Work Text:
Lip lets out a sigh as he presses the bag of frozen peas to his eye.
His head is throbbing, and he knows he’ll have a bruise on his cheek tomorrow. Tami will probably freak at the sight of it, but he’s used to the occasional black eye by now. Besides, it’s definitely not the first time he’s been headbutted by a Milkovich—and it probably won’t be the last.
At least he managed to get one good punch in before Ian broke up the fight. Solid knuckles on bone, it had to hurt, even if Mickey barely even flinched at the contact.
Speak of the fucking devil, Lip lets out another sigh as the front door opens and his brother-in-law steps out onto the porch. He’s holding two cans stacked on top of each other, and Lip can just make out the label of the top one from his perch on the steps.
“Jesus Christ,” he mumbles to himself, lowering the bag of frozen peas from his face before speaking again, louder this time. “Did you really bring me a fucking beer?”
“What?” Mickey asks, looking down at the cans in his hands as he steps down to sit next to Lip. “No, I brought me a beer, and you get this shitty Diet Coke from the back of the fridge.”
Mickey holds out the can towards Lip, who hesitates only for a second before accepting it. “Oh.”
“Yeah, oh,” Mickey mocks, cracking open his beer. “I might be mean, but I’m not fucking cruel.”
Lip nods slowly as his brother-in-law takes the first sip of his drink. He looks down at the unopened soda in one hand, and the bag of frozen peas in the other. It almost makes him laugh.
There are so many shitty things going on in his life these days that he doesn’t know what the fuck to do with, but this—this is familiar. This he knows how to handle.
He holds the bag of frozen peas out to Mickey, who eyes it cautiously before grabbing it from Lip’s hand.
Mickey shoves the bag against his forehead, taking another sip of his beer as the cold starts to soothe his head.
Lip cracks open his soda, taking a healthy drink from it before resting his elbows on his knees and leaning forward on the porch step. It’s not bad, but it’s definitely not what he’s looking for right now. Maybe Ian’s right. Maybe he does need a meeting.
Mickey leans back on his elbows. “Long day?”
“Yeah,” Lip breathes out, taking another long sip from his can. “Long couple of days, actually.”
“You can say that again,” Mickey muses, tossing the bag of (not so) frozen peas down on the step between them.
Lip keeps his eyes on the street for a while. He doesn’t even recognize half the houses on the block anymore. Friends and neighbors keep disappearing left and right, and he’s been so busy that he doesn’t know where half of them even ended up.
Right on cue, the lesbians from down the street walk by the front gate, giving tight smiles to Lip and nervous looks to Mickey. Lip almost asks what the fuck did he do to that couple to make them duck their heads like that as they go by, but something else catches his attention first.
The two women are pushing a stroller, and it takes Lip an extra few seconds to remember that they don’t have any kids (yet). He cranes his neck to peer into the basket just as they’re almost out of view, and his mouth actually falls open when he sees there’s a dog sitting inside the stroller.
Lip scratches at his hairline. What the fuck is happening around here?
“This whole neighborhood’s going to shit,” Mickey says, giving voice to Lip’s thoughts.
“No kidding,” Lip agrees, shaking his head as the lesbian couple push their stupid fucking dog stroller up their front walk.
God, he’s going to miss this place when it’s gone.
He looks briefly up at Mickey over his shoulder. “Did you and Ian really get a place on the west side?”
“I don’t fucking know,” Mickey mumbles into his beer can, taking another long sip. He shakes his head slowly, then burps. “I guess? He put down a deposit and signed a bunch of papers and shit today—without me.”
Lip looks over at Mickey again. “Seriously?”
Mickey just shrugs, holding his beer can up to his forehead. “He’s your brother.”
“He’s your husband.”
Mickey grumbles something about Gallaghers under his breath and Lip almost laughs.
He can hear the sirens before he sees them, turning his head to watch the street as an old beater-car speeds down the block with two sets of red and blue lights chasing it close behind. Lip watches it as far as he can, shaking his head when he hears tires squeal on the pavement towards the end of the street.
“Is it really so bad?” Lip asks, playing with the tab on his can. “Getting the hell out of here?”
“It is when it means moving in with the fucking yuppies on the west side,” Mickey spits back.
Okay, so maybe he has a point.
“You know,” Lip starts, “part of the west side is actually farther south than where we are right now—”
“Fucking Gallaghers,” Mickey groans, wiping a hand over his face and wincing when he touches the bruising bones around his eye. “When did you all turn into fucking geography nerds?”
Lip laughs. “Oh, like you don’t have escape routes all over the city memorized like a map on the back of your fucking hand?”
Mickey doesn’t say anything, just shakes his head and downs the rest of his beer.
Lip smiles. “Prick.”
Mickey wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Asshole.”
Lip playfully shoves Mickey’s knee, and Mickey actually laughs.
It’s moments like this when Lip thinks his life is kind of surreal. If someone had told him ten years ago that he’d be sitting on the front porch, laughing and not-drinking with Mickey fucking Milkovich, of all people, he would’ve never believed them. And yet, here they are with their matching black eyes and bloody knuckles, making fun of their hipster neighbors and reminiscing on the golden age of the south side.
Neither of them says anything for a few minutes, and for once, Lip doesn’t feel like he has to. It’s a comfortable kind of quiet he only really gets around Ian and Fiona, the kind of stillness he can let himself sit in and not have to worry about it all for a while.
“…It’s not that bad,” Mickey finally says, breaking the silence. He twirls his beer can around in his palms. “The west side place. It’s actually kind of nice.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah, and that just pisses me off even more.”
Lip chuckles into his soda, taking another sip. “You don’t like to be wrong, do you?”
“Oh, sorry,” Mickey mocks. “I couldn’t fucking hear you from all the way up there on your pedestal.”
“Alright, so neither do I,” Lip agrees, trying (and failing) to hide his smile.
Mickey just shakes his head, taking a deep breath and leaning forward to prop his elbows up on his knees. “Fucking Ian,” he mutters.
“I’ll drink to that,” Lip teases, tipping his can towards Mickey. “Fucking Ian.”
Mickey rolls his eyes but taps his nearly empty can against Lip’s. He tips his head back and drinks the last little bit of his beer, then places the can on the step below before crushing it flat with his boot.
Lip bites back a smile. He finishes the rest of his soda in silence.
Mickey claps him on the shoulder, keeping his gaze focused on the street. “We cool, man?”
Lip nods. “Yeah, Mick. We’re cool.”
“Alright,” he says, patting Lip’s shoulder once before using it to push himself up off the steps. “Good talk.”
“Dick,” Lip mumbles under the weight of Mickey’s hand. He’d never call him out on it, but Lip swears he sees Mickey grin as he turns to head back towards the house.
He makes it all the way to the top step before looking back.
“Hey,” Mickey calls out, half turning and half looking over his shoulder. “Punch me again, and I’ll knock your fucking teeth out, Gallagher.”
“Yeah?” Lip grins. “I’d like to see you try, Milkovich.”
Mickey bites back a smile. “Is this you asking for round two?”
“This is me acknowledging that it’ll come around eventually,” Lip answers diplomatically. “Always does.”
“Yeah?” Mickey prompts, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning his hip against the railing. “And why’s that?”
Lip crushes his Diet Coke can and stands up from the porch steps, moving down to the front walk and tossing the can into the stupid community garden next door. He shoves his hands in his coat pockets and looks up at Mickey.
“Because that’s what brothers do,” he answers with a shrug. “We fight sometimes.”
Mickey ducks his head, then nods slowly. “We beat the shit out of each other, then patch it up and move on with our fucking lives.”
Lip sarcastically taps his fist to his chest. “Because we care.”
Mickey snorts. “Shut the fuck up.”
Lip laughs, tipping his head back and peering up at the second-floor windows. One of them is slightly open, and he smiles to himself when he sees a shadow duck down below it.
He looks back over at Mickey. “I’m gonna run over to Tami’s dad’s house for a bit. See if I can catch Fred before he goes down for the night.”
“Alright,” Mickey says with an easy shrug, pushing himself off the porch railing and heading back inside the house. “I’ll leave the back door unlocked.”
Lip nods. “Thanks.”
He watches Mickey disappear into the house, then makes his own way out through the front gate.
Lip Gallagher has always loved having a big family. No matter how tight things got growing up, he never for a second wondered what it would be like to have fewer siblings. The house full of laughter was always worth whatever chaos shortly followed, and every day he still thanks whatever higher power there is for his three brothers and two sisters.
He shakes his head at his own thoughts.
Four.
He has four brothers now. And he wouldn’t trade the world for any of them.