Disclaimer: I don't own Mickey, sadly. I only borrow him occasionally, and don't make any profit out of it. Just fun.

Rating: 12A

Warnings: Bad language ahead.

Also apologies for the overly florid chapter title, it's from a Yeats poem and the line just demanded to be used.

Bleeding Inside

By NorthernStar

Part Three –

Turning and Turning,

In the Widening Gyre

"…Mickey… I think it's important that we talk about this."

"It's nuffin'."

"I don't agree. Returning to your old station, seeing your old colleagues, walking in the door… I don't think that was nothing."

"……"

"They must have been pleased to see you?"

"Yeah, right."

"It's OK to be pissed off at them."

"Got yer permission, ay?"

"Yes."

"……"

"So… I want you to tell me about it, moan about them if you want, OK?"

"Look… it weren't like that, yeah? No-one 'ad time…"

"No?"

"One of the DCs… Juliet…she was….she was stabbed."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"……"

"I think we need to talk about that too."

------

November 2003

It was the laughter that tired him out, more than the dreams, more than the worry. Smiling cost him. It ought not to be like that.

Mickey had worked with Leslie Loren a lot, as well as Jenna. When Savage finally paired him with a bloke, it was something of an anti-climax in that he really didn't much notice until afterwards.

Guy Fawkes' Night turned up the kind of murder that reputations were built on. None of the team slept that night. The body of a young girl had been hidden in a bonfire. The spectators had thought it was a Guy, until someone had recognised the smell of burning human flesh and poked at it. The body had rolled out the flames, charred and black, which is how he, Savage and Jenna found it when they visited the scene.

They arrested her stepfather for murder just as the first rays of dawn lit the sky.

Mickey didn't dream of Delaney the following night, he dreamt of burning skin and flames and the girls blackened gaping open mouth. It was almost a relief.

Weeks past, work kept him away from the horror of the rest of his life, only for his sessions with Charlotte, 3 times a week, to drag them all back.

December was approaching. His brother kept calling, trying to get him to stay over Christmas, concerned that Mickey would be alone now their mother was gone. But going would mean talking – and Mickey didn't want to talk. His brother didn't know about the rape. It would stay that way.

So Mickey lied and said he was working - and then volunteered the very next day, to keep himself from being a liar. Scott Granger was delighted. It had been his name pencilled in for the 25th and now he could visit his family. His so-easy happiness made Mickey ache. He couldn't remember what that felt like.

Ever.

------

"Jack."

The man on the doorstep gave a smile as Mickey opened the door. He was holding a brown take-away bag in the crock of his left arm and the smell of Chinese food wafted in the air.

"How you doing?" Jack asked.

Mickey let him in. "Good." But it was just words. "You?"

"Yeah."

Jack followed him into the sitting room. Mickey switched off the TV.

"Thought we could share a curry." Jack said, his eyes taking in the clutter of drink cans, dirty mugs and old newspaper strew over both sofas and piled on every available surface. "Catch up a bit."

Mickey scooped up everything on the sofas and dumped it in a corner. "Already 'ad something."

Jack looked at the 'dinner' on the coffee table. "Half a pot noodle?"

Mickey moved it out of the way too.

Jack sat down. There was badly concealed concern on his face. "I hadn't heard from you." He said.

"Been a bit busy." Mickey told him. "Work. Tough case, you know how it is."

"The Holland case?"

That caught Mickey off guard. He hadn't expected Jack to go into it. "Yeah." It was lie. And they both knew it.

"I read about it in the papers." Jack opened the take-away bag and began putting the foil trays on the coffee table. "I wondered if you were working on it."

The questions bothered him and he got up. "I'll get some plates, yeah?"

In the kitchen, Mickey gripped the edge of the sink and bowed forward. He screwed his eyes up tight.

Why did it have to be so hard?

------

Jack watched Mickey picking at the curry on his plate. He'd eaten a few forkfuls of rice and a couple of prawn crackers but little else. It worried Jack more than he cared to think about. Mickey was thinner than he had ever seen him, and that was saying something. Mickey had always been one of the leanest people Jack knew, but now the bones of shoulders stuck out under the fabric of his shirt and his cheeks were hollow. His skin was pale, made worse by the dark rings under his eyes.

He looked a wreck.

But Jack didn't know how to broach the subject and could only offer him the rest of prawn crackers instead. At least he ate them, and Jack tried to be satisfied with that.

They talked about work, about DCI Savage mostly, but also his new colleagues, who sounded like a good bunch of people. Jack was heartened by Mickey's descriptions of his female colleagues, although he heard nothing to suggest that Mickey was interested in any of them.

There was time for that, Jack decided.

After a while, Mickey got out a bottle of scotch and two glasses and poured them both large measures.

Jack sipped at his. Mickey threw his own back, downing it in one gulp and poured himself another.

Jack watched, a growing worry in his chest. But he remembered the night in the pub, and what it had sparked. So he didn't say a word.

But it must have been written on his face, because Mickey looked away, ashamed. The glass clunked down when Mickey tossed it empty onto the coffee table. Then he lay back against the cushions and yawned.

"You look done in." Jack put his own glass down. "I should go."

"Nah, Jack, it's OK." He reached for the bottle. "Another one?"

"It's late." Jack got up.

There was something that might have been disappointment in Mickey's shadowed eyes. Jack couldn't tell. And then found himself saying, "can I use your loo?"

"Sure."

Jack went upstairs but stopped at the toilet door. He didn't need to use it, despite what he'd said, and his sudden impulse made sense when he saw Mickey's bedroom door. It was open and Jack could see the messy unmade bed. There were empty beer cans on the bedside table, and some on the floor.

Jack stepped closer. Next to the beer cans was a book but he couldn't see the title. Jack went in, just enough to read the name on the cover – 'Male on Male Rape: The Hidden Toll of Stigma and Shame'- and beside that was a bottle of pills. Jack walked over and picked it up. Diazepam. Valium.

Damn.

Jack's chest felt tight. Mickey hadn't told him about that.

He turned to go, knowing what he was doing was wrong. But as he turned his eyes caught on something nestled between the messy sheets.

It was a notebook, left open. Jack immediately recognised Mickey's handwriting.

He couldn't stop himself from picking it up, even though his stomach churned sickly as he did so.

1/10/03

Journal. Fucking stupid idea. Fucking counsellor.

1 nightmare.

2/10/03

Another fucking nightmare. Still a fucking stupid idea.

3/10/03

2 dreams.

4/10/03

Fucking Charlotte.

5/10/03

No sleep. Shit.

6/10/03

I hate this.

7/10/03

Didn't dream.

8/10/03

FUCK.

There was a noise behind him and he turned. Mickey stood in the doorway, his face frozen into a look of horrified anger.

"Mickey, I…"

The young man stormed in and snatched the journal back.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"Get out!"

"I wasn't-"

"GET OUT!" He shoved Jack backwards and the older man stumbled, almost fell.

They stared at each other. Mickey's eyes were bright with anger and unshed tears.

Jack bowed his head, ashamed and angry too.

He quietly left the bedroom and went down the stairs. He saw the bottle of scotch on the coffee table as he picked up his coat. It was half empty already and he guessed it wouldn't stay that way for long. He thought about the pills with dread. But there was nothing he could say.

Not now.

Jack glanced up the stairs as he opened the front door. He didn't want to leave things like this.

He sighed.

The door banged shut behind him.

------

Mickey heard the front door click shut and slumped down on the bed. He was still clutching the stupid journal Charlotte had made him write, even though she'd never yet convinced him to put in more than a couple of sentences. He hated the thought that Jack had read it, even if it didn't say anything.

He twisted it in his hands, feeling the sharp page edges slice into his skin. He bit his lip, trying to hold in the tears. But they came anyway.

He threw the notebook across the room and gave in to the sobs.

------

"Popular boy."

Jenna was perched on the edge of his desk and gave him a grin as he walked up.

Mickey sat down. "What?"

"Your phone's been going mad." She held out a piece of paper. "Jack Meadows wants you to call him."

Mickey glanced at the message, written in Jenna's messy scrawl and then tossed it down.

"He was your old DCI, wasn't he?" The 'oh-so-casual' tone didn't fool him. She was on a fishing trip.

"Yeah."

"You miss a court date or something?"

"Nah."

"Sounded urgent."

"It's nuffin' that can't wait."

"Didn't sound like it."

Mickey screwed the paper up angrily and tossed it into the bin. "It's nuffin'."

Jenna shook her head. "Remind me never to piss you off."

------

First Day of Advent, 2003

The whole house stank, but the smell grew steadily worse the closer they came to the bedroom. There was an old man on the bed, face down. His body had lain there undiscovered for several days. Flies swarmed over the corpse.

"A neighbour confirmed he was David Penney." Jenna said as she pulled on her sterile gloves.

Mickey came closer, hand over his mouth to keep out the stench.

"Sarge." Leslie Loren held up something she'd just bagged. "It was under the bed."

"Syringe." Jenna looked at Mickey. "We're been here before."

Mickey nodded. "Richard Stone."

Jenna looked at the marks around Penney's wrists. "No question marks this time." She said. "Someone held him down."

Leslie frowned. "You really think they're connected?"

Jenna shrugged. "Maybe. If they are, that means Stone was murdered."

Mickey leaned over the victim.

He was face down, head turned to the side; eyes still open, frozen into a forever expression. Mickey pulled his eyes away from that dead stare and felt his entire body go cold at what he saw.

There was blood on his legs, thin streaks made by a small bleed.

Mickey didn't want to, but his eyes followed those tracks to the source.

The crack between his buttocks…

Mickey took a step back, his gasp alerting Jenna to what he'd seen.

He turned away, shaking so much he had to lean on the door frame to keep his legs from buckling. His back was to the room. He couldn't look.

But he could hear Jenna's voice all the same.

"Raped."

Mickey clutched the wall and vomited.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------TBC