Chapter Text
Pregnant.
He’s pregnant. The thought loops in Mickey’s head, dizzying and pulling.
“Mr. Milkovich?” The nurse hedges and it sounds so, so far away, like water in his ears. He looks at her, angry, confused, nauseous. “Mr. Milkovich, did you hear me?”
“Yeah, I fucking heard you,” he snaps, and to his horror, feels guilty about it when the nurse flinches. He takes a deep breath, trying to ground himself, trying to adjust and balance. “I’m… I heard you,” he repeats, much softer.
Pregnant. Pregnant. Congratulations, she’d said, you’re pregnant.
“I… How…?” He trails off, his nails digging roughly into the shitty gurney.
The nurse understands, somehow. “Human evolution. It’s a genetic mutation, like being left-handed or lactose intolerance.”
Mickey’s head spins. A mutation? A genetic— what?
The confusion must show on his face because the nurse keeps explaining, “It’s just something that some men have.”
“But,” Mickey sputters. “I have a dick.”
The nurse laughs. “I know, Mr. Milkovich. But you also have the mutation.”
“I’m a mutant? Like one of those fucking ninja turtles?” Mickey tries not to start shrieking, but every word the nurse says pushes him further and further to the edge. What the fuck.
“I don’t know how to answer that, honestly,” the nurse responds lightly. “I’ll give you some time to yourself. I’ll be back in a minute.”
With that, she leaves the room, leaving Mickey— and his baby , apparently— to themselves.
It had been a joke. Mandy had been bitching about how gross pissing on a pregnancy test was, and Mickey’d snarked back at her until she’d shoved a test in his hand and told him to go ahead. Mickey had, in all honesty, been a little high, so he went and took it.
He zipped up, washed his hands, and wrapped the stick in toilet paper before bringing it back into the living room and dropping it on Mandy’s lap. She’d screamed and shoved it away, cursing him out, and he just laughed, taking another hit. The test dropped to the ground and was forgotten about til an hour later when Mandy went to bed and he’d started to tidy up the living room.
It was then that he saw two thin, blue lines staring back at him. Mocking.
He’d heard of this, though. Sometimes, if a man takes a pregnancy test and it comes out positive, it’s a sign of testicular cancer, and so he’d dragged himself to the hospital to get checked out. Is it bad that now, he sort of wishes he had testicular cancer? Either way, he’s dead.
His phone buzzes, and he blearily checks it, wincing at the screen.
Max (work)
Hey
And another one promptly after.
Max (work)
Are you still coming tn
Fuck his life. He puts his phone back in his pocket, having to face another unfortunate truth.
The baby is Ian’s. Ian, his first love, the man who’d taught him how to be free, the man who had broken up with him just a month ago on a cold, gloomy morning, stone-faced and monotone. Ian, the man whose baby Mickey is carrying.
Does he have to tell him? Yes, Mickey scolds himself. He does. Absolutely he does.
But when he opens up their old texts, he’s faced with:
Mickey
ian
Mickey
can we talk about this
Mickey
can you at least send signs of life asshole
Mickey
i need to know youre okay
Mickey
i love you
Mickey
fuck you gallagher
Right. That. Those unanswered but read messages, sent four days of crying and drinking after the break-up. Embarrassing to look back on, but also sad and gut-wrenching, because Ian hadn’t even bothered to respond. Like the years they spent together meant nothing.
Months of tenderly caring for him, playing nurse and housewife as Mickey uncomplainingly did his laundry and cleaned his room when Ian was too depressed to even blink his eyes open. Making plates of meals that’d go uneaten, scraping the untouched food off of those plates and into the trash, washing dirty mugs, hiding knives, filling and refilling pill sorters, day after day, week after week, awful months after even worse months. Nothing.
Ian had wanted a real relationship, and as soon as Mickey had given him that, Ian had dumped him.
And now Mickey was having his baby. Of course. Because Mickey’s life is just one bad predicament after the next bad predicament, only now, this predicament is going to last eighteen years, horribly disfigure his body, and change his life forever.
He stares at his stomach. The little pouch of tummy fat he could never quite get rid of made sense now. Everything made so much sense, and nothing made any sense whatsoever. Because now, he’s pregnant. Pregnant. With child. Knocked up. Has a bun in the oven. Fuck.
His phone buzzes, and for one insane, delusional moment, Mickey thinks it may be Ian. Like he’d just know what was going on and guide Mickey through it.
It’s not, because of course it’s not. It’s Max again, responding to Mickey having left him on read.
Max (work)
Come on, I’ll order those dumplings from that Chinese place you like
Fuck. Mickey loves those dumplings. His stomach rouses, grumbling suddenly, and the thought is making Mickey salivate.
Mickey
fuck you
Then, after a hesitant second:
Mickey
i’ll be there in 20
He pays at the front. He sits in the car. He goes to Max’s. He’s pregnant. He’s pregnant. He’s—