"You fucking smell, Gallagher," Mickey said, shaking him awake.
Ian looked around the room, confused. It wasn't like he hadn't gotten used to waking in a foreign bed, a strange man looming over him, nursing a raging hangover. Except it wasn't a strange room, it was Mickey fucking Milkovitch's. He had been here at least a dozen times over the last year or so, in this very bed, but never sleeping. Except now, this was the bed Mickey shared with Svetlana. His wife.
Ian tried to sit up. This was all the shit he had ran away from and now it was all around him, snaking into his system and wrapping around his lungs, constricting his breathing. He needed air and he needed it quick. His breath quickened into hyperventilation as he clutched his chest, gasping for air.
"Gallagher?" Mickey wrapped his arms around Ian, rocking him back and forth. "Breathe, breathe."
Ian found himself clutching to Mickey. He was drowning and Mickey was a lone rock keeping him ashore. He didn't know how long his stayed like that, chest to chest with Mickey. Eventually, his breathing stabilized.
"Get off of me," Ian said softly. Then louder, "Get the fuck off me."
Mickey dropped his arms without a word. Ian sprung off the bed. When he started to walk off, Mickey grabbed his arm. "Uh-uh, I'm not letting you run out on me again."
"I forgot that's your job."
"My job? I sent myself to juvie, twice, for you. So I could be with you when I got out. You seen what happened when Terry found out about us. I'm stuck with Skanklana and company for who knows how long because I chose to be with you. If you want to put everything on me, I can't stop you, but you knew who I was when we started this."
"A fucking coward."
"Yeah, well, it takes one to know one."
Mickey let Ian go. He shouldn't force Ian to stay and talk him and this point he was exhausted. It was the same old shit with them - fucking, fighting, and leaving. In a perfect world he could walk pass Ian Gallagher without a second glance, be hitched to someone he actually gave a fuck about, and not have Jack Nicholson from the Shining as his freaking dad. That's just not the cards he was dealt. Instead, he was just another fuck up on the southside of Chicago. It was about time Ian realized it before Mickey fucked up again.
"Just go," Mickey told him. "I didn't bring you back for me. I brought you back so Lip could go back to school and stop fucking around with my sister. Mission accomplished. Now get the fuck out before Svetlana goes all Putin on your ass."
Mickey collapsed on the bed and covered his face with a pillow.
"Mickey..." Ian sounded almost remorseful.
"Go. My brothers can hold your coke, yours can't."
You could only hear go so many times. Ian pulled one of Mickey's sweatshirts over his head and left the room. He took special care to close the door soundly so Mickey knew the exact moment he was gone.