She finds him curled in on himself in the bath, like he always used to sit when Terry and their mother fought. He'd always hated the sounds of people screaming and fighting.
Maybe it only made it that much worse because this had all been quietly spoken words and everything that wasn't said in between and Mickey had never known how to deal with the quiet or with silence. So maybe there was too much noise in his head now, maybe he was hearing it all play back on repeat. Or maybe it was all just silence.
He was fully clothed, the water pouring down on top of him and Mandy knew it was ice cold; could see him shivering where his arms were wrapped tight around himself. Knowing Mickey the water was just so he could tell himself he wasn't crying.
For a moment she let her eyes linger on the gold ring on his finger, the cause of all of this.
She's pushed the curtain aside and shut the water off, but he only looked up at her when she climbed into the bath with him, crouching down at his feet. And for once she didn't even think about things like the icy water soaking into her jeans or about how her hair was going to look after the faulty showerhead had finished dripping on it.
Mandy could hear his breath rattling in his lungs with every inhale, but maybe what scared her more was the way that he looked at her. Mickey had always been one to shut off, his face going blank before he pulled the trigger of a gun, his eyes glazing over when Terry would start screaming and aiming blows at his head.
But this, this was so much different. This was so much worse.
Mickey's gaze wasn't blank or switched off, it was dead. Like he wasn't really seeing her at all.
And fuck, because Mickey had always been the strong one, the one who'd had to grow up too fast because of a shitty neighbourhood and even shittier parents. He'd never been a Fiona Gallagher, but still. Her brother now had been reduced to nothing, folded in on himself like a child.
Broken.
Shattered.
Empty.
Mandy's mum had always joked that it wasn't love if you didn't risk ruining and breaking each other along the way. It wasn't love if you weren't setting yourself up to be the end of each other. If you weren't risking it all along the way. And Mandy's mother had killed herself, so Mandy had always wondered if that meant that she and Terry had been in love. Because they'd destroyed each other and everything that they'd once been until they'd come out the other side twisted and unrecognisable and eventually dead.
But now, looking at Mickey. Mandy understands what her mother meant, she can see that there's the twisted relationship that her parents had and then there's this sort of love that completely shatters everything that you are. It's more than pushing you to kill yourself; this is breathing but not living at all. And she doesn't have a clue if it's better or worse that this is somehow the end result. Because what is she supposed to say?
Well at least they were in love?