Work Text:
Mickey felt better
It was better this way. Easier. Simpler. Safe. Gallaher didn't deserve this shit. He didn't deserve Mickey and his fucked up homophobe dad. Or his piss and shit smelling house. Everybody knew it.
If the Gallagher’s were the best of this place the Milkoviches were the worst. He was gonna get out. At fucking WestPoint in the military. Didn't matter how Ian Gallagher wasn't going to be hanging around this shit hole any longer than he had to.
But Mickey. Mickey was staying put. Just like his dad had, just like his brothers had. He was gonna spend the next thirty fucking years in the same house he grew up in. Drinking the same beer. Breaking the same knee caps. He was nothing, meant for nothing and he knew it.
Hell he reveled in it. He was Mickey fucking Milkovitch. He knew who he was.
You're gay and you love me. So fucking what. It didn't matter. It had never mattered. It didn't matter when they were fucking in the back room of the Kash and Grab. Didn't matter when he got shot. Didn't matter when he couldn't kill Frank fucking Gallagher, which the world would have thanked him for.
And it definitely didn't matter when his dad found out. When he had to watch Galla-Ian’s, because he wasn’t just another Gallagher he was Ian, face while the Russian fucked him till he liked it.
It didn't matter. They were just words. Saying it didn't mean they could be together. Saying it didn't erase the neighborhood they lived in. Or the truth about their future's.Or his dad's fucked up opinions. Saying it didn't do anything. Wouldn't do anything but hurt.
Because if he said it. And Ian's face would light up. And he'd smile that smile the one that made Mickey's knees weak and made him want to punch and fuck and scream all at the same time. And then after he'd said it nothing would change. He wouldn't change. Life wouldn't change. And that would hurt most of all. Because nothing could change.
So he didn't say it. So he hit him. Again and again. And he kicked him. Left the one person who wasn't blood who he maybe could have, maybe did love, bleeding on the ground. Because it hurt less.
Maybe not for him. Maybe his heart would shatter and maybe all those gay ass songs about heart break and pain would be his life. And maybe that would be his punishment for thinking he could be above what he was. Maybe he deserved that pain. But not Ian.
Ian would get up and go home to the family that loved him that accepted him. He would be mad for awhile, maybe hurt for a while but he'd get over it. Find someone else, some better than Mickey some who could be with him, really be with him. He'd get into WestPoint or move to New York fucking California. Whatever.
And he'd move on. And he'd get out.
So yeah, Mickey felt better.