Incredibly nervous-excited for the finale, my (spoiler) predictions of what might happen.
And for some Ian Gallagher Feels! I wrote this, while listening to this on repeat: soundcloud/illeniumofficial/phoebe-ryan-mine-illenium-remix
There was a doll Debbie had when they were younger that looked like a cheap Raggedy-Ann knockoff. Her hair was a dull bright red, and Ian can remember always feeling the incessant need to straighten the mismatched braids until they lay flat against her head.
He had thought the feeling - the relentless need to straighten things that were mismatched- would go away, but he was finding it more and more difficult to do that these days, when the things he wanted to straighten were knotted and tangled in with his neurons, like slices of red ribbon against his greygrey matter.
It was Thanksgiving when Ian first realized he had so much of Monica in him. She felt too hard, let feelings penetrate her deeply, until even her bones became saturated. It was the only thing that could explain his desperate need then to feel every bit of Mickey against his beating heart – he too felt too hard until his bones became saturated with the feeling.
When the blood had pooled around her wrists, Ian couldn't stop looking at her face – eyes turned upwards, a tiny smile gracing her lips.
Was she relived somehow just to be able to drain out some of the guilt grinding at her bones?
They had kept comparing him to her, saying her name like it was the plague.
Monica.
Destructive.
Our mother.
Like blood alone could tie them together and provide them with a map and a manual of how he was put together and how he could be taken apart; as if blood alone could help them plan for the imminent storm he was bound to bring.
Hurricane Ian.
He's sure that somewhere in the ancient stories of astrology, there stands two gods who rein havoc at the first signs of order or peace. They are the gods of disorder and destruction. They are the ones banished. They are the ones who cause the ones who love them to look at them like their hearts are breaking.
They are the ones, at the eye of their storms, afraid and alone in the chaos their guilt has created.
Before Mickey and his family had left the jail, they had formed a line – like cadets awaiting inspection – as they waited to give Ian an obligatory hug. Debbie had been last, her eyes had been sad and worried.
Her hug had been equally sad and equally worried – her hands working patterns of it'sokay and I'msorry into his back.
The guilt gnawed and tugged and weighed his arms down, so they hung at his side- useless and lifeless – like the doll Debbie used to have that looked like a cheap Raggedy-Ann knockoff.
He's standing somewhere in the middle of east of somewhere and his phone is ringing, again. He already knows who it is without needing to look, but he looks down anyways.
It's one of those conundrums, like the one about the tree and forest – as if the phone call or the caller on the other end couldn't possibly exist unless Ian watched the letters Mickey flash on the screen in front of him.
The worry he knows Mickey must be feeling is palpable through the ringing, it beatsbeatsbeats into his hand and makes its way into his gut. But, Monica's in front of him and the night sky is bright with stars as if God himself strung together individual crystals on invisible fish line.
The wind is cold and comforting; it stings his eyelids, and reminds him that he is alive. He's standing at what feels like the edge of the earth with Monica and they've been running for days.
Running from or running to, seems, at this point, like an indistinguishable distinction – but the dull thud and heavy weight of guilt have been replaced with a teary blur and the necessity to keep running.
The years Monica spent away and the hurt and the ache have disappeared and it feels like the moments they used to have, when it was just her and him, under the stairs with a flashlight, whispering about the stars and the universe that could probably swallow them both whole.
Because that's all it is, isn't it? That's all it takes, really to earn a child's love- the small moments of honest love, the quiet minutes in the morning where you would split the pop tart before everyone else woke up, the widewide smiles every time she saw your face, the I love you that every child needs from their mother.
Monica's talking to him, stringing together the nonsensical until they make nothing but sense. He's trying to hear all of it – sometimes Ian, we have to take care of ourselves, before we can really take care of the people we love. I couldn't stay – like you couldn't stay – we were- I caused too much pain- but his phone keeps ringing, and he knows that even if he doesn't look down, it will continue to ring, until he picks it up.
So he does, and even as his feet take him away from Monica, he can still hear her talking behind him, "Hello?"
"Don't – fuck – Ian. Where are you?" He can hear Mickey's teeth bite through the first few layers of his lip.
It's one of the side effects that comes from knowing someone for too long.
"Somewhere east– I'm not too sure. We're still near Chicago, I think - We hitchhiked here – "
"Give me landmarks, I'll come and get you – "
"I don't need you to come and get me, Mickey." The words leave his lips, and it's in that moment that he knows what he's been running from-to.
"Ian…" Mickey's voice breaks, and Ian imagines the skin on his lip has probably broken too. But he needs Mickey to understand – that that - the broken skin and the broken promises – are exactly what he's running from. He needs Mickey to understand that he's trying to run to a place where he can exist as he is now, without causing anything more to break.
"Look, I just have to figure some –"
"Can we at least talk?"
"We're talking, Mickey."
"Tomorrow, that old lot I showed you. Please, Ian."
He knows it's the least he can do, that after everything Mickey's done for him, he deserves at least this.
But, there is a dread that is winding and carries him into the morning. And even, as Monica protests He doesn't understand you Ian. Not truly. Not the way I do, it's the dread that pushes him forward until he's walking towards the interstate, his thumb out and ready.
Mickey's already waiting by the time he makes his way through the abandoned buildings into the empty lot. He's standing in the middle of the square, his hands stuffed in his pockets, his heels scuffing at the ground.
From where he's standing, Ian knows he can't be seen, and he can't seem to get his feet to move him forward – like his heart has its own plan to stare at the boy in the empty lot, until his eyes have had their fill.
He understands suddenly, why animals in the autumn are so desperate to forage for every last bit of food. His mind's already made up, and his heart is desperate and unsure of when its next meal will be.
But, Ian knows, as his eyes glide over the shape Mickey's elbow makes bent against his body, or the way his right knee bows slightly more than his left, that he's already memorized all of Mikey's intricacies.
He's already memorized the way Mickey changes the way the air moves when he's in the room, has learnt the language Mickey can speak with just his eyebrows, has come to adore the gentle way Mickey's hands try to press his messy hair against his head when he thinks Ian is sleeping.
Ian's already memorized all of Mickey.
It'll be a lifetime before any of the memories Ian has categorized and locked away will ever leave him, but his heart is trying to buy some time, barter with the vendor for a better deal, because he knows the conversation they are about to have will leave them both in a pile of wreckage.
But, as painful as it will be, Ian refuses to take Mickey into the eye of the storm with him.
Sometimes, you need to take care of you, Ian, before you can take care of the ones you love.
He can feel his heart begin its frantic beat as he moves from where he stands; it's wailing and protesting and dragging its feet – his heart is suddenly a child in the middle of his terrible twos, throwing a tantrum in the middle of the store.
Ian's feet kick against some of the loose pebbles on the ground, and the sound brings Mickey's eyes up to meet his own.
Mickey's face is a collage of relief, and anger, and hurt, but mostly love, and Ian can feel his frenzied heart start to scream.
They're standing there, under the clouds, in a pavement lot, with so much to say, not saying anything at all. The familiarity of breathing in the same space as Mickey is addicting and all-consuming, that for a minute, Ian forgets why he agreed to meet here in the first place.
It's Mickey who breaks the silence, "So. Not coming back?"
They both already know the answer, but it's that damn conundrum again, and this is something that Mickey needs to hear out loud.
"I've got a lot of shit to figure out, Mickey."
"We've all got a lot of shit to figure out, Ian. I wasn't planning on going anywhere."
"Thirty to forty years is a long time Mickey. Don't be stupid."
The silence stretches, and wanes, and Ian finds himself marveling in the way his body unknowingly syncs his breathing with Mickey's so that every one of his inhales contain some of Mickey's exhale.
"I would, you know. Stay." His voice is quiet, and Ian hates that he's made Mickey this insecure, this vulnerable. He hates knowing that all of the happy memories Mickey has of them are linked irrevocably, with ones that have caused his heart to crack.
Because Ian knows that if he asked, Mickey would stay, fiercely for the next century and for a lifetime after.
"Was it ever enough?" Mickey's pushing again, trying to get answers to an unsolvable riddle.
"This has nothing to do with you Mick – I just have – I have to figure this out-"
"Without me."
"Without feeling like I'm hurting you."
"This feels pretty fucking painful," For a moment, Ian can see the armor Mickey still keeps in his back pocket shine through.
He can't remember the last time he's spoken I love you out loud – to anyone- let alone to Mickey. He knows that they're words neither of them has ever really said aloud to each other.
Their I love you's were always reserved for the spaces of worried voicemails, and the silences between soft snores.
The words are there now though, tip-toeing on his tongue.
But I love you feels cheapened somehow by their circumstance, and Ian knows he can't give Mickey another happy memory intertwined tightly with something so deeply painful.
So, he settles instead for, "It will always be you, Mick."
They're still standing there, in each other's spaces, toe to toe, each daring the other to move first. But, it's time to go, and Ian takes one last breath in of something sweet and dirty and covered in sweat, before backing away.
Mickey's eyes are wide and his brows are creased and sad. Ian can feel his heart begin its wail and cry as he wills his feet to move.
The first step is the hardest and it feels like he's taking part of the earth with him as he lifts his foot.
Heel-toe. Heel-toe. Heel-toe.
His hair is a dull bright red, and as he walks away, the incessant need to straighten his own mismatched braids until they lay flat against his head, tugs and tugs him, until he can no longer feel Mickey's eyes boring into the back of his neck.