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Mickey wakes up in the hospital, feeling like shit. It takes him a moment, after he opens his eyes, to figure out where he is, why he's here, and what the awful feeling in his stomach is; but when he does, he closes his eyes and gives into a moment of weakness by wishing he had not woken up at all.
It's not the pain, the sharp throb in his side when he tries to shift his leg. It's not the nausea and the dizziness washing over him when he tries to lift his head, or the taste of cotton balls and vomit on his tongue.
It's the sudden and devastating realization that he is utterly and completely alone.
He groans, his throat raw as if he's choked on gravel, and he would throw an arm over his face, but he does not think he can muster the energy it would take to lift his hand. Fuck, he thinks, and then he can't bring himself to stop. Fuck, fuck. Ian. Fuck.
Under the circumstances, he thinks, he cannot be blamed for taking a moment to notice the small noise to his left, a squeak, a sudden exhale of breath. Nothing big, certainly not a threat, but also a sign that he is not quite as alone as he thought at first. He carefully turns his head to the side, ignoring the lurch his stomach undertakes at the movement, and slowly opens his eyes.
Debbie Gallagher is sitting in one of the visitor's chairs next to the door, clutching a cell phone in both hands, looking up at him, eyes wide, mouth open.
He blinks. Closes his eyes, blinks again, but the image doesn't disappear. Yes, someone is sitting in the chair by the wall, and that someone is Debbie fucking Gallagher, with her stupid pink blouse and her stupid red hair.
Before he can wrap his mind around what that means, the door flies open. "Hey," someone says to Debbie, and if Mickey didn't know better, he'd say that it's Lip who's just walked into his hospital room.
"The doctor says …" Lip looks up and trails off.
"Oh," he says. "Good. You're awake."
"How do you feel?" Debbie asks with a bright smile, as if this is normal. As if she and her brother visit him in the hospital every day.
"Like I've been shot." He bites off the words, tries not to wince at the way they come out, rusty and rough and weak. "What the fuck is going on?"
Lip has the nerve to raise his brows. "Uhm, you got shot," he says, and Mickey rolls his eyes. Maybe he died, he thinks. Maybe he died and this is Hell, he thinks, because wouldn't that be God's greatest fucking joke, if hell turned out to be being locked into a room with a bunch of fucking Gallaghers for eternity.
"I got that part, asshole," he says icily. "What the fuck are you guys doing here?"
Debbie and Lip look at him. Then they look at each other. Then they look back at him.
"They said there was a lot of blood when the ambulance came," Lip finally says. "We didn't know what had happened. Figured we should stop by and see if you made it." He shrugs awkwardly. "How you were doing."
"Huh," Mickey says. He can hear what Lip is saying, and there is probably a world out there where his words make sense. Mickey is pretty certain that this is not that world.
"They wouldn't let us see you at first," Debbie says conversationally, "until we told them that you're our brother-in-law."
It takes a moment for the words to sink in. By the time he gets there, she has already realized what she's said herself: He can see it in her face, the instant regret, the way her mouth snaps shut like a turtle clamping down on a lettuce leaf, and he can see Lip say something else, sees his lips moving, but he can't hear him over the noise of the blood rushing in his ears. Fuck. Later, he will blame the pain medication, and the blood loss, and the shock of waking up to the concerned faces of two Gallagher kids. He will blame it on all kinds of things – the fact that after all the shit he's been through, this is the moment where he feels tears pool in his eyes, and a noise escapes him that sounds far too much like a sob.
He clamps down on it at once, rubs his cheek against the hospital-issued pillow awkwardly to get rid of the offensive wetness on his face, but it's too late: Debbie and Lip are staring at him with something like horror, and that is already almost funny enough to make him laugh, despite himself: they are not scared of Mickey Milkovich when they are watching him beat the shit out of a guy, but clearly, the sight of him crying makes them want to piss themselves with fear.
"Hey," Lip finally says, and he sounds clumsy and slow and helpless. "I need to get back to school, but." He pauses. "The doctor said they'd let you out tomorrow, so I'm going to come and pick you up, alright?"
Debbie jumps up from her chair and straightens her skirt. "Yeah," she says. "Do you need anything?"
Yes, Ian, he thinks, but he can't tell her that, so he just stares at her, at a loss of what to say.
"Well, call us if you do," Lip says, and starts to push the door open again. "Take care, buddy," he says, and Debbie waves.
"Sorry man," Lip says when he pushes the door to the Milkovich home open the next day to guide Mickey through. "Normally I'd say come crash at our place for a while, but –"
"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Mickey says and pretends that it doesn't matter. Doesn't matter that the reason he cannot stay at his boyfriend's house is that Ian is not his boyfriend anymore. Doesn't matter that the thought makes him feel like he's going to lean over any minute and puke all over the floor and Lip's precious sneakers.
He doesn't throw up. Just lets Lip lead him into the house like he's a fucking invalid and ignores the silence that greets them. He doesn't need to check to know that the house is completely empty. Time was there would be a half dozen hookers smoking up the living room, time was there would be his sister yelling at her no-good boyfriend and a baby screaming and Ian laughing. Time was he would have killed for a little quiet, a little privacy. Well. Hindsight is 20/20.
"Where do you wanna –" Lip gestures, sheepish and out of his element. "Your bed, or the couch –"
"The couch is fine," Mickey says, doesn't really care, but Lip exhales in relief and walks him over to the shabby couch, pushes aside empty take-out containers and beer bottles before helping him lie down on his back. It's embarrassing as fuck, but Mickey doesn't even care enough to bother pushing Lip's hands away, doesn't care enough to tell him to stop when he grabs the ratty quilt from the easy chair and throws it over Mickey as if he's tucking in a freaking baby.
"You okay?" Lip finally says, hands twisting awkwardly in front of his belly now that he's run out of things to do, and Mickey shrugs and looks away.
"Okay, okay," Lip says, sounding a little annoyed, but mostly tired and kind of sad. "I called Mandy, by the way," he says, that smug bastard, as if it's nothing. Whatever.
"Whatever," Mickey says, but Lip has already left.
Mandy calls. He lets the phone rattle on the coffee table and doesn't pick up. She calls again and he silences his ringtone. She starts sending him texts. He only checks the messages to make sure they are not from Ian. They are not.
Pick up, fuckhead, she writes, and he deletes the text. Fuck, just tell me you're still alive, y/n? she writes next. Yes, he types and hits send, just to get her to shut up. This time, he does not get a reply.
"Jesus Christ," Svetlana says and lets the door slam shut behind her.
"Yeah, no kidding," Veronica says dryly, and flips the light switch. "I thought Lip was joking when he said we should make sure he hadn't died in his own home, but clearly he wasn't exaggerating."
Mickey blinks against the sudden glaring light. "What –" he tries to say, and starts to cough instead. His throat is as dry as an old nun's cunt.
"Jesus," Veronica says, dropping her purse onto the coffee table. "You sure he shouldn't be in the hospital?"
"He's not dying," Svetlana says with contempt. "He's pining for orange boy." She walks past them toward the kitchen, switching on lights as she goes. "I go heat up food."
"Okay," Veronica says, sounding determined. "Let's do this." Mickey forces himself to keep his eyes open, trying to figure out what she's talking about, but she's already on the couch next to him, pushing away the blanket that Lip had draped over him, her hands reaching for his shirt. He flinches in panic at the sudden touch, causing pain to shoot up his side, and he curls into himself even as he's trying to slap her hands away.
"Calm the fuck down," she hisses, holding onto the hem of his shirt. "Jesus fuck, I'm not trying to molest you, you jerk, but you need to let me change your dressing if you don't want to rot like a fucking corpse."
She still doesn't let go, but she waits until his breathing has slowed down a little before she continues to push up his shirt.
He wants to tell her that he doesn't give a fuck about his bandage, but he finds he cannot muster the energy, and so he lies back against the couch and watches her peel away the gauze with steady hands.
"This is completely soaked through," she says incredulously. "God, have you been lying in this spot since Lip dropped you here?"
"So what?" he snaps, and then looks away when she stares at him.
"That was two days ago, you ass," she says slowly.
"Huh," he says. That doesn't seem quite right, but he hasn't really paid enough attention to the passing of time to argue with her. "I think I got up to piss once," he says instead, and she raises her brows.
"Well, thank god for small favors."
She works in silence then, and has just finished to tuck the new bandage in when Svetlana returns from the kitchen. She sets a steaming bowl and a spoon in front of him and puts her hands against her hips.
"Sit up, eat," she commands. He chuckles, humorlessly.
"What are you, my mother?"
She narrows her eyes. "Don't fuck with me, you piece of shit," she growls. "Sit up and eat, or I get funnel and force food down your throat." She smirks. "Like cock."
"Jesus," he grunts, but she looks like she's serious, so he makes an actual attempt to move himself to a seating position, and only twitches briefly when Veronica reaches out a hand to drag him up. It's okay to sit, despite the pain in his side and a bit of lightheadedness, and he hesitantly reaches for the soup.
He doesn't feel hungry, but it's not bad. He eats slowly, self-conscious under the sharp eyes of the two women, and tries to remember if Svetlana ever cooked for him like this before. He can't, but he doesn't know if it's because she never did or because he never paid attention.
"Are you happy now?" he asks, dropping the spoon into the empty bowl. It makes a clanging noise in the quiet house.
"Very happy," Svetlana says acidly, but the disgust in her eyes is tinged with something like pity, and that might be even harder to bear than her open contempt.
"There is more in pot on the stove," she says. "Try not to die until we come back."
Veronica rises from the couch and sets an orange bottle of pills onto the table.
"Oxycodone," she says dryly. "Don't take them all at once."
He thinks about it for a while. Picks up the plastic container after they leave, shakes it to hear the pills rattle inside the bottle. There must be twenty of them, he thinks; that might be enough to do him in if he flushes them down with that bottle of tequila on the bottom shelf in the kitchen cabinet. He is already sitting up, he might be able to make it to the kitchen and get the bottle if he takes his time. Too much effort, he finally decides, and swallows two of the pills dry before he slumps back onto the couch. He can always kill himself tomorrow.
When he wakes up, Debbie Gallagher is sitting in the chair across the room, playing with an empty beer bottle.
"Fuck," he says and drags a hand over his face. Apparently, waking up to that stupid girl's face is becoming a pattern.
"Good morning to you too," she says primly, and sets the bottle down with a clink.
"What the hell do you want?" He makes himself sit up and reaches for the half-empty soda bottle on the table that's been there for god knows how long. He thinks Mandy may have drunk from it before she left. The soda tastes nasty and stale, but it still helps to soothe his parched throat. He shakes an Oxy from the pill bottle and washes it down with more 7 Up.
"How do you know if you're pregnant?" Debbie asks, making him choke on his drink.
"Excuse me?" he splutters. "How the fuck should I know?"
She pulls a face and kicks the couch table with a purple sneaker. "I used to ask Mandy about this kind of stuff, but she left."
"Do I look like my fucking sister to you?" he asks. "Do I look like I have a uterus?"
She raises her brows. "You like guys, and you got a girl pregnant," she says. "Close enough."
He rolls his eyes, but decides not to challenge her logic. His head feels like it's wrapped in cotton, the wound is a dull throb against his side.
"Why do you wanna know anyway?" he asks, and she looks down at her hands.
"I had sex with my boyfriend and didn't use a condom," she says. "I had a positive pregnancy test, and I thought I wanted a baby, but I kinda changed my mind, and now I'm bleeding, and I need to know if it's over or if I should start saving for an abortion."
"Jesus fucking Christ," he says. "Too much information, what the -" He pauses when he sees her flinch, and takes a deep breath.
"Does Fiona know about this?" he asks, and when she shakes her head: "Lip?"
"No one knows," she says quietly, and Mickey groans.
"Well, have you taken another pregnancy test?" he asks, and she looks at him with wide eyes.
"I take that as a no," he sighs. He should have overdosed on Oxycodone when he had the chance. It's probably too much to hope that Sammi will break out of jail and come shoot him in the head.
"Okay," he says. "We need to get to the bathroom, but you'll need to help me out here."
"Of course!" she says, jumping up from the chair with far too much energy. She comes to stand at his side, then looks down at him uncertainly. "What do you want me to do?"
It takes them almost ten minutes to make it down the hallway, and another ten to go through the bathroom cabinet. By the time they have unearthed three different brands of pregnancy tests – courtesy of Mandy, Svetlana, and Russian Hooker Number 4 –, he is breathing hard, and reminded acutely of the fact that he hasn't been standing upright by himself since he felt Sammi's bullet tear into his ribcage.
He flops down onto the floor outside the bathroom door, his back against the wall, and tries to get his heartbeat back under control as he listens to the sound of Debbie's urine splattering into the toilet bowl.
"Now what?" she yells, and he lets his head fall back against the wall.
"Now we wait," he says. He hears the toilet flush and the toilet lid slam down, then the bathroom door opens and Debbie sits down on the floor next to him with a heavy sigh. Together, they stare at the plastic stick in silence. It's not unlike watching paint dry.
Debbie exhales. "Do you see –"
He squints at the single pale pink line.
"Not pregnant," he nods, in case she didn't get that part.
"Yes," she laughs in relief, and raises her palm. After a second of contemplation, he high fives her with a smirk.
"Congrats on not being knocked up."
For a moment, they just grin at each other, then Debbie's face grows serious.
"Thank you," she says, and Mickey shrugs, already uncomfortable.
"Yeah, whatever," he says. He wonders how he's ever going to make it back to the couch.
"Do you want to know how Ian's doing?" Debbie asks carefully, and he stares at her in shock.
Why do you think I would want to know, he wants to say, but he doesn't think he could get the words out without starting to cry. In the end, he shrugs and looks away from her concerned, awful little girl face. Fucking Gallaghers.
"Fiona got him to start taking his meds again," Debbie says quietly, fiddling with the pregnancy test.
"That's –" he swallows. "That's good," he says. He is proud of himself for getting that far.
"Hmm," she says. She is quiet for a long time. "He still has your picture in his room," she finally says. "He's hiding it between the pages of a porn magazine." She chuckles a little. "Probably didn't think anyone would find it there."
"Why are you telling me this?" Mickey asks, and hates how rough his voice sounds to his own ears. Debbie pokes him in the leg with her pregnancy test.
"Duh," she says. "Because you're family."
Since he's already up, he figures there is no point in trying to return to his state of inertia. He heats up more of Svetlana's soup and watches TV until the sun starts setting outside, then he forces himself to get off the couch and limps down the hallway. He tries to sleep in his own bed, but he can't shake the feeling that the sheets smell like Ian, so he moves to Mandy's old room, downs a couple of painkillers, and passes out on the covers.
He wakes up the next morning, tangled in the sweat-soaked sheets, hurting all over, and hard enough to drill holes. For a while, he just lies there, staring up at the ceiling, and tries to will his erection away. When that doesn't work, he pushes his hand into his boxers and wraps his fingers around his cock. He thinks of Ian. Ian's mouth, Ian's tongue, Ian's fingers, Ian, Ian … he feels the tears spilling down his cheeks as he jerks himself harder, sobs when he comes with a groan. His face is wet, his side is hurting, he doesn't feel any better than he did before. Disgustedly, he wipes the jizz off his hands on Mandy's sheets, and then punches the mattress for good measure.
He actually leaves the house the next day. He knows he's going to lose his mind if he doesn't. The Oxycodone is gone, so he screwed up that chance at an easy suicide, and he's not quite ready to blow out his brains with a .22 just yet. If he's going to live for a while, he needs to figure out some shit. What he's going to do for money, where the fucking hell his good-for-nothing brothers are. How he can move around the neighborhood without running into Ian.
Putting on jeans and shoes is a bit of a challenge, taking him the better part of the morning, leaving him dizzy and exhausted. But by the end of the day, he's harassed Veronica at the Alibi into changing his dressing again and talked her into giving him another bottle of pain killers without much resistance; he's confirmed that Sammi is indeed locked up and her fat little spawn whisked away by social services; he's taken wallets off two rich hipster guys with minimal application of violence; and he's not spotted any Gallaghers, not even from afar. He would call that a rousing success, except he also feels like crap when he finally drags himself back home. His ribs hurt like a bitch and he keeps having to pause to catch his breath. He is so relieved when he makes it back to the house without passing out in the street that it takes him a moment to realize that Lip Gallagher is sitting on his stairs. Because God clearly hasn't already punished him enough.
"Fucking Christ," Mickey says, or rather, coughs, because his voice doesn't seem to be working that well anymore either. "Don't you have a family of your own you can annoy with your stupid face?"
Lip rolls his eyes and opens his mouth, clearly prepared to respond in kind, but then he gets a closer look at Mickey, and his face shifts into something else.
"You look fucking awful, man," he says, stubbing out his cigarette on the porch steps and getting to his feet. "What were you doing outside anyway?"
"Errands," Mickey snaps, not in the mood for a lecture from Lip, and he would tell him so, except that's when his legs finally decide to give out, and only Lip's reflexes keep him from falling on his face. Awkward.
"Let's get you inside," Lip says and half-drags Mickey up the stairs and into the house, where he dumps him unceremoniously on the couch again.
"Fuck, you are bleeding, man," he says. "What did you do to yourself?"
"Huh?" Mickey says and presses tentative fingers against his T-shirt. His hand comes away red. Now that he's thinking about it, he's felt a damp kind of stickiness down there for a while.
"You fucking shithead, you ripped your stitches, didn't you," Lip snarls. "Christ, okay, let me get something to fix you up. Do you have any stuff, first-aid kit or something?"
Mickey shrugs. He feels dizzy, and Lip's yelling is making his head hurt even more. "Bathroom, maybe," he says vaguely, and lets himself sink into the couch. He doesn't want to move ever again.
He hears Lip curse all the way down the hallway, hears him rummage around in the bathroom, eventually hears him come stomping back with far more noise than necessary.
"No first-aid kit," Lip says and drops an armful of clutter onto the coffee table. "But I found band aid and some maxi sanitary pads, so we'll just have to make do. And don't fucking complain," he hisses, before Mickey can even open his mouth, "I'll send Debbie to do a pharmacy run tomorrow, but right now we need to stop you from bleeding out." He looks around the living room. "Do you have anything to sterilize the wound?"
Mickey tilts his head toward the kitchen. "Vodka," he says. "Tequila. Take your pick."
He closes his eyes until Lip comes back with the bottle of Vodka, then he looks up and holds his hand out in a silent request.
Lip actually has the nerve to hesitate. "Do you think that's such a good idea?"
"Fuck, I'm not letting you operate on me without any anesthetics," Mickey growls, and Lip hands over the bottle without further complaint. Mickey takes a swig, then another one. The Vodka burns in his throat, sharp and clean. He has to leave it to the fucking Russians, they do know their liquor. He hands the bottle back to Lip, who looks at it for a moment, then shrugs and takes a swig himself.
"Let's do this," he says and moves to sit on the couch next to Mickey. He starts to peel the blood-soaked T-shirt away from Mickey's skin, exhales sharply at what he sees.
"What, am I dying?" Mickey asks, only partly joking. Lip shrugs.
"Too early to tell," he says, and for some reason, the sarcasm makes Mickey feel a tiny bit better. He leans back and lets Lip do the work: lets him unwrap the bandage, wipe away the blood with a vodka-soaked cloth, doesn't resist when Lip shoves at him to get a better look.
"I think it's stopped bleeding," Lip finally says, "but man, be more careful for fuck's sake."
"Gimme back the vodka," Mickey replies, and Lip presses the bottle into his hand with a long-suffering sigh.
The alcohol hits Mickey fast and hard. A bit too late he remembers that he dry-swallowed three pills on the way home, but he's already too far gone to care much. Everything feels hazy, unbalanced; he closes his eyes and listens to his own ragged breath, focuses on the softness of the upholstery against his hands, the feeling of Lip's fingers against the bare skin of his waist. It feels kind of nice, he thinks, the sharp sting of the alcohol against his wound contrasted by the gentle touch of careful hands. No one's touched him like they give a shit in a while. It feels a bit too nice, he realizes, with sluggish delay, when Lip stills suddenly and pulls in a sharp breath.
"You –" he says slowly, and Mickey doesn't need him to continue to know that he's gotten hard. He has to chuckle a little, because really, when he thought things couldn't get any worse.
"What," he slurs, because he honestly doesn't care anymore what anyone thinks, "you get me naked and then you won't even put out."
He doesn't open his eyes, but he hears Lip choke out a strangled, hysterical laugh. "Jesus, how is this my life," he says. "Honestly, Mickey, I might even consider lending you a hand, just for the sake of neighborly relations, but I'm pretty sure you'd show up on my doorstep and shoot me in the head tomorrow if I did." He pats Mickey's side with an efficient swipe of his hand, checking to see if the makeshift bandage is in place, then he tugs his T-shirt back down over his ribs. "Besides," he says quietly, "eventually Ian is going to come to his senses and run back to you, and that might make things a little bit awkward."
Mickey groans and shakes his head sluggishly. "You don't know that," he says. "You can't promise me that."
Lip shrugs and gets up from the couch. He still has Mickey's blood on his hands.
"Get some sleep, Mickey," is all he says, and Mickey figures that's as good of an answer as he's going to get.
He wakes to the sound of his buzzing phone, but he doesn't get the chance to even check the caller ID before his stomach lurches and the world tilts. He barely makes it to the kitchen in time, and pukes all over the pile of dirty dishes in the sink. He holds himself upright against the counter and retches until there's nothing to choke up but bile. He turns on the faucet, drinks greedily from the tap to get rid of the bitter taste in his mouth, splashes water against his face, leaves it running to wash away some of the vomit in the sink. When he heads back to the couch on wobbly legs, the phone has long stopped ringing. He's got a missed call from Mandy, and stares at her name on his screen for a long time before he presses the return-call button. She picks up after the second ring.
"Hey," she says, her voice tinny against the background noise of traffic, "how you holding up?"
He hadn't realized how much he missed her until he hears her speak. The relief is strong enough to bring tears to his eyes. He sags against the cushions in a boneless slump.
"I think I may have made a drunken pass at Lip last night," he groans, just to get her to laugh, and his tired heart gives a tiny satisfied twitch when she giggles incredulously.
"Wow, you've really hit rock bottom, huh?" she says. He doesn't bother with a reply – he can't really argue with her on that.
"How's Indiana?" he asks instead, and she is quiet for a while.
"Indiana didn't work out," she says finally. "I'm in Ohio right now."
"Ohio," he says. "What the fuck is in Ohio?"
She chuckles mirthlessly. "It's rather about what's not in Ohio," she says. "Like Kenyatta. Or Terry."
"Huh," he says. "You make it look like paradise. So why do you sound unhappy?"
"Because you aren't here either," she says quietly, and Jesus, if she was in the room with him he'd punch her in the face for going all sentimental on him. He can't do this shit right now.
"So you okay then," he asks, trying to keep his voice steady.
"Uhuh," she makes. "Found a job at a diner. Crashing in a co-worker's guest bedroom. Decent woman, you know," she says. "So far, I've managed not to screw up by running her over or fucking her husband."
He smirks. "Guess that's what they call progress."
She laughs dryly. "Yep," she says, and they fall silent again.
"Give him time," she finally says, and he draws a shuddering breath.
"What the fuck are you talking about?"
"Ian, asshat," she says, impatiently, but not unkindly. "He's – look, Debbie told me how he fucked you over, but man, he just needs to get his head back on straight."
"Yeah well," he says bitterly. There is a crash and a bang on the front porch, and he jumps a little in his seat.
"Gotta go," he says quickly, almost glad for the excuse. "Someone is trying to break into my house. Catch you later."
He hangs up before she can come out with more stupid, soppy advice, and debates whether he should investigate about the noise. Thing is, he doesn't really give a shit if someone wants to rob him, so he stays right where he is.
The robber turns out to be Kevin, who isn't actually there to rob him. Instead, he drops two bags of groceries onto the floor next to the door and looks around in disgust.
"Dude, if you don't clean sometime, this house is going to grow legs and run away to Canada," he says.
"I don't have any cash for you," Mickey says in reply. "If that's what you're here for, you're out of luck."
"Relax man," Kevin says, "I'm just here to bring you some food. Lip said you might appreciate it."
"Yeah?" Mickey snaps, tensing up against his will. "What did college boy say to you?"
"Nothing," Kev shrugs, sounding confused. "Just that you are going through a bit of a rough time." He pulls a face. "Guess he wasn't kidding, huh?"
"Fuck off," Mickey says and pulls the blanket over his head.
He must have fallen asleep, because he only comes to when Kevin pokes him in the shoulder. The shadows outside have grown considerably longer.
"Hey man," Kevin says. He's got a dish towel slung over his shoulder and an oven mitt in his hand like he's Martha fucking Stewart. "I heated up some pizza, come eat something."
By the time Mickey manages to maneuver himself into a seated position, Kevin has switched on the TV and is sprawled across the easy chair, eating pizza with his fingers while he's watching some Japanese children's cartoon, chuckling quietly to himself.
Mickey gives him a suspicious glance, but Kevin doesn't pay him any attention. Eventually, Mickey scoots forward to reach for a slice of the pizza. It tastes like cardboard in his mouth, but if you grow up starving, it gets difficult to say no to dinner, so he chews slowly and swallows carefully to make sure the food stays down. They eat in silence. At some point, Kevin gets to his feet and brings back two beers from the kitchen. He raises his brows when Mickey uses his to wash down a couple of painkillers, but if he's got complaints, he doesn't say.
Mickey gives up on the pizza after the second slice, and lies back to watch the cartoon from hooded eyes. He's half dozing when he hears Kevin get up and shuffle around in the room, but he doesn't bother opening his eyes, not even when Kevin comes closer, not even when he feels a cool hand against his forehead in a brief, fleeting touch.
"Man, life really pulled a number on you, huh?" Kevin murmurs, or maybe Mickey is just imagining that, because he's already falling asleep.
He wakes again in the middle of the night, from a nightmare about being shot, his throat raw and his heart racing. The images of the dream are already starting to fade, but he still recalls the cold fear of bleeding out in the street, Ian looking down at him with this strange, distant smile, as if he couldn't care less whether Mickey lives or dies. He presses a palm into his chest and draws a ragged breath. He knows that's not what actually happened, but the nauseating feeling of betrayal is hard to shake.
His cell informs him that it's 2:12am, right before the battery dies, plunging the room into darkness. He throws the phone back onto the table in disgust, then drags himself up and down the hallway, after locking up the front door.
He switches on the light in his room, holds onto the doorframe to keep his balance when the bright glare makes his head spin. The second compartment of his drawer is jammed when he reaches for it, and it takes him an embarrassingly long time to pull it open.
He contemplates the messy pile of weapons for a while, then grabs the SIG and hefts it, experimentally. He's always liked the way it fits into his palm. He puts a bullet in the chamber, switches off the safety, sits down on his bed and puts the gun against his temple.
He knows it would be better to put it in his mouth, but he thinks that would feel almost like giving a blowjob, and that seems way too symbolic for his tastes.
He wonders who'd find him, if he blew out his brains right now. Veronica maybe, making good on her promise to come change his dressings. She probably wouldn't bat an eye – she works in a nursing home, she must have seen enough dead people to last a lifetime. Or Svetlana perhaps, looking for one piece of clothing or another she'd forgotten when she'd moved out. He can't decide if she'd feel relieved to see him gone, or if she'd be pissed at him for taking away Yev' father - probably both, that demanding bitch. Maybe it would be Lip, he thinks. Fucking college boy asshole would probably cry over him or some shit. Debbie – he knows he doesn't want it to be Debbie. She's way too young for all this crap.
He puts the gun down. "You're a fucking pussy, Mickey," he says. There's no heat behind it. He lies down against the pillow, closes his eyes, and sleeps.
There is someone knocking on the front door. Mickey can hear the porch floorboards creak, hears the faint sound of someone calling his name.
He opens his eyes, and exhales. There's sunlight falling on his face. Maybe someone finally took pity and called the cops on him, and they are here to put him out of his misery. He could just lie here and wait for them to come find him, he thinks. They'll break down the door eventually if he holds out long enough. Or he could wave the gun in their faces, make sure they hit him a couple times in the chest.
The knocking continues. He pushes himself up and limps toward the door. The knocking stops, then picks up again, then stops for good. "Fuck," he curses. He looks down at himself: his shirt is stained with his blood, bulging awkwardly over the lump of his makeshift bandage. He thinks his boxers are the ones he wore when they sent him home from the hospital, how many days ago? He doesn't remember. It feels like yesterday. It seems ages ago.
His legs feel weak, and he leans against the wall next to the front door to catch his breath. Then he straightens and opens the door, just a crack. He cannot see anyone outside. He unhooks the chain, pulls the door open further, steps onto the front porch, props himself up against the railing to keep upright. The sunlight is hurting his eyes. Someone is standing at the bottom of the stairs. He wonders if he's finally going insane.
"Hey," Ian says, hands in his pockets, squinting up at him in the morning light. Mickey blinks.
"Is this a bad time?" Ian asks, shifting awkwardly, setting a foot onto the lowest step of the stairs.
Mickey flinches, confused. He loses his grip on the railing, somehow, but when he reaches for it again, it suddenly seems very far away.
His right leg gives out under him.
He watches Ian's eyes widen before he even realizes what's happening. He trips over the loose floorboard at the top of the stairs, slides forward, loses his balance. He thinks he hears Ian call his name. As his shoulder hits the edge of the stairs and the concrete sidewalk rushes closer, he thinks that the gun would have been a so much easier way to go.
Mickey wakes up in the hospital, feeling like shit. He knows it's the hospital without having to look: he recognizes the smell, the feeling of starched sheets against his skin, the background chatter of people's voices and beeping machines.
There are also noises closer nearby, a whisper, a cough.
He opens his eyes, and looks straight into the eyes of Debbie Gallagher.
"Jesus," he croaks, flinching. His heart is racing, his breath short.
Debbie's face pulls into a frown.
"For god's sake, give him a little space, Debbie," someone says, and the girl disappears from his field of view.
He knows that voice, he thinks. He turns his head to the left, and isn't even surprised when he sees them. They are lined up before the curtain like the world's worst welcoming committee: Fiona fucking Gallagher with Liam in her arms, Lip and Debbie, Kevin and V. In the following dragging silence, he can hear a woman yell something in Russian out in the hallway, and he wonders what the hell Svetlana is doing here.
"What – what's going on?" he asks, and watches six pairs of eyebrows rise in unison.
"That's what I'd like to know," Kevin says, crossing his arms in front of his chest.
"The details are a bit blurry," Debbie nods, and Lip shrugs.
"Apparently you tried to kill yourself by means of dehydration and then threw yourself off your porch. It's a good thing you suck as badly at this suicide thing as you do at everything else."
"Fuck you, asshole," Mickey says, and then wants to swallow his tongue when it comes out sounding almost fond.
"You really need someone to take care of you, don't you?" a different voice says to his right, close, so close, and he whisks his head around so fast his vision starts to blur.
Ian is standing on the other side of his bed, arms wrapped around himself as if he needs them to hold him together. His red hair is short, cropped close to his skull, and he looks pale and subdued. His eyes are calm, though, steady and clear.
Mickey stares.
"Uhm, we'll be waiting outside, yeah?" he thinks he hears Lip say, followed by the shuffle of many feet, and cut off whispers. He does not bother turning his head to watch them leave. The room suddenly feels too empty, and very quiet.
"What the fuck are you doing here?" Mickey rasps, and wonders if it sounds as hopeless to Ian as it does to him.
The corner of Ian's mouth twitches, as if he wants to smile, but doesn't know how to anymore. He sits down on the edge of the bed, and raises a hand. Mickey tries to shift away, almost without thinking, and Ian drops his arm. He looks sad, but he doesn't look away.
"In sickness and health, huh?" he says quietly, and Mickey starts to cry.