Right, I know I have several multi-chapters going on at the moment. But I wrote this one and I figured I might as well put it up. If it gets too confusing just message me and tell me to shut the hell up and pause doing one for a while. Either way, my excuse is having several on the go keeps me interested (I have the attention span of a goldfish) but either way enjoy…
And just in case it bothers anyone: this fic involves a suicide attempt.
Mandy would admit, she kind of hated Ian having a boyfriend. And not just because she was maybe a tiny bit in love with him, but also because she was bored. She never got to see him anymore. He was always off with Toby and when he wasn't with him, he was talking about him. Although, Mandy still clung to her opinion that actually, Ian didn't seem to like the guy as much as he was claiming to.
She knew Ian. And as far as she was concerned, he was trying to lie to himself.
What she wasn't sure was whether or not that was just wishful thinking.
Thinking about it afterwards, she'd never actually been more glad to be bored out of her brain, because if she hadn't been bored, she wouldn't have gone to find Mickey. Because that was how sad Mandy's life had become. No Ian meant she had literally nobody to hang around with, so she resorted to tracking down the brother she actually didn't mind being around and was planning on bribing him with beer and weed to get him to go to the movies with her or something.
As it happened, they never even made it to the movies, because before that the shit hit the fan.
She found Mickey sitting on his bedroom floor, his back propped against the bed and his head tipped back, which was weird enough, because even when drunk out of his mind, Mickey always seemed to make it to his bed. But it was the several empty packets and bottles of painkillers on the floor next to him that was the worrying part.
It felt like the world was spinning around her as she crashed down to her knees next to Mickey. She could see his eyes were still open and she slapped his face none too gently, because the fear inside of her gut was threatening to make her throw up. "Mickey?" she slapped him again and he blinked. And Mandy could honestly say she had never been so glad to see somebody blink in her entire life.
"Did you take all of these?" she asked him and grabbed his chin to try and force him to look at her. He blinked again, his eyes trying to focus. "Mickey? Did you swallow all of these?"
If she hadn't been holding his chin, she wouldn't have noticed, but after a second he nodded.
She didn't hesitate after that, she just called the ambulance because she refused to lose the only brother she didn't think was a complete douche. Mickey's head was lolling about when she got off the phone, but they'd told her to keep him awake, so she slapped him again, hard.
He moaned low in his throat and tried to turn his head away from her, but her hold on the sides of his face, keeping his head up, wouldn't let him. "What the fuck?" she asked him quite simply, because in her mind, even though Mickey was a fuck up just like them all, she'd never pegged him as being suicidal. She thought she knew her brother quite well, but apparently she didn't.
She hadn't thought Mickey was the sort to get depressed, especially not to get so depressed that he'd try and off himself.
"No fucking point," he mumbled eventually, his words slurred and she slapped him again, a little more gently this time since his cheek was turning pink underneath his stubble. "He don't want me."
His eyes started drooping shut again, but when she knocked her forehead against his lightly, they opened again. Mickey had always used to do that to her when they were kids and sometimes on rare occasions when they were older. It was their affectionate gesture, just between them.
"Who, Mick?" she asked, because honest to God she'd fuck them up. She didn't care who it was. If someone had managed to upset her brother this much, she'd kill them. She didn't know how the hell someone could upset Mickey that much, but that didn't really matter too much. All that mattered was that they had done.
"Firecrotch," he mumbled right when she thought he might have passed out and Mandy was pretty sure her heart actually stopped beating. But at the same time things started falling into place. Like why Mickey never brought girls home and why Ian actually tolerated her brother. Why Mickey had managed to land a job at the Kash and Grab and why he scowled whenever she had a gushy moment about Ian.
"Shit," she muttered and she meant that for more than one reason. Shit, because her brother had obviously had his heart broken. Shit, because Mickey actually apparently had feelings. Shit, because her brother had been fucking her fake-boyfriend. Shit, because she was kind of in love with said fake-boyfriend. And shit, because she'd still kick Ian's fucking ass for making Mickey like this.
She put an arm around his shoulders and pulled him down against her, hugging him tight because she was too afraid to look if he'd fallen unconscious, too afraid to check if he was even still breathing. She just kept her face pressed into her brother's hair and stared at the opposite wall, at one of Mickey's drawings that he'd stuck up, because her brother couldn't do a lot, but he could draw.
She didn't know when the hell she'd started crying, but she didn't care to stop. She cried even as the paramedics arrived, as Mickey's stomach was pumped, as he was taken to the hospital, as he lay in that bed all hooked up with tubes and wires and she was told that he would wake up in his own time, but they didn't know when. She cried as she sat the next to him, the only one that gave enough of a shit to come even if anybody else did know. Their Dad was in jail again, so were two of their brothers and the others wouldn't care. She could tell their Mum, but she'd always hated Mickey most of all for no reason whatsoever.
So Mandy just sat there on her own and cried, because she didn't know what she was going to do if she lost Mickey. Because Mickey wasn't a great person, he wasn't even a good one. But he'd been her brother. Her favourite brother. He'd been the one who'd held her hair back when she was sick, who'd hugged her when she'd had a nightmare. He'd been the one to beat up people who made her cry without her even asking him to, to walk her to school because she was scared of the hobo that lived in the alley she had to pass. He was the one who took her to movies when she was bored, looked after her when she had the flu and didn't make too much noise when she had a hangover.
He was her brother. He was Mickey. And she hadn't even known he was gay, let alone that he'd been in love. Because he'd deny it, even after this, if he woke up, he'd deny it. Because that was what Mickey did. And sure, she was a little bit pissed off that he'd been fucking her boyfriend, but there were much bigger things to worry about really. And she was more pissed off at Ian than she was at Mickey at the moment, so it sort of levelled things out.
"You better fucking make it through this," she hissed at him, her fingers holding his tight, "And you better not be any more retarded than you already are, douche bag, I mean it."
She didn't know if he could hear her, but she'd heard on one of her television programs that Mickey referred to as 'faggy crap' that people in comas were aware of what went on around them sometimes. She snorted to herself through her tears at the thought of Mickey calling anything gay. She hadn't had a clue that went for him as well. She was actually quite impressed with how well he'd hidden it.
She stayed in the hospital for two days straight not wanting to leave for even a second in case Mickey woke up, but after the second day, she had to admit to herself that she was sort of starting to smell. Her hair was greasy and she'd tied it up to try and make it look less so, but she was starting to feel uncomfortable in her own skin. She honestly didn't have a clue how Mickey could cope with being quite so grimy all the time. He was cleaner then than she had ever seen him.
She touched Mickey's cheek briefly before she left, knowing he would have hated her for doing something as sappy as bending down and kissing his forehead. Just in case he was aware of what was going on, she didn't want to risk the earache. Because her brother would wake up, he had to. It was just a case of when.
"Be back soon assface," she told him, skimming her fingers down his forearm and having to practically tear herself away.
She cried again on the El and flipped off the homeless person who stared at her. She thought she was entitled to her crappy emotions, to her grief, but she didn't particularly feel like sharing it with anyone. Which was why when she got home, she walked straight past Iggy where he was sitting on the couch and ignored him. He wouldn't care about Mickey being in the hospital, but he'd probably ask why the fuck Mickey had tried to off himself and Mandy would be damned if she was outing him to the other douchebags. They'd probably slit his throat while he was in his coma if they found out. Mandy didn't know a hell of a lot, but she was sure about that.
She only felt better when she stood in the shower, the water only luke warm because their water heater was shitty and had never quite worked right after Nicky had smacked it with a baseball bat in a fit of anger. She walked with her eyes screwed shut on her way to the bathroom, not wanting to look at Mickey's bedroom, at her brother's stuff and the empty packets of drugs that were still there on the floor. She just couldn't. But the shower definitely helped. She liked to imagine that the water swirling down the drain wasn't just washing away the grime and the dirt, but that it was taking the pain with it.
Because Mandy knew if Mickey was awake he'd tell her to man the fuck up, because she was a Milkovich. She'd cried too much already and it was a waist of fucking air. She had to be strong enough to cope, she had to be able to face everything and anything, because she was Mandy Milkovich and she'd never admit it, but the only person she'd ever wanted to be proud of her was Mickey. She'd wanted to impress a lot of people, sure, but Mickey was the only one she wanted to be proud. That was why she'd tried so hard when he'd taught her to draw, why she'd learnt to match him in a shots competition and why she knew how to fight.
He'd think it was stupid if he could hear the thoughts in her head, but she couldn't help it. They'd been there ever since she'd been four and Mickey had snuck her out the window and carried her ten blocks to a shitty little park, hiding away with her until they both forgot that their parents were back at home arguing. A lot of people would say that Mandy was too young to remember that, but she did anyway. She remembered Mickey squeezing her fingers tight, remembered that the look of pain and fear in his eyes mirrored hers. She remembered them both praying that their Mum wouldn't actually leave this time. She hadn't done. She'd left three months later and Mickey had crouched down in front of her and told her not to cry, because the bitch wasn't worth it.
Mickey had hated anyone making her cry even then. The others had never given much of a shit, but Mickey had cared. And that was why Mickey had always been Mandy's lifeline to some extent, not that she'd fucking tell him that. No way.
She got out of the shower only when it turned cold and she shivered there standing in her towel, roughly drying her hair and then padding back through Mickey's room with her eyes screwed shut. She hated that she sort of expected it to all be a dream and that he'd be there on his bed, passed out on his front and snoring, just like always at this time in the day.
In her room, she went through the usual routine. She pretended everything was normal, just for a while as she put on a too-small skirt with her steel-toed boots and a shirt that she looped up through the neck because the air was hot and sticky outside. She put on her make-up, put on so much that she almost felt like a doll, the black lines thick under her eyes to cover up the dark smudge of tiredness. She blow-dried her hair and straightened it, putting so much hairspray onto it that it crunched under her hands when she touched it and she gagged and almost choked when she inhaled.
It was only when she looked in the mirror that she had to drop the pretence. Because she could hardly forget what had happened when the boots she wore had used to be Mickey's and the laces were mismatched because he had used one set once to choke a kid until he apologised for calling Mandy a slut. Her shirt was actually Mickey's as well and the tear in the shoulder was from when Mickey had snagged it on a fence running from the cops. And the skirt was one she knew Mickey hated and the amount of make-up she had on would have made him grimace.
Sometimes she felt like there wasn't a single thing that didn't remind her of Mickey. She'd never realised that before. Even the colours in her hair were there because of Mickey, because he'd done it for her so that she wouldn't end up looking like an idiot. He had complained the entire time about the smell and had refused to let her put a streak in his no matter how many times she'd begged.
Scowling, Mandy changed into a pair of shorts that didn't ride up her ass every time she took a step and scrubbed all of the make-up off her face. She didn't wear the top properly, but that was because it was too hot. She didn't even know why she'd done that, maybe it was because she thought by some fluke it would make Mickey wake up. Not that he could even see her.
She smacked Iggy round the back of the head as she walked out just because he was a shitty brother and because he wouldn't give a shit if she told him about Mickey. He swore at her, but she was already gone out the front door, slamming it harder than was necessary.
She lit up a cigarette as she walked, sucking on it frantically and then lighting up another as soon as she flicked the butt away. She was planning on heading back to the hospital, but she found herself outside of the Kash and Grab before she even had time to think about the direction she was heading in. Taking a deep breath, she told herself that she wasn't a fucking pussy, she was a Milkovich and slammed open the door, not even bothering to put out her cigarette. She just trapped it between her lips and completely ignored Ian where he sat behind the counter. But she did notice that Lip was leaning against it in front of his brother and she made the decision then that she hated them both.
And why? Because they were smiling and laughing, about as carefree as a person could possibly get. Lip was sipping casually from a beer an as she walked she could hear Ian laughing, knew he had his head tipped back up toward the ceiling, his eyes partially closed and that mouth wide and grinning. She'd never hated anyone more in her life. Because he was laughing while her brother lay in a fucking hospital bed, because of him. It didn't even matter to her that Ian didn't know, she still hated him.
She put it down to the fact that they always said there was a fine line between love and hate; but rules also flew out of the window when Mickey was concerned. Especially now. Especially given that he'd tried to off himself.
She clenched her fists down at her side and sucked on the cigarette again before dropping it and crushing it under the bottom of her boots. She grabbed two cans of energy drink, she didn't look which one and also got some Jell-O from the other aisle. She didn't look at Ian once, or Lip, even though she could practically feel Ian's confusion over why Mandy hadn't greeted him yet and she knew Lip was staring at her ass. But she didn't care, Mandy was past caring about any of the fucking Gallaghers anymore.
She'd decided. And when Mandy made a decision like that, he fucking stuck to it. Mickey had always said she was a stubborn bitch. It was true.
"Hey Mands," Ian said, grinning at her when she came to stand in front of him.
Not saying anything, Mandy leant across the counter and grabbed the plastic bag that obviously had Ian's lunch in. She upended it onto the counter, ignoring Ian's protests and put the Jell-O and the drinks into the bag, she also grabbed a few Snickers bars from the box beside her. She had Mickey's two favourite things and something to keep her awake. She was set.
There was just one more thing she had to do.
She closed her fingers into a fist and pulled her arm back, punching Ian in the jaw so fast he never saw it coming and so hard that her knuckles throbbing instantly. She bared her teeth at him in the way Mickey had always done in a fight, resisting the urge to laugh as Ian fell back against the wall. "If there is anything wrong with him, I will kill you myself," she snarled out through clenched teeth, flexing her fingers down by her side to try and ease some of the pain out.
And with that she just walked out, not even giving either of the Gallaghers a chance to say anything. She didn't want to hear it anyway. She was fucking done with them.