Ian woke up a couple of hours later on a bench in the Alibi. Kate was standing in front of him holding his jaw and trying to get him to look her in the eye.

"Ian?" She asked, her voice sounding a little muffled.

He blinked a few times and looked around blearily, furrowing his brow.

"Ian!" The barmaid snapped, and held up two fingers in front of him. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

Ian looked at her hand for a minute and blinked a few times. "Two," he answered groggily.

"Well, you ain't brain damaged at least. Here," she replied with a sigh, handing him a glass of water and two tablets, "take these. They'll help with the headache later on."

Ian took the pills without asking, swallowing the two of them down and taking a few gulps of water.

"Did you see who hit you?" She asked, moving to sit on the bench next to him.

Ian shook his head.

"Shit. I went out there to see what was takin' you so long and I found you passed out with blood all over your face."

Ian winced and rubbed his head.

"You sure you didn't see anyone?" She asked.

"Yes," Ian replied, and went to stand up. He wobbled a little, but caught himself on the nearby table.

"Woah, careful!" Kate caught him with a laugh and helped him stand up straight. Ian noticed the bloody towel she'd slung over her shoulder and his heart stopped.

"I-is that mine?" Ian asked, pointing at it.

Kate looked between him and the towel. "Yeah, you just had a bit of a nosebleed. It's fine now though. You don't look too bad."

Ian stared at it. Suddenly, he was standing in a corridor with sand-coloured walls, looking at the floor. His eyes travelled along the white tiles until he saw a hand with dirtied fingernails. It took him a moment to realise that it was a body lying on the floor, and the red beneath it was slowly flooding outwards and filling the gaps between the tiles and painting the floor. The smell of gunpowder was filling his nostrils, and the man's lips moved as if he was trying to speak. Everything was silent, like a bomb had just gone off and there should have been ringing everywhere, but instead it was silence and it rang like tinnitus in the air as Ian stared ahead at the man. A gun not that different to his own rested on his torso close to the entry would, right through the heart, and his blood drenched the white fabric of his clothes.

He was suddenly pulled back by his battle buddy, and he gasped as he realised that he was back in the pub with Kate shaking him by the shoulders.

"Ian!" She yelled, and Ian blinked, his heart beating a mile and minute and his head and palms sweating.

"I have to go," he said suddenly, "thank you." He grabbed his coat from the bar and ran out of the door before Kate could stop him.

When Ian got home, the house was dark. He turned the light in the kitchen on and panted. He ripped his coat off and threw it on the floor, grabbing his head in his hands and pacing back and forth. He went into the living room and sat down on the couch, leaning forward and putting his hands between his knees, clutching his hands behind his head and panting breathlessly. He was sweating despite the late-winter cold and unpaid heating bill, and he ripped his shirt off over his head as he tried to slow his breathing.

Eventually, he practiced some of the breathing exercises he'd picked up from his physical training, taking deep breaths and trying to calm his mind. It took a few tries before his heart stopped speeding up again right when he'd calmed it down. He'd had this before, a few days after… what had had happened. He'd been out of it for a few days, not talking to anyone. Ian supposed he'd probably been in shock. It wasn't until one of the other soldiers had sat down on his bunk one evening and spoken to him about it that he'd been able to talk again.

After a few minutes, Ian stood up shakily, feeling a shiver run down his spine. He walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge, taking out a beer and twisting the top off. He took a few large gulps and leaned back against the counter with a sigh.

This was never going to end, was it?

It was a terrifying notion, made more frightening by the fact that deep inside him, Ian knew it was true. He was never going to feel the same way again. He'd never go to sleep and not see the guys face as he died. He'd never stop wondering about who he'd been, if he had family, friends… what he did before he'd become a terrorist, if he'd ever just been a normal guy… It was always going to haunt him.

Of course, Ian knew rationally that he hadn't really had a choice, and if he hadn't shot him then somebody else in his cell would've done, and if he hadn't then he probably would've gone on to kill another person, so it didn't really matter anyhow. But logic and emotion weren't always compatible; this Ian knew all too well.

He downed the rest of his beer and threw the bottle in the trash to take a shower. As he washed the rest of the crusted blood off of his face, he found himself transfixed at the way it trickled off of him and into the drain. The man's face flashed behind his eyelids again, and Ian gasped, feeling himself start to hyperventilate again. Stepping out of the shower he grabbed a towel and wrapped it around his waist, moving to sit on the toilet and slow his breathing again. He felt light-headed for a moment, then like he was floating above the room and looking down at himself. Ian had had the inexplicable feeling for months that his soul had left his body, but it had never been quite as intense as this.

After a few more minutes of trying to catch his breath, Ian opened the cabinet rummaged around until he found an old prescription of Valium tucked away behind a few bottles (to his surprise, as drugs didn't last long with Frank around the house). He swallowed two of them dry and then went to bed. He hadn't slept in days, and if he wanted to function without passing out every five minutes then he was going to have to get some sleep.

It was restless, as Ian had expected. It was as if he couldn't shut off his mind, like he was back at the military base in Afghanistan and had to be on constant alert. He dreamt of the man over and over, like it was on loop in his brain. Every now and then the vision changed and his subconscious thought up newer and weirder ways to freak him out. On one occasion the man had been Frank, and on another one it was Lip, and so on. The one that freaked him out the most, though, was when it was Mickey.

The strangest thing about it though, was that Mickey was happy. He was happy that Ian had shot him and he was laughing. In the dream, Ian was devastated. He felt the grief of it tear through his chest so lucidly that in his dream he began bleeding – first from his chest and then from his face where Terry had hit him. When he looked back at Mickey's face, the older boy had the cuts and bruises from when his father had pistol-whipped him and there was blood everywhere.

Suddenly, the dream changed, and Mickey's wounds were healed. He was laying beneath Ian, his brows knitted together and biting his lip they way he did when they fucked. The sounds were coming from Ian too, but the redhead was transfixed with the way the older body's back arched in front of him or under him; the way he pushed their chests together and how his freckles covered every inch of his body; how his hair was jet black on his head and on his stubble and lighter everywhere else; his dirty laugh, the way he said Ian's name; how bright the blush looked on his white flesh; how his eyes became almost black when they'd sat in semi-darkness watching movies on his stolen TV; how bossy he was in bed. How gentle his hands were when he touched Ian and how they brushed against his when they shared a cigarette or a joint. The way his nose pressed against Ian's face when they'd finally kissed; the way his tongue had tasted of him and his cigarettes the first time it had slid into his mouth.

His dream had oddly turned to that now, and Ian relished in it while it lasted. As expected, the dream changed again soon after, and they were back in the Milkovich house, with Ian sat on one side and Mickey on the other fucking the Russian whore. The scene played out in his head over and over until it stopped, and Ian was in the corridor again, looking down at the man who'd looked down at him that same evening in the alley behind the Alibi.

Only this time, it was different. Ian wasn't horrified like he had been with all the others. He felt good standing above him, pointing a gun at the bastard's head and grinning. He relished in it almost as much as he'd relished in his dream of Mickey. As he pointed the AK-47 at his head and pulled the trigger, there was no remorse as there had been before.

And when Ian woke up, he knew what he had to do.

June 2014

Ian quit his job at the Alibi the following day. The last thing he needed was to deal with that asshole night after night. He'd had to deal with the backlash from Fiona at quitting his job before he found a new one, but he'd calmed her down when he told her that he had scored a few kilos of bud from the secret stash of a friend who'd been caught dealing. He'd promised to do a few rounds in the ice cream truck with Kev.

A few nights later, he was in a club on the North Side and was on his way out of the men's room after getting blown when he'd spotted the notice just being put up by the barman on the wall. When the guy had left, Ian snatched it down again and read over the words 'bouncer needed'. He folded it up idly and walked over to the bar.

"Excuse me!" He shouted over the loud music.

The barman leant forward so that Ian could shout into his ear. "The bouncer job, how much is it an hour?" Ian asked loudly.

The barman eyed him disbelievingly. "You're not exactly what they're looking for," he shouted back with a smirk.

Ian stepped back and lifted his shirt to show off his muscles. The barman raised an eyebrow and smirked indulgently. Ian leaned forward again. "I've been in ROTC and I have military experience. I'm more than qualified," Ian explained.

The barman looked him over again and then leant forward once more. "I can see that, honey. The interviews are Friday at 10AM. Fifteen bucks an hour. Don't be late."

Ian smiled.

One of the many perks of being a bouncer at a gay club was that it was easy as fuck to get laid. Plus he was allowed frequent breaks and there was never really much trouble apart from the odd lover's spat and people trying to get in on invite-only nights. So as it turned out, working as a bouncer didn't really bother him as much as he'd thought it would, especially since just the sight of his own blood had caused him to have a flurry of panic attacks and a night filled with weird-as-fuck dreams. He even found a way of making extra cash when an underage kid slipped him a twenty.

Two weeks into starting his new job, Ian was already pretty integrated with some of the staff. One of the barmen, Zack, had nervously fumbled over his words one evening and had asked him out on a date to 'some new Vietnamese restaurant down the street'. Zack was nice enough; he was shorter than Ian, like Mickey, but not quite as built and with as much innocence as someone from the south side could have. He had black hair cut close to his scalp, not spiked up, but not too short either, and grey eyes that always seemed a little sunken on pale skin. He could've been Mickey's little brother, truth be told, but he was way too nice to be a Milkovich. He had lived with his mother not far from Canaryville before getting disowned when he announced that he was gay just before his graduation. He'd subsequently moved to live with his father on the North Side. He came from a family of hippy-types - supposedly his dad had been a roadie in the sixties for some band Ian had never heard of, but apparently it meant that he was totally into civil rights. He'd even become a lawyer to help out all those 'marginalised minorities', or some shit. His older sister was an activist for WWF and was always abroad someplace trying to save the whales or the pandas or whatever. It sounded nice to Ian, anyway, to have at least one good parent.

Naturally, Ian had kept a lot of his own details omitted – he hadn't wanted to scare him away, after all. The date actually turned out to be okay though, which was unexpected.

"So what about you?" Zack asked after finishing a rather long story about his unfaithful ex.

Ian paused mid-way through lifting his glass to his lips. "Couple of guys." He answered.

Zack was quiet for a moment and blinked at him. "…And?" He asked.

Ian was quiet. He hadn't expected to talk about his love life. "Does it matter?" He fired back.

Zack paused, looking at him uncertainly. "Oh, shit," he replied. "You're on the rebound, aren't you?" He brought one hand up to his mouth in surprise. "I'm sorry, I thought that - I thought that I was clear? I want a boyfriend, Ian."

Ian looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "Rebound?" He laughed. "Dude, it was over a year ago. I'm over it already." He lied.

Zack leaned back again in his chair. "Then why are you so secretive about it?"

"Fuck!" Ian laughed in exasperation. "Why do you care so much?"

Zack was quiet for another moment. "I just want to be sure we're both going into this with a clean slate, is all." He leaned his elbows on the table. "Whatever 'this' is," he added dejectedly, pushing his dessert around with a spoon.

Ian sighed and rubbed his forehead. "Look, I just…" He began. "It just ended badly, okay? I'd rather not talk about it."

Zack nodded in understanding and then told him a joke that wasn't funny.

Ian fucked him in the backseat of his car. It was cramped - his dad had got it for him from some dealer he knew, and it was pretty old. They'd managed though, as Ian had wrapped his arms around his waist and jackhammered into him from below as the younger boy rode him, clinging to the front seat and Ian's shoulder desperately. He either didn't hear him, or he was just nice enough not to say anything when Ian had breathed out Mickey's name as he came.

They shared a joint afterwards and Ian turned his head away when he tried to kiss him.

Another week later and Ian had been caught out when Veronica noticed the hickey on his neck.

"So who is he, stud?" She asked through cackles, bouncing her baby girl on her hip.

"Just a guy from the club," Ian answered, smiling a little and looking away.

"When are we going to meet him, then?" Fiona asked with a smile as she counted money on the table.

"Never, hopefully," Ian replied, pulling his jacket on.

Fiona and Veronica looked at each other and laughed evilly, like they had just come up with a diabolical plan. Ian glanced between them.

"What?" He asked.

"Nice try." Fiona said with a raised eyebrow.

Ian would've perhaps stayed to find out exactly what she was planning, but he had work to do. Shaking his head with a smile, he headed out towards Mickey's through the front door, taking the bat with him.

Terry was usually out at this time of day, but Ian had heard through an acquaintance of Frank's at the Alibi that he was out of town for a few days on a drug run – and not just any drug run, but a big one (a container had just come in with a few hundred thousand dollars worth of cocaine and so all the Milkovich boys had been called in to distribute it), so the house was likely to be empty. But to be careful, he looked through the window and promised himself to be quick. He jogged up the steps and knocked on the door a few times to see if anyone was home, but there was no answer. He pissed around with the lock a few times until the door clicked open, and he stepped inside quietly.

It hadn't changed much at all. The TV, the couch, the guns lying around the house… Ian felt everything coming back to him. He glanced over at the coffee table and started to look for the gun he'd seen the last time he was here. He couldn't find it in the living room and he had to be careful not to move anything noticeable, and as he slowly walked through the house he made as little noise as possible in case someone was in.

Glancing around the kitchen, Ian didn't see anything out of the ordinary. He walked back into the living room and took one more look before he found himself staring in the direction of Mickey's bedroom door. Shaking his head, he was about to leave, but his curiosity got the better of him at the last minute and he kicked the door of Mickey bedroom open and stepped inside.

It hadn't changed all that much, really. There were a few tiny dresses on hangers and Ian sneered at the fishnet stocking that hung out of a drawer. She could have at least tried to not be a total stereotype, Ian thought with a roll of his eyes. There didn't appear to be any baby things in sight though, so Ian guessed that that part must have been a lie at the very least. He walked around the foot of the bed and smirked at the sleeping bag on the bed. Where one side was fairly neat, it was easy to tell which side was Mickey's. Ian ran his fingers over the camouflage print on the fabric before he sat down and picked it up. He didn't remember giving it to Mickey, but as Ian turned it inside out, he saw the words 'IAN GALLAGHER' written in marker. He laughed and shook his head, before he lifted it to his face and buried his nose in it. It was probably a pretty creepy thing to do, Ian thought, but technically it did belong to him, so whatever, right? It smelled like it hadn't been washed for quite a while, which was expected. But there was also the smell of cigarettes and the faint scent of weed and alcohol, as well as something that was unmistakeably masculine and fleshy.

Ian jerked his head up as he heard the front door slam and footsteps stomping into the kitchen, and he dropped the sleeping bag on the floor.