Chapter Text
Mickey let the water run down his face. Today was his last session with Winters. He had gone so far; he couldn’t really believe it himself. Funny enough, he didn’t feel much had changed, but when he applied himself and really looked at how he was feeling, the way she had taught him to, he couldn’t believe he was even the same person. The rage that was embedded in him for so long had almost faded away. He had had glimpses of what it could feel like to just feel good, when Ian had shown him love. Or when Terry died. He had decided back then that he would let go of all the shit pulling him back. Easier said than done. He was glad that he started to see Ian’s shrink. Because now it was just a normal feeling. The rage had stepped back. Being himself had become normal behaviour.
He had told Winters he needed more sessions. What if he couldn’t control himself? What if he reverted to his former self? But she was confident, she trusted him. She told him so. No one had trusted him before but Ian. And Ian’s crazy, right?
As he was lazily soaping his upper body, he replayed the last two months in his head. He couldn’t say he hadn’t seen it coming, because he had. All the signs where there. The crazy demanding sex drive, the lack of sleep, the constant chattering. But he had been so busy looking for fucking Iggy that he had missed it. So, he blamed himself. He blamed himself when Yev called him from the car.
The kid was resourceful, he had told his father where they were and taken the keys, letting Ian frantically looking for them. Ian had come take him from school in the middle of the morning and explained they were going to see auntie Mandy in New York. He had borrowed a company car from Mickey’s agency and was very happy to explain to his stepson what an amazing road trip they were about to take. They exited Chicago while Ian told Yev all the places he had planned to visit, the statue of liberty, Madison square garden. The kid understood something wasn’t right and had called his father when Ian stopped for gas and snacks. Mickey blamed himself for not explaining Ian’s condition to his son before. He had taken the easy way out a few times always pushing the necessary talk to the next time. The boy was old enough and intelligent enough to understand. He had just not thought Ian would pull the same shit exactly. What was it with him and running away with Yevgeny anyways?
Mickey had informed Lip, picked up one of the company cars and gone to collect his husband and his son, hurried before the police got involved. He really couldn’t risk police involvement or what he had planned for Ian’s birthday would be compromised.
Yev had been pretty cool about it all. Demanding explanation about Ian’s strange behaviour. That made sense. He already knew Ian could feel under the weather from time to time, but, well, that was something else. Still, the kid seemed to grasp the concept of mental illness really easily and took upon himself to study it. After that he kept reading about it online and asking questions when he wasn’t sure. Mickey let him do, after all, he had done the exact same thing nearly ten years back. And, most importantly, the kid hadn’t changed his mind about the gift they had planned.
Mickey kept replaying the events in his mind, shampoo foam falling in his eyes. He kept replaying his conversation with Lip while in the car, getting more and more upset as he drove toward the address his son had found on Google map. Resourceful kid indeed. And Lip, ever so the analytical mind, tried to help him focus and not lose his shit. You’d have told him back in the days that Philip Gallagher would be his go to card when he needed advice, or to speak (to speak, man!), he’d have laughed at you, or maybe beat the shit out of you. But as it turned out, he was actually proud to call Philip Gallagher his best friend. Well, his second-best friend. Ian was his best friend. Ian was his fucking everything.
Winters had told him, when he started seeing her that he needed someone he could count on, someone he could speak to. To which he replied he was paying her for that already. She had laughed but not dropped the subject. He needed a friend, a confident, someone he could speak to. About Ian also. The idea had travelled around his head for some time and somehow Debbie gave him the perfect reason to bond even more with his brother in law. She was fucking pregnant. How the hell that happened? The whole Gallagher clan was far less surprised than he was. And on the contrary, he was far less surprised than the rest of them when Debbie admitted she hadn’t told Iggy yet and that wasn’t the reason for him to take off. Iggy wouldn’t run away from his own kid; Mickey knew that much about his brother. So, he and Lip had taken upon themselves to make sure that at least one of Debbie’s children had a dad. But to say the asshole was sneaky was an understatement. Two years they’d been at it. Two years and they hardly got leads. Until a few days back when Mickey finally got one of his contacts in Mexico telling him they had just had a run with Iggy Milkovich in Los Angeles. Fucking Los Angeles!
Now, the thing is two year is long enough to bond over. And that’s exactly what happened. They started speaking. No. No, Mick started speaking. Not that it was the first time, he had spilled his guts to Lip before. But this time was on purpose. And he didn’t sugar coat it either, straight to the point. Straight to how frightened he was with Ian new endeavour to become a fire-fighter. How he was scared shitless that it would send him over the edge (well it took some time, but he was right about that). How much he wanted to be supportive about it but how hard it was. And Lip had listened, offered an understanding ear to him necessarily opening up. To his surprise, soon, Lip started confiding in him too. And more surprisingly so, ask for his advice, his opinion about Tami, his job, and even his drinking problems after a while. What Mickey didn’t know was that he was actually good advice, and an even better ear.
When time came to transfer the company from Lip to Mickey, one year into what they had not come around to call friendship yet, the obvious hit them. They hardly discussed it. Lip quit his job at the garage, much to Tami’s joy who finally had an excuse to stop frequenting her sister and her devil kids. Mickey put both their names as co-owners and co-managers of the company. Lip had worked hard too to get them where they were. And boy did they do well. 20 employees, clients all over the city, company cars and a 2-storey office in an old building not far from the Alibi. MG security agency was doing fucking well! The only thing Mickey asked was to keep the name of the company as it was, and Lip had no problem with that.
Mickey turned off the water and threw his hand out of the shower curtain to grab whatever towel he could put his hand on. He tied it low on his hips and exited the bathroom, throwing his dirty laundry of the day with the heap by the shoot. He entered the room and saw Ian was still sleeping. He got dressed as quietly as possible. He didn’t want to wake him up. One glance at the alarm clock on the bedside table, six in the evening, time to feed the herd. Debbie was working tonight so he was in charge of the family dinner, cleaning, homework check and bedtime stories. He categorically refused to admit it, but he really enjoyed the whole family schedule. He was fooling no one.
As he headed toward the kitchen, he stopped by Franny’s room, opened the still broken partition door and told her to tidy her room and wash her hands before she came downstairs for dinner. He then went to Debbie’s bedroom to pick up Darren. The kid was happily chirping in his crib, planting his bright blue eyes in Mickey’s when he opened the door.
“Uncwl Mic!”
“Yeah, Buddy. You sleep well?” The toddler smiled genuinely
“Uncwl An?”
“He’s sleepin’.” Mickey said kissing his nephew’s temple as he took him in his arms, happy he could feel the nappy light and odour less. Changing nappies was NOT his favourite thing. The kitchen was already occupied by Liam and Yevgeny doing their homework.
“How’s it going, guys?” Both kids nodded without looking up from their books. Mickey smiled as he settled Darren in the beaten highchair that had belonged to Liam, Yevgeny, Franny, Fred and now the last Gallagher/Milkovich, and would certainly still be used for the next kid to come up. Everyone’s money was on Carl. Carl’s money was on everyone but him; as he put it himself, his bachelor pad wasn’t equipped for that.
Mickey opened the fridge and collected everything he needed for tonight’s dinner. Tomatoes, beef and the left-over of pasta from the night before. He’d have to make more but he could still use these. They were doing well enough to not have to fear for food, but it wasn’t a reason to waste any. Actually, they were doing so well that Ian’s entire wages were going into Liam and Yev’s studies funds. And Mickey was fucking proud of it. This had been a topic for one of his sessions with the shrink, what would he have done if he had graduated from high school? In his mind, it wasn’t a question, lack of braincells and wrong environment, so wrong! But when he brought the topic with Ian, he seemed to think he would actually have been capable to, should he have been given to opportunity. It kinda warmed his heart realising how much Ian was believing in him, even when he wouldn’t.
He gave a piece of bread to the impatient toddler starting to rumble in his chair and started speaking to Yev as he grabbed a beer in the fridge and opened it.
“Yev, can I speak with you?” The boy looked at his father, expectant at the serious tone Mickey used.
“I just want to make sure you’re still ok with everything after what happened.” He tried to appear as detached as he could, but his heart was beating so hard he thought for a second the kid could see it through his chest.
“Yes, dad.” He looked at his father for a while. “It was a little scary, I guess.” He looked like he was weighing his next words for a moment. “But after all, I have a father and an uncle that work with cartels, a mother that run a Russian mob. I think I can deal with my other father going a little crazy from time to time.” Liam chuckled as Mickey growled. The nine years old was smart as hell. His father decided to nod proudly before changing topic.
“By the way, you called your mother?”
“Yeah, she asked if we received the signed paperwork for Ian. I said yes.” The skype calls had been from daily, to weekly and were now hardly monthly. Mickey wasn’t really happy with that, his son needed to have a relationship with his mother, even if only a virtual one. But they agreed from the start that Yevgeny would initiate the calls as much as he wanted. And as time went by the kid felt the need to call Lana less and less. Mickey also felt bad for her but wasn’t sure how to deal with that.
Lip, Tami and Fred joined them soon. As they were all busy getting ready for dinner, Ian came down the stairs, dragging his fit up to his husband and lazily wrapping his giant arms around his chest, dropping his head, face first in the crook of the neck of the shorter man. As it turned out, as Ian adjusted to his new medication regiment, he became very clingy. It wasn’t gonna last, for sure so Mickey decided to indulge (and secretly kinda liked it). It had surprised the rest of the clan the first few days, but they knew better than to interfere when it came to Mickey’s management of Ian’s illness. So, no one reacted when Ian sat on Mickey’s lap at the dinner table, Liam pushed Ian’s plate next to Mickey’s so he could eat.
After a while of everyone eating while listening to Franny explaining in detail how she used paint for her drawing at school (but not remembering what she drew), Mickey spoke up.
“You need to eat a little, babe.” Everyone briefly looked at Ian’s still full plate and resumed their listening to a little redhead that had not even noticed she wasn’t the centre of attention anymore. Over the last few years, Ian had had minor episodes, and the thing they learned from that was that they shouldn’t go all ‘Gallagher’ on him. Only Mickey could force Ian to do something. And even he had a way to go about it.
“Come on, that’d be weird ‘f I had to feed you, man.” Ian looked down at him and gave him the dirtiest smile he could muster as he blindly gathered some pasta on his fork.
“I wouldn’t mind.” OK, so he was feeling better. And Mickey gave him his best, brightest happy smile.
Because Mickey could do that now you see, randomly show his feelings. Right there and then, with everyone around, at the dinner table while Franny was explaining she had to punch Tim on the nose because he stole the pink shade she needed for her drawing.