"No son of mine is going to be a fucking faggot," Terry spat out and Mandy heard that edge to his voice that usually meant everyone and everything should just get the fuck out and run.
Yet she couldn't take her eyes off the sight of her brother standing there. He was still grubby and dirty and his skin shone with a layer of sweat. He was still wearing dirty, slightly torn, faded clothes. She still thought he looked like exactly the same Mickey he had been six months ago. Longer even.
He only looked the same on the surface though.
Because standing there he looked strong in a way that Mickey had never been before. He looked defiant in a way that wasn't angry, it was just determination and it was him finally standing up and acting what he was and what he wanted.
She could see it in the set of his jaw, the burning look in his eyes. And Mandy would admit that she'd never really thought of Mickey as having more than one level; as being anything more than a dirty, perpetually angry asshole. She could see how wrong she was now though.
Or maybe more than anything she was seeing her brother deciding to finally live.
"Well then I guess you're not my fucking father," Mickey ground out, meeting Terry's eyes in that way that everyone was usually too scared to do, "Because no number of Russian whores you make me fuck or marry and no matter how many times you hit me in the fucking head, I' always going to be a fag and in love with fucking Gallagher!"
And it seemed like there was a weight off his shoulders now that he had said that. Mandy could see the small smile curving up the edge of his mouth.
And she'd known after that drunkenly screamed confession that Ian and Mickey had been fucking, but she had never thought there was emotion involved that ran this deep. Especially not on her brother's side. Ian was a romantic, so on his maybe it was feasible, but Mickey was just… she didn't know if she knew what Mickey was anymore actually.
Maybe she'd never really known her brother at all.
Either way, Mandy wasn't stupid and she could see that expression on Mickey's face. She knew what it meant. This was Mickey's chance – probably his one chance – to be happy.
And Mandy thought that maybe this once it was her turn. Mickey had always looked out for her, maybe now it was her turn to stand up and look out for him. Because he may be an asshole and a thug on more levels than he was anything else, but Mickey deserved his shot at happiness just as much as everyone else. And he was her brother, so maybe that should have counted for something too.
So as Terry jerked forwards towards the gun on the table, seething and angrier than she had ever seen him before, Mandy wrenched the door she was hiding behind open and ran out.
Because maybe the other thing, the most important part of this all other than Mickey's happiness, was that she knew this was like killing two birds with one stone; because maybe her brother was Ian's one chance to be happy too.
There weren't many of them there at the graveside.
The Gallaghers – even Lip – some of the Milkovich brothers, a few kids from school. No Terry, because he'd been the one to pull the trigger and was locked up for good now. But Ian had never wanted him out of their lives this way. Not ever for one second had he wanted this to be the way everything played out.
Mickey was there and Ian couldn't tear his eyes away. He was so obviously drunk – probably had been since Mandy had gotten shot. They always had been the closest out of the siblings after all and Mickey had been there to witness it all, so it made sense.
He wasn't dressed up for the occasion, but then Mandy would only have laughed at him for doing so. He had an almost empty bottle of Jack clutched in his hand. He wasn't drinking from it though, not now that he was staring at Mandy's gravestone with dead eyes.
And Ian was moving towards him before he had time to think about anything like where they were or everything that had blown up and happened between them. He just moved towards Mickey across the browning grass, grabbed him by his shoulders and pulled. He was pushed away the first time, stumbled a little from the force of Mickey's palms pressing against his chest. But he sprung back like there was a cord tying them together.
He wrapped himself around Mickey, uncaring for the smell of alcohol or for the grease in Mickey's hair when he pushed his fingers into the back of it.
He just wrapped his arms around Mickey and held him until the futile pushes subsided and then Mickey was clinging back like he was a lifeline.
And neither of them were crying, because they'd shed too many tears recently, they just held on to each other in the middle of Mandy's funeral, with Ian's fingers in Mickey's hair and Mickey's face pressed against Ian's neck like that was the only way he could breathe.
Who knows, maybe it was.