February 2014

The early evening sunlight was fragmented by the blinds. Long strips of light fell over the crowded bedroom where Ian laid on his bed, holding the piece of paper that had ended his military career just under a year previously. He'd turned it over and over in his hands since being released from his six-month stint in juvie just before Christmas (when he'd enlisted the year before, ironically), and now the corners were dog-eared and frayed. He smirked to himself bitterly. He'd hoped to have a framed certificate on the wall like Lip had done with his High School Diploma – Lip, ever the golden boy of the family, the one with all the brains, the looks, who was born with a ticket out of this shithole just by having good genes. Wherever the fuck they had come from.

At least he was doing something with his talents now, even if it had meant throwing Ian under the bus. Ian hadn't replied to his letters.

None of that was going to happen for Ian. He didn't have the brains like Lip did, so his dreams of being an officer were probably dead from the start. How deluded he'd been. The least he could've done was finish High School, but of course, that would've meant sticking around and watching the Milkovich asshole play house with his diseased whore of a wife.

Ian screwed the piece of paper up in his hand and bit back the tears that threatened to fall. No. He wasn't going to cry over that shithead again. He'd learned his lesson the last time he had – he'd spent a week nursing the black eye that had been planted on his face by his roommate, and that had been enough to teach him not to cry.

Things were going to be different from now on.

Standing, Ian took the discharge notice and placed it on the ashtray atop his chest of drawers, and drew his lighter from his back pocket. It sparked uselessly a couple of times before he touched the paper with a steady flame and watched it burn. As it did, he felt the old him finally wither away and die, as if it had been starving to death over the last year and had finally given up the ghost.

As a kid, Ian had been obsessed with firearms and the military. He'd not been particularly old when he'd fired his first shot – eight to be exact, standing under the L watching Frank finish up a drug deal with Terry Milkovich of all people. They'd been standing by a pillar seventy or so yards away when Ian had seen the gun atop what looked like a rusty filing cabinet, and he'd picked it up tentatively. He hadn't meant to, but his hands, fumbling and inexperienced, had accidentally pulled the trigger and the shot had sharply pierced the air.

Terry had taken one look at him and that was all Ian had needed to know. He'd dropped the gun and sprinted away from there, one of the meanest guys in the neighbourhood shouting expletives at him from the distance.

When Ian learnt about World War II a few years later, he'd plagued Fiona with questions about the Nazis until she clocked him around the head with ladle and told him to ask someone who wasn't currently trying to feed five annoying brats and study for a midterm exam simultaneously. He asked Lip, who'd then told him in quite graphic detail exactly what had been done to the millions of people in the concentration camps – and all the specific groups they tried to wipe out, including homosexuals. Ian didn't sleep for a week.

Regardless, his interest in the military slowly returned, as Ian decided that if people out there were still doing the same sort of things, the best thing he could do was try and stop them.

Ian didn't quite know when his reasons for joining the army had changed; that it was a good idea to use the army as place he could run to when things got tough, but it had happened anyway. Mickey had been right in one thing: it certainly was a dumbass move. He shouldn't have thrown away his dream because of one fucker, especially not one like Mickey Milkovich.

If one thing was for certain, it was that the army had changed him. He wasn't stupid and naïve like he had been before he'd left. He'd grown up a lot, to put it politely. Shooting another man dead had a way of doing that to people.

"Ian!" Carl yelled at him suddenly.

Ian glanced over at him and blinked stupidly. "Huh?"

"Move, dickface, you're lying on my sweater." He answered, tugging at it from underneath him.

"Oh, sorry," he replied, and lifted his hips up. It took him a moment to realise that it was now morning, and he'd been lying awake all night. He laid back down again when Carl had stomped off and down the stairs. He heard Fiona arguing with Debbie over something before the door finally slammed and a few minutes later he heard Fiona come up the stairs, fiddling around with her earrings and wearing only a skirt and a bra with two shirts over her arm. Ian had closed his eyes and was pretending to be asleep.

"I know you're awake, you little shit," she said.

Ian opened his eyes and looked up at her. She smirked.

When she was done pissing around with her hair in the mirror, she turned to face Ian. "Which one do you think works best?" She asked, holding up a red floral shirt and a purple one.

Ian looked between them for a minute. "The purple one. The red one makes you look like an angry Sunday school teacher."

Fiona smirked and slid the shirt on hastily and Ian rested his head back down on the mattress, hoping that that was the last of it.

"So are you going to get a job or just hibernate for the rest of the winter?" She asked, eyeing him disapprovingly.

Ian thought about it for a moment. "Probably gonna go with the hibernation," he replied tiredly.

Fiona picked up a magazine and hit him on the chest with it. "No, you won't," she snapped, and looked him right in the eye, rolling the magazine up and pointing at him with it as she spoke. "You're going to stop feeling sorry for yourself and get up off your ass. You're going to go to the Kash n' Grab and beg Linda for your old job back. And if she says no, you're going to get your ass down to the Alibi and see if Kev needs an extra pair of hands now that he's looking after the baby. But I swear to god, Ian, if you're still lying there by the time I get back tonight I'm going to kick you to the curb myself." She declared, and then frowned at him. "But if I were you, I'd take a shower first. You smell like burnt wood and weed."

Ian looked away from her and sighed, rolling over to face the wall. "Fine." He answered coldly.

Fiona stood up straight and put a hand on her hip, looking down at her little brother with a sigh and a confused shake of her head. Then she turned around and left. "Liam's at Sheila's," she called from down the hall, "pick him up at four."

An hour after Fiona left, Ian finally got up and took a shower. Looking down at himself, he didn't feel right. He'd stayed in shape while he was in juvie – Mickey'd been right, there really wasn't much to do in that place except work out. But where before he'd felt like he was working towards something… now it just felt pointless. But there was a part of him that liked working out, if not because of the army, but because it made him feel powerful, and that made him feel protected. And then there was the sex appeal part… Ian found that it hadn't exactly put the other soldiers off. Maybe he'd go to a gay bar later on tonight.

When he finally left the house, he started walking in the direction of the Alibi but somehow found himself walking towards the Kash n' Grab. He didn't know why, because he sure as fuck wasn't going back there again—way too many memories. Standing at the end of the street, he saw someone standing outside smoking a cigarette. Ian stood in the doorway of a dry cleaner's some way up the street and took a closer look. It didn't take him long to recognise the spiky black hair.

Ian hadn't been able to guess how he'd feel when he saw the other man again. He'd gone over and over it in his head. Sometimes he imagined lashing out at him, fighting him, and other times he imagined himself weakly and pathetically falling into bed with him again. As much as he hated himself for it, deep down he knew it would be the latter. The last thing he expected to feel was the same stupid butterfly feeling.

He was suddenly shoved out of the way by a slightly taller, older guy who spat on the floor at his feet. "Get out of my doorway, shithead," he grunted.

Ian glared at him and stepped off the tiled floor of the doorway. He was about to turn and walk away when the guy's fist suddenly connected with his jaw and he staggered backwards a few steps to lean on a parking meter. "Fuck…" He grunted, straightening his jaw out and spitting blood on the floor.

The guy smirked and went for him again, but Ian winded him by pulling the same move he'd pulled with Mickey over a year ago now, when the other boy had started beating up Ned outside the Fountain. The man choked and gasped for breath and Ian walked toward him, kicking him in the chest and then in the balls. "Fucking asshole!" He shouted, and began kicking him over and over again. He felt something snap inside of him, like he had just opened a floodgate, and he couldn't do anything except act on the pure impulse it held. He would've kept going if he wasn't pulled away from him by a pair of arms around his shoulders.

"Gallagher!" Mickey shouted, pulling the younger boy backwards and away from the man, who was curled in on himself in the doorway. "Jesus-!"

Ian leaned back on the older boy and looked around blindly, panting and sweating a little. "The fuck," he panted.

"Shit," Mickey said, loosening his grip as the guy started to stand up. "Ian, come on," Mickey said quietly, tugging on his arm, "before they call the cops."

The redhead started to follow the older boy out of pure instinct, still feeling completely disoriented from his outburst. They ran under the staircase of the L and into an alley like they had done before. They ran through buildings until they were deep enough in the labyrinth of alleys and backstreets not to be found, before the two of them leant on the wall side by side to catch their breaths. Ian buried his face in his hands and when he looked up, Mickey was grinning at him from the side and panting.

"Fuck, Firecrotch!" He said enthusiastically. "How long you been back?"

Ian didn't reply, nor did he smile back at him. He just closed his eyes and rested his head back on the wall behind him.

"I haven't seen you for over a fuckin' year, man," he continued, leaning forward on his knees and looking up at him.

Ian nodded, his breaths evening out.

"So how long you been back?"

"Since December," Ian finally replied.

The brunet looked a little confused and furrowed his brow with a smile. "Two months?"

Ian nodded.

"I heard from Mandy that they caught you," Mickey said with a smile.

"Hn."

"I can't believe you used your brother's ID to enlist…" Mickey laughed with a smile and a shake of his head, "such a fuckin' rookie mistake."

Ian glared at him. He seriously had the fucking balls to laugh at him?

"I heard they sent you to juvie, too." Mickey added quietly, the smile falling from his face.

"Yep."

"That sucks man. I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"That you got sent to juvie." He drew his cigarettes from his back pocket as well as a lighter. He took a drag before passing it to the redhead.

Ian took it but didn't say anything. He wanted to, but it felt like the words were stuck in his throat.

"Anyways…" Mickey turned to look at him with genuine affection; a look that Ian rarely saw and which he had practically burnt into his memory. "I'm glad you're okay."

He wasn't.

"I mean… I'm glad you're not dead."

He wasn't.

"Fuck, Gallagher!" Mickey said after another moment of silence. "What the fuck is wrong with you? You look like one of those kids from the fuckin' Children of the Corn."

"Nothing," Ian lied. "Anyways… I gotta get back. I need to get a job before my sister throws me out."

"Why don't you come back to the store?"

Shit. "I don't know, man. It's just-"

"Why not?" Mickey asked, looking a little annoyed. "I thought you would've wanted to come back."

Because you're there.

"I just need a new start, you know?" Ian said.

Mickey snorted. "You serious?"

This is for your own good. "Yeah. I mean… if I don't find anything, I might ask Linda later on."

"Why bother looking for something else? She's been lookin' to hire somebody else since the other bitch she hired started stealing shit," Mickey explained. "You know she'll take you back on if you just ask."

"Maybe." No, not maybe. Tell him you never want to see him again and move the fuck on.

Mickey gave him a weird look. "Jesus, is this about-"

"So where's Mandy?" Ian asked. "I haven't seen her."

Mickey scowled at him. "She's in Boston with your brother. Didn't she tell you?"

Mandy had sent him letter after letter explaining how sorry she was that Lip had had to tell them about the stolen identity, but that he couldn't expect Lip to give up his chance at college and, clearly, her chance of getting out of the South Side , just so Ian could stay in the army.

"She's probably just busy." Ian said, folding his arms.

Mickey obviously didn't believe him. He just shook his head and smirked. "Anyway. I'd better get back to work. Wife's gonna have my ass if I lose this job."

Ian snorted a little louder than he'd meant to, and Mickey turned to face him. "You're still with the hooker?" Ian asked, looking at the older boy with a raised eyebrow.

Mickey frowned at him. "Yeah." He replied firmly, as if there was nothing wrong.

Ian shook his head and turned to walk away.

"Hey!" Mickey called after him. Ian ignored him and kept on walking. "Ian!"

May 2014

Ian managed to convince Kev to take him on for a trial period at the Alibi. It wasn't ideal, since he was probably going to run into a lot of faces he'd rather not see (namely, Terry), plus he'd be spending more time listening to Frank prattle on about some shit that made no sense. But a job was a job, and since Lip had now left for college, he wasn't contributing as much these days save for a weekly fifty dollars he wired into Fiona's account, he knew he had to get a job. Debbie still ran the day care and Carl had started shoplifting, but they were still strapped for cash.

It took about a week before Terry finally visited the Alibi. Ian had been lucky so far since he'd started in March, as up until the shift rota had changed Ian seemed to be working mornings, when Terry tended to come in during the afternoon.

He didn't notice Ian at first, but the redhead simply continued wiping down the bar quietly and trying not to catch his attention. Glancing over at him, he watched him as he and the two other guys he was with started a game of a pool, completely blind to him. Ian started to keep a close eye on the time, wishing away the last hour of his shift. He went round the back and busied himself with bringing in the crates from the back alley.

The last thing he expected was the sudden appearance of the Milkovich patriarch, standing above him as he suddenly lay winded on the floor.