Chapter Text
Ian got a welcome home party.
He told Mickey all about it, during one of those weekly phone calls, when they still had no idea when Mickey would get out. No idea what would happen by the time Mickey got out. He doesn't want to think about that now. He's out. He's not staring up at the empty top bunk on that long night before they brought the new cellmate in. Not fidgeting and pacing, trying to think up escape plans. Trying to figure out a way to get back to Ian before it was too late, again.
That's not the point. The point is, Mickey's out, and he's back home for the first time since a whole other life ago, and there sure as fuck isn't a party for him. Even Terry used to get fucking parties. Mickey's gotten a who the fuck are you from Lip's bitchy blonde baby mama and a fresh tamale from Carl, courtesy of his new Mexican family.
Granted, it's a great fucking tamale, but it reminds Mickey uncomfortably of Mexico. Reminds him of his shitty little place he had there and the street cart where he used to grab dinner and the beach where he learned to swim. And, well, he did a lot of fucking crime, there, too, but damn if being a criminal in Mexico hadn't felt like a dream compared to being a criminal here.
Mickey doesn't want to think about Mexico.
So. It's Mickey's first day as a free man and he's got fuck all to do. Ian's gone to work with his batshit P.O. Lip has fucked off and left his baby mama sulking upstairs while their lumpy potato baby screams its stupid potato head off. The younger Gallaghers are all off pulling whatever scams they're up to these days. There's a redheaded mini-Debbie wandering around the house alone and the world's wrinkliest Mexican grandma sitting in the living room, watching a telenovella.
"Welcome home, Mick," he mutters to himself, sitting on the couch with a healthy distance between him and Grandma. "Gee, thanks, Mick, it's good to be back."
Grandma shoots him the stinkeye and turns up the volume on her stories, so Mickey shuts up for a bit and tries to figure out what the hell's happening on screen. Like, how the fuck is Marianna's sister here trying to seduce Carlos? When did Marianna and Carlos get married? And when the hell did they re-cast Luis?
"¿Por qué Gabriella no está muerta?" he asks Grandma, because apparently he's missed a lot while he was in the joint.
"Tiene amnesia," Grandma tells him, her eyes not leaving the screen, "Y ahora es malvada."
Mickey cracks his knuckles and watches Gabriella bat her eyelashes at Carlos with a fuck me look on her face. "Carlos better not fall for that shit."
Grandma just shrugs and clicks the volume up some more.
At some point while they're watching, the redheaded kid creeps into the room. She doesn't really do or say anything, just sort of stands next to the TV and sways on her feet and sucks on her thumb occasionally. Jesus, this is Debbie's kid. Little Debbie Gallagher is a grown fucking woman now, running scams any Gallagher would be proud of and neglecting a child of her own. When the fuck did that happen?
While you were in prison, dipshit, says a helpful voice in the back of his head, which sneers a lot like Terry.
Debbie's kid is really quiet. Like, creepy quiet. Liam was like that too, Mickey remembers. Must be a Gallagher thing: they figure out young that no one's listening. When the episode ends and Grandma wanders off, the kid just lingers, not saying anything, just looks at the TV and then at Mickey with those big blue eyes.
Mickey checks the time. Shit, there's a lot of hours until Ian gets home. Being out is kind of bullshit, isn't it? The whole point was to be with Ian and Ian's not even here. At least when they were both inside, he never had to wait around like an asshole for Ian to get home. He was in arm's reach, all day, every day. And, yeah, ok, a few months ago Mickey literally stabbed a man for the chance for some space, but that was before. That was before Ian got out and Mickey stayed in, for weeks, weeks, not knowing what would happen by the time he was free.
Now he's free and it turns out, being free is just a whole lot of waiting around for Ian. He almost wants to call Larry and tell that weird motherfucker to get him a job, any job that will let him start in the next fifteen minutes. But no, Larry told him to take it easy for a few days before he starts looking. Readjust. Bullshit.
Mini-Debbie apparently gets tired of standing while all of this flashes through Mickey's brain, because she chooses this moment to plop down on the couch next to him. She looks at him and then back at the TV. What a weird little kid.
He picks up the remote and starts flicking through the channels, looking for something to numb him for the next several hours until Ian gets back. The kid is sitting way too fucking close to him and it's making him edgy.
Shouldn't someone be, like, watching her? How old is she? Three? Six? How old are they when you're allowed to stop watching them?
"Can I fucking help you?" he asks her finally, because really, she's freaking him out, staring at him and looking like a baby version of Ian.
The kid tilts her head, not bothered in the slightest by his tone or the swearing. Growing up a Gallagher's probably doing a number on her. "Mama says you're Uncle Mickey."
Jesus, Debbie. "Uh," Mickey says.
"Like Mickey Mouse," she supplies, like he's confused by his name and not the fact that she thinks he's her uncle. Mickey has uncles. He hasn't seen any of them since that fucked-up christening at the Alibi.
"I'm not your fuckin' uncle." And maybe he feels a little bad for yelling at the kid, but c'mon, Debbie, what the hell.
He kind of expects her to get upset but instead she just blinks at him. "Mama, um, Mama says--"
"Well, she's wrong." But the kid looks so confused, and he kind of remembers, vaguely, being a kid and no one explaining anything to him, and fuck, she looks a lot like Ian. So he finds himself explaining, saying, "Ian's your uncle, all right? And I'm Ian's--"
He doesn't know what to call it. Never fucking has.
"--Boyfriend." Fuck, he hates that word. He's got to call it something, though. Gotta call it something so that everyone knows it's real, so that everyone knows that Mickey's with Ian and he's not going anywhere. Truth is, he'll call himself anything, as long as it means he's Ian's.
The kid kinda nods at this announcement, like it's no big fucking deal at all, and puts her thumb in her mouth, which, gross. Mickey flips through the channels. Commercial, commercial, shitty American soap opera, the news, commercial. . . .
"Can we watch Rambo?"
Mickey does a double take over at the kid. "What?"
She's looking at him with her thumb in her mouth and pointing at a stack of bootleg DVDs with her other hand, white cases stacked up precariously on the TV stand. "Rambo!" she repeats.
Well, Stallone's not his favorite but he's not gonna complain about watching the guy shoot shit up for a couple hours. He gets up and inspects the pile of movies. Sure enough, the case right on top is labelled Rambo: First Blood in scrawled black sharpie.
"Sure, why not," he says, and opens the case. It's empty. Pops open the old DVD player -- who still has a DVD player? the Gallaghers, apparently -- and the disc is already in there. Over on the couch the kid is bouncing a little, more animated than he's ever seen her. Which, granted, he met her less than twenty-four hours ago, so that might not be saying much. "Rambo it is."
He gets the movie started, sits back in his spot. The kid bounces next to him like this is the best thing to ever fuckin' happen. "You like Rambo, Uncle Mickey?"
Not your uncle. Mickey's gonna have words with Debbie when she gets back from whatever the hell she's doing. Still, the kid's just a stupid kid. Doesn't fuckin' know anything, does she? He'll yell at Debbie about it later. "Yeah, little red," he says. "Sure, Rambo's fine."
After that she shuts up, thankfully, stops bouncing so much and just sits there watching the movie. It's Mickey that can't sit still. He finds himself drumming his fingers on his leg, shifting in his seat. It's the Gallagher couch. It's uncomfortable as hell, he can't get settled. He wants a cigarette but if he smokes in the house Lip's baby mama will bitch about it, he can just tell. She's said about two sentences to him since he got to the house and he can already tell she's going to be giving him a lot of shit. The convict Ian brought home. Fuck you, lady. Just 'cause she got knocked up by Lip-world's-most-punchable-Gallagher doesn't make her the queen of the fuckin' castle.
He goes outside and smokes five cigarettes in a row. Comes back in and the kid's still planted in front of the TV, watching Stallone take down a helicopter with a fuckin' rock. For some reason this makes Mickey think of Ian, seventeen and manic, trying to hotwire that helicopter.
He goes into the kitchen and opens a beer even though it's not even eleven a.m. yet.
"Jesus, Frannie, again?"
It's the baby mama. She's emerged from upstairs and is currently rolling her eyes at the tiny action movie enthusiast in the living room. The baby itself is nowhere to be seen.
Mickey is tempted to ask if she lost it but restrains himself: she seems tetchy, and Ian will kill him if he gets into a fistfight with her.
"Least it's not Disney shit," he says instead. Man, it's been awhile since he's had a bottle of Old Style. Didn't really have that shit in the joint. Or in Mexico.
"Says a man who hasn't seen Rambo five times a week for the past three months," the baby mama says, coming into the kitchen. She heaves this heavy put-upon kind of sigh and starts rummaging around in the cabinets. Mickey gets the fuck out of her way, sits over at the table. Doesn't think about all the mornings he used to sit at that table while the Gallagher chaos swarmed around him, those months after Ian got back and before he got low.
Baby Mama is doing something or other over at the counter, moving shit around and bitching about the sink full of dishes, like that sink hasn't been full of fucking dishes since the beginning of fucking time. A thought occurs to him and he smirks. "Y'know," he tells Baby Mama, "Once I got a bullet dug out of my ass in this kitchen."
She's located some baby thing that she's been looking for, looks over at him with it in her hand. "Seriously?"
"Yup." He takes a pull of his beer. "Right there on the counter. Fuck, Fiona was pissed."
Okay, he'll admit it, he wants her to be shocked. Wants this middle-class bitch slumming down here in Canaryville to clutch her pearls and gasp at how fucked up their lives have been, so that he can hate her for it. This backfires when she doesn't faint straightaway and replies, in a kind of taunting tone that matches his, "Did you know that Debbie gave birth on the kitchen table?"
"The fuck?"
Yeah, okay, he flinches away from the table like it's got fuckin' cooties. He doesn't want a goddamn mental image of little Debbie Gallagher shitting out a baby in the same spot where he eats his fuckin' Wheaties in the morning. Jesus.
Baby Mama laughs at him. All right, fair enough, she got him good. He flips her off. She flips him off right back.
Then the baby starts screaming and she goes back up the stairs with whatever baby thing she came down here for, and a bunch of the Mexicans are coming in from outside and Rambo's on a fuckin' rampage in the living room and Mickey's got to get out of this house.
*
"Shit, Mick, you're out?"
It takes a couple blinks for the world to spin into some sort of focus. When it does Mickey almost wishes he hadn't looked up, because Iggy's standing there in front of him, right there in the middle of the Alibi.
Okay, fine, out of all his brothers, Ig's not the worst. Only member of his shit family that visited him, for one thing, during his two stints in the joint. Still doesn't mean that Mickey wants to chit-chat with him right now, can't he see Mickey's trying to drink himself out of his own mind? But it's still his brother, after all, so Mickey raises his glass in a sloshy mock-toast and slurs, "Parole, bitch!"
"Already? Jeez. Who you got?"
You're out? Already? Who you got? Pretty routine catching up, for their family. "Fuckin'--fuckin' Larry."
"Larry's not bad," Iggy says. There's a half-drunk beer in his hand. Maybe he's been here awhile. Mickey's been here awhile. More than awhile. Ian's gonna be pissed. "Colin had 'im last year. 'Fore he went back in."
Good for Colin, the fuck does Mickey care? Hasn't seen Colin since before he went to juvie, that last time. Last time in juvie before big-boy prison. Colin went in before Mickey got out, got out after Mickey went in again. In and out, in and out. In and out and off to Mexico. Never see half his relatives again 'cause of the revolving door between state lockup and the Milkovich house. Never see the other half again 'cause he's a fag.
"--bunch of your shit," Iggy's saying. Mickey blinks at him some more to try and catch up. "I'll make Sandy bring it over to Wallace."
Back when Mickey was in the first time, after Svet sent the papers but before she left town, Ig would swing by the Alibi once in awhile and take a couple pictures of the kid. Every time he visited, Mickey told him to stop bringing pictures of the kid. Every time Iggy still had new ones. That's what Mickey remembers right now, trying to keep track of Iggy's small talk. Iggy was high out of his fucking mind that whole summer they lived together with Ian and Svet and the billion Russian whores, but for some reason he always really liked the kid.
"--by the house sometime--" Iggy's saying, "--cut you in--" and,
"Fuck no," Mickey grunts at him. "Fuck off."
He tries to make the world stop spinning long enough to glare at Iggy, 'cause he missed some of what Ig was saying but he's got the gist of it which is jobs and when there's jobs there's Terry and if Mickey ever crosses paths with Terry again one of them's gonna die.
"Whatever, man. What, you going fuckin' straight or something?" Then he laughs like he's made the funniest joke ever.
"Yeah, yeah, 'm a fag. Fuck off."
He tries to raise his middle finger but somehow the gesture sends him out of balance and he nearly falls off the barstool.
Iggy, the bastard, doesn't even try to help him. He's still holding that beer in his hands and he's not looking Mickey in the eye, which is fine, because Mickey is too drunk for a goddamn staring contest. "You're really gonna try to stay out, this time."
Shit, shit. It's not a question. Iggy's saying it like he knows and Mickey doesn't even want to know. He hasn't said it out loud. For some reason the idea of saying it terrifies him. So he doesn't say anything, tries to catch Kev's attention instead and gestures for another drink.
("Fuck no," Kev calls from the other end of the bar, "Not a fucking chance." Some friend he is.)
"Gallagher's really got you dick-whipped. Pussy."
"Fuck off." I love him, you dipshit. "Gotta protect what's mine."
"Sure." Iggy shrugs and downs the rest of his beer, puts the glass on the counter. "Sure, if he's yours this time."
The fuck's that mean, but Iggy's clapping him on the shoulder now and saying, "Come find me if you change your mind, dipshit," and then he's going back over to his shitbrain friends over by the pool table. Good talk, Ig. Nice to see you too. Fucker.
Didn't even get a chance to ask if he's heard from Mandy.
"Jesus, Mickey," says a voice from above, and oh, probably that's why Iggy scrammed so fast. Ian's here.
He cranes his neck to look up at Ian--tall ginger motherfucker--and his face is probably doing something fuckin' stupid and melty and sappy but he can't help it. It's been a long fuckin' day. "Hey, Gallagher."
"Get a room," Tommy mutters from two barstools down. It's like he's been sitting in the same spot nursing the same beer for the past five years since Mickey was last here.
"Seriously, Mick," Ian is saying, sounding so aggrieved, his eyes all puppy-dog and shit. "We're on parole."
Yeah, no shit. "So the fuck what?"
"He's been here since we opened," V says, pouring shots right in front of them and not even giving one to Mickey. Snitching on him to Ian.
"Fuck yeah, 'm celebratin'." He tries to give V the stink eye. She looks unimpressed, but then, she's never been too impressed with him. "Welcome home, Mickey! Thanks Mick, it's good to be back."
Ian's big stupid hand is on Mickey's back now and his other big stupid hand is gently prying the empty pint glass out of Mickey's hand. Oh, he was kinda waving it around just then, huh. "You are going to feel like shit in the morning," Ian predicts. "Come on, let's get you in an Uber."
"Fuck I need a Uber for?"
Ian's hauling him to his feet and Mickey maybe maybe ordinarily might complain about being manhandled in public like this, but fuck it, he's finally out, he'll let Ian get handsy in a bar and just be glad they're not in the prison cafeteria watching out for shiv attacks.
"I'm not carrying your drunk ass home," Ian says, and he starts batting Mickey's hands away, and ok, maybe Mickey's the one getting handsy. He's become a lightweight. Used to be he could drink from noon to night and still have the coordination to break a kneecap on command. Not his own kneecap. Someone else's. With a bat.
In the car on the way home, he rests his head on Ian's lap, and Ian runs his stupid big hand over Mickey's hair, and the universe spins and spins and spins around him.
He's gotta try to stay out, this time. Fuck.
*
Ian gives him a new phone to to replace his shitty old burner from Mexico. Ian gives him a phone and says it's on the family plan and shows him where he's already loaded in a bunch of contacts. Not a lot. They don't know a lot of people. The Gallaghers, sure. Kev and V. His PO. A bunch of doctors and clinics with little notes beside their names, like, (call for refills), (weekly therapy), (emergency).
Mickey scrolls past the doctors real quick. It's good that they're in there. It's good that Ian put them in there, without Mickey asking. Doesn't mean Mickey wants to look at that little footnote, (emergency).
He scrolls past the doctors and then there's Mandy (?).
What the hell does that mean, (?).
He dials the number before he can pussy out. The phone rings, rings, rings, hits voicemail. The automated voice tells him to leave a message but there's no recording, no name, nothing to indicate that this is still her number. Maybe that's why Ian put in that question mark.
The recording beeps and Mickey stands there for thirty seconds with nothing in his head, no idea what to say. Hangs up. Tries again. Back to voicemail. Man up, Milkovich, it's just Mandy.
"Hey," he says into the machine. It comes out kind of a croak. "Hey, shithead. It's me. Thought I'd, uh, thought I'd let you know I'm out now."
Mandy never visited him.
"Ian, Ian's out too." Hell, maybe that'll make her care, but then, she never visited Ian, either. "He's doin' good. Doin' real good."
What else is there to say?
"Hope you're doin' good, too. Yeah. Uh. See ya, I guess."
He hangs up. Stares at his phone for a second. Thinks about the last time he saw Mandy, leaving for Indiana with Kenyatta, bruises on her face. The horrible dread in his gut because he'd known he was never gonna see her again. Of course, he'd thought it was because Kenyatta was going to kill her. He hadn't thought she would just stop answering his calls one day, just fall off the face of the earth. If Ian hadn't told him that he'd seen her, that she'd been back in Chicago before Mickey even escaped to Mexico, he'd think the fucker really had killed her.
Part of him gets it. Part of him really, honest-to-God gets it, can't blame her for cutting out the rot and never looking back. But another, angrier part of him. . . .
Well, the other part of him is staring at the phone and itching to fucking shoot something.
"Fuck this," he mutters, and shoves the stupid phone deep into the recesses of Ian's underwear drawer so that he doesn't have to look at it. Sandy brought him a Glock along with all of his old crap from five years ago and honestly he would've been happy with just the Glock. The hell does he need his fuckin' socks from five years ago for? His brothers took anything worth anything and pawned it once he got sentenced.
He stalks over to the boys' room. It's pretty easy to find an old duffel bag among the mess. He tosses the Glock and a box of ammo into it and heads downstairs to ransack the kitchen.
Debbie's kid is sitting at the kitchen table. Mickey ignores her, beelines straight to the fridge and loads a pack of beer into his duffel. For good measure he fishes a few empties out of the bin. Just in case there's nothing good to shoot over at the abandoned warehouse. He feels like watching the glass explode into a hundred little shards.
There's an unopened can of Pringles on the counter. Sour cream, but eh. Might as well. Those go into the bag too.
"Whatchya doin', Uncle Mickey?"
The kid's staring at him from her spot at the table, crunching away on a bowl of dry cereal. Mickey blinks at her, and on impulse opens the fridge again. Sure enough, there's no milk anywhere to be seen in there. Fucking Gallaghers. Not even any milk in there for their stupid kid.
"Not your uncle," he snaps at her. He rummages around a bit in the cabinets, doesn't find any good snacks, so he zips up his duffel and slings it onto his shoulder. "Who's fuckin' watchin' you?"
The fuckin' Mexicans are gone, Debbie's nowhere in sight, Lip and Tami are living in the world's most depressing RV behind the house. Ian's at work. The kid's sitting in the kitchen in the middle of the day eating dry cereal like he used to when there was nothing else in the house to eat. Is it him? Do the Gallaghers, for some unknown and insane reason, think that he's watching the kid? Fuck, no.
She's still looking at him all curious and expectant, eating that depressing lunch all by herself. He feels kind of bad for her, honestly. At least when he was a kid he was never alone. The house was always crawling with his brothers and cousins and someone's girlfriend's kids and whoever the fuck else. Maybe feeling sorry for her is the reason he blurts out, "I'm gonna go shoot something."
The kid's eyes go wide. "With a gun?"
"No, with a fuckin' sling shot, of course with a gun."
"Like Rambo?" she breathes, which, Mickey reflects, he really should've seen coming.
And goddamnit she looks so impressed that Mickey asks her, "You wanna come?"
Which is how Mickey finds himself shooting bottles in an abandoned warehouse with a four-year-old beside him, watching the glass explode like it's the coolest thing she's ever seen.
He's not a total monster. When they first get there he shoots a random ass bottle that he spots on the floor and as it explodes he tells her, "You run in front of me when I'm shooting, that happens to you, you got me?" He shows her the safety and has her watch him load and unload the thing, check for a live round, and then for good measure he adds, "You ever touch one of these things when I'm not around and I'll fuckin' kick your ass, okay? It's not a fuckin' toy." Then he shoots some more garbage for good measure and he thinks she gets it because she's nodding at him furiously and her eyes are so wide they take up half her little baby face.
"What if Uncle Carl's there?" she asks. "Or Uncle Ian? Or Uncle--"
"Hell, no." He knows Carl's got guns but frankly, that is a terrifying goddamn thought, and if Ian's ever got a gun these days it'll be because his meds need adjusting. Lip's a drunk, and Liam fuckin' sleepwalks or some shit. Kid's got too many damn uncles and Mickey doesn't trust a single one of them with a fucking firearm. "You can hold one when I say so and that's it."
"Okay," she says solemnly.
"You break the rules and you're not allowed to shoot with me anymore. We clear, baby Rambo?"
"Okay, Uncle Mickey. I'll be good."
"Damn right."
He puts the safety on the Glock and lets her hold it. It looks ridiculous in her little hands. "Bang, bang! I got you, bad guys," she says, pointing it at an imaginary enemy, and Mickey takes it back from her.
"It's not a toy," he tells her. Debbie will absolutely shank him if the kid shoots herself. "You wanna play, get a toy. Gun's for fuckin' shit up."
The kid watches him set up a line of bottles across the room, sits down cross-legged on the filthy floor. There's a used needle like two feet away. What the hell was he thinking, bringing her along. "Ay yo, red," he says. "Uh, watch where you're sittin', ok? Don't--don't fuckin' touch anything."
The kid rolls her eyes. On second thought, she's probably already seen her fair share of used needles, in their neighborhood. "Are you gonna shoot now?"
"Yup," Mickey says. Positions himself so that she's well behind him. "Stay there, no runnin' around, remember."
"I know."
He's fairly certain she's not dumb enough to run in front of him, so he takes aim at the first bottle. It explodes in a shower of glass, and he keeps going, all the way down the row. He misses a few, but that's okay. He's never been a perfect shot. Decent enough, but nothing like Ian, back in his ROTC days. Watching Ian call his shots and nail each one had been a sight to behold. It was the hottest thing sixteen-year-old Mickey had ever seen in his life.
"Cool!" the kid says behind him.
First time he managed to hit a bottle with a shotgun, he wasn't much older than her. Uncle Ronnie whooped and high-fived his hands, fuck yeah little man. Caught him in a playful headlock and hollered over to Terry, think this one's gonna be a sniper, and Terry grinned around the mouth of a beer bottle, that's my boy.
He glances back at her. She's still sitting in the same spot, dressed all in pink like Debbie seems to always dress her, and she's got her hands over her ears but looks pretty impressed.
"The hell you covering your ears for?"
The kid makes a face. "It's loud."
"'Course it's fuckin' loud, it's a fuckin' gun," he tells her. "Rambo don't cover his ears, does he?"
Invoking the kid's personal hero is maybe a low blow, but Mickey can't help it. It's so fuckin' funny, this little girl all in pink, looking so happy to sit here and watch Mickey shoot. Covering her ears with those tiny hands.
She still covers her ears again when he starts his next round of shooting, and Mickey gives her some shit for it, but he thinks it's kind of good, too. That she's still young enough that she doesn't care about looking tough, just covers her ears because it's too loud and lets Mickey tease her for it. If he'd done that around his uncles they would've laughed and called him a pussy until he stopped.
She's not bad company, for a kid, he's gotta admit. He used to like it when Ian came and watched him shoot, in the old days. Kept him company. He'd come hang out with his nerdy textbooks while Mickey picked off row after row of beer bottles. Wasn't even a sex thing, most of the time. Just nice to have someone else there, keep him from stewing too much in his own thoughts. Keep him from getting too lost in the way the gun kicked in his hand. He'd liked it right up until that last time, when all he'd wanted was to shoot until he forgot and Ian wouldn't fuckin' let him.
Not his proudest, what he did that day. He's never really apologized to Ian about it. They just buried it with all the other shit they've done to each other. It's rotting right alongside you never fucking visited me and get in the fucking car and you're nothing but a warm mouth. One day it'll all come back to haunt them but they're both pretending anyway.
Mickey doesn't want to think about all that, so he keeps shooting and in between rounds he drinks a few beers and shares the can of Pringles with the kid while he tells her stories about all the times he's gotten shot. They get a good hour or two of target practice in before he hears sirens and has to book it out of there with the kid over his fuckin' shoulder, which she thinks is the funniest thing ever. All in all, not a bad afternoon.