Chapter Text
They found him in the bathroom, bleeding all onto the tiles of the Gallagher house.
Ian had woken up after a low and smiled at Mickey and gotten up.
“Hey, princess. You’re up!”
“Yeah. Just going to the bathroom” Ian told him.
Mickey stopped him. “Hey. You’re okay aren’t you?”
“Yeah, Mick. I’m fine” he lied. His mask was going to break soon, he felt a lump in his throat and tears stinging behind his eyes.
“Okay” Mickey watched him go into the bathroom and shut the door. He started to run a bath and reached for the switchblade he had found on the floor of their bedroom, dropped from in Mickey’s pocket. He reached over his head to tug his shirt off and then dropped his pants and underwear to the ground and stepped into the bath, switchblade in hand.
They found him after he had made so many cuts on his arm that the water was deep red with blood. Mickey had banged on the door asking if he was okay, getting no response. Then Lip had done the same. Then they had broken down the door to find red splattered dots all over the floor and up the tiles of the wall near the bath, and Ian, almost unconscious laying in a bath of his own blood. Mickey’s legs gave way and he sat on the bathroom floor for a long time, unable to speak or move. And he couldn’t hear anything. He could see Lip and Fiona run into the bathroom. He could see when Kev’s wife came in and wrapped his arms up and he could see when Kev and his wife and Fiona and Lip carried Ian out. And he could feel Kev pick him up and carry him out. And he could see everything as they made their way to the hospital.
And when the receptionist asked for his name he snapped to reality.
"What?" He asked
“What’s your name?”
“Mickey” he replied, saying the first few words in hours.
“Full name, please” she asked in a soothing calm voice. He wants to shout at her. Tell her this isn’t a time to be calm and happy.
“Michael Milkovich.”
She typed it in and asked “and the gentleman who was admitted?”
“His name?” Mickey asked, only half following.
“Yes.” Her stupid calm voice was starting to piss him off.
“Ian Gallagher” Mickey told her.
“Any pre-existing illness or medication we should know about?” She asked, typing away.
“I think they said it’s bi something. Bipolar disease?”
“Bipolar disorder. Yep.” She told him, entering it into the computer.
“And what had happened?”
She asked him this as a routine question but he didn’t know how to answer it. What did she mean? In the past days and weeks and months and years? Or the direct actions that wound them up in a hospital? But those two interwove and you couldn’t really explain one without the other.
He gave up thinking and said “I dunno, ask his sister. She’ll know that shit” walking away from the desk to sit in the waiting area.
He doesn’t know how long he sat there. He didn’t know that the Gallaghers took turns, keeping an eye on him from a corner of the waiting room. He doesn’t close his eyes and try to sleep like the little Gallagher girl told him to because every time he tries he sees it. His everything. His Ian. Crumbling. White tiles smeared with red. Nothing making any noise. So he stayed awake and stared. Trying to make his mind to go blank. Trying to forget seeing his everything like that. Trying to remember a happy smiling ginger doe eyed Ian.
"Hey!" He looked up to see a young nurse smiling at him.
He just stared at her. She’s about his height with olive skin and dark brown hair that falls into ringlets that is more or less tied up.
“Hi. Michael right?” She asked, bubbly and happy.
He just nodded and sunk his head down.
“Hi. I’m Jess. I’m Ian’s main nurse.” He looked up, hoping for good news.
“He’s going to be alright. We’ve just knocked him out for a bit so it’s not too painful for him.”
He hated that she was so happy while his everything almost died.
She sat down with him when he couldn’t want her to be further away. It wasn’t that he didn’t like her. He kind of did. He felt like she had an aura about her that he could tell her anything and she’d know what to say. He just hated her bubbliness.
"I brought you coffee" she held out a styrofoam cup and he took it, meeting her eyes.
“I just have a few more system questions for you and then is it okay if I ask you a few personal questions to determine what I should say and how I should act to Ian?”
He nodded.
“Okay"
"What’s your relationship with Ian?" She asked, pen in hand and clipboard on her knees. When he said nothing she looked up.
“Is something wrong?”
“Uh yeah,” Mickey said. “That’s a pretty personal question”
She smiled and told him “It’s just for the doctors notes. We have to do a history to find the right medication.”
“So why aren’t you asking his family?” He was getting more and more irritated.
“I have just finished talking with his siblings. They directed me to you. Fiona told me you were family too.” She smiled.
After a moment he told her “We’re together. We’re family but not blood”
She nodded, scribbling little cursive notes on her clipboard.
“And what were the circumstances leading up to today?”
He took a deep breath in, deciding to start with the christening.
“We went home one night after a fight. Not like.. Us fighting. A bar fight. Against someone else. And he seemed fine then for a few days after he was really jumpy and hyper all the time and then about a week after he wouldn’t get out of bed for a while, and Fiona said she thought it was Bipolar like their mom. This is the second time so I took him to his families house and we were staying there and I thought he was fine this morning but he locked himself in the bathroom and when we got in he was bleeding out.”
That just about covered it, Mickey thought. He looked at Jess. She was looking at him with a sad look of familiarity.
"You know, my brother went through the same thing with his wife" she started, placing her hand on Mickey’s knee. Any other time he would have brushed it off but today it felt comforting.
“Daniel, my brother, got married when he was 23 to my sister in law, Immi. They’d been going out since they were 16 and she kept his ass well in line.” She laughed a bit.
“Yeah Immi was good for him. He was a bit of a dodgy guy before her. Stealing from shops, smoking drugs every weekend. Drinking. That kind of thing. Well when they started going out she kept him right and straight so we all adored her. And a few weeks after they got married she got admitted here with bipolar disorder. Broke Daniel’s heart.
You know, they ask you things like that when you start here, and I didn’t tell them that because I knew that one day someone would come along like Imogen and I’d be taken off their case because it was too close to home or some shit like that.” She squeezed his knee a little.
“I remember how broken Dan was. But he never let anyone know, and it ended up tearing him apart.” Mickey knew where this was going.
“You remind me a bit of Dan. So I need you to answer me this in truth” she told him, looking into his eyes.
“How are you holding up?”
“I… I’m” he breaks a bit and holds a hand over his face, willing himself not to cry.
“He?” He tries to get it out but he can’t. She wraps her arms around him and holds him to her body.
“Hey. Michael. He’s okay. He’s okay. We just need to get him on medication that stabilises his moods and then he can go home with you.”
Mickey looks up at her.
“Is it my fault?” He chokes out. “Did I do something wrong? He’s fucking” he breaks again.
She tells him to breathe deeply.
“He’s fucking depressed and it’s my fault isn’t it? Did he say anything? Did he say like… That I didn’t love him?”
Jess sat next to him, holding his hand and letting him talk.
“Is it because I never told him that I do? Jesus what if he doesn’t… What if I don’t get a chance”
He wipes his eyes trying to stop himself from crying.
“Michael. He’s in a stable condition. He’s not dying. He’s okay. You can see him soon.” She tells him, looking into his eyes.
“What are they doing?” He asked.
She hesitates a moment, knowing that it will be hard before she says
“At the moment they are bandaging his wrists.”
“Oh Jesus!” he said, not caring about who sees him as he all but sobs into Jess’ scrubs.
“Michael. This isn’t your fault. Ian is mentally ill. None of this is your fault. Okay?”
He kind of understands so he nods and grips her hand harder, going to pull away from her, but Jess just holds him back in a hug and supports the back of his head.
"Is it okay if I ask you 2 more questions?" She asked him, pulling away.
He sniffles and nods.
"How would you describe him in terms of sensitivity?"
Mickey laughs a bit at that. He laughs a horrible post tear sniffly wet laugh that breaks Jess’ heart a little bit.
“Yeah no he’s fuckin.. He’s like a little girl sometimes and then other times he’ll take it and come back with something cutting but I dunno. It changes.” Mickey told her.
She wrote it down and then said “Okay. That’s it. Just one more question off the books, should I avoid any talk of love or is that okay?”
“Nah it’s fine, he likes all that soppy bullshit” Mickey told her.
A middle aged lady with greying blonde hair popped her head out from Ian’s room.
“Jessica Hamilton?”
Jess got up and went to Ian’s room and popped her head in, then crossed the waiting room back over to Mickey.
“He’s awake if you want to see him,” she told Mickey excitedly. “He just woke up. You know the first thing he said?”
Mickey had a good idea of what the first thing Ian said was because Mickey knew if he woke up in a strange place that Ian’s name would be the first on his lips.
He quickly crossed the waiting room to the door to Ian’s room. He looked in on his everything sitting up, an unreadable expression on his face. Mickey thought he was going to be fine and strong and happy to see Ian. He saw his everything sitting staring at him and he almost lost it again, biting at his bottom lip and walking to Ian’s bed, taking the younger in his arms and cradling his head.
"I love you. I love you so much, Ian. Please don’t ever do that again you scared the shit out of me" he told him, trying to keep his voice steady and not say anything about how much of a piece of shit his everything is.
"I love you." He told Ian once again before resting his head on Ian’s and placing his hands over the mile long expanse of Ian’s chest.
"Mick-" Ian began, voice croaky
“Shhh. You don’t have to say anything, okay firecrotch?”
Ian nodded and snuggled up to Mickey.
“I aint letting go that fast. I only just got you back” Mickey tried to joke but it just ended up sounding like a promise.
“Cause you and me, Gallagher, we’re forever. Yeah?” Mickey asked, hoping.
“Yeah.” Ian agreed quietly.
“Forever”