Seven
By the time the roadside bomb hit his car, Ian was actually pretty ready to go home. He didn't like thinking that because he hadn't really been in the army all that long, he was only twenty three, the army was supposed to be for life, not a handful of years. But Ian still wanted to go home and the moment he thought that, the roadside bomb hit.
Most of the people in the car weren't so lucky, they got limbs blown off or they died. But Ian just got a chunk of metal in his shoulder and it hurt like a bitch, but he was alive. They sent him home after he had to have an operation to remove it and they said that it would leave an ugly scar, but he was otherwise fine.
It had been almost a year and a half since he'd been home, but nothing had really changed. Sure, Fiona had gotten pregnant, but that had sort of been expected and it didn't really affect a hell of a lot. Lip was still a genius, Debbie was still sweet and Carl was still more than a little bit sociopathic.
And Ian still couldn't stop thinking about Mickey, which was stupid.
Lip thought he was still working at the Kash and Grab, maybe, possibly, but none of them actually shopped there so he didn't know for sure. The army was finished with Ian, which he was sort of glad about. It was because the nerves in his arm were kind of screwed and it shook a little, making it impossible for him to work a gun. He pretended to be upset about that, but he wasn't really.
He was glad he got to stay at home, he just didn't know what he wanted to do anymore. The army had always been his plan, it had always been his dream, but now he was looking at so many other options. He could go to college, he could lie about on the sofa all day. He could have done a lot of things, but instead he chose to track down Mickey.
And the best way to do that, was to get his old job back.
Linda was the one working when he stopped by, which was unusual, but then not completely unheard of. She smiled when she saw him and came around to hug him, which he hadn't been expecting. As far as he was aware, Linda still saw him as the guy who'd been fucking her husband. He wondered if Kash was still around.
"You back on leave?" she asked, settling back behind the counter.
He shook his head, "Nah I'm out, got injured." He lifted his arm and showed her the slight shaking in his hand, "Nothing serious though."
She looked relieved, which he hadn't been expecting either. "You here for a job then?" she asked, because Linda could be creepy like that and had mind reading skills or something. He nodded. "Mickey'll probably throw a paddy, but he can work security or something like you two always used to do."
Ian hadn't thought it would be that easy, but he was relieved that it was.
He opened his mouth to thank her when the phone rang.
"Okay, that's disgusting, no, no I don't need the details, I believe you," Linda said, propping her elbow on the counter and pulling a face, "Do you need me to come over?" Pause. "You do know that saying 'I'm a Milkovich' isn't an answer, right?" Pause. "Look, just give her my love okay, I have someone who can cover today." There was a pause and she rolled her eyes, "Just come in when you can, Mick, I'll speak to you later."
She hung up and grimaced at Ian. "That boy is incapable of simply saying, 'she's ill', he has to give me a whole description of the colour of her puke and anything," she said, because apparently if she had to know, Ian did as well, "But basically, Mickey's girl's ill, so can you start now?"
He nodded even as his stomach and heart plummeted south towards the ground. Mickey had a girl. He was apparently still denying the fact he was gay then, was even taking it a step further. It made Ian feel sick just to think it. He wondered what she was like; this girl that Mickey decided was worth lying about his true nature for.
It wasn't like Ian had expected Mickey to come out or anything, but it was like Mickey was taking a step backwards with the whole sexuality thing. Ian hadn't come out either, not while in the army, not while away from Chicago. Only his family and a handful of other people knew, he couldn't talk about coming out, but at least he wasn't trying to make a relationship with a girl work.
Mandy hadn't counted either, that hadn't been a real relationship, it never had been. And now it didn't matter anyway. He still felt sort of sick inside at the idea of Mandy being dead. He kept picking up the phone and wanting to call her, to tell her something that had happened. It was like a piece of him died every time he had to put that phone back down.
He felt bad that he hadn't been there. He felt bad that he'd joined the army and let her suffer through what she was feeling all on her own. He felt bad for so many things, but it all came back to the army he found. He kept wondering what would have happened if he hadn't gone. Would Mandy still be alive? What would the situation with Mickey be like?
But the question he probably asked himself most frequently, was, where was Lilly?
He wanted to know about that little piece of Mandy. He wanted to find her, to look after her because he owed Mandy that much. But he wouldn't know where to start and he still didn't have the courage to ask Mickey.
He could tell that Mickey had been working at the Kash and Grab. Under the counter there were remnants of food, a half empty packet of cigarettes and there were pieces of gum stuck to the underside of the counter that made Ian grimace at the same time as he smiled. It was all so Mickey.
Admittedly, Ian had a little bit of trouble imagining Mickey behind the counter – even though he'd seen it himself – because Mickey didn't have that big an attention span. He didn't like sitting still, he didn't like having to talk to people and he hated monotonous tasks. So sitting behind a cashier wasn't exactly the job that Mickey was best suited for.
Linda told him that Kash wasn't around anymore, but that he'd come back for a few months. What she didn't say, but what Ian gathered from the expression on her face was that Mickey was the reason Kash had taken off. If he did the maths, it did fit in, but Ian didn't know why Linda would choose Mickey of all people over Kash.
Maybe she'd just started to hate him that much.
"Oh, well you're new," an old lady that he didn't know smiled at him, her eyes a watery sort of blue.
He forced a smile onto his face, "Just started today."
He didn't feel like explaining that he had worked here before and so technically he wasn't new. He was just restarting. It wouldn't be worth the time it took to explain it and Ian for once wasn't in the mood to have a pointless conversation.
"Is that young man with the tattoos still working here?" she asked, "The cranky one."
Ian cracked a real smile because he thought that was probably an accurate description of Mickey, but he didn't know why anyone – especially an old lady – would be asking after him. "Yeah, he is," he said, "But his girl's ill so he's not coming in today."
The words tasted bitter on his tongue and he felt sick again.
The old lady's face softened. "Bless," she muttered, "I do hope it's nothing serious, she's so sweet that one, gorgeous too."
Ian just nodded and smiled, because he didn't particularly want to think about how sweet or cute Mickey's girl was. He wanted to block out any thoughts of her existing. He also sort of wished she'd turn out to be horrible and ugly and that Mickey was just with her for convenience or something like that.
He didn't like the thought of someone having what he never could have had.
Ian stretched out his arm, his bad one, wincing when the muscles shuddered. He'd been set a load of exercises by a physical therapist to try and get rid of the shaking, but he wasn't sure how well it would work. He wasn't sure if the shaking would ever go. He supposed it wasn't too bad, it wasn't the end of the world to have a hand that shook slightly. He could have lost his arm, he could have lost his life. Others had.
He was lucky just having to deal with the shaking, but thinking that never really stopped him thinking how annoying it was that his arm had a mind of its own. He reached his good hand up and rubbed the tender patch on his shoulder. It was still sore if he pressed down on it, which was exactly why he did so. The slight hint of pain made it all real, it seemed to ground him when he felt like he was starting to float up into the abyss.
"You have to stop doing that," Lip said, appearing on the other side of the counter and making Ian jump because he hadn't even heard the bell over the door go. He was out of it lately, disappearing into his own head and blocking out the rest of the world.
Sometimes he thought it was better if he just switched off. Then he could try and forget the scream of gunfire, the smell of blood and the dirt that clung to everyone's skin in the army, painting them an unearthly sort of colour. He could forget what it was like to hurt so badly that you wanted to die. He could forget the look of desperation in people's eyes. He could forget the screams and the explosions and the sounds of the dying.
He could forget those years, he could forget that roadside bomb, he could forget everything that had made up his life except for the good things. He knew he could if he tried hard enough, if he forced it all into a box and locked it away.
Except he couldn't.
He shrugged and dropped his hand away from his shoulder, interlocking his hands on the counter and squeezing the fingers of his bad arm hard to try and stop the shaking. He didn't want to look, but he couldn't help but see the shivers out of the corner of his eye, he couldn't help but feel the twitch against his other hand.
"You doing okay?" Lip asked, because it was his job still to look after Ian. It was what he liked to do, what he probably would always do. Ian had used to like the fact he'd always had someone there to back him up, to turn to it shit turned sour, but now he just wasn't sure he wanted someone looking out for him. He wasn't sure he knew how to cope with it. Not anymore.
"Yeah, I'm fine," he said, which seemed to be his mantra recently.
Lip didn't buy it, because he never did. He probably never would. "You sure it's a good idea for you to be working today?" he asked, "I thought you just came to see if you could get the job, not start today."
"Mickey's girl's ill," he said, the words making his stomach churn again, "So I had to come in. I had to get out the house anyway." Surely someone could understand that. Inside the house, the air was choking him. People kept fussing over him, all trying to care for him at once. It was like a slight shaking in one hand had suddenly become a full blown disability. Only Carl didn't bother trying to help him, but that was because he was Carl and he didn't really have the emotional capacity to be able to care for anyone else other than himself.
Sort of like Mickey.
Lip frowned, "Mickey has a girl?"
"Apparently."
"I thought he was gay."
"He is," Ian said simply, because that he didn't doubt. And so simply, Lip understood the real reason for Ian's mood. He understood that none of this was really about the war, or about the army or about the shaking in his arm. Like it had always been in some way or another, this was about Mickey.
Lip sighed, and leant forwards against the counter, his hands resting near Ian's.
"You need to get over him," he said seriously, because that would always be Lip's method, You need to get over Mickey. He'd never liked Mickey. He couldn't see past the thug that beat people up, that had beaten him up. He couldn't believe that there was anything else to Mickey. And maybe there wasn't, maybe Ian had just imagined it all. But he still wanted to believe that the ex-con was capable of so much more than anybody claimed.
Lip had liked Mickey even less when he found out Ian had been fucking him. Or maybe it was just that Ian was so obviously attached to Mickey in a way that wasn't healthy, in a way that was always going to – had – lead to heartbreak.
"You think I haven't tried?" Ian asked, scowling at nothing in particular, just the conversation and the thoughts in his own head.
He felt like he was screaming underneath his own skin; he just didn't know yet exactly what he was screaming for.
He could tell from the expression on Lip's face that he didn't think Ian had tried hard enough. "So why don't you tell him?" he asked, changing tact, "He might, I don't know, feel the same way, or he might tell you to fuck off, but then at least you'd know."
"I already know how that conversation would go," Ian said, because he did, "And it would end with me being punched in the face." Mickey didn't handle heartfelt conversations well, he lashed out. He'd freak out if Ian started mentioning emotions or shit like that.
Lip frowned, "And you like this guy, why?"
Ian snorted, because he could see the logic behind this question. "No clue," he admitted, "I think he's just addictive or something." That was a good way of phrasing it, a good comparison. Mickey was a drug, always had been, and it was far too long since Ian had last had a hit.