"Yo Angie!"
"Yeah?"
"You wanna fuck?"
"Sure."
A soft laugh welcomes him into her house. "Wanna fuck?" She laughs again to herself. "One for old time's sake, eh Mickey?" As soon as the door locks behind her he grabs the 40 and polishes it off in huge gasping gulps.
"Damn. It's obvious you were eager to get away from those guys but… shit, what did they do?"
"The Gallaghers?" He curls his lips back and brings his eyebrows down. "They didn't do anything. Just annoying as fuck."
She starts to roll her eyes but then something clicks in place and she just takes the empty bottle from him instead. "I dunno, they seem alright."
"Nope. Annoying as fuck, trust me."
He can tally the number of people who inexplicably give a shit about him on one hand, even if that hand had been in an accident at the meat packing plant and only had two, maybe three, fingers left. Angie is one of them. She knows Mickey is gay, has known for a long time. Neither of them say it out loud, what's the point? He doesn't talk about who he is fucking, and she doesn't ask. It's nice to not be interrogated all the time. But Angie has watched him slowly get more and more tangled up in his head. It's worse every time she sees him, too, like he is so fucking burdened by whatever demon he is wrestling that even the simple joys in life - making younger kids piss their pants with one stare, slashing the tires of any cop car left unattended for more than three minutes, telling old ladies who glare at him to "suck it, grandma" - even those things seem like too much of a hassle. So when she thinks about the way he just moved around the Gallagher brothers so awkwardly, puffing out his chest and losing his natural confidence all in the same step, that's the lightbulb moment. One of them is probably the culprit. The older one has a fucking mouth on him and Mickey hates anyone who can outwit him with the last word, so it's probably the other one. The fucking ginger. She laughs again.
Mickey is just staring at her, and for a moment she wonders if that train of thought actually came out of her mouth. Normally he would unleash a string of what-the-fuck-are-you-looking-at-and-why-the-fuck- are-we-just-standing-here's but he just keeps on staring. He's sweaty and kind of, panting? It's really funny but she doesn't want to laugh at him for the fourth time in probably as many minutes.
"You hungry?"
"You cooking?"
"Got a box of Bagel Bites with your name on 'em." He nips her heels all the way to the kitchen, falling into a dance they'd shared countless times in the last three years.
"Pepperoni or Three Cheese?"
"You know," She turns to face him, "only the best for my favorite Southside asshole."
(Pepperoni.)
"Your favorite?" He clutches his chest dramatically. "I'm fucking touched."
Mickey is a goddamn stray dog, a neighborhood fixture as constant as crackhouses and burned up cars, always running loose, teeth gnashing, ready to rip some poor fucker's balls out. And you'd swear you just saw animal control pick him up last week but here he is again, barking his fucking head off. He ambles in and out of Angie's life a lot, occasionally growling but mostly just sitting quietly, allowing her to share her space and sometimes feed him. The fact that Angie doesn't hit him or babytalk to him or put a collar on him or try to fucking rub his goddamn belly, it is, well, a rare peaceful experience. So in return, he never bites her hand or shits on the carpet, and he certainly never expects her to be his fucking "forever home".
They have a nice arrangement – one his dad doesn't question. Angie hangs out with a lot of stray dogs.
"Hey… did you really... fuck Angie Szago today?"
"Yeah I fucked Angie. Everybody fucks Angie. You don't fuck Angie?"
Ian has a sour look on his face, real obnoxious. "No." The way he drags the word out gets right on Mickey's fucking nerves, like he understands why Ian is jealous and that's the fucking POINT but he doesn't have to say it like fucking Angie is the worst thing he can think of.
"Do you wanna fuck Angie? I could call her and get her down here." Mickey chews his lip, suddenly unsure where he is going with all of this.
"No."
Of course Mickey didn't fuck Angie today. He had actually only fucked her once, if you weren't counting blowjobs. But Ian didn't need to fucking know that.