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prelude.
The door slams behind Mickey, effectively cutting Ian off mid-sentence.
He shifts his feet, and the porch lets out an obscene groan in response. They should probably replace it soon, lest it caves in while someone is standing there. Ian figures it’ll probably be Carl, with his luck, and that gaggle of kids he’s been bringing around. Bonnie’s siblings, or something. Or it could be Lip. If it’s Lip, he might be holding Liam. That’s no good— will only serve to drive a wedge further between him and Fiona.
Maybe there will be a few days coming up where it doesn’t snow. Long enough for Ian to rip out the old floorboards and replace them with new ones, slap on a coat of paint for water protection. Mickey’ll help, even if he bitches the whole time.
“Fuck’s with him?” Mandy asks.
Ian flinches, looking around to find her.
She’s tucked up on the fire escape steps, knees pulled to her chest. Their porch light is out, and the light from the kitchen window doesn’t do much to light up there. She’s basically invisible if not for the glow of the cigarette when she takes a drag.
“The baby is being christened soon. Wife wants him to show.”
Ian takes a seat next to her. He shrugs off his coat and puts it around her shoulders, where the thin blanket from the Gallagher couch is doing a piss-poor job at masking her shivering. Meanwhile, he’s too hot— he’s been itching to throw the jacket off for the entire walk home from the Alibi. He stretches his legs out.
“Oh, yeah.” She takes a drag and hands the cigarette over to Ian. “Our dad’ll probably be there. He’s getting out.”
Ian takes his own pull. “He’s into the whole church thing?” He asks, the smoke funneling out of his mouth as he does. He barely got a hit, just smoking to smoke. Too wired for the buzz right now, anyway.
“No, just an excuse to get shitfaced,” Mandy supplies.
Ian nods. He hands the cigarette back to her. She stares at it for a second, probably contemplating if she should even bother.
Up close, Ian studies her face. The black eye is healing little by little, the red and blue of yesterday starting to fade into purple and yellow. It merges into a nasty brown in her crease.
She looks a little like how she did two years ago, sans bangs. Back when she dressed edgier, like there’s thick gel liner spread above and below her eyes, smudged out into smoke. Sloppily covering up the evidence that she was getting beaten up near-daily.
It all looks the same to Ian in the end anyway, makeup or not. Her black eyes, Mickey’s. Mickey’s probably upstairs right now. No black eyes, but upstairs, probably in Ian’s bed. Waiting for him.
If Lip isn’t around tonight, maybe they can take the bedroom, and Mickey will kiss him. He always jumps at the chance when it’s just the two of them in there. He won’t from his spot on the floor in the boys’ room. Ian understands. At least he kisses him when they’re invisible in the crowd at the club.
But Ian likes him on the floor. At his feet, like his dog, waiting to be thrown a bone. Ian’s moving so fast nowadays, it’s up to Mickey to keep up— he can’t wait around for him. Needs to keep going, growing.
“Will he?” Mandy asks. “Show?”
Probably. Mickey always caves when Terry’s involved. “Think he should?” Ian raises instead.
“It’s his kid,” Mandy sighs. Like that’s ever been the reason their shitty dads did anything for their kids. Maybe Mickey would do it for his. “You ever christened?”
“Yeah. Frank’s doing, I think. The church offered better perks to families who really committed. Didn’t get confirmed, though. They caught him stealing from the collection plate one too many times.”
“Same here, Terry thought baptism was enough. Not that he believes in Hell. Look at us.” Mandy smiles, meek. “What saint would you have picked?”
“What?”
“Confirmation; your saint. Who would you pick?”
The question opens up a well of thought Ian’s never really explored before.
Ian doesn’t know any saints off the top of his head.
Ian would make a great saint. He’s not that Catholic, but he could still be canonized, right? Still a Catholic if he’s been christened. Saint Ian has a nice ring to it. Maybe Saint Gallagher is better. Frank used to be an altar boy, Ian remembers. Why aren’t any of them that religious now? They could be— would certainly help in times of need, provide community. They need community. Maybe they’ll join a church, if Svetlana likes it so much. If she plans on raising the kid in the church. Catholic? Or another sect? It doesn't matter. If Mickey’s there, which he will probably be if Terry’s watching, Ian might be around too. Catholics may not like the gay thing so much, but they’re all doing it in secret anyway. Just like him and Mickey— always doing it in secret.
He’s getting a little turned on, imagining sinking into Mickey again. He’s probably still a little loose from their quickie earlier. Mickey’s probably upstairs waiting for him, ready to deliver Ian’s nightly blowjob in the bathroom. His payment for staying there, penance for driving Ian off in the first place. Ian’s already forgiven him, but it’s nice to have him on his knees, sucking him down so fervently, while the shower runs to drown it out. Ian’s harder. It’s still secret, even if it’s an open secret, only hooking up in the club or the house but only if its completely empty and also that one time in the van because it’s so cold that they can’t fuck outside and they don’t have the Kash and Grab anymore—
He’s pissed off now. He’s sick of secrets. Even after everything they’ve been through, all the comings-and-goings, and they’re still… whatever they are. They are but aren’t. Because Mickey has a wife and a baby who is being christened but he doesn’t want to take care of, and he doesn’t want Ian to take care of the baby either, and instead he follows Ian around like a fucking shadow at the club, watching and seething as Ian dances and flirts and makes hundreds of dollars in a night, one time even close to a thousand when he worked the back too. He doesn’t work the back anymore, not since Mickey started coming around. When the urge hits, which is most nights he works, he’ll take Mickey into the back and fuck him, quick and dirty, into the floor. Hand on the back of his neck. Scruffing him, like a dog. Mickey loves it, takes it, always takes what Ian gives now. Ian loves it. Ian loves him, he knows. Loves him in a way he’s never loved anyone before, this all-encompassing love. It’s gotta be love, right? It’s always been love. Everything is about love. It’s love when Mickey’s on his knees whenever Ian wants. It’s love when Ian fucks him. It’s love when they’re not fucking, just hanging out.
Mickey is at his mercy, his devotee. His dog. Saint Ian, not canonized. Maybe when the baby gets baptized they can confirm Mickey and he’ll pick Saint Ian. Mickey would probably do it, does pretty much anything Ian tells him to do nowadays. He’s probably upstairs, waiting to give Ian a blowjob.
Mandy is looking at him, waiting for an answer. Saints— he doesn’t know any of them off the top of his head. He tells her as such.
“Me neither,” Mandy hums. She stubs out the cigarette.
The two creep back inside. Mandy pit-stops to hang Ian’s jacket up by the door. Mickey’s voice rings down through the stairway. “Yo, Phillip, hurry your ass up, I gotta shower.”
Two pounds sound on the bathroom door.
“Fuck off, Michael,” Lip responds, muffled.
Mandy snorts. Ian looks at her, a silent question.
“Michael isn’t his name.”
“No?”
Mandy shrugs. “Ask him. He’ll be so pissed that I told you.”
The world eclipses itself. Mandy goes back to Kenyatta. Ian holds a knife to his throat, and Mickey looks at him like he’s crazy. Fiona goes on a bender. Frank gets a new liver. Mickey comes out and takes a beating. The two of them have matching black eyes. The sun is too bright and he can’t sleep, can’t move, can’t stop crying. Mickey yells at Fiona in the living room and over the phone. Lip and Fiona chatter quietly in Mickey’s doorway, but the only sound Ian can make out is Monica.
Ian never gets around to asking.
an ever-evolving observance.
Some of the other guys were being real pussies about shaving their heads. Well, some of them are ugly motherfuckers bald. For Ian, the military-issued haircut is less like confronting a new face in the mirror and more like welcoming an old friend: Ian of six months ago, hair short enough that his curls don’t have the chance to show themselves. Without them, he looks older, his face sharper. There’s the promise of a free summer ahead. Frank is in a dumpster, Lip and Mandy are by his side, and inside each other.
It’s fall, going into winter now. It’s chilly in Missouri, but it doesn’t hold a candle to Chicago’s wrath of wind, ice and sleet. His hair is buzzed again, but there’s no Lip, or Mandy, or Frank.
They all always talked about Lip getting out of the neighborhood, but no one ever thought Ian would be smart enough to beat him to it. Well, technically Ian might be pretending to be Lip, but Ian isn’t Lip. Fuck Lip.
Even so, Ian’s no stranger to inhabiting another role, an alternate version of himself. His most habitual role is as a mistress, having broken up two marriages in two years, and splintered the families along with it. It’s not like he was trying, really. But Ian’s also a scapegoat: blow up your life and oust the gay boy who lured you into temptation with his tragic upbringing, pretty smile, and big cock. Being down-low is a whole other set of stakes when there’s marriage licenses involved. Ian doesn’t want to play that role again.
The beauty of Basic Combat is that, since no one’s ever met a South Side Gallagher, Ian gets to make it mean whatever he wants. It’s associated with excellence and prowess as he flies through his first few days of training, body able to blow standards out of the water with no issue.
No one else says Gallagher the way He did, which felt good at first but is picking at him now. Ian’s an open wound. He's severed himself from everything and everyone he knew, and infection is starting to set in. Gallagher used to mean a mop of dark hair pressed against his forehead, sweet with the stench of sweat from two rounds. Bites on his neck that don’t leave lasting marks because they shouldn’t. They can’t. A hand wrapped around the side of his hip, drawing him in deeper. Stillness after, breathing each other in. Ian loved the stillness.
It’s— well, Gallagher is sex. Mostly. But it’s also hours spent wasting time in the Kash and Grab, tossing a ball back and forth. Chasing each other through alleyways and around buildings. Sneaking into baseball games and scoring free concessions from a guy He was in juvie with. Trading shitty CDs, some He lifted, some Ian checked out from the library and ripped onto blanks. Crude jokes and petty insults. Lips that slide against his own and one endless night set with Under Siege in the background. A spring from the couch digging into his back. His body on top of Ian’s, fingers pressed into the side of his jaw hard and the taste of beer and pizza rolls. Hushed, sleepy voices and lazy smiles.
The next day, gunpoint.
A few weeks later, Gallagher meant throwing a bottle at the wall so hard it shatters just to get Him to fucking say something.
Ian meets the other guys in his unit. There’s something that happens when the powers that be gather a bunch of testosterone-d up young men to sleep in a room together, and it’s not just handies in the bathroom stalls. Instead, it’s a lot like the group home. There’s sets of bunks packed together in rows, each one occupied by a fucking asshole looking for the chance to pick on some bitch so they don’t become one.
“Hey, Raggedy Andy,” the guy kitty-corner from him hisses. “What are you lookin’ at?”
Ian snaps out of where he was zoned out, staring into space. Guess he was looking right at the guy. Ian checks out the name printed on his bag. Michaels.
“Nothing,” He mutters back.
“Really? Looked like you were checking me out. You a fag or something?” Michaels’ eyes squint.
Ian looks the guy up and down. He’s got dark hair, too. Of course. Ian huffs. “I bet you’d like to know.”
Michaels grits his teeth and stands up. “Coming onto me, faggot?”
Ian’s mind goes blank, the half-second between decision and action shaved down to the speed of light and before he can register what he’s actually doing, he’s chest-to-chest with Michaels. The guy is tall, taller than He was, but Ian still has a good inch or two on him. That’s all he needs.
“If I was, would you suck me off or hit me?” Ian snarls into his face. He has no clue how he got so hot so fast. Why is he growling? The guy doesn’t answer, just stares harder. “You’d hit me, I bet. Do it. Hit me. I fucking dare you. See what happens.” He continues on, spews of threats tumbling out of his mouth, slurring as he struggles to shape his tongue and teeth around them.
Michaels takes a step back. Ian takes a step forward, so close he can smell his deodorant. Wants to lay him out right then and there on the floor. He’s feeling everything at 110% intensity, unlike how he’s ever felt before. He must be doing something right, to feel so sure.
“Chill out, man.” Michaels surrenders.
It’s winter. The texts have been rolling in from Lip and Fiona, and he’s fielding their questions. The lies snowball in tandem with the weather. The texts stop coming.
It’s winter. Ian’s hair is long, almost longer than it was when he was fifteen and fucked Mickey for the first time. He’s got a new role now: Curtis. He’s a professional fantasy.
He combs his hair straight after he showers, which is usually in the morning after he wakes up, still naked in someone’s apartment. His rebirth of the day, washing away Curtis until the next evening.
One morning, he wakes up on Mickey’s floor, all his clothes still on.
He gets up to take a shower.
At this point, they’re not scared of pissing each other off.
Like a nun slapping the back of her students’ hands with a ruler, little annoyances are aired out in the moment and forgiven almost as soon as they’re committed. It’s an ever-evolving observance, after all.
The bathroom door opens. Ian doesn’t even flinch, just waits to see which member of the household has taken it upon themselves to flush the toilet during his shower and turn the water cold. The chill never comes. Instead, the shower curtain flies to the side. Mickey mutters move your ass before stepping into the tub and under the warm spray, brushing against Ian’s dick as he slides the curtain back over.
Immediately, Ian’s snaking hands around his body, coming to rest on Mickey’s abdomen, middle fingers meeting right under his belly button. It never gets old, holding him. He grinds himself into Mickey’s crack for a little stimulation, pressing kisses into his shoulder, the back of his neck, up to the spot behind his ear.
“Fuck off me.” Mickey’s hands grab Ian’s, throw them off his body. “Gotta go run an errand and didn’t feel like waitin’ for you to get out.”
Their last major fight was their engagement/call off/engagement, and Ian’s been long forgiven for that. Bar fights make great grand gestures, Ian would know; he’s been on the receiving end of that one. Instead, this is part of an unofficial game they like to play: Mickey’s pretending to keep Ian in the doghouse for whatever-the-fuck even though their last little argument was over a week ago, not even about anything important. Ian will take his turn too, probably pretend to be mad at Mickey tomorrow.
Since Ian got his cast removed, Mickey’s taking a sado-masochistic pleasure in pissing Ian off, hoping it’ll get him fucked into the mattress. It always works, because who is Ian if he can’t indulge his husband?
There’s also no errand. They’re in the depths of quarantine, both unemployed, and there’s nowhere to go, save for the grocery store. It isn’t their week on the chore chart to do the shopping.
Mickey reaches for his own soap instead of stealing Ian’s like he normally does. He’s really selling it this time. Ian’s thrilled. He tries to paw at Mickey again, and Mickey spins around, leveling him with an annoyed look.
“Hands off, Red,” Mickey hisses. He may sound mad, but he’s really giving Ian the go-ahead— Mickey’s inflections are something only Ian’s ever been able to parse out.
Ian’s eyes travel down to the tattoo long settled into Mickey’s skin, over his heart. His own name, a commitment to forever that predates their wedding rings.
He decides not to manhandle Mickey this time. Instead, he drags his hands slowly over Mickey’s chest. Then slower, down his abdomen, hips, and thighs. Ian sinks down to his knees. He looks up and opens his mouth to huff out a sigh of awe, then drops his voice down as low as he can. The bathtub walls make his voice echo around them.
“I’m so sorry I pissed you off, baby—” An open-mouthed kiss to Mickey’s stomach. “What can I do—” An open-mouthed kiss to his hip. “To make it up to you?” An open-mouthed kiss to the tip of Mickey’s cock. Eyes up.
Mickey winds a hand in his hair, a little cruel but still loving, and Ian’s ready to atone for sins that are already long forgiven— past, present, and future.
Ian can’t sleep. It was excusable when they were all on the floor at the house, after Frank cemented himself in upstairs, but he’s in his bunk at the station, and he still can’t sleep.
He’s an EMT. No more stripping, no more dishwashing, no more soldiering. It had felt like a rebirth of sorts. New job, new boyfriend, new life.
But now, he’s an EMT with a firefighter ex-boyfriend who he’ll probably run into on a call or two someday. Nice.
At 4 AM, he sends a text to a contact in his phone labeled ANSWER AT YOUR OWN RISK.
Everyone else wants to pretend like she doesn’t exist when she’s not around, or maybe they actually do just hope she’s dead. Ian likes to know she’s alive from time to time. Means that even if he falls off the deep end like her, he’s got a good chance of lasting as long as she has. Plus, she always cares about what he has to say.
I broke up with my boyfriend, he writes.
I’m sorry baby, she answers. I’m in Springfield and there’s so many great clubs here!! lots of hot guys for u. Come!!! Could help u forget him
Ian doesn’t respond. The “him” to forget should be Caleb, but it isn’t. Monica didn’t know about Caleb specifically.
Ian did everything right to move on. He went to bougie restaurants and laughed at Caleb’s friends’ annoying jokes. He was the stripper-with-a-heart-of-gold at Caleb’s cousin’s wedding. He even fucked a woman, but he couldn’t really make himself buy into that one.
After Ian’s benched from his shifts for a week and Lip leaves for work, he finds himself on a bus to the Chicago Penitentiary. He has no actual intention of going in, just this inexplicable pull to go, a pilgrimage.
Everyone files into a line to enter for visitation. There’s no doubt in Ian’s mind; he’s still on the list. The last time he was here, he lied. Maybe it wasn’t a lie. Maybe he would wait. He didn’t really know at the time, nor does he know now. He hasn’t been back here since then, worried that the cracks that spiderweb up the glass each time he comes will finally cause all his resolve to shatter.
He gets a text from Fiona: family meeting tomorrow morning, please be there.
He looks up at the prison and knows Mickey won’t hear him, but he speaks out loud anyway.
“Hey. Sorry I can’t come in. It’s just… it’s hard, seeing you in there. I’m takin’ my meds. Might be going manic right now, but keeping my shit straight. Gonna go home and take more downers, then to the clinic this week. I kinda wish you could be there to yell at nurses for me, but you can't.” He laughs, bitter. “I was there a few months ago, got tested. You would've hated that nurse. She was fuckin’ judgemental when I said I didn’t know how many guys I’d been with.”
He blows out a breath. “I saw Mandy around then, too. She’s great. Really fuckin’ great, Mick. She was escorting, and her client died. I helped her not get arrested for it, which really would’ve been something we could’ve used your help with. But I handled it, and this week I’m gonna go to the clinic by myself, and I’m gonna handle that, because I don’t need you. I’m so much better, I’m fuckin’... I’m great.” A few tears escape, but he wipes them away and holds back the rest.
He gets back on the bus, ignoring a pair of eyes drilling holes into the side of his head from the adjacent prison yard’s fence.
There’s no priest on the other side of the confessional screen.
“Shim, if you’re there, please, just… I need to know what You want me to do. Send me something, a sign?”
He hears nothing back.
A few days after he’s dropped off at Beckman, Ian’s surprised to hear that he’s already getting a visitor.
It’s mid-day when the guard comes. Ian’s plopped at the foot of Mickey’s bunk, reading. Pretending to read, actually. Mickey’s facing him, and Ian’s feet are crossed at the ankles, socked-toe barely pressed against Mickey’s hip as he steals glances at him over the top of his book. Ian fights the urge to absentmindedly caress Mickey with his foot, but he already threatened to cut it off twice in the past hour. Ticklish motherfucker. Mickey’s got his sketchbook balanced on his knees, scribbling something.
They’ve barely spent any time apart so far, though they could, choosing to stay in their cell instead of exploring the yard. They’ve separated for their jobs once each day, but that’s it. Mickey even comes with Ian to the infirmary after breakfast and dinner so they don’t have to split up when Ian takes his meds. Ian’s cool with it— he doesn’t want to separate yet either.
They’re having to practice some serious restraint with their frequency of fucking, narrowly avoiding other inmates or guards walking in on them as they pass by. Toward the end of their last tenure at an actual house, they stopped caring about being walked in on, what with five hundred people crawling around at all hours of the day. On the way down to Mexico they didn’t care much either; they fucked outside or in the car.
Ian’s probably had more sex in public places than private, so he’s used to it. But here, they have to be vigilant. They can’t risk being split up so soon.
Mickey’s complimenting him in this back-handed sort of way, waxing not-very-poetic. “You’ll be fine, your creepy-ass stare alone is enough to keep some of the low-level sickos at bay even if you don’t have the actual balls to back it up.”
Ian scoffs—Mickey obviously knows he wouldn’t back down from a fight, has seen Ian take a chair to the back or punches to the face, some of which he’s doled out himself. Mickey just wants to pretend so he can attach himself at Ian’s hip in the name of having to protect your sorry ass.
A C.O. comes to a stop in their doorway. “Gallagher, visitor in the yard.”
Something must be wrong, if they’re coming this soon into his sentence. He folds his legs up to turn and scoot out of the bed.
“Jesus, already?” Mickey complains. “Your fuckin’ family is gonna be all over this place. They might as well start giving out punch cards for the bus.”
Ian laughs. “Maybe. Fiona has a car, at least.” He unsnaps the top of the jumpsuit from around his waist, pulling it up over his shoulders.
“No shit. Gallaghers movin’ up the ladder, huh?”
“No shit. It’s probably Debbie coming to complain about some stupid girlfriend shit because no one else will listen to her.”
“Those little bitches again?”
“No. Debbie’s convinced she’s a lesbian now,” Ian says flippantly, then stalks out of the cell, following the guard out.
He squints into the late afternoon sun, scanning the tables for Lip or Debbie. He doubts it’s Carl this soon, unless Liam dragged him out there to sign off as a chaperone.
And then, he sees her. She looks like shit.
Fiona’s hair is barely tucked under a black backwards baseball cap. There’s a huge gash under a black eye and a cast on her arm that’s still blank, so it must be new. There’s no way she would’ve lasted more than a few days around the kids without at least one of them defacing it. She’s traded her workday blazer for an old ACDC shirt and cutoff shorts, and there’s a few darkening bruises dotting her legs.
She waves with her good arm, a little unsure. He comes to a stop in front of her. Fiona gestures half-heartedly at herself.
“Bad day turned fucking worse,” She says, a flourish to it.
“Domino effect,” Ian affirms, lips curling up into a sympathetic grin. He holds out his arms. “C’mere.”
She comes crashing in, tucking her head into his chest, and he notices for the first time in a long time how small she is in comparison to him. Usually when they hug, she tries to wrap him up like he’s her baby. He kinda is— her first baby. There was a short period of their lives where he could actually fit into her arms. But even then, they were both kids. A seven year old may be bigger than a three year old, but she’s not as big as a twenty-five year old. Not as big as a mom.
There’s walls that are meant to exist between the roles of mother and sister. Fiona’s trapped in Ian’s crawl space. She acted like a parent, but he just can’t remember a time when she was much taller than him.
Her cheek is squished into his chest, and she reeks of booze. She lets out a wet cackle. He pulls back and checks her face out, his fingers grazing over the bandage. He’d have patched it up better than the E.R. did, he thinks. At least it’ll leave a cool scar.
Fiona gives a half smile back, then shakes her head, sniffles, and perks up. Like she remembers that she’s visiting him in fucking prison, where he’ll be for the next three-to-five, and she’s supposed to be asking him how he’s doing.
He doesn’t really mind holding her up right now. It seems like she had a shitty last few days, and he’s just happy to see her. All things considered, Ian’s doing great.
“What happened to you?”
She heaves a big sigh, winding herself up for her performance of tragicomedy. “Investment probably fell through, I totaled my car in an accident, and, oh! Ford is married. With a kid.” She drops it all with watery eyes and a little slurring, then shifts and swallows.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here to drop you off.” It’s quiet, genuine, not lording over him like the way she usually does.
He doesn’t say it’s okay. Their relationship is fractured, a different monster than it was when he was eight or sixteen or twenty-two. He forgives her, but he doesn’t need to say it. She knows he always will. He smirks instead.
“You gonna fuck him up?”
“Already did,” Fiona admits, smug look on her face. “Debbie and her friends got him up in stocks with his pants down, like, on a billboard. I shot his bare ass with a paintball gun.”
Ian cringes, but holds his hand out for a high-five, which she returns. “Man, I’m sorry I missed that.”
“He was screamin’ like a baby. I bet Debbie has a video, you should ask her to show you when she comes.” She looks him over. “You doing okay?”
“Yeah, I’m—” Ian can’t help but smile. “I’m really good. Mickey’s here. We’re shacking up, sharin’ a cell.”
He waits for her to light up, to congratulate him on getting the love of his life back on this side of the border and in his arms. Instead, her eyebrows knit together. She clears her throat. “They giving you your meds in here?”
“Yeah, of course. There’s a whole sign-in system. Mickey’s fuckin’ relentless too, tags along with me after breakfast and dinner.”
Fiona nods, unsure. Any other day, Ian would grit his teeth and insist that she’s being accusatory, that he’s on his meds. He’d point out how she never really figures out anything that’s going on with him until it’s too late anyway. But he doesn’t need to say that now, because it doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme.
“Ian.” Fiona touches his arm gently. “Mickey’s in Mexico.”
She thinks he’s fuckin’ lost it. He flicks his eyes over the yard, frustrated. Then, he spots him. The asshole followed him out. He’s leaning up against the fence on the far side of the yard and talking to Romano from A26, but glancing over at them every so often. Pretending not to be keeping tabs.
“He’s over there,” Ian indicates with a nod of his head. Fiona doesn’t turn around. Instead, her eyes, big and round, get that far away, pitiful look, and she pouts. Ian tries again, grabbing her good wrist. “Seriously Fi, this isn’t like Shim, I promise. He turned himself in. He’s really here.”
She finally takes the chance. She turns her entire body around on the bench, searching the yard. It takes her a minute to find Mickey. It never takes Ian that long.
She blows out a breath. “Holy shit. That’s Mickey.”
“Told ya.”
“Were you talkin’ to him when he was in Mexico?”
Ian shrugs. “No.”
“What about Trevor?” Even Fiona doesn’t sound like she can convince herself that Ian would have a chance with him again, or that he would even want one.
He leans forward on his elbows, lowering his voice to a murmur. “Who’s Trevor?”
“You think this is a good idea?”
“Come on, Fi. What about ‘congratulations?’ Or ‘how’s he doing?’”
Ian knows she never really liked Mickey all that much, but he figured she’d be happy seeing him happy. She takes a second, then smiles, if only for his sake.
“I can’t believe you’re both willing to do time in a shoebox together.”
“I’ll probably kill him in a few months, ‘less he kills me first.”
Fiona’s a little touched, almost. Maybe jealous, considering her own relationship just got totaled along with her car. Ian takes another look at Mickey, late-afternoon sun reflecting off his hair. Mickey senses it. Finds Ian right back and gives a half-smile, then keeps talking with Romano.
“I’m really fuckin’ happy that he’s here. I don’t think I ever really stopped missing him,” Ian murmurs, still watching.
Fiona’s looking at Mickey too. For a second, Ian thinks he can’t see any contempt in her gaze. Her face screws up, and she clears her throat, voice quiet with astonishment. “Special delivery from Mexico, huh?”
Ian tucks his head down, blushing.
Fiona takes a deep breath. “I gotta get back. But first—” Fiona procures a red Sharpie from her pocket. “You wanna do the honors?”
He thinks over it for a second, then takes the pen from her hand. He turns her wrist over, grazes his hand over where the plaster covers her palm, writes I miss you and adds a sad face next to his name.
She starts to pull away. He keeps a firm grip on her wrist and hurriedly scrawls love you. She smiles down at it, closed mouth. They’re going to be okay. She holds her arm out for a hug. This time, he tucks himself into her arms as best he can, makes himself her baby. Back in the crawl space.
“I’ll come back down sometime in the next few weeks, okay?” She hurriedly extracts herself from the embrace, and the guard waves her toward the gate.
Ian meets Mickey on the other side of the fence again.
“She still hate me?”
“Maybe a little,” Ian admits.
“Well, she looks like shit, so…”
“She totaled her car, might be bankrupt. Found out her boyfriend was married.”
Mickey whistles. “Cunt is as cunt does.”
“She showed up drunk.”
Mickey nods, confident. “She’ll be okay.”
Ian doesn’t see Fiona again for another month and a half, after a bender of epic proportions according to Lip. She leaves Illinois that same day and moves to a place she’s been referring to as “heaven on Earth.”
Ian’s wearing white. Mickey too, and Yevgeny. Mickey’s holding the baby. Svetlana is glowing and wind is blowing through her hair. She’s also in white.
They have the most beautiful house, all white. A family once afflicted with pistol whippings and shotgun weddings and AK tattoos but coming out the other side with a beautiful baby, a perfect, un-scarred thing.
It’s not real. The Milkovich house is all curtains drawn and smoke-tinged paint and gray scum. There’s guns littering the tables. All of their white shirts are stained. Svetlana only cares about Ian when he’s holding the baby. Mickey doesn’t hold the baby at all.
Mickey’s in prison, Mickey’s out of prison, Mickey’s out of the country. Svetlana’s in another house, Svetlana’s in prison, Svetlana’s playing wife with a new husband. Ian doesn’t see Yevgeny anymore.
Ian and Mickey are in prison, Ian and Mickey are out of prison.
Mickey wears white to the wedding.
Sammi’s already through the system. Her crimes were pretty cut-and-dry. Attempted murder with a firearm, her first felony offense after a litany of misdemeanors. She’s in for a while.
It’s gonna take a little longer for Mickey’s sentencing to come down the pipe given the… unique circumstances of his attempted murder charge. There’s no chance he faces trial, would be put away for much longer with a juvenile record like his.
Ian spends ten full seconds debating on whether or not to say it when the call comes through.
“Yes, I’ll accept the charges.”
He catches the end of a hushed thank fuck as the line clicks, and then it’s just him and Mickey, breathing on opposite sides of the phone.
“Hey, Gallagher.”
“Hey.”
“I-uh, need a few things.”
It’s a short conversation, strictly logistics, and a plan to drop a suit for court off at the county jail. Awkwardness hangs heavy over the phone line. Ian thought maybe it would always have to end this way: a slow burnout. Anti-climactic, at least between them. Every other time they broke up, it was explosive and deadly. The way they started was the way they ended.
This isn’t that. It’s teary eyes and wet voices and Ian’s feet planted firmly on the porch at his house. Back where he belonged. The lines had gotten too blurred. Mickey lived there for a second, attempting to mold himself into something Gallagher-esque, and Ian had done the same at Mickey’s, trying to step into the role of father because Mickey couldn’t stomach filling it, but he couldn't either.
Monica reassured him that people like us can be happy, but she’s living with a meth dealer in a trailer in the middle of nowhere, selling to truck stop guys. Ian doesn’t think he’d be happy somewhere like that.
V comes over to give Ian a haircut after he complains that it’s too long to deal with every day. Afterwards, he eavesdrops on her and Fiona in the kitchen while he pretends to watch TV in the living room.
“Mickey’s taking the fall for Debs too. He should go see him, it’ll keep him, you know, cooperative,” Veronica advises.
“Fuck no. He’ll end up on the conjugal visits lineup.”
“Mickey will be in for a few years. Ian’ll find someone else.”
“He’s not himself. I don’t know what the fuck he’ll do, especially if Mickey’s in his ear. He’ll probably convince Ian to get himself thrown in there with him. Even being with Monica for a few days didn’t scare him straight. I can’t handle another Monica.”
That night, Fiona presents him with an ultimatum and gives him a week to decide. Fortunately, she doesn’t say anything about him going to the prison.
He knows he’s depressed. Not stay-in-bed-for-weeks depressed but a low-level, constant kind of depressed. Just waiting it out until he hopefully feels happy again. He debates getting on a bus and clearing out after they drop the stuff off at the jail, but Svetlana shoves Yev into his arms and leads him toward the check-in desk before he can make his exit. The intake guard asks who they’re there to see.
“Mikhailo Milkovich,” Svetlana answers, the name rolling off her tongue like it’s second nature.
That name is printed on a marriage license somewhere, and it’s not next to Ian’s. There’s parts of Mickey that Ian doesn’t know, canyons between them carved out and earth salted in the time when Ian was playing soldier.
“What’s your name?”
“Svetlana Yevgenivna. Milkovich. Wife.” She tacks the second name on a second too-late, like it’s a technicality. Ian supposes it is.
“And yours?” The guard looks right at Ian. Svetlana looks at him too, eyes steely.
“Ian Gallagher.” No relation; he still doesn’t know what they are, what they’re supposed to be now.
The guard taps on the computer, not enough of a delay to give Ian the opportunity to really chicken out. She clicks her tongue.
“Okay, Mr. Gallagher, you’re on the visitor list. Mrs. Y-, uh… Milkovich? You’re not.”
Svetlana has no reaction, at least not one Ian can decipher. She takes Yev back from him. “Go. Tell him to put me on list. Need to talk to him about baby.”
She doesn’t give him the opportunity to push back, nor does he really have the energy to. He checks in, the buzzer sounds, Ian enters, and then they’re separated by glass again. Ian honestly doesn’t feel much of anything, except deja-vu. Mickey studies him before he sits down, cautious.
“Hey.”
“Svetlana wants on your visitors list.”
Mickey’s face scrunches up immediately. “Fuck no. The one good thing about prison is that bitch won’t be in my pockets all the fucking time.”
“To talk about Yevgeny.”
Mickey bites the inside of his cheek, defenses disarmed, only because Ian’s asking. “Fine.”
Ian’s genuinely curious, and Mickey’s so Mickey, and he wants to do his due diligence. So, they chat about the sentencing terms until the guard announces they only have one more minute left.
“You doing okay?” Mickey asks. And isn’t that a loaded question, the way he asks it. Mickey’s got his heart on display as he looks at Ian. It seems this time is different, and the emotional dam Mickey’s had up during previous juvie visitations is compromised. Whatever it is, this bloody desperation, starts to transfer over to Ian even though there’s glass between them.
“Fiona’s gettin’ me my job back at Patsy’s, but says she’ll kick me out if I don’t get back on meds.”
“So…”
Ian shrugs. Mickey nods, solemn.
“You think I should,” Ian half-confirms, half-questions.
The buzzer sounds. Other inmates start getting up from their seats. Ian looks away, suddenly unable to stomach Mickey staring at him like he’s never gonna see him again.
“Whatever you do, get your shit straight. I won’t see Svetlana without you there, too.”
Mickey hangs up the phone, the click of the receiver a sharp crack.
Ian’s hair is not as long as it was, but not short. His face has filled out too, some weight gained back. Still lean, still muscle, but atrophied slightly, his habit of frantically working out neutered by a triple prescription to be taken twice a day. Fiona counts his pills, which makes him feel even more impotent. He’s still on board with the meds train for now.
Ian’s been fucking Mickey into a palette of water bottles for the past twenty minutes, and he’s not any closer to coming. Mickey’s already come twice, Ian not letting up after he finished the first time. He’s been taking the onslaught anyway.
“Fuck, stop — Gallagher.”
Ian thinks he might die if he does— there’s so much anger coursing through him, a biblical level of rage. He needs some type of release, and he knows Mickey can take it. Mickey practically begs for Ian to fuck him harder every time, so why not now?
“You hear me? Stop,” Mickey says, and fuck, fine. Maybe it is time to call it quits for today. Ian pulls out, panting hard, sweat soaking through his shirt.
“Fuck’s up with you? It’s like you’re on a warpath.” Mickey pulls his pants up and leans back onto the palette.
“What, you don’t like it rough?” Ian tries to smile in the hopes that Mickey will turn back over, but he just flips him off. He raises his eyebrows and grabs a bottle from one of the packs under him. He cracks it open, waiting for Ian to spill.
“Lip’s being an asshole.”
“Lover’s quarrel. You pretending I’m him or somethin’?”
“Gross. No.” Ian buttons his jeans.
He pulls the cooler door open and starts walking back toward the counter, Mickey at his heels.
“He steal money from you?” Mickey asks.
Ian unlocks the door, and immediately Darryl, one of their regular drunkards, stumbles in for a midday 40. Mickey takes his usual lean on the counter, eyes following him around the aisles, as Ian swings around into his own seat.
“No,” Ian says.
It’s kinda cute, the way Mickey’s actually taking this security job seriously. He would kill Ian if he heard him think that. But, Ian admires the new Mickey he’s meeting, one who’s desperately trying to walk the straight and narrow. Mostly.
He even works at the store on Ian’s off days, and he hasn’t shown up late once, according to Linda. He does bitch almost the entire time, blowing up Ian’s phone with texts from his burner about how fuckin’ annoying it is to be there all day, how hot it is, how is mrs w buying tampons agn ffs is hr vag a blk hole.
“Then, what?”
“Lip’s got an in with a Colonel who went to West Point.” Ian crosses his arms.
“That’s... good,” Mickey says. “Right?”
“He came by this morning and dropped off an application. Said he’d personally make sure it reached the right people.”
Ian’s tightening up again, fingers flexing against the crooks of his elbows. Mickey’s still trailing Darryl around as he asks, “So… what? You don’t wanna go to West Point anymore?”
“The application wasn’t for me. It was for Lip— McNally wants him because he’s a genius. But all Lip wants to do is follow that skank Karen around. He’s being handed a way out of this shithole on a silver fuckin’ platter.”
Mickey chuckles.
“Something funny?” Ian grits his teeth.
Mickey finally looks back at him and cocks his head, knowing smirk on his lips. “That’s not what you’re actually pissed about.”
Ian already knew that, but it’s lame to admit out loud, especially in front of Mickey. He doesn’t give a shit about anything related to getting out of their neighborhood, he already thinks he’s fucked for life. There’s a world where he isn’t, and it would be this one if Mickey didn’t insist upon making himself a self-fulfilling prophecy.
It’s not a crime to be fuckin’ hopeful that even kids from the South Side slums can pull themselves out if they work hard enough. Mickey’s not done for just because he’s a Milkovich, but he will be if he doesn’t try. Ian, on the other hand, is realizing that no matter how hard he tries, he’s probably bound to end up in Lip’s shadow. And he’s not dumb, not by a long-shot. He makes decent grades, just— not West Point grades.
He rings up Darryl’s beer.
“She’s married. And pregnant. He’s trying to get with a married woman,” he deflects. It’s hypocritical. The whole reason Mickey’s even working this job is because Ian was fucking a married man.
The bell chimes as Darryl takes his leave. Mickey rolls his eyes.
“Fuck off with that. You’re pissed because the Army is your thing.”
Mickey’s spot on, and Ian’s hoping he shuts the fuck up anyway. He should brush it off, just tell Mickey it isn’t any of his business. But the heat’s making him dizzy and tired, and when Mickey looks at him like this, like he cares, it feels like he cares. Shit, maybe he does.
“I’ve been working my ass off this summer to get my grades up. I’m stronger, I can run faster, but he’s just— I’m still coming in second. Everyone compares me to him. I can’t be my own person. I get all his fuckin’ hand-me-downs, it’s like I’m fuckin’ invisible.”
Mickey twists his mouth up.
Ian continues. “You know, this lady left her purse on the El and it had like, $500 in it. Fiona took it and bought Lip smokes, Carl socks, and herself a manicure.”
“And you got nothing,” Mickey finishes.
“Breakfast, but we all got it. Dinner at Sizzlers, too.” Ian hesitates. “Lip said that I can’t do shit on my own.”
He’s not sure what he’s hoping Mickey says— he’s kinda hoping that Mickey doesn’t say anything.
“Lip’s an idiot who can go fuck himself. He’s annoying as shit. You’re more fun to hang out with.” He’s not looking at Ian when he says it, instead training his eyes on the door, but there’s a blush across his cheeks. Probably just red from the busted AC, but Ian wants to test it out.
“Sayin’ that just because we hang out?” Ian teases.
“Definitely.” Mickey shrugs. His face gets redder. Asshole. “Speaking of which, gimme twenty minutes. Then you can get all pissed off again.”
Ian feels heat creep up his neck. He looks down and smiles just as Mickey disappears into the bathroom.
A few months later, when Mickey tells Ian he’s nothing but a warm mouth to him, Ian’s wearing one of Lip’s hand-me-down shirts.
Ian’s staring at the drawing tacked up onto the cinderblock wall, has been for fifteen minutes, probably. FAITH.
Mickey’s breaths are frustratingly even next to him.
“You okay?” Mickey asks, with that tone. Ian waits for the follow up, the real question everyone is always asking.
He decides to save Mickey the breath. “Yes, Mick, I’m takin’ my fuckin’ meds.”
And he is. But prison doesn’t offer therapy too, at least therapy that’s half-decent. Not that Ian was great at therapy to begin with— Gallaghers don’t do that shit, they just cork it all up until they burst. And everyone in their family does it, so it’s a little unfair that he’s the only one they deemed wasn’t allowed to anymore.
There’s a special kind of dread that comes when he falls into a low or high even while he’s taking the meds— feels like a moral failing. He knows it’s normal, it’s been pounded into his head over and over by various shrinks at the clinics and hospitals.
One of the worst parts of it is that, as much as Ian would find some silver lining in being “special,” he’s not a one-of-a-kind case. His symptoms are pretty fuckin’ textbook. You’d think anyone else would’ve been able to see the signs in a real way, not the Gallagher meds-are-a-magic-wand way.
Clearly, they’re not a fix-all, since he was taking them when he fell asleep as Ian and woke up as Gay Jesus.
“Not what I fuckin’ asked.”
“I’m fine, Mickey.”
“Yeah, obviously, since you’re staring at the wall like it’s a fuckin’ magic eye poster. You find the hidden picture yet?”
“Fuck you,” Ian huffs, pushes off the bed. An end to the conversation. He hops up to his bunk, curling in on himself.
Mickey sputters, amused. “‘M not goin’ anywhere.”
He says it in reference to the cell, but Ian knows what he really means. Won’t go anywhere. It’s been more like this between them lately— Ian on shaky ground, treading water in his own head. The glow of honeymoon has faded away with the motonyny of prison life. They’re not fucking any less, but instead of being wrapped up in the novelty of each other’s presence, they’re talking more, about realer stuff.
Ian’s head isn’t something they usually talk about. It’s what drove him and Mickey apart in the first place, with Ian skidding out in a grand display of burnt rubber and babies crying, cutting their relationship off when it really started growing into something forever-shaped.
Ian never talks about being bipolar with his boyfriends, just assures them it’s his shit to handle. He doesn’t want to rot the roots. It never works, anyway, probably because it punches a gaping, unfillable hole in their understanding of him.
“We gotta talk about this,” Mickey chides.
“Yeah.” Ian turns to dangle his legs off the bunk and clasps his hands together, twin scars on his palms perfectly lined up.
“About your shit, how it’s gonna work.”
“Yeah.”
Mickey doesn’t say anything, just waits patiently for Ian to say his piece. Ian searches, trying to figure out where to begin, how to articulate the inarticulable thought processes and dopamine spikes that he can’t even recall in full: massive walls of fog during a low and the overwhelming clarity of living like another person in his body during a high.
He misses Monica more when things get like this. At least she understood how it felt to feel so good and so bad. But she never understood this part: the maintenance. Hyper-vigilance. A constant distrust of yourself. She never lasted long enough on the meds.
“Just tell me what I need to know,” Mickey urges. Ian rolls his eyes.
“My meds can go out of balance on their own. And then I have to go back in for a readjustment and get new prescriptions. But sometimes, it’s hard for me to figure out if I actually need an adjustment or if I’m just having a normal mood, and it’s annoying to deal with. Some of the meds come with side effects, too. Sweating. Brain fog.”
Mickey just breathes a quiet sigh, like it’s a fucking nonfactor, like it was always a nonfactor, even back then. Ian’s feeling truly cornered for the first time since he’s gotten there. It doesn’t help either that Mickey’s being too nice, too gentle. Ian’s been here before.
“Some make me suicidal. Some kill my sex drive,” Ian continues, biting. He remembers failed blowjobs in his twin bed, Mickey blaming Liam in the corner or Debbie down the hall when they never had a problem getting it up in the back room while angry customers were pounding on the door.
The problem with Mickey is that he’s too real. He already knows Ian better than anyone else, maybe even better than his family. Ian can’t pretend to be someone else. And despite knowing the real Ian, Mickey’s always trying to stick around. Ian’s intimately aware of how this’ll go: one day, he’ll have drained everything out of Mickey, and he’ll stick around anyway, because Milkoviches pride themselves on being loyal. As much as Mickey wants to pretend he doesn’t, he craves stability after a lifetime devoid of it, and Ian’s gonna be the one to take that away from him.
“This shit doesn’t go away, Mick. It’s gonna be here for the rest of my life. And… each episode causes brain damage. I could get dementia. I won’t know who you are, who I am.”
Mickey doesn’t say anything, his face not giving anything away either, still just fucking looking at Ian like he’s unphased by the whole thing.
“But the mania felt good sometimes, and… sometimes I miss it.” He sets his chin, staring down at Mickey. “I might just stop taking the meds someday, and never get back on them.”
“I thought we were gonna talk about how this was gonna work.”
“It’s not gonna work.” That’s not where he thought the conversation was going when they started it, but the walls are closing in more and Mickey’s looking at him so gently and his head is so heavy and he can’t stop shifting his eyes to the FAITH drawing—
“Fuck are you talking about?”
“This shit. Us. Me. Fuck.”
That hangs in the air a second too long, and too loudly. If Ian cared more, he’d be worried that the guards will come by and check on them, since they’re supposed to be sleeping. Mickey’s eyes are trained on him, glassy even in the dim light. Ian’s chest aches. Mickey clicks his tongue.
“Alright then, drama-queen, ‘s my turn to talk. Here’s how it’s gonna go. You’re not doing this shit by yourself. You’re gonna tell me when you’re feeling up or down or whatever, or I’m gonna tell you when you seem up or down or whatever, and we’re gonna talk about it and we’re gonna figure that shit out.” His voice isn’t begging, like it was before. It’s a non-negotiable.
“I don’t want you to have to worry about me,” Ian pushes back.
“Fuckin’ heard that shit before,” Mickey pushes harder. “Christ, Ian. When is this gonna get through to you? I’ve already seen you at your craziest. Remember? I picked you up from fuckin’ Indiana. I went and saw you in the mental hospital. You remember that? Still want to be with you, meds or not.” He’s staring right at him, and he’s not backing off. “I got myself thrown back in fucking prison to be with you. Make my time served worth it. Don’t do this bullshit.”
It’s a fight they’ll never stop having, Ian thinks. Pushing Mickey away to protect Ian from himself, Mickey clinging on. But for now, it’s settled. They’ll cling to each other for a while longer.
Ian nods.
“Come down, your gigantic ass is too far away.”
Ian hops down, and lets himself be wrapped up, Mickey’s hand guiding him by the back of his head to tuck into his shoulder. They sway slightly, Ian’s heavy body throwing off Mickey’s center of gravity. Ian’s off the edge, calming down.
“I think I’m hitting a low,” he mumbles, muffed by Mickey’s skin. Mickey’s hand pets through his hair, scratching at his scalp. He’s coming back into himself.
“Low-low, or it’ll pass?”
“I don’t know.”
“‘Kay. How about we see how you are tomorrow, then maybe you’ll go to the shrink.”
“You gonna tag along? Wait around outside, big man?” Ian teases.
Mickey’s smile is sincere. “If you want me to. But I think you’ve got it handled.”
Their cell is still small.
Despite the pockets of wide open green spaces designed meticulously by urban planners, what Ian knows best are the cramped spaces of Chicago: alleyways, back rooms, bedrooms with more than one occupant, train cars.
Cement and gravel and dead grass.
He’s been on camping trips for ROTC, short stints developing the skills but not the love of an outdoorsman, and Ian is, at his heart, a city rat. There’s too much wide open sprawl in Missouri. It’s suffocating.
They get a day off from training in the third week, so Ian and some of his unit take a bus into Springfield for the day. Springfield is not much like Chicago. But Springfield, as well as every other town in America, does have one thing in common with Chicago: plenty of shitty dive bars.
They get drunk. Drunk drunk, early, for free. The fact that they’re dressed in fatigues helps, but Weston’s insistence on telling people they just got back from Afghanistan after serving through the end of the war helps more.
Ian’s grateful for the reprieve. The physical training is still easy, there’s an infinite flow of energy running through his veins nowadays. Figures it’s because he’s right where he’s supposed to be, following the path he was always supposed to follow. Ian was never that religious, but it feels something like he’s growing into himself, finally. He’s just having a little bit of trouble with discipline.
Reynolds, his TI, gets under his fucking skin. Treats him like a gear with a missing tooth, but he made eyes at Ian that first day. He hasn’t made a move yet, but Ian figures it’s a matter of time. He’s not that into the guy, but he’s ready to get it over with, so long as it’ll get him off his back.
The drinks keep coming. The bartender no doubt knows that they’re all faking their military status, but is happy to keep pouring away in exchange for the free entertainment. The rest of the guys are starting to slump over each other.
Ian’s hit a second wind, attention from the barflies pushing him further into spinning new stories. Everyone’s hanging onto his every word like he’s up on a soapbox. He’s telling one about how he helped escort the President from base to plane during a secret visit. It might be a lie now, but someday, it’ll be true.
“What’re ya gonna do now?” Some guy slurs over the music. “Now that y’re home? You got a job? Girl?”
Ian’s chugging an Irish Car Bomb, sent over to him from a woman a few seats down who made some joke about his hair. He shakes his head no.
The guy continues. “The first thing I got when I came back from ‘Nam was a ring for my girl. The second thing I got was this.”
He pulls his shirt up, ignoring the jeers of the bartender, to reveal a massive American flag tattooed across his pec. It’s faded, barely visible through a patch of gray chest hair. That catches Ian’s attention. Why wait? Might as well get the ink now, something to remind him of this night and the stories he’s dressed up as things that already happened.
“I should get one,” Ian says.
The guy’s eyes light up. “I know a place. A buddy of mine owns it, could prol’ly give you a discount. S’go.”
Ian collects his jacket and follows the guy out, not even hearing Weston ask him where the fuck he was going.
Four hours later, the skin on his right side is tight and hot under the surface. He went with the most patriotic design on the flash sheet: an eagle with an AK gripped in its claws, flying in to save the day.
By the time he arrives back at camp, it’s well after curfew. There’s two guys in his barracks set to patrol tonight. Michaels is one, and he’s not a threat, still too scared of Ian to call him in. The other one is Davis, who falls so short in their drills that he’s probably going to end up riding a desk somewhere in a first-world country like Germany. Meaning, he’s a major ass-kisser. Fucking desk jockey. Not a real soldier, not like Ian will be. He even has the tattoo now to remind him, to set it in motion.
Ian hears the click of a walkie as he’s sneaking back into the building, Reynolds’ voice on the other end. A string of numbers and codes. Fuck, he’s caught.
“Hey!” Davis yells. “Stop!”
Ian takes off, planning to outrun him. He just has to get back to the bunks, pretend to be asleep before anyone catches him.
The lights click on. He hears Reynolds calling for him, but can’t make out what he’s saying— the sound of his own heaving breaths in and out is drowning it out. Ian’s full of white-hot fear, and doesn’t even know where it came from. But he knows that it’s made of electricity and it’s burning him from the inside out. He needs to keep running in order to keep it flowing. He can’t stop.
He rounds the corner of the hall and smacks right into a water fountain, ricocheting back onto the floor. Freezing cold water bursts from the pipe and cascades over him.
His system shorts out. Why the fuck did he think he could outrun it? Reynolds comes into view and Ian sits up, water running into his eyes.
“Phillip Gallagher. Why am I not surprised?” He asks, tone venomous. Ian’s beside himself, wants to scream back, I’m not fucking Lip.
Reynolds looks Ian up and down, lavishing looks over the contours of his body accentuated by his soaked-through clothing. He claps his hands.
“Everyone, up! Time for a show.” Ian stands. Reynolds steps up to him, chest-to-chest. “Pushups.”
He turns around to the gathering crowd of soldiers. “Next time any of you want to disobey this institution, to make a mockery of the Army, I want you to picture Gallagher here.”
He looks at Ian. “What the fuck are you waiting for? Get down.”
The water pools on the floor, making his fingers go numb. Ian forces himself up and down, up and down, over and over again. He has Ian start singing, a humiliation ritual.
At first, everyone’s laughing and cheering, urging him on. After several minutes, the only sound is the splash of Ian’s chin as it touches the water, everyone else averting their eyes while he wails out the Army song between breaths for a sixteenth time.
Reynolds doesn’t tell him to stop; someone finally shuts the water main off instead.
The next day, Ian can’t shake the phantom sensation of wet clothing clinging to his torso, water sending shivers down to the bone. When he sends his last text to the family, he’s cold. When he packs his belongings up in the middle of the night, he’s cold.
When he burns a hole in the center of his palm on the starter of the helicopter, he’s still cold.
Ian’s better at hotwiring than Mickey, thanks to Frank. That’s the only thing he really got from being Frank’s son, anyway. Lip got the alcoholism, Carl got the drug running skills, Ian got the hotwiring skills. There’s a joke about him being gay in there somewhere.
They’re laying under the moon. It’s been silent between them the last few minutes, the air calm with the sound of crickets. What they’ve seen of Texas is almost all sprawl, but Ian doesn’t feel suffocated this time.
They end up with Mickey straddling Ian’s lap, bearing down and making endless promises between kisses.
“Probably gonna get in with a cartel when I get there,” Mickey mutters, kisses him again. “Maybe you can do EMT shit under the table.”
“I can’t do cartel stuff?” Ian licks into his mouth.
“Nah, man. Your face is too... pretty.” Mickey pecks him on the cheek. “Sweet-face.”
He must’ve picked that up from Fiona at some point. That’s what she always calls him. She probably doesn’t remember, but it’s something she picked up from Monica.
Fiona’s a felon. He’s not sure if she’ll be able to leave the country to see him. Maybe someday, but between the laundromat and Patsy’s, he’s not sure when. He probably won’t see her again. Or anyone else, for that matter. They couldn’t risk giving themselves up.
Mickey’s still going on, stopping to smile wide as he muses, “Maybe I’ll make enough money; you won’t have to work. We can get a place near the beach, if you want. Or whatever town, I don’t know. Probably gonna have to slum it for a bit.”
“That’s okay,” Ian says. And it could be, since Mickey is there. Everything’s better with Mickey there.
There’s lots of questions they haven’t addressed. How is Ian gonna get his meds? What happens if they get caught at the border?
Maybe it’s better to not think about it, because then it isn’t real. But there’s this pulling, this feeling, like they’re marching steadily to their death, and this is the last night they’ll have together.
It’s unraveling. Mickey groans in his ear. Heat envelops him. Mickey’s up and down. Love you, I love you. I missed you so fucking much. Ian, give it to me. Fuck, I love you—
Ian’s saying it all back too, meeting Mickey right where he is, a war waged between them with an endless barrage of promises. He winds his arms around Mickey, tight. Serpent-like. Holds him in place as he thrusts up into him, hot breaths on Mickey’s skin through the fabric of his shirt, hoping it never has to end.
Milkoviches are a lot of smoke and mirrors, Ian’s starting to learn.
They say one thing, but tend to do another. They bend, too. Bending and bending and bending. To him only, it seems.
It’s a privilege Ian doesn’t take for granted, and one he invokes only when he’s truly desperate.
Monica’s back, over at Sheila’s. Ian doesn’t know if he’s more upset that she didn’t bother to come see them first, or that she came back at all. It’s been two years without her. Before that, little sabbaticals here and there. There was no goodbye either, they just woke up one day and she was gone. Six kids in Chicago who don’t have a mother anymore, maybe never did. No phone calls or texts to their shared cell.
When she was there, it’s not even like it was any better. In bed for weeks and then bringing tons of strangers over to the house for ragers on school nights. The only good thing was that Frank wasn’t so much of an asshole, save for the time he locked Ian in the basement for three days while Monica was holed up in their room, unable to get up.
Ian was six, sitting at the kitchen table. He was eating a sandwich that had been sitting on the counter untouched for hours. Frank came home, already drunk and angry, and yelled some unintelligible shit about greediness and food privileges. He then dragged him down into the basement and latched the door from the outside. Ian screamed his throat raw. He eventually gave up, silenced into submission, and waited. No one came to save him until a teacher called to ask about Ian’s unexcused absences and Frank remembered to let him out. Fiona and Lip didn’t even know. They were too busy trying to balance being kids themselves and making sure baby Debbie didn’t choke on her own spit up. Fuckin’ Monica.
When Mickey pushes his way through the Kash and Grab door, freshly showered, Ian hasn’t even bothered tying his apron around his waist yet. There hasn’t been anyone in the store for the last fifteen minutes, anyway. Mickey locks the door behind him.
“Back room?” He asks. Ian rounds the counter.
“Thank you, I needed this. Sorry,” Ian’s babbling, spilling out apologies as they shut the door to the cooler.
“Stop with that faggy shit,” Mickey snaps, but he turns around and bends.
It’s silent when they’re starting, little exhales here and there. Mickey’s breaths are getting louder, crossing the line into grunts. He’s clenching around Ian, probably on purpose, trying to get him there quicker. A moan or two. Ian’s breathing hard against the back of his neck, Mickey’s hair sticking to Ian’s forehead. Both of them start to sweat. Ian shucks his shirt. Mickey doesn’t, but he doesn't protest when Ian wraps his hand around his. For leverage, Ian thinks about saying as justification. Really, he just wanted to hold someone's hand.
Then, Kash walks in, and it’s over. Ian’s always too greedy. He lost his privilege.
Kash doesn’t even say anything. Ian supposes he’ll wait until after the shift’s over to fire him, already working out where else he can apply that’ll work with his school and ROTC schedule and his upcoming driver’s ed courses and pay him just enough to cover his part of the bills.
And to top it all off, Monica’s back, a few blocks over at Sheila’s.
He stocks the vegetables. Kash is standing way too close to him. Ian can feel him staring, eyes shifting away when Ian dares to look back. He has to go somewhere else, do something else, but the store isn’t big nor does it have that many rooms and Linda is upstairs in Kash’s bed where they sleep together as a married couple. Ian has to walk away, maybe even quit before Kash can fire him. He probably won’t be able to hang out with Mandy anymore either. No job, no Milkoviches, no one he can tell about any of it, no escape.
Gunshot. Gunshot. Gunshot.
Mickey on the floor, clutching a bleeding leg.
Ian bends.
“So, Gay Jesus, huh?” Mickey asks, after they’ve been making out for who-knows-how-long, apparently long enough that Ian feels okay to let him talk for even a second. “How’d that happen?”
Ian rolls over to lay next to him, and Mickey tucks himself under Ian’s arm. They barely fit on the bed like this, but they’re no strangers to cramming themselves into a twin together. Mickey’s squished into the wall, and Ian’s supporting himself with one leg planted on the floor. Ian lets out a dry chuckle. It’s still sinking in, the weight of it.
Call it something like a trauma response. That’s what Trevor would probably say. Ian doesn’t miss him much, but he feels bad that the shelter got fucked up because of his mess.
“Yeah. I was volunteering with this youth shelter for queer kids,” he says, fingers sweeping lazily over the cap of Mickey’s shoulder. “Trying to get back in the pants of the guy who ran it, the one who was my boyfriend when you escaped. He didn’t wanna be my boyfriend again after I ran off with you, obviously, but I don’t know. My mom died, and I was never gonna see you again, and I needed fucking… someone.”
He turns to look at Mickey, grabs his face with one hand, tilts his head up, and plants a kiss smack onto his lips.
“Monica died?”
“Yeah, the morning I left you at the border. I was on a bus back to Chicago when I found out.”
It’s deceptively quiet, their block. It may be late morning but the door of the cell is thick, the concrete thicker. Ian swallows, sticky, then starts to tell the story of how he got here.
Mickey’s breath is warm on the side of his neck as Ian absentmindedly traces along the line of his jaw with his fingers, up around near his ear, and back down again. He chuckles when Ian describes the meth dealers. Ian sweeps his thumb over Mickey’s cheek. Mickey burrows further into where his head is tucked, content.
In the confessional, Ian felt just like this. Enclosed in a box, where his voice echoes off the walls and back into his own ears at double the volume. Forced confrontation. Ian’s spilling out now, confessing all of his sins but knowing he’ll receive forgiveness.
“And then there was a kid who had… run away from home. Was prostituting himself. His dad said he was mentally ill. I talked to the kid, and he said that his dad sent him to conversion therapy. Reminded me a lot of—” Ian swallows. “Of us, I guess.”
It sounds so trite out loud. Poor Ian, futile, misguided attempts to step in so no one has to suffer the way he did.
He finds Mickey’s mouth twisted up tight, holding back something of his own.
“So, I blew up the van to save him from being taken away. Then, Shim was talkin’ to me, and everyone was sayin’ I had to keep going, that I was making a difference. But I woke up one day, got bailed out of jail, and I couldn’t hear it anymore. I didn’t know what to do.”
“Gotta be weird.”
“I know now that it was mania, obviously, I just… at the time, I felt abandoned. I couldn’t figure out what I’d done wrong, but God threw me away anyway. I don’t know what fuckin’ happened to me. I lost myself, again.”
“You still lost?”
Ian’s looking at Mickey’s face, trying to remind himself that this isn’t a dream. It’s weird seeing him like this. Matching jet-black hair, pale skin, yellow jumpsuit. A twin of sorts.
Although, Ian molded himself to be more like Mickey, didn’t he? Dyed his hair, prepped to run off. Toyed a little with the idea of going to Mexico, too. He studied up on prison etiquette and asked fuckin’ Terry for advice. Walked into the facility with a piercing stare, arched eyebrows, and a swagger to his gait. Hunched his shoulders like he was bracing for a blow that hadn’t even been threatened yet.
Molding himself in Mickey’s image for protection, strength. Always searching for pieces of him. Ian’s ginger roots are starting to grow in, even though he only dyed his hair a week ago.
“Nah, not lost.”
He can imagine the sight clear as day: patrol agents have the car surrounded. Sniffer dogs are snarling and chomping at him. Mickey’s loaded gun is in the glove compartment. Neither of them reach for it. But someone pulls a trigger, and there’s no glass to separate Ian from the blood this time.
In reality, Ian’s not in the car. The gate lifts, and Mickey passes over.
Losing Mickey is a practiced ritual at this point, as is losing Monica, but Ian doesn’t know how to wrap his mind around losing both forever at the same time. Mickey to “heaven,” Monica to Heaven.
Ian hopes they’re both in heaven, at least.
Frank dies on their anniversary, and that makes Ian and Mickey both, for lack of a better term, orphans. It doesn't really feel like the right term, considering they’re both well into their twenties, but it’s the term.
They didn’t find out until almost four days later when Fiona called Lip, saying Sheila called her— the hospital still had her number from Frank’s liver transplant. The other news? There were virtually no remains. How the fuck that disappearing act happened when Ian found out Frank died of a nasty, yet very crematable hybrid of heroin overdose, liver transplant rejection, and COVID, he’s not sure.
There’s no body to bury or ashes to scatter, and it’s not safe to travel by plane, and Frank wasn’t really a father. So there’s no funeral to be had, in Ian’s opinion. But Debbie insists on doing something anyway, just for them to get together and drink in his honor. Carl suggests they do it at the beach at the lake— something about going there with Frank once.
No Fiona, no Sheila. Kev and V are at least still in town, packing up their house. The sale of the Gallagher house has been tabled for now.
Orphans. Both of their parents are dead. They can’t really be orphans if they never had parents to begin with, though. Can they?
They’re at the beach, but it’s March— still too early to swim. Ian was gonna take Mickey there once the weather got warmer. They always talked about it in prison, to make themselves feel better about being unable to leave the state until they're off parole: don’t even need the beach in California or Florida. We have one right here in Chicago. Their own personal heaven.
Ian toes his shoes off even though the sand is cold. Ironically, Liam gives the best euology. Maybe it’s not ironic— he knew Frank for the least amount of time, and he was clearly the favorite. Frank mellowed out in the last few years anyway, after his mom died, he almost died, Monica died, and Fiona took off. Liam had less opportunity to have his memory tainted.
Ian’s fine. During his turn, he jokes that it’s probably one last fuck you from Frank, that he went and died on Ian’s wedding anniversary. Frank always hated Ian the most, even if he found Mickey amusing sometimes.
“You okay?” Mickey asks him, late into the party. They’re tipsy, sitting in the sand and pretending like it’s not gonna be a bitch to get out of their clothes later. Ian can’t believe he gets to care about tracking sand around his fancy apartment he shares with his husband now.
Ian’s sitting between Mickey’s legs, leaning back into him. He barely fits, but it’s nice to be supported by his body, his firm chest. Mickey’s arms are wrapped over Ian’s shoulders, right hand thumbing under the collar of his shirt.
Debbie’s watching Kev and V sway around. Franny is playing with a cooing Fred, and Lip, Tami, Carl, and Liam are locked into a heated sandcastle building contest. Ian still doesn’t care about Frank.
Ian can tell that Mickey’s worried that Frank dying will fuck with him. He somehow finds the wherewithal to be patient with it— a year into marriage and it’s still a struggle to let himself let Mickey worry.
Based on how Ian took Monica’s death, it’s a reasonable assumption to make. But Ian made closure with Frank a while ago, somewhere between the first slap to his face and the liver transplant, when he should have gone.
He can admit that it’s weird to feel so much nothing. Even Mickey still cried over Terry’s death for days, even though Terry tortured him every single day for years. Maybe it’s because there was a body to do something with, scores to settle.
The grim reaper tattoo on Mickey’s forearm is flush with Ian’s chest.
Ian’s grief over Monica still weighs on him, the heaviest of it etched into his right shoulder. At times it’s a burden to carry the parts of her that were so dark. But he carries the good parts of her too: her face, her laugh, her kindness. Ian won’t miss Frank’s presence in a room the way he does Monica’s.
“Yeah, I’m good, just thinkin’ about my mom.”
“She like the beach?”
Monica liked driving and knit sweaters and dogs and talking to strangers. She liked meth and parties. She liked money. She liked Frank. He doesn’t know if she liked the beach.
Ian takes a swig of his drink. “Monica liked everything,” he says. “Even stuff she should’ve hated.”
Ian’s pushing for a baby, and Mickey’s pushing back. That discussion has been tabled too. Ian doesn’t know who will bend first, or if two orphans that never really had real parents could do right by a child.
It’s an ever-evolving observance, after all.
epilogue.
There’s a Bible, long shoved into the back of a jail library.
Ian doesn’t really remember writing it on the end cover, a hundred cosmic connections firing through his head at any given moment. But it’s there, and some inmate who thumbs over it months after Ian’s bailed out won’t know what it means.
ARCHANGEL MICHAEL, GUARDIAN OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.
PATRON SAINT OF FIRST RESPONDERS, THE MILITARY, GROCERS. SERVITUDE. OBEDIENCE.
RESCUES THE SOULS OF THE FAITHFUL, PASSES JUDGEMENT FOR ADMITTANCE INTO HEAVEN. ANGEL OF DEATH.
MIKHAILO: DERIVED FROM MICHAEL“HE WHO IS LIKE GOD”
REVELATION 12:7-9 :
MICHAEL CAST SATAN TO HELL. SAMMI GOT LOCKED IN A BOX.