fuckhead. Maybe I'm converting to Mormonism."
Lip snorts. "I hate to say it, but I don't think the Mormons generally look very kindly on gay marriage, dude."
"So fuck the Mormons then," Mickey says. "And seriously, you are going to lecture me on the value of marriage? How many marriage scams has your father run in the past ten years? And aren't you the one banging a married woman on a regular basis?"
Lip pulls a face and scuffs his sneaker on the porch step some more. "Yeah, well," he says, without looking up. "I'm not really doing that anymore." He says it lightly, but he looks kind of sad. Not sad like Mickey felt after Ian broke up with him, but definitely sad enough to make Mickey think that maybe the lady professor was more than just a decent fuck. Her loss, he thinks, if the stupid bitch thinks she’s too good for Southside dick.
"You want me to slash her tires or something?" he asks. "Start a small fire in her garage?"
Lip laughs incredulously. Mickey just raises his brows and blows marijuana smoke in his face. When Lip realizes that he is serious, his face turns thoughtful. "Let me get back to you on that," he says slowly. "But thanks for the offer."
"Yeah, whatever," Mickey says. "And we are taking Liam to the doctor sometime," he says. "Man, when I was four, I was stealing candy from the supermarket and tripping middle-school kids in the playground. This one, you send him to school like this next year, he's gonna end up in a locker before the day is over."
Lip doesn’t even argue, although Mickey suspects that may just be the weed. "Yeah, okay," he says. "Probably a good idea." He leans his head back against the railing and stares up into the sky.
"When did we get so responsible?" he asks, sounding genuinely confused, and Mickey has to laugh.
"Don't ask me, man," he says, "I'm just figuring shit out as I go along."
"Yeah," Lip says thoughtfully. "We are doing alright, though." He bumps his shoulder against Mickey's in a way that says he's not sure if Mickey won't bite his head off for it, but wants to do it anyway.
It's kind of nice.
"Yeah," Mickey says, and takes another drag from the joint. He thinks of Ian, safely sleeping inside on the couch, and something warm wells up in his chest.
"Guess we are."