The entire way to Pontiac, they listen to some old Judas Priest CD Mickey found under the seat of his uncle's old pick up truck. They know exactly which songs skip too much to even bother listening to within an hour on the road. Ian stays quiet the entire time, and Mickey doesn't care because it's not too bad of a silence. There's no heavy air around Gallagher. The 'I have a problem but I'm a self-sacrificing price, like all Gallaghers, so I'm not gonna say anything, I'm just going to sigh about it a lot and act surprised when you ask about it' weight to his slouched figure in the passenger seat is gone, which Mickey is grateful for. Listening to Gallagher talk the entire way might be enough to drive him nuts, but he would have done it anyway.
He knew it had something to do with Monica. Ian had showed up, babbling about Monica being back and how he hadn't really gone to see her, because he hadn't seen her in two years and he didn't want to risk it. He didn't want to see her, and he didn't know what to do, and he didn't want to be there if she came over, or if she left, he just didn't want to do it. Mickey hadn't really thoroughly thought out his course of action. He'd taken his brother's car and started driving. And Ian had slouched low in the passenger seat, suddenly silent.
They don't change out the CD. They don't listen to the radio. Ian has the patience of paint drying, but once Mickey shuts off the CD in Pontiac, Ian plays musical chairs with the radio, changing the station after every single song, even after Mickey starts intermittently smacking his hand away. The 'Do you wanna walk? Get the fuck out of my car, Gallagher' threats get sheepish grins, but by the time they hit Springfield, Mickey's stopped noticing the radio, or Gallagher's fingers drumming tattoos into his thigh.
The hotel they find is right across the street from a liquor store so Mickey doesn't mind it so much. They boil eggs in the microwave and drink until they're too drunk to peel the damn things. Then they watch paid programs and grope each other, half joking, half painful, until Ian passes out. Mickey doesn't move for a long time after that, because his thigh feels warm from where Ian's head is using it as a pillow. He doesn't know what he's supposed to do with that. Should he touch Ian? Rub his head or pet his hair or some gay shit like that? Should he ignore Ian? Pretend that he doesn't care? Wake his ass up and fuck him? Mickey has no fucking clue, so he doesn't do anything. He watches the same paid program three times and falls asleep without realizing it.
Ian makes coffee in the morning and buys a week's worth of grocery for thirty seven dollars, because he has magic voodoo powers with coupons or something. Mickey spends two days in bed, and Ian tries to, he knows it, but he can't lay still. Ian isn't used to sleeping in. He's not used to laying around for days. He keeps getting up to clean up the room or shower or go for a run or sight see even though Mickey knows he never really even makes it that far, because Chicago trash don't do bullshit like sight seeing. He keeps picking up the phone and hanging it back up without ever calling anybody.
Lip finds them during their third week. They're in Quincey then, nearly out of the goddamn state. They shot through the five hundred they had taken with them, but Mickey has ways of making money on the fly, and he finds out that Ian does too. Ian's ways are nicer, but he expected it like that. Ian's ways are clever and he blames Lip for that. His ways aren't robbing liquor stores, taking booze as much as the money. When Mickey tries that the first time, Ian stops him real fast. Ian gives him this whole speech about big brother watching and what kind of dumbass wants a fucking spotlight like that on them? And did Mickey ever use his head? Mickey didn't say anything at first, because Ian hadn't ever talked to him like that before. Mickey wanted to punch him, or kiss him; he didn't know which so he did nothing. After that, he let Ian take the lead with the money and that was mostly because Ian never bitched about how much of it went toward alcohol.
When Lip finds them, they've got the desk in the middle of the room, using it as a ping pong court and flipping coins into cups. The core object of the game is to take a shot whenever they miss, but by the time Lip shows up, the game's devolved into throwing coins at each other, and whoever's too slow or sloppy to slap away the coin - or dodge it - before impact had to drink. It's a game that nobody's really winning.
"So what, you don't know how to pick up the fucking phone?" Lip asks when Ian opens the door. He catches it when Ian swings the door shut in his face and lets himself in.
"I don't remember the number. I'm not good with numbers," Ian says, turning his back on Lip and walking back to the desk. Lip follows.
"Bull-fucking-shit. What is this? You an alcoholic now? Run away with fucking - fucking Mickey - all the way to Missori? What are you doing?"
"He has a fake ID," Ian provides and Mickey laughs because even fucking God - up in his little space ship above the stars - can see that that is obviously not Lip's point. Lip doesn't laugh, but Ian smiles a sloppy smile that drips all the way down his face, and Mickey figures that will always be a success.
"I am five seconds away from fucking up, Ian; what are you doing?" Lip sounds more pissed than Mickey has ever seen him. Mickey kicked his ass before, but he's never seen Lip look this upset. Emotions always seem beyond the touch of Lip Gallagher. It feels like Ian absorbs all the emotions Lip should be feeling.
"Nothing," Ian snaps, rounding on Lip.
It's silent for three whole heartbeats, and then Lip puts his hands on Ian and shoves him back so hard that Ian doesn't catch himself when the backs of his knees hit the corner of the bed and he falls. Mickey doesn't remember getting to his feet, but suddenly he's so close to Ian he can see every stupid freckle on his stupid face, as he gets back to his feet.
"What happened, Ian?" Lip says, demands really - or begs - sometimes they sound the exact same to Mickey.
"Nothing," Ian says, louder this time. "It was just - I just - look - it was - I don't know." Ian hadn't thought this far ahead. He didn't know why he went. He didn't know why he felt relieved, weightless, in the car beside Mickey. He's terrified the more he thinks about it, the more likely it'll be for him to lose it. "I wanted to get out," he settles on, because it's the whole truth.
"So you went to Milkovich," Lip throws an accusing arm toward Mickey as he shouts his name, "instead of talking to me about it? You fucking ran? Like Monica? Like Frank?" Mickey can hear the hurt, but Ian rolls his eyes and for a second, he thinks maybe Ian isn't as perceptive as he thought he was, or maybe Mickey's just a pessimist and sees the hurt in everything.
"Lay off of him, Gallagher," Mickey says and he isn't sure if he's saying it now because of Lip's tone or because he doesn't like the way Ian looks right now, like he's in the midst of recoiling.
"Shut the fuck up, Mickey, or I swear to god, I will put your head through the fucking window," Lip snaps without even looking away from Ian. "Just tell me, tell me what happened," and Lip's voice changes completely when he's talking to Ian. The sharp edge disappears completely. "What shoved you over the edge. What could possible be so bad that running away with a Milkovich seemed like the better alternative."
Mickey's grimaces. He hates that. With one sentence, one single thought, Lip's cut Mickey off at the knees and put their entire situation into perspective. But nobody's looking at him. He rubs the corner of his mouth with a forefinger and goes back to the desk. Fuck them both. A Gallagher, looking down on him? Fuck them. He takes a pull from the vodka bottle Ian had placed in the middle of the desk earlier. It's almost gone. When Ian doesn't defend him, he takes a few more drinks; long drinks that burn up his throat until he feels like crying.
"I didn't think anybody would notice," Ian says quietly. There was hope in the quietness of his voice, like Ian was hoping nobody would hear it because it sounds so freaking stupid.
Lip really does hit him upside the head this time, and shakes Ian a few times, as if he's trying to shake some sense into him. "You think nobody would notice?" Jesus. He's shouting. Screaming. Mickey wishes he would shut the fuck up or go outside. His head's starting to hurt.
"Okay," Ian snaps, and swats Lip's hand away when Lip goes to hit him again. "I might have overreacted a little bit. I didn't expect to get this far. But we kept ending up with money and it was - I just - I wanted to see how far I could get."
"With Mickey," Lip says and it's there again. Mickey isn't sure what it is. Hatred? Jealousy? Hurt? It's too many emotions squeezed into this tiny shithole of a hotel room. It's getting hard to breathe beneath the weight of all this tension.
"With anyone," Ian shouts back. "At all. I felt like I was drowning, for fuck's sake, Lip. I wanted to run away. And when I started, I didn't want to stop. Because this is better. Being drunk all the time, just going, this is better than Frank and Monica. This is better than that bullshit - being with Mickey - this is better. I like this. I like him."
Lip scoffs and Ian hits him. It's so sudden, so hard that it knocks Lip on his ass. He touches his cheek and looks unsure about what to do in his utter surprise. There's another weighted moment where Ian stares down at Lip. He looks real pissed and real drunk, breathing real hard like he's just jogged up a flight of stairs and Lip stares up at Ian, still touching his cheek. Then they move in unison. Lip surges up while Ian ducks down and they end up on the ground, rolling across the carpet. Mickey takes another long painful swallow of vodka and feels like puking.
The Gallaghers fight like bitches. It's all skin for them. There aren't any pocket knives hidden in clothes or heaters pulled out in the middle of the fight and pressed against bare skin. It's all bony knuckles with them. Lip ends up on top when they hit a bed and stop rolling, but Ian punches him so quickly, Lip doesn't even get the chance to get a punch off.
Mickey joins in, but it's only because Ian starts punching Lip and Lip doesn't really ever reach the top again. There is so much unusable anger within Ian that Mickey never even saw before. It just eats him up from the inside and he has to put it somewhere and eventually Lip stops fighting, but Ian doesn't.
Mickey gets Ian around the waist and drags him off of Lip. He catches an elbow in the face, and doesn't stop. He throws Ian into a wall hard enough to dent the cheap plaster and presses a hand to his nose. He's too drunk to care about the blood. He's too drunk to care about any of this shit. He feels like taking a nap. "Are you done?" He asks nobody in general, more annoyed than he wants to acknowledge. He doesn't care.
Lip gets up on his own because Mickey doesn't offer him the help. He doesn't move out from the middle of them, even after Lip tells him to. "I'm here to take you home," Lip says and Mickey laughs at him because he thinks it's a joke at first, but neither Gallagher is laughing. He tries to stop, but he can't, because he doesn't want Ian to go, because he kind of likes this too, and isn't that the greatest joke you've ever heard?
"Is Monica still there?" Ian asks, still breathing hard, like it even matters anymore. Lip doesn't answer but it's answer enough. It's a yes. Monica is still there. After three weeks. Ian tries not to care, because caring leads to hoping. "Frank?"
"Staying in the house until Monica splits again, I guess," Lip answers and he probably should've lied because that wasn't the greatest way to get Ian home, but Lip's never lied to Ian.
"Then what are you even doing here, Lip?" Ian asks and he sounds tired.
"I told you," Lip says calmly and Mickey wants to know what fucking show he's stuck in, because these idiots were just fighting and now they're talking like none of that even happened, like Lip's eye isn't swelling shut. "I noticed I was sharing a room with Carl and started wondering what the hell ever happened to that dorky redhead who used to live here. It took me a while, but I noticed."
"Funny."
"It's time to come home, Ian." Lip still sounds calm and Mickey feels like punching him in the face. "I'm heading home tomorrow morning," he says when nobody says anything. "Eight. If you're not in the car, I'm leaving you. But I noticed," he repeats, stresses even. "Remember that when you're trying to make yourself invisible. I fucking noticed."
Lip leaves, shutting the door behind him. Mickey sits back down, dragging the back of his hand across his face and smearing blood. Ian goes into the bathroom and Mickey falls asleep at the table before he comes back out.
Ian doesn't wake him up in the morning, and Mickey's already halfway through Jacksonville when he finds the two hundred dollars in his pocket. He doesn't know what he expected. He expected Ian to go with Lip. Those two are attached at the fucking hip. He also sort of expected Ian to at least wake him up first, maybe say bye or something as equally gay, except Ian hadn't and it stung more than Mickey wanted to admit.
It isn't like he doesn't know where Ian's going. They're both going back to Chicago. Ian's going to be there - same as always - but still, for some bullshit reason, it hurt. Maybe it's seeing the empty hotel room that really got to him. It reminded him of the last time his mother ran out on them; finding her room completely empty. There was something painful about all of that emptiness. It punched a hole straight through him and left him winded.
Mickey stops in Lincoln because he figures, there really isn't much reason to rush back home. Everything will still be there. Lip might have noticed Ian gone, but nobody would notice Mickey gone. He stays in Lincoln for a whole week, barely leaving his hotel room, so drunk he doesn't even notice the hunger. Then he moves onto Atlanta and does the exact same thing. He robs a liquor store on his way out of that bullshit town because he's not as good at spending coupons as Ian and he isn't as clever at making money as Ian and he doesn't care half as much as he had before.
"Where the fuck have you been, assface?" Mandy asks, without looking up from the TV, when Mickey walks into the house.
"Fuck off," Mickey mutters as he walks past her to his room. It's the exact same as he had left it, and he's grateful for it. If they had fucked with his shit, he would have had to actually do something before collapsing onto his bed, and he doesn't feel like doing anything.
"Did you and Ian run off and elope or something?" Mandy asks from his doorway. "It's weird that you both disappeared at the same time. Except he came back months ago. Where have you been?"
Mickey would shrug if he felt like moving. He doesn't. "Felt like going out for a little bit," he mutters into the mattress beneath him.
"It's been three months," Mandy points out, like that's a totally relevant fucking fact, which it's not.
"Thanks. I forgot how to read calendars," Mickey says dully.
"Fuck you. You're a dick," Mandy scoffs and gives up. "I'm glad you're not dead in a gutter," she says before storming off. Mickey falls asleep after she leaves, and when he wakes up, he has no idea what day it is, and he doesn't bother checking.
Mandy calls Ian when Mickey comes home, and tells him to call off the search dogs, because the fuckhead is back in her life and Ian tries not to ask her too many questions like 'where the fuck has he been?' because he isn't supposed to care.
So Ian starts focusing on Westpoint again and trying to rescue his GPA because Monica's gone again and Frank never wants anything to do with them when Monica's gone. Ian starts hanging out at Mandy's more around Christmas because it's the holiday that always bums him out the most. It's a whole lot of not being able to afford anything and he doesn't like it. When Mickey comes in through the front door and sees Ian sitting there, beside Mandy, playing Gears of War with her, he doesn't even stop. He walks right past Ian and slams his door shut behind him.
Ian lifts Mandy's legs off of his lap and gets up, muttering 'bathroom' and thinking that Mandy probably thinks he has the world's tiniest bladder ever. Mickey is already sprawled across his bed by the time Ian walks into his room. "Mick?"
"Fuck off, Gallagher," Mickey says and Ian knows the difference; he knows that Mickey isn't fucking around. It's not a joke.
"Are you mad at me?" Ian ventures, completely ignoring all of his fight or flight instincts.
"No," Mickey grunts and wishes he still had a bottle of Whiskey hidden beneath his bed.
"I think you're lying," Ian presses because he's a smart asshole and Mickey knows if the stupid idiot stays in his room much longer, he might actually physically harm him.
"I don't give a fuck what you think about me, Gallagher," Mickey snaps, sitting up enough on his bed to actively glare at Ian.
"Is it because I left with Lip?" Ian asks and Mickey blames himself. If only he had hit Ian more, instead of wasting so many empty threats on him, he would have shut the fuck up by now. He would have still been scared of Mickey.
"The man in the fucking moon saw that coming," Mickey says and he's snapping at Ian so loudly, Ian starts to worry that Mandy might hear them. "You're as surprising as a goddamn goldfish, Gallagher. About as smart as one too. I told you to fuck off. You're still here. Are you suicidal now, is that it? Inherit the psycho from your crazy mom too?"
Ian's face shutters closed, and whatever emotion had been there before - guilt, sorrow - is gone now. He probably learned that from Lip too. Mickey doesn't care. He wants to hurt Ian; he wants to make him cry and bring him to his knees so that maybe Ian can feel as shitty as he feels.
"I didn't mean to hurt you," Ian says and Mickey gets up.
He takes Ian by his jacket and slams him into the door so hard the entire door frame rattles around the weight of Ian. "Say that again and I will put your dick in the fucking garbage disposal."
"I didn't think you would care," Ian says quietly, after a second. "I thought you saw it coming."
"I did see it coming," Mickey snaps, because he feels like shaking Ian and shouting in his face, I fucking took you away, I drove across the goddamn state with you, you didn't think I'd care? I've never cared more in my entire life. "You've been following Lip around since you could walk. He's got a fucking leash around your neck. I'm surprise you even fucked me with the way he says my name. Like a fucking insult."
Ian ignores it, all of the insults, even though they hit a nerve. He's good at that; Mickey's never been good at it. "Then why are you mad?" He asks, instead of punching Mickey. Mickey would've preferred Ian just hit him, instead of all this talking bullshit.
"Because you didn't fucking tell me," Mickey snaps back. "Because you just fucking left. You used me to get all the way out there to fucking shitcreak, Illinois, and then you left as soon as something better came along."
"I didn't use you," Ian says, startling quiet in comparison to Mickey.
"Oh, bullshit. And I don't care. I was good with it - fucking fine - I mean we been using each other since day one. That wasn't the problem." Mickey lets go of Ian with a shove. "Happy? I'm not mad at you, Princess. Now get the fuck out of my room."
Ian doesn't move, but Mickey's already turned away and he doesn't notice it until Ian speaks again, in that hesitant quiet tone that he uses when he knows he's already on a minefield, and if he keeps going, he's going to inevitably strike a mine. "Then what is the problem?"
"What?" Mickey asks, glancing back at Ian.
"You said 'that wasn't the problem'. Which means there is a problem. What is it?" Ian has an annoying calm way of explaining things that makes Mickey want to punch him. He just wants to punch everyone.
"I don't got a problem."
"Liar."
"Go back to Lip," Mickey says in a dangerously low tone.
"I don't want to," Ian says but he looks like he kinda does.
"Now who's fucking lying?" Mickey shoots back.
Ian fidgets and Mickey pretends to not watch him. Mandy's annoying voice filters through the door, and Ian jumps, even though Mickey can tell she's shouting from the kitchen, not right outside of his door. "Under the El, tonight?" Ian asks and Mickey reaches around him to open his door.
"Fine, whatever, go," he mutters and he doesn't smile, as he shoves Ian out of his room, because Mickey Milkovich doesn't smile about dates, and he doesn't cry over spilt milk.