Chapter Text
Dear Fiona,
Um… hope this letter finds you well (?)
Yeah, I don’t know how to start a letter when I haven’t touched base with you since March. If it weren’t for that care package we left the family, I wouldn’t be shocked if you thought I was toe-up in a ditch somewhere. I don’t know what else to say except I’m sorry for being away for so long, but I’ve got my head on straight more than I have in years, and I’ve surrounded myself with good people. And I’ve met someone. If you’re okay with it, I was hoping you’d be open to meeting him.
We’re headed back to Chicago with Lip and Liam in tow. It’s a long story how we found one another, but my friends and I have been keeping Liam safe and Lip out of trouble. I figure you’re probably even more sore with Lip than you are with me, but try to go easy on him. He’s been through a lot. And he’s in the doghouse enough as it is.
But we’re headed home. I’ve missed out on enough time with you guys and Ι don’t want to miss another moment. We’re leaving London (it’s a long story how we ended up here and I’m not sure how much you’d actually believe) in a few weeks and are going to spend maybe a few days in New York before we take a train to Chicago. We’re hoping to be back before Christmas, but definitely we will see you all before the New Year.
~Ian
🧛 Mickey 🧛
The RMS Homeric casts anchor at noon, and fortunately the harbor is overcast enough that Ian can be outside in the middle of the day. Mickey is grateful for that. He stayed with Ian below deck during the day when they travelled on The Carpathia, but he would much rather be on deck, as he was back in his time privateering. The old sailor in him is a little superstitious and thinks it’s bad luck to remain below deck when casting off.
The water had been a bit icy when they were boarding, but as the ship pulls out of its moorings, ice is giving way to mist under the heat of the sun poking through the clouds.
Ian is a hurricane of emotions and Mickey is the eye of the storm. He’s elated and yet anxious, which is only to be expected. Homecomings are difficult. The first time Mickey journeyed to his homeland after his transformation, he had waited far too long. Granted, it was mostly due to Wulfric constantly exerting his control over him, but Mickey still managed to spend a couple centuries blaming himself for just how much was lost in the 160 or so years between his being sold into bondage and when he finally returned to find his entire village stricken off the map. If it weren’t for public records and following the song of his indirect descendants’ blood, he could have just as easily pretended his family and his entire childhood had never even existed.
He’s doing better by Ian than Wulfric ever would have for either of them. They are returning after having been away not even a full year. Instead of the long-since wiped out farming community Mickey found when he returned home, he is bringing Ian back home to the modern and ever-expanding city that Mickey practically helped build from the ground up. He honored Ian’s initial wish to avoid his family, then welcomed Lip and Liam into the fold when Ian sought them out.
Wulfric may have treated Mickey like a child or a thrall to be ordered about, but Ian, despite the chasm of years and experience between them, has only ever been Mickey’s equal. Even before he knew what they were both feeling was love, he has only ever sought to treat Mickey as he would have wanted to have been treated when he was in Ian’s place.
As he feels Ian’s anxiety thrum through him, the last thing he wants to do is dismiss what Ian is feeling. Instead he seeks to soothe his worries. As he chats with Mandy, Enzo, and Ian’s brothers, he stays by Ian’s side, very often letting their shoulders graze against each other. Every so often, he’ll gently take Ian’s hand and rub the pad of his big, freckled paw, as if to say, “Everything will work out alright. And even if it doesn’t, we’ll get through the hard parts together.”
🧛 Ian 🧛
Ian remembers the first leg of their journey. He was so new to being a vampire back then that he was completely at the mercy of the sun’s rays. Mickey had to pass him off as an invalid concealed under blankets, and that’s only because the ancient blood coursing through his veins made him strong enough to resist diurnal paralysis. Otherwise, they would have needed a long pine box to get him aboard the train without raising suspicions.
Now, though, Ian gets to stand by his lover in the middle of the day and watch as the ocean liner travels down the English Channel at a slow but steady clip. Granted, he knows the inclement weather is their benefactor here. Even Mickey and Mandy who are both ancient vampires struggle with the mid-day sun, which even now can cause rashes, even blisters and irritable mood swings. Soon enough though, they will pass out of Britain’s stormy weather and they will have to head below decks until the sun is lower on the horizon.
They lean on the railing of the RMS Homeric, looking out at the sight of the British Isles shrinking into the vanishing point. Mickey holds Lip and Liam’s undivided attention as he extols them with the specs of the ship’s motors. Ian honestly isn’t following the conversation. He is paying attention, of course, but he is not at all a mechanically-minded. So as Mickey and his brothers go back and forth about so as he the world has shrunk down to Mickey’s lips. They’re great at making mechanical engineering sound interesting. They make words like “turbine” sound interesting and words like “thrust” sound like an invitation to retire to their suite on A Deck for a couple hours.
“…by himself, Ian?”
“Huh?” Grunts Ian, who hadn’t realized that the conversation had turned toward something he could actually contribute, let alone that Liam was asking him a question.
“Lost in thought, lover?” Mickey remarks. A statement, not a question. He is in the man’s head and under his skin. And the sly expression on his face tells Ian he knows precisely what Ian has in mind.
“Yeah, I guess I was. What were we talking about?”
“I was asking about Trevor?”
“What about him?”
Liam rolls his eyes, annoyed at having to repeat himself. “Is he going to be okay all by himself?”
A hint of a smile curls up on Ian’s face. Liam and gotten attached to Trevor over the past month. Maybe it’s because they both had complex lingering feelings about the Woman in the Woods, as they came to call her. The two would often leave small offerings for her and leave them just on the other side of the wards for her to find. Trevor did convince Liam to keep away from her, but the pair of them still felt like she deserved some act of kindness and compassion. Then again, perhaps it was because he’s the only adult in their little circle that doesn’t have at least some degree of para-parental oversight over him. Even Enzo has a soupçon of adult authority, albeit in a drunken uncle capacity.
Perhaps it was because of the way Ian observed the way Trevor managed to relate to Liam as a peer that inspired him to make his first big purchase with Wulfric’s fortune, buying the house they had been renting for the past four months outright. On the one hand, it was because he wanted to hold onto it; he fell in love with the top floor that he and Mickey had all to themselves, their gatherings in the music room, banting in the billiard room. It hit just the right balance of there being enough space for all of them without being so expansive that it felt like wandering in a museum the way it does back in Mickey’s Chicago estate.
To a lesser degree, though, Ian wanted Trevor to have somewhere he can feel welcome. With him still on the outs with Oberon and Titania, he still persona non grata in the city. His only recourses were to hide in that nowhere place of his or to remain constantly on the move and hope they don’t spot him. At least in a house full of vampires, and skin changers,
Maybe that’s why he kept showing up on their doorstep. He didn’t want to be alone. He found a warmer reception from the lot of them after their experience in the woods, and all of them, even Mickey in his own way, put in an effort to show him kindness. Though Ian suspects Trevor appreciated the show of trust more than the kindness.
As long as the deed is in Ian’s name, Trevor will be welcome, the last unclaimed bedroom on the third floor across from Enzo’s set aside for him. Who knows? Someday, Oberon and Titania may relent and welcome him back into the fold. But until then, he has a place in this world where he can rest easy. And even if he prefers to keep a safe distance, at least he makes sure to let the Woman in the Woods know that she isn’t forgotten.
“I think he’ll be just fine,” replies Ian with hope in his voice.
🧛 Mickey 🧛
Just under a fortnight after they put London behind them, Mickey finds himself standing in front of a blue house with a heavy red door in the Back of the Yards an hour or so before dusk. This is where they first met, with Ian warding Mickey off, thinking him a threat to his family. Now, Ian calls Mickey a member of that family. Mickey just hopes that he proves himself worth of the honor.
The house itself has undergone some repairs. The front steps have clearly been newly replaced. The roof has been re-shingled and the boarded up attic window has been replaced with orange Tiffany glass that complements the house. The house has hardly been remodeled, but just attending to the long-overdue upkeep makes the property feel like brand new.
Ian and his brothers had all told him that the winter holidays are a modest affair at the Gallagher house. Maybe a string of garland and along the mantle and a candle in the bay windows. But Mickey supposes Fiona must have put a little bit of the money he gifted Ian’s family towards bringing a festive spirit to the household. Strings of painted Edison bulbs line the awning and frame the bay window. Inside, he can see a short tree, maybe up to his shoulder, bedizened with more colorful lights, a shiny string of aluminum tinsel is spooled around it, and multi-colored glass balls are nestled in its boughs.
“Looks like you gave us a good life,” Liam remarks as they stand at the newly mended front gate.
“I just gave your sister some cash.”
“Yeah,” scoffs Lip. “To the tune of thirty thousand dollars. Not exactly milk money.”
“It hardly made up for the treasure I was leaving town with. And your sister took that cash and invested it in the family home. If you wanna call that making a better life, then sure. But she did that for herself.”
Now, he can feel Ian’s nervous trepidation that makes him feel abuzz. Perhaps he is even jittery. Is this Ian’s feelings he is sensing or his own.
But what is Ian worried about? That Miss Fiona won’t like Mickey? Granted, Mickey isn’t exactly always great with new people. But what if she rejects Mickey because she thinks two men together is sinful? Or what if she picks up his supernatural nature? Worse yet, what if she ends up rejecting Ian. Mickey isn’t sure if he could live with himself if she rejected Ian on his account.
He wishes Mandy were here with them, but at Lip’s suggestion, she and Enzo agreed to head to the mansion up in the Gold Coast. Mickey wonders if it because he doesn’t want them to see the dressing down that he’ll be getting from Fiona or if he wants to iron out the sleeping arrangements so that Ian and Mickey won’t catch Lip, Mandy, and Enzo slipping into one another’s rooms. It’s actually kind of cute that they think they’re being subtle.
“Hey,” Ian whispers as he laces his fingers into Mickey’s own. “Don’t be nervous. I’m right here with you.”
Mickey smiles and exhales as he squeezes back at Ian’s hand. Perhaps they are both nervous. Mickey refuses to believe that it was only him that was getting anxious. That simply feels all too… mortal.
Ian does the honors and knocks on the door. After so long away, the brothers all feel that they cannot simply just barge in. And with Ian having been away the longest, Lip and Liam both concur that Ian should be the first face their siblings find on the other side of the door. Mickey clearly sees it for the cop-out it is— let him bear the brunt of Fiona’s maternal fury.
If the Gallagher siblings are anything like him, then they feel several eternities between knocking on the door and waiting for a response. Although, at least all three adults have heightened hearing enough to confirm movement behind the door.
Then finally, the heavy red door opens a crack. Brown eyes inspect them for a fraction of an instant and then then door practically flies off its hinges.
“Oh my lord, you’re here!”
Mickey only has an instant to get out of the way before Fiona Gallagher launches herself on Ian. Her arms are around his neck, holding him like he might disappear into fine vapor if she let go. Despite the five-inch height difference, she pulls Ian down and plants kisses on his crown. “Do you know how many nights I was up late worried you were dead?”
The woman Mickey beholds isn’t quite what Ian’s memories would have him believe. Ian’s recollections paint her as a towering, formidable figure in his life. She has a couple inches on him or Lip, certainly, but she isn’t the titaness that Ian’s memories, a younger brother’s memories, distorted her into. And quite unlike the idealized version of her that Mab attempted to embody to lure in Liam, there are flaws to be found in the canvas; mild frown lines and a smoker’s pout and a shock of hair towards her starting to turn white. Then, there are her eyes, so tired with purple bags under them. He can tell that she attempts to conceal with foundation, but she cannot hide the truth. Much like with her brothers, it is the eyes that give away how much older they all are emotionally than they are chronically.
She turns her attention to Liam, sweeping him up in her arms. The Liam who keeps insisting that he should be treated like a grown-up is nowhere to be found. He lets his sister fawn over him, and he takes it in stride. Mickey doesn’t think he has ever seen Liam look so much like a boy as he does now, hauled up in his sister’s embrace, the tears of anointing both their lips intermingle into a damp mess. “All of you! Not a word for months!” she continues through sobs of relief, though still there is an edge to her tone.
“Yeah. That’d be on me,” Lip admits.
Lip Gallagher is as pale as a sheet as his sister lowers Liam to the ground again, then rounds on him. No doubt, he expects her to ream him out and plunge her fist into his chest and pull out his still-beating heart. But he doesn’t falter as his eye meet her gaze. His shoulders are back and his posture firm. “I should’ve brought him back ages ago. But he’s kept up with his school work. He’s probably a grade or two above the other kids now. Algebra, Shakespeare, Latin.” He trails off, uncertain of what else to say.
If Mickey didn’t know any better, he would think that the way the woman lets her younger brother run his mouth is like watching a cat toy with its prey. Nearly a minute passes between Lip having something other than awkward stuttering. Then finally, she stretches out her arms. “Come on, I can be mad at you later.”
Mickey hasn’t seen Lip let out such a deep breath since the last time he watched Ian take him out for a run. He doesn’t need to have a direct pipeline to the second eldest Gallagher’s thoughts to practically taste the palpable sense of relief in the atmosphere.
Soon the remaining t o Gallagher siblings appear. Carl, the second youngest after Liam, is arrayed in the uniform of Chicago’s police cadet corps. An amusing attempt at a mustache is sprouting across his upper lip. Just slightly older, Deborah has a newborn draped resting slung upon her shoulder. The little thing couldn’t be more than six weeks, with soft curls closer to Ian’s coppery red than her mother’s auburn.
Mickey takes a step back and watches the Gallagher siblings, reunited for the first time in so long, a family made whole. If Mickey could slow down the first century of Ian’s immortality down to a crawl, he would without a moment’s hesitation.
Mickey shuffles his feet back a couple more paces, milling around the front gate. He figures after having monopolized Ian all this time, he owes it to his lover to let them have their space.
A fraction of an instant after feeling Ian, he hears his Gallagher call out to him. “Mick!”
But then he feels and urgency from Ian. What could have happened. He is barely ten feet away from them. Immediately, he turns on his heels, his chest tightening as he staves off the instinct to snarl defensively at whatever may threaten Ian and his kin.
But instead of a danger descending upon them all, Mickey is greeted with the sight of his Ian, his freckled smile aglow in the last beams of dusk.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, confused even as Ian takes his hand.
“What’s the big deal wandering off when I haven’t introduced you yet?”
“But you haven’t seen your family since—”
“What part of ‘you’re my family’ don’t you understand, baby?”
Mickey grins despite himself. He is over a thousand years old, more like to be called “old man” than “baby.” And yet Mickey catches himself positively melting at the sound on Ian’s lips.
Ian makes his introduction, though he hasn’t mentioned Mickey’s name yet. Perhaps because he can never quite remember the name Mickey always uses around mortals. To be fair, he did actively select an intentionally pompous name for his current alias. Foster K Wattley, Jr is on the tip of his tongue, ready to go.
But that name turns to vapor on his tongue as Fiona extends her hand as says, “So, you’re the one who has made Ian so happy, huh?”
“Not nearly as happy as he makes me.” It hardly summarizes how he feels. Ian changed everything. Mickey may have saved him from a sorry situation when they first met, but every day ever since, Ian has found ways to breathe new life into Mickey’s ancient existence. He would still be puttering around alone in an empty mansion if it weren’t for him.
“My name is…” he hesitates. Vampires don’t share their true names with mortals. But these aren’t just any mortals. They are Ian’s family. And Lip and Liam’s. He accepts all three of them as clan. Not just clan, but kin. Family. “Just call me ‘Mickey.’”
“Well, Mickey? Would you like to come inside? It’s getting cold out.”
Vampires aren’t bound by the silly invitation myth. It’s just common courtesy not to trespass. Still, it’s nice to be asked. “Thank you, Miss Fiona.”
Ian’s delight makes Mickey’s brain feel all aflutter even before the redhead wraps an arm around his waist and leads him inside. He has seen these halls so many times in Ian’s memories. And Mickey possesses the deeds to his own estates across the Northern Hemisphere outright. But only now does he feel like he’s home.