Chapter Text
It’s the same old Chicago, same old Southside. But Mickey figures it’s only been about a year and change. It couldn’t have changed that much. Except it has on a level that Mickey can’t even put into words. The minotaur at the center of the labyrinth has been dispatched and he’s free to wind his way through these old streets in relative safety again.
He gets off the El and pulls his denim jacket up close to his chest. It’s still brisk for early April. Almost two years away hasn’t dulled his sense of the neighborhood as he passes through Canaryville and the Yards, looking for a friendly face. A specific friendly face, even though he’s probably long gone by now. In any case, he is only stalling the inevitable.
Time to pay the piper, he thinks as he turns onto South Trumbull Ave. The Milkovich house stands as it always has—which is to say barely standing. There is more garbage in the front yard than usual, but other than that, it’s the same old shithole.
He lets himself in. Even two years gone, this is his house. He’s not knocking on his own goddamn front door.
“Any o’ you fucktards around?”
“Mickey?” from down the hall, he recognizes the voice of the second eldest brother, well, now the eldest one living. He heads down the hall to Colin’s room. He’s got a douchey vape pen in his hands and he’s got a few days of growth on his chin.
“Finally showed back up, huh?” he spits. “Come to dance on their graves?”
“Graves plural? I thought pops wanted to get cremated.”
“Well, how was I supposed to know that?”
Mickey’s eyebrows are in his hairline, threating to fly off his face completely. “He told us, dipshit.”
“Well, fuck me if I can’t remember everything.”
“Try anything,” Mickey huffs. “You and Iggz always did smoke too much of the product you’re supposed to be pushing. Where’s Mandy?”
“She hasn’t come around in ages. Last I heard, she was staying with a boyfriend.”
“Fuck.”
“What?”
“Nothing.” He doesn’t know if he’s ready to see Gallagher again. But if she’s holing up again with that dickhead brother of his, it may be inevitable. But he should be in upstate New York getting reamed out by a drill sergeant by now. It should be safe to visit until school’s out for the year.
“You shitheads didn’t touch my room, did you?”
He heads down to the end of the hall and finds his room relatively as he left it, minus the stupid posters. Shit, he thought he was so hardcore back then. Back before he had to fend for himself. Instead, the walls are painted green and there are posters for wrestling and mixed martial arts all over. Joey must have taken up residence while he was gone. Well, I guess it’s mine again, he thinks ruefully as he tosses his rucksack down on the bed. While Terry getting gunned down fills him both with relief and regret, the fact that Joey was with him is solely in that latter category.
“So, where are they buried?” he asks as he pulls his Marlboros out of his back pocket and taps one out.
“The poor mass grave in Mount Olivet.”
“Of fucking course they are. Jesus…” Mickey is burning a trail out of the house.
“Hey, where are you going?”
“I’ll be back.”
“You just got here!”
Mickey turns around to face his brother who is following down the hall. “Keep your fucking shirt on, I’ll be back.”
He is about to turn to leave when his eyes catch the sight of the living room. The fucking living room. He feels lead in his stomach at the sight of that fucking sofa. He can still remember that day as vividly as if it were just this morning.
“No son of mine is gonna be a goddamn AIDS monkey!” His father’s fists blurring his vision and bloodying his face.
“She’s gonna fuck the faggot out of you.” His nostrils fill with cheap lavender perfume as a Russian whore stripping in a single practiced movement and mounting him while his boyfriend is forced to watch.
His boyfriend is forced to watch. Ian is forced to watch. Ian looks so broken. Mickey feels so broken. He hates this. He hates himself. He brought Ian here. He thought they were safe. For one night, he thought he could shelter Ian from the harsh reality of being forced into a group home while his family is away. And now the boy has a gun pointed to his temple as he’s forced to watch Mickey fuck this bitch. And he won’t look away. He won’t look the fuck away and Mickey wants to die.
He breaks the connection. He flips the whore onto her back and does what he has to in order to satisfy his father’s expectations. He does what he must in order to get both him and Ian out of this situation alive.
The rest of that day is a blur. Too bloody to think clearly. But he remembers deciding it was the last night he would ever be in this house as long as Terry was alive. He stole 5k from the profits of Terry’s latest gun shipment, and by the time he fell asleep the next night, he was on a Greyhound headed east. He didn't care where he planted his feet next as long as it was nowhere near Chicago.
“Mick?” asks Colin. “You okay?”
“Mind your fucking business, Col.”
And before his brother can ask another question, he is out the door. He pulls out his lighter on the porch, covering the cigarette tip against the wind as he lights it up. His pulse is racing. He needs to calm down if he’s going over there.
He palms the burner phone in his pocket, tempted to text ahead. But he second guesses it. Better to beg forgiveness than ask permission.
He crosses a couple streets over and down a block to where the shabby blue house is situated behind a chain link fence. He eyes the property for a long time, finishing a second cigarette before gathering up the courage to mount the front steps and knock.
The little sister opens the door. Damn, she looks older now. Or at least she looks taller and she wears makeup now. She doesn’t resemble an American Girl doll quite like she used to. “Mickey Milkovich?”
“Is Mandy around?” he asks walking in without waiting to be invited.
“Why would she be here?”
“My brother said she was staying with her boyfriend.”
“Oh.” The girl mouths with some weight behind the syllable.
“What?”
“You haven’t been around for a while, have you?”
“I’ve been outta town. Home for some family business.”
“Mandy isn’t here,” she says bracingly. “They really haven’t been together since before Lip got sick.”
“Sick? What sort of sick?”
“Mick?”
Mickey feels his heart shoot into his throat. This is what he wanted to avoid. Or did he? Seeing Ian for the first time in nearly two years feels like something in him is about to explode. He’s standing at the top of the stairs wearing a jeans and a green t-shirt. There is a doughy looking baby slung over his shoulder. Mickey thought the little black one was the youngest, but maybe Frank and that crazy wife of his popped out another while he was out of town. Ian’s eyes are narrowed like he’s appraising him. All the while, he is clutching at that baby like it’s a treasure.
“What are you doing here?
“What am I doing here? The fuck are you doing here? You’re supposed to be at West Point by now."
“I… some things came up. Is there something I can help you with?” His words are cold, but not measured like the customer service voice Mickey has seen him used at the Kash N Grab. It feels like formality.
“Uh… yeah. You hear from Mandy?”
“Of course. I hear from her all the time. Mandy tells people when she changes her number.”
Okay, Mickey knows he probably deserves that.
“Where is she staying these days?”
Ian looks at him for a long time. The kid on his shoulder is babbling and pawing at the redhead, but Ian doesn’t look down at him, instead he leans in to kiss the little dirty blond thing on the top of his head.
“I’m sure if she wanted you to know where she is, she’d tell you.” Mickey already misses the formal tone. Now he sounds as cold as a glacier.
“Look, just gimme her address and I’ll be on my way.”
“Why do you even care after all this time?”
“What’s the big deal?” asks the younger redhead. Mickey had almost forgotten she is still in the room with them.
“Grown-up shit, Debs. Do you mind?”
“Alright, fuck me for asking, right?” grumbles the redhead as she disappears up the stairs, shoulder checking Gallagher on his babyless side along the way.
Mickey pulls an open envelope out of the inside pocket of his jacket. “Look, I got this letter from Mandy last week. She told me my dad and oldest brother were on the wrong end of a drive by. I came home to… I don’t know. Tie up loose ends, I guess.”
“And that’s all you’re here for?” asks Ian as he comes down the stairs. Once he reaches the bottom of the stairs, Mickey is struck by just how much taller Ian is now, nearly a full head taller than him.
“Phone number and address. C’mon, man.”
Ian’s eyes widen and juts out that damn chin of his. Mickey doesn’t know if Ian is mad or disappointed. “Look, Mandy is a little cagey these days about people knowing where to find her. I’ll tell her you were asking for her. Okay?”
“You fucking serious?”
“She had to call a restraining order on her last boyfriend. So, yeah.”
“Fine.” huffs Mickey as he pulls out his burner.
“You gonna give me your number?”
Mickey taps in a phone number and starts a message. “Yeah, just a sec. This is just a burner. I should probably invest in a real phone now that.. you know.”
“Know what?”
“Terry. Y’know.”
“Oh. I see. That’s the only reason why you’re back you’re back.”
He clicks send and seconds later, Ian’s pocket vibrates. He shifts the child’s weight to unearth his phone.
The message reads: I missed you, Firecrotch.
His expression softens, but only for a moment. “You had my number saved in a burner phone?”
“I have it committed to memory, man.”
“Fancy that. Well, if Mandy’s cool with it, I’ll be in touch.” The tone is obvious. Tacitly nudging him onto the opposite side of the front door.
“Yeah, thanks.” Mickey steps back. “So what’s with the kid? Hurricane Monica strikes again?”
“No. This one’s mine. His name’s Yevgeny.”
“The fuck kind of name is that?”
“His mother’s choice. After her father.”
“You seriously got a kid?
“Yup. I’ve been involved in the little guy’s life since the day he was conceived.”
“You’re still gay, right?”
“As a maypole.”
“But you got a kid?”
“Times change, Mick. I’ll see you around.”
Ian closes the door behind him and Mickey feels an emptiness that has been in him for the past seventeen months. He has numbed himself to it for so long, but now the sensation is back in full force. Nothing has changed between the moment he knocked on the Gallagher front door and now. He came here empty-handed. But he still feels like managed to lose something along the way.