"Do you even know who you are anymore?" Mandy had asked him, maybe three months after Gallagher had fucked off to the army under his brother's name. Everyone had found out after about three weeks, when Ian hadn't come home for Christmas and nobody had thought to ask the two Milkovichs what the hell had happened.
And they hadn't thought to say anything because it wasn't like they were welcome and honestly, they'd thought the Gallaghers must have already known. They had to have done.
Mandy didn't really say much to him these days, just watched him with wide, sad eyes, disappointment written all over her face. She spoke to Mickey's wife a hell of a lot more than she spoke to him, which was probably only so they could more effectively ruin Mickey's life.
Like he cared anymore.
Because there was a pain in his chest that he tried to numb with alcohol, a pain he tried to distract himself from with the feel of skin splitting under his knuckles. He wasn't really doing anything though; it could hardly even be called living.
It was more like he was existing from day to day, trying to work out where the hell it all went wrong.
Had it been when he'd fucked Gallagher that first time? Had it been when he'd let it happen again? Or had it been way before that, when he'd caught himself watching for freckles and red hair around every corner, trying to catch a glimpse of the pure unadulterated joy that Ian had always had on his face as a kid? Mickey had wanted to cup his hands around Ian like a flame and just stare at the flickering light in his eyes, because Mickey had never seen anything quite like Ian Gallagher before.
He'd maybe been a little obsessed when they were kids, with watching Ian out of the corner of his eye. He couldn't even explain it. But he thought maybe the biggest problem was that he'd always been fascinated by the way Gallagher was so full of life and he hated that he was the one who'd ruined that.
Sure, he could blame Terry for it; but he knew the faults all lay with him really.
"The fuck are you talking about?" he'd snapped at her, because he hadn't known how to explain that he didn't think he'd ever known who the hell he was.
He'd gone from the Michael Milkovich on his birth certificate to the Mickey his sister had name with a laugh bubbling out from between her lips. And then, for that brief, bright period he'd been Mick, breathed out in a moan as nails scratched a message he'd never been able to decipher into his skin.
Without what other people thought of him though, no, Mickey didn't know who the hell he was.
"You're a fuckin' joke," Mandy spat at him and Mickey thought maybe she'd been a little drunk, because her eyes were ringed with red and she was blinking too much, but he didn't have the words or the right to ask what was wrong anymore.
He'd just stared at her, chewing on his bottom lip a little before he'd finally just thought, 'fuck it' and replied, "I know."
He didn't know what he'd been expecting her to do, but it hadn't been to just fold in on herself, sobbing into his shoulder, her tears staining his grubby shirt. And maybe it was his one moment being a good brother or some shit, because Mickey didn't even make fun of her. He just wrapped his arms around her shoulders and let her cry, trying not to feel some sort of sting of self-hatred when she wouldn't even look at him afterwards, just left the room with a shake of her head.
Mickey left the next day, but he didn't know if he was searching for something or running from the pain in his chest. Maybe he was just killing time before the inevitable; whatever that may be.
He didn't stay in one place for long, not any longer than a few months. He worked in seedy bars, in restaurants and in clubs. Sometimes he had enough cash in his pockets to eat until his belly was full and drink until his vision got hazy, but other times he barely had enough to even mildly ease the pinch of hunger in his gut, sleeping in the backseat of a stolen vehicle just to get out of the cold.
He found that sometimes, he could not necessarily forget the pain in his chest, but he could disguise it with something else, like hunger or stomach ache or something in between. Or maybe the truth was, Mickey had just gotten a lot better at lying to himself.
He was just drifting, but at least he'd worked out that he wasn't running anymore. It felt more like he was searching for something. For the life of him he just couldn't say what.
Mickey had never really been very good at measuring time, but it surprised him sometimes when he'd look at his reflection in the mirror, count all the lines in his face that were starting to appear and then dig out a calendar.
The first time it really hit him was when he'd been scrubbing dirt off his face, having taken a job on a construction site and even though he was used to being dirty, it felt different now. He felt the need to wash it off his skin. He'd looked up at his reflection, water sliding off his features, clinging to the ends of his eyelashes and it hit him that it had been ten years.
He'd seen the date on his pay check the other day, but it hadn't registered. Not until he'd looked up and tried to find something in his face that wasn't there. Maybe he was searching for some difference beyond the lines, some evidence that he'd changed. He didn't think he could see it.
He was twenty eight, but he supposed his eyes made him look older and the set to his mouth wasn't sour like it had always used to be, it was just tired.
He wondered what people saw when they looked at him. He wondered what the people he bent over in the back of seedy bar and stupid clubs thought as he cupped his hands around their hips and tried to chase the ghost of memories out with every thrust of his hips. He'd only tried bottoming once since Gallagher, once since he'd left Chicago and he'd found himself hunched over a toilet bowl until he dry heaved and hiccupped, a pain throbbing behind his eyes.
It had felt like a panic attack, almost, he supposed.
He refused to think of the implications of that though.
Just like he pretended he didn't bite at his lips when he came to stop a name tumbling out. He told himself it was just because he didn't want to make some fucked up stupid noise, he wasn't some goddamn faggot.
Except, maybe that was the problem. Maybe that was where the mistakes in his past had always lain. Because Mickey hadn't ever liked admitting it, not even to himself, but he found that just because he didn't say it didn't make it untrue. And maybe he'd also found that sometimes it was the things that he didn't say, the words he swallowed back down that hurt a hell of a lot more than anything else ever could.
He'd quit his job and left town that night, driving with his fingers curled too tight around the steering wheel, the engine revving like he was living his life as some sort of race. Maybe he was. Mickey just didn't know what the hell was going to be at the finish line.
He breezed through towns and cities faster than he had done before, letting everything blur into a mess of jobs and cheap motels, bland food and quick fucks that left him feeling hollow inside. He carried on moving until the pain in his chest didn't leave, but he thought maybe it had started to fade.
He kept moving until he could look at someone in combat uniform, or see a flicker of red out of the corner of his eye and he didn't have to think of Gallagher immediately.
It was fifteen years on when he found himself in New York, the ache in his chest a dull throb and his clothes wet from the rain. He wasn't in any rush, didn't have anywhere to go, he didn't ever have anywhere he needed to be, so he just propped his feet up on the plastic opposite him, listening to the rain beating down on the roof of the bus shelter he was sat in.
He wondered if he'd stay there all night, wondered maybe if he stood out in the rain for long enough, would it wash away all his problems. Or would it just give him some fucked up illness that at the end of the day he probably deserved.
There was a cigarette held in his fingers and he breathed smoke out of his lungs, not turning to acknowledge the person who moved into the bus shelter beside him. He let the person move a little closer, just a half step and maybe it was all the worst sorts of irony that it was Ian Gallagher of all people standing there.
He was soaked through the bone, red hair buzzed short and he didn't have lines in his face quite like Mickey did, but his eyes looked like he'd been through hell. Still, he was beautiful in a way that made Mickey's breath hitch a little in his throat, because it clicked. It made sense.
What he'd been running from of course had to be the same thing he'd been searching for. Of course it had to be.
Maybe in some really messed up sense of right, that was the only way it ever could have been. Because maybe for Mickey it had always been about Ian Gallagher, even when they were kids and Mickey was pissing on first base of a Little League team just to have an excuse to catch a glimpse of a certain redhead's smile occasionally.
There wasn't any anger in Gallagher's expression like he'd always imagined there would be if they saw each other again, but he was probably more thankful that there wasn't that God awful blankness there either.
Gallagher looked a little shocked, but he didn't look surprised. Maybe just like Mickey he'd worked something out, maybe he'd also worked out that all of this was just fucking typical. It was them in a nutshell really wasn't it, because Mickey had always known they'd buried themselves under the other's skin too deep to ever really be shaken loose.
Maybe if they'd been anyone else, now would have been the time to start confessing things, or spilling secrets that both of them had always known but never admitted to. Maybe if they'd been born in a different world, where fifteen years wasn't long enough to numb everything between them. Maybe if either of them had had anything to say that would have even mattered.
Because what were Russian whores and teenage heartbreaks when you'd both come apart and now crashed back together in the most messed up and ragged twist of fate that there had ever maybe been. Not that Mickey believed in fate, because he didn't; but he'd always sort of believed in Ian Gallagher.
So maybe that was the same thing or at least close enough.
Gallagher sat down on the metal bar beside him and Mickey handed over the half-gone cigarette in his fingers, even though he didn't even know if Gallagher still smoked. Maybe the army had made him quit or something.
Still, he watched as Gallagher's lips wrapped around the filter and he sucked in a long drag, his eyes flickering shut like the smoke tasted like something sweet.
"You look like a fucking drowned rat, Firecrotch," Mickey told him, because he couldn't not say anything. He didn't know how to keep his mouth shut, not right then, but when he let his mouth twist into a smirk it felt like he was coming home.
It felt right and familiar, but at the same time so different because they'd never done this. There wasn't a manual for this sort of thing and even if there had been, Mickey wouldn't have read it anyway. He knew there wasn't though, because if there'd been a manual for guys like Mickey, Ian would have already memorised every page.
Still, it almost felt like nothing had really changed even though everything had, because his heart was beating past that ache in his chest and he still couldn't take his eyes off of Gallagher, because he'd always known the guy was something he wanted to look at. To memorise. He'd maybe never admitted it, but he knew he was still in love with Gallagher enough that time apart didn't matter.
Enough that nothing else would ever really matter.
The smoke that Gallagher breathed out of his lungs hit Mickey in the face, but he just squinted through the smoke, watching Gallagher's eyes start to brighten in that way that had always attracted Mickey. He didn't know why he was a little surprised that Ian held his gaze quite so readily, but then the guy was snorting out something that was close enough to a laugh that it made Mickey want to smile.
Ian sucked in another lungful of smoke and Mickey was the first to look away, but it was only to glance off the side towards the rain that was still coming down in heavy sheets.
"You got any place to be?" he asked, the words tripping out of his mouth quick enough that he didn't even have time to regret letting them escape.
Gallagher watched him with something that was close to surprise and he flicked away the rest of what had been Mickey's cigarette before shaking his head, "Nowhere important." He didn't' really register until it hit him hard enough that his heart tripped up in his chest, but that was the first thing he'd heard Gallagher say in fifteen years.
It felt like so long, too long, but if fifteen years had been what was necessary for that light to flicker back on in Ian's eyes, well then Mickey would never regret waiting a single one of them.
Ian's voice still sounded exactly the same, if a little rougher around the edges and it still did things to Mickey that should have been illegal, because someone's voice shouldn't have been enough to having him wanting to smile for no reason at all.
"Come on," Ian told him, being the first one to stand even though it had been Mickey who'd really suggested it.
Mickey let his feet slide down to the floor and he fell into step next to Gallagher as they wandered through the rain. They didn't have anywhere to be and they didn't have anywhere to go, but even the water soaking Mickey right down to the bone didn't matter, not when Gallagher was laughing at something stupid Mickey had said with his head tipped back, water running over his features and his eyes shining brightly in the dim light of the early morning.
Nothing could have mattered, not even the feeling of old guilt or the brand of the word faggot, not when Gallagher was reached a hand out across fifteen years of distance between them and fitting his fingers in the spaces between Mickey's own.
"Fucking Ian Gallagher," Mickey laughed out with water in his hair, cold in his bones and his fingers squeezing tight around Ian's. He didn't even really mean to say it, but he rolled his eyes and it didn't scare him really that a name could sound so much like a confession.
Not when Gallagher was looking at him just like he used to, like he'd used to even when they were kids and hadn't even said a single word to each other. He just looked at Mickey like he was one of the best things that he'd ever seen.