Summary: Mickey finds Mandy sitting alone at the kitchen table, and she tells him about Ian, and how somebody beat the shit out of him. Takes place the morning after the beatdown in episode 3X09.
Chapter 2: For the Sleepless Nights
This is for the snakes and the people they bite;
For the friends I've made;
For the sleepless nights;
Mickey let the front door slam behind him as he made his way inside his house. He averted his gaze from the couch that held too many painful memories, and spotted Mandy staring off into space in their kitchen. Mickey walked over to the fridge and grabbed himself a beer, noticing the way his sister jumped at the sudden noise that filled the small room.
"You remember to check behind the grille for hair?" He asked, taking a seat in the empty chair beside Mandy, while cracking open the beer with his recently bruised knuckles.
Mandy nodded her head silently, still staring off into space.
"Good," he replied, before letting the silence overwhelm them. Mickey sat in the worn chair, slowly sipping his beer, and remembering how he received the slight pain in his knuckles the day before. The look of pain swimming in green depths, the crunch of bone under his fingers, and the color of blood dripping down a freckled face that matched ginger locks. The scene played on repeat in his mind, and as Mickey took another swig from his beer, he couldn't help but wish he was drinking something stronger to help him forget the memories of the previous afternoon.
"I might need your help later today," Mandy said after a while, looking into Mickey's eyes.
"Thought you just ran over some chick with a fuckin' car. The fuck else you gotta take care of?" Mickey asked, finishing off his beer, and belching loudly.
Mandy looked down at the table, and laughed quietly for a moment, before meeting Mickey's gaze once again, her own eyes filled with pain and anger. "Some fucker beat the shit out of Ian yesterday, and when I find out who, they're fucking dead," she spoke, with such cold, hard determination, that Mickey felt a chill run up his spine.
Mickey tried to calm his features while his insides screamed with remorse and guilt. He reached a slightly shaking hand into his pocket to pull out his cigarettes and lighter. He ran through the information his sister just told him as he brought a cigarette to his lips, lit the end, and exhaled somewhat steadily through his nose. Fuck he thought, fighting back the familiar sting around his eyes.
Mickey took another drag and blew out the smoke through his mouth this time. "You know what happened," he asked, passing the stick to Mandy as he tried to compose himself.
"Not enough," Mandy said, sucking the smoke into her lungs greedily. "I got a text from Lip this morning telling me to come over right away," she laughed sarcastically, ashing the cigarette on the floor, "Thought he found out about-," she shook her head, taking another deep inhale before continuing. "I got there, and he told me he spent the whole night listening to Ian crying in his bed, holding a bag of peas to his face. I guess Lip tried to talk to him, but Ian wouldn't say anything, and he thought I might be able to help," Mandy shook her head again as she passed the cigarette back to Mickey. She was silent for a few seconds before she continued talking, "I've never seen him like that, Mick. His face was all bruised, and it looked like he was missing a fucking tooth. But it wasn't just that. He looked so," Mandy stopped to think of a word to describe the look on her best friend's face, "broken."
Mickey's insides clenched at the last word. FUCK. He remained silent as he let the smoke fill his lungs, and burn his throat, the nicotine doing nothing to settle his nerves. He needed to forget. He couldn't remember. It was all too much for the Southside thug to handle; the wounds were too fresh. Mickey stood up from the table after finishing the rest of the cigarette, now in desperate search of alcohol to stem the flow of memories rising to the surface. "Yeah," he finally replied, "I'll help."