The first thing Ian does is raid Sammi's drinks cabinet. He's not really supposed to mix hard liquor with his meds, but he's pretty sure that right now his heart is beating fast enough for him to justify the sizeable glass of whiskey he pours as medicinal. He's not sure which emotion he's feeling strongest, anger, humiliation and confusion all seem to be taking their turn and he can't focus on any of them long enough to process it properly. He takes two mouthfuls in quick succession, savouring the burn and then the fuzzy feeling that starts to creep in on the edge of his brain.
Anger wins out first as he grips the glass almost too tight; anger at Mickey, at himself, at everything. At the way that Mickey so casually insulted him, his family, and then tried to pass it off as some weird, back-handed compliment. At the way Mickey had so carelessly disregarded Fiona's feelings, not even considering them as he worked to split her and Jimmy up. At the way that Ian feels like maybe he didn't react strongly enough, the way retorts are flooding into his mind now as he thinks of all the things he should have said. At the way that maybe he did something to invite this.
He downs the rest of the glass in one go, pausing a beat and then hurling it across the kitchen as the rage suddenly boils up and over. It shatters against the wall, leaves glass all over the floor, and the loss of control scares him more than a little. He puts the bottle away before he can be tempted to drink more, to blot it all out; he's not giving Mickey Milkovich the satisfaction of sending him off the rails again. Then he sets about cleaning up the glass, sweeping the whole floor over and over until it's like it never happened. He can almost pretend that it didn't.
He takes a shower next, turning the water up almost as far as it will go and sagging against the wall, letting the water pound over his skin as his mind starts to wander. Unfortunately, what it wanders to is every interaction he's ever had with Mickey, picking them apart as he tries to work out where on earth Mickey's seeming hatred of him turned into…well, whatever that had been tonight. He comes up blank, relives everything from pity-bang and Mickey glaring at him while he stood dripping wet on Jimmy's doorstep to awkward arguments over dinner and stilted conversations during pool games, right up to Mickey looking at him like dirt as Ian tried to stop Frank from robbing Jimmy's house. He can't think of one instance, one moment, that could have made Mickey possibly think there was something between them, could've given him the wrong idea to this level and yet…there must have been something. There had to have been.
He's out and dressed when Sammi and Lip come back, Chuckie riding on Lip's back and looking like he's fighting to stay awake. It reminds Ian of coming home after days out when they were younger, him and Lip and Fiona carrying Liam and Carl and Debbie, and he yearns for a time when things seem so much simpler compared to now.
Lip deposits Chuckie into his room, and then collapses next to Ian on the sofa. "You ok?" he says, looking over at Ian with concern evident on his face. "How's your head?"
"Fine," Ian says. "Almost gone, pretty much." It's a lie, the headache that had been just enough to use as an almost-honest excuse to skip dinner at Sheila's is now a full blown jackhammer pounding in his head and he can already tell that he's not going to sleep tonight.
He doesn't want to open up though, it feels like if he's honest about that then the rest of it will come pouring out like an avalanche. He's not entirely sure why he doesn't want to tell Lip, why he's so ashamed about Mickey coming onto him, why he's keeping what Mickey did to Fiona a secret, but he just doesn't want to talk about it. He figures that's a good enough reason, for now.
He's not wrong about the lack of sleep, although for the sake of appearances he goes through the motions of going to bed, lying on the floor of Lip's room and staring at the ceiling. His mind churns all night, going over everything again and again, obsessively picking at details, rage bubbling away. He eventually gets up at just before five, figures that if he can't go for a run, he can at least try and walk off his bad mood.
He gets back a little after seven, mind a little clearer, feeling a little more positive, and he's intending to go up to the apartment, eat breakfast and take his meds and then try and get some sleep, but that all flies out of the window when he sees Mickey's waiting outside the building, leaning against the wall next to the door.
Ian's first instinct is to run, but then he forces himself to walk forwards instead, to push his shoulders back and make a show of not caring. He walks straight past Mickey, doesn't look at him or acknowledge him, and he's just about to put the key in the door when Mickey calls his name.
He pauses, doesn't actually turn, but he sees Mickey push himself off the wall in the corner of his eyes, can sense him walking towards him. "Gallagher," Mickey repeats, as if he's not sure if Ian heard him the first time, and Ian sighs and turns to looks at him.
Mickey looks like he hasn't slept any better than Ian did; he's bleary-eyed and hasn't bothered to style his hair, so it's lying at odd angles all over his head. Ian feels vindicated, just a little, that this is affecting Mickey to even a fraction of the degree that it is him.
Mickey stands awkwardly for a minute, not really looking at Ian, running a hand through his hair and scratching at his head, and then he looks up, squinting against the early-morning sun. "You got some time to talk?"
"What do you want, Mickey?" Ian says, his voice deliberately harsh, and Mickey blinks at him.
"I'm not asking you to change your mind about anything, if that's what you're thinking."
"Good," Ian says, unimpressed. He turns to lean sideways against the door frame, crossing his arms. Mickey doesn't say anything for a moment, and Ian raises a questioning eyebrow. He just wants to get this over with before the rage returns, before he does something he might regret. He's about to give up and go inside when Mickey speaks again.
"There's just some shit I want to straighten out, ok? You owe me that much."
"I don't owe you anything," Ian exclaims. "It was your fucked up decision to come over here last night, to say all that shit."
Mickey holds his hands up in a gesture of surrender. "OK, whatever. But there's stuff I need to set right, either way. Can we — Is there somewhere we can go to talk? Coffee maybe?" Mickey looks strangely awkward, rubbing his thumb across his lip as he talks. Ian blinks at him, and then frowns, pulling his eyebrows together as he looks sceptically at Mickey. "I mean it," Mickey says, looking him directly in the eye. "All I'm asking is for you to hear me out, nothing more."
Curiosity gets the better of him. "OK. But you better make it quick. One coffee, and then I'm gone."
They find a coffee shop with unsurprising ease, and Ian's grateful for the fact that it's mostly empty. They buy their drinks—Mickey tries to pay for both and Ian turns him down point blank—and then sit across from each other at a table that's probably meant for four, but doesn't feel as intimate as the tiny tables designed for two. Whatever Mickey had said about this not being a rehash of last night, Ian's not in any rush to give him ideas.
There's an awkward silence for a minute or so, and then Ian gestures across the table at Mickey. "You said you wanted to talk, so talk. One coffee, like I said."
Mickey nods, and takes a deep breath. "So, um. Last night, you accused me of some stuff. And I'm not saying it was all untrue, but some of it you're wrong about and I think you should at least hear my side of things."
Ian's unimpressed. "So you didn't convince Jimmy to leave Fiona then?"
Mickey frowns, and then he sets his mouth in a thin line. "No, that I did. Although, it wasn't quite as simple as you make it out to be, there were extenuating circumstances—"
"That meant you had to break my sister's heart?"
"No." Mickey's getting visibly frustrated and Ian's kind of enjoying seeing him squirm. It's less than he deserves, but Ian's happy to take whatever retribution he can get on Fiona's behalf. "I knew Jimmy liked her, ok? That was pretty obvious right from the start, but Jimmy's got a habit of getting infatuated with things, that's just what he does. So it didn't seem like a big deal, not until later. I figured it'd just burn out, like most of his shit does. But then I started to realise that it was more than that, this time. That he really liked her."
Whatever superior feeling Ian had been feeling, it quickly dissipates as anger replaces it. "What, and that was such a bad thing?"
"Not on its own," Mickey says with a shrug. "But I watched them together, and it didn't seem to me like she felt the same way about him."
Ian makes a noise in his throat, thinks back to how Fiona had agonised over her feelings for Jimmy, the way she'd been so afraid to let him in. The way she'd been proven right, in the end. "Easy for you to say," he says, taking a mouthful of coffee and then leaning back in his chair, arms folded.
"No, I mean it," Mickey says, his tone insistent. "I'm not just saying that because that's what I wanted, ok? I watched her, how she was with him. She was nice enough, all smiles and good nature, but she really didn't seem like she was in it for the long haul. And that's before you add in all the other shit, the stuff with your dad at Jimmy's party, the way your brother and sister were behaving every time I saw them. It was just a bad idea for him, all round."
"I don't think that was your decision to make." Ian's voice is cold, his throat tight. He thinks back to the party, remembers the burning shame as he and his siblings near enough dragged Frank out kicking and screaming. The last time Fiona had seen Jimmy.
"Yeah, well Jimmy's my friend. I look out for my friends, and it wouldn't be the first time I had to deal with some chick sniffing around for money."
Ian laughs, dry and humourless. "You think she was after his money?"
"Wouldn't be the first time," Mickey says again, a defensive tone creeping into his voice. "Anyway, he had to go back to New York unexpectedly that week. When he did, me and Chip set about making clear to him just what a bad idea the whole thing was. It didn't take much; he was actually pretty easy to convince that she wasn't into him the way that he was her. He wanted to break it off himself, in person, but that would have been a bad idea, for all sorts of reasons. Chip said he'd take care of it."
"Oh, he took care of it alright," Ian says, starting to lose control of the rage he's been keeping leashed up. "He turned up at the clinic with some secrecy agreement to make sure she wouldn't sue them. Really thoughtful of you both." He pushes his chair back, stands up. "Well, if that's all then—"
"Wait." Mickey stands up too, reaches out to grab Ian's arm and then stops and pulls back before he makes contact. "That wasn't— It was the other thing, actually. About Robbie."
Ian hesitates, and hates that he wants to hear Mickey's version of events enough to stay. "Make it quick," he says as they both sit back down, and Mickey nods.
"I don't know what he told you," he says. "And I'm not gonna ask. I just want to put it to you from my side of things."
"OK," Ian says, sitting up straight in his chair now. The atmosphere between them is even colder than it had been to begin with, and Ian feels the need to retain at least an appearance of control.
"Well, we grew up together, dunno if he told you that. Our dads were good friends, not sure how they met but for as long as I can remember our families spent a lot of time together. Weekends, vacations, all sorts. Robbie's got a younger brother, I've got a younger sister, so me and him always ended up hanging out together. We were close, y'know? Like brothers, maybe."
Ian leans forward and takes another drink of his coffee, bites back the remark that's brewing about how he already knew that.
Mickey barely pauses for breath, the story flowing out of him easily. "So, um, when we started to get older, we didn't see so much of each other. They moved out of state for a while, and we all kind of drifted apart. But when we did get together, something was different. He was different. I heard his dad talking to mine a few times, saying he'd fallen in with a bad crowd. My dad said that was just a bullshit excuse but—" He stops and shrugs, then takes a drink of his coffee before he continues. "Whatever it was, Robbie was drinking, hardly going to school, failing all his classes. His parents tried everything, grounded him, tried to stop him seeing his friends, even put him into some super strict boarding school, but that just seemed to make him worse. By the time I graduated high school he was into some pretty bad shit—he'd been arrested for possession a couple of times and his parents had paid for him to go to rehab to try and keep his record clean. It went on like that for years, this thing of him being clean, and then falling back off the wagon, fucking stuff up and his parents bailing him out. I could never figure out how they could afford it all, it had to cost a fortune, but it turned out it was all coming out of their company."
Ian has to consciously keep the look of shock off his face, but he feels it like a punch to the gut. He shifts uncomfortably in his chair, the possibility dawning for the first time that maybe Robbie hadn't been entirely honest with him. That maybe, on this count at least, Ian might be the one who's wrong.
If Mickey notices Ian's reaction, he doesn't stop to acknowledge it. He seems eager to get the story told as quickly as possible. "So, of course when all the markets went to shit, they were in a really bad position already, not that I knew that. First I heard was when they went into receivership, and I called them up to see if I could help. It was too late by then; they were on borrowed time as it was. The company folded and they were left with pretty much nothing."
"He said that he asked you for help," Ian says faintly, struggling to fit this new information with the Robbie that he knew. It didn't seem to mesh at all.
"Figures," Mickey says, smiling wryly. "Yeah, he came looking for money a few times that year, before they went under. He knew I'd just got access to a chunk of money from my trust fund. Told me it was for some business venture he need investment for. I gave him what he asked for, $5k each time, and I never saw it again. He told me it hadn't worked out, but it's more likely that he blew it on drugs and partying. He certainly didn't use a cent of it to help his parents."
There's a strange look on Mickey's face, somewhere between anger and regret, and Ian's suddenly hit with the certainty that he isn't lying about any of this. It's different to how it felt when Robbie gave his version, when he'd just believed his friend without much of a question. Now he desperately wants Mickey to be lying, wants that friendship he'd established with Robbie to be based on truth, but the more Mickey tells him, the less he can believe it.
"He came again, after the company went bust. I'd set his parents and brother up with jobs in one of our subsidiaries, and I figured he was after one for himself, but it was just more money he asked for. I asked him what it was for, and he came up with some bullshit excuse. I told him I couldn't just keep giving him money every time he asked. He was nice enough at first, but when he realised I was serious and wouldn't be talked round, he got pretty angry and stormed out. I tried to call him a couple of times, but in the end I just figured that was the end of our friendship, you know. Not that we had been much more than acquaintances for a while anyway. I just figured we wouldn't be seeing each other again. And we didn't, for years after that." Mickey pauses, looks at Ian for a minute. "Let me make something clear, ok? This next part has to do with my sister, and it's something that I have spent a lot of time and money keeping quiet. I'm hoping I can trust you to respect that?"
"Of course," Ian says softly.
"OK," Mickey says with a nod. So, about eighteen months ago, my sister went missing. She was in her third year of college, all going well, and then she just disappears of the face of the earth. Didn't call me, didn't return my messages or pick up my calls. I knew something was up, but the cops were having none of it. 'Lack of evidence' or whatever. No proof that something was going on, but I knew. Me and Mandy have always been close, ever since we were kids. The way things were, we had to be—" He stops suddenly, as if he's betrayed a confidence that he didn't mean to. For a brief moment, a look of what Ian can only describe as panic passes over his face, before Mickey gets control of it and continues.
"Anyway, we've never gone that long without contact, even if we're out of the country. It just doesn't happen. So I hired an investigator, who eventually managed to track her down and give me a location. When I got there, she was a mess. Off her face on god knows what, and looking like she hadn't eaten in weeks. Robbie was there with her, about as wasted as she was, although not so much that he didn't think to run as soon as he saw me. I was more worried about Mandy at that point anyway. I took her home and paid to get her into some fancy rehab centres until she sobered up. She was a mess, all bony and her eyes sunk in. She stayed there for a month, and I did everything I could to keep it out of the press—got a court order, paid off witnesses, you name it, I did it."
"Fuck, Mickey," Ian says, and it comes out almost like a breath because he had not been expecting this at all. Hadn't been expecting the way Mickey's face went soft when he talked about his sister, or the way his jaw clenched as he told Ian what Robbie had done to her. Hadn't been expecting for Robbie to be capable of something like this.
"Yeah," Mickey says, flicking his eyebrows up. "But, she got better, got herself clean again and went back to school. She told me afterwards that he'd just turned up to see her out of the blue, made out like it was some big reunion and how they should really celebrate. Of course, what he was really after was her trust fund—fucking prick literally showed up two days after her 21st birthday, making out like he was there to celebrate with her. She knew we weren't speaking any more, but I'd never told her why, didn't see the need to, so all she saw was an old friend wanting to do something nice for her. Got what he wanted there; they blew a fair chunk of her money in just a few weeks. I guess on top of that, he saw it as revenge on me, mixing Mandy up with all that shit. Could have fucking killed her." His jaw clenches again, and then Ian can almost see him swallow his anger down and force a smile. "Anyway, that's what happened. Think whatever you like, but at least you got the truth." He stands up, gestures at Ian's long-since-empty cup. "One coffee, right?"
"Mickey—"
"No, it's fine. Like I said, I wasn't here to change your mind. And hey, for what it's worth. If I got it wrong about your sister, the way she felt about Jimmy, then I'm sorry if she got hurt. It was never my intention, I can promise you that." He smiles, tight and almost sad. "Be seeing you, Gallagher," he says softly, and then he turns and walks away.
Ian doesn't see Mickey or Svetlana again for the rest of his visit; whether by luck or design they leave the same day that Mickey came to tell him about Robbie, and Ian doesn't hear about it until that evening when they go to Sheila's. The senator seems a bit put out about it, but Ian's beyond grateful. Although he misses Svetlana's company, he's willing to accept her absence as the price of not having to face Mickey again. He has no idea what he'd say, were he face-to-face with the other man again, how to express his disgust at Robbie's actions as he now knew them to be, his regret at believing Robbie's version of events without question, but also the still-burning anger at Mickey's part in the destruction of Fiona's happiness, the pride he had taken in it. Part of him thinks that it's probably best that he never sees Mickey again; he'd likely feel compelled to apologise and Ian doesn't want to give him the satisfaction, regardless of the fact that he'd been wrong about Robbie.
He leaves himself a couple of days later, steeling himself for another twenty-four hours of being tightly crammed into a bus. Lip comes with him to the station, and this goodbye feels somehow less awkward and final than the last.
"Seems like you're doing ok for yourself," Ian teases him, and Lip grins ruefully and rakes his hand through his hair.
"Could be worse, right? I got a decent job, place to stay."
"Lovely senator friend," Ian adds with a cheeky grin, and Lip laughs.
"Yeah, I reckon she's the price I gotta pay. It's mostly worth it."
"As long as you're happy," Ian says, and he means it. He's starting to see what Fiona meant; this job wasn't for him, would have driven him around the bend, but it seems to be suiting Lip just fine.
"Yup," Lip says. "Just make sure you come back to visit again, ok? There's only so many dinner parties I can cope with alone."
"Deal," Ian says, and then he grabs Lip, hugs him hard.
"Right, get on before it goes without you," Lip says with a grin. "And say hi to everyone for me."
Ian nods, boards the bus and finds his seat in just enough time to wave to Lip before it sets off. He settles back in his seat, closes his eyes, and tries to forget that this week ever happened.
The house is quiet when he gets home, and he finds Fiona in the kitchen with a pile of bills and a beer. She greets him with a grin and a tight hug, like he's been gone months instead of a week. He grabs a beer of his own and sits down at the table with her as she finishes sorting the bills into the order they need paid in.
"So, c'mon," she says, when the last one's in place. "How was your trip?"
"It was…good," he says, and he can tell from the way her eyebrows knit together that she's not convinced. "No, it was fine," he says hurriedly. "Just…Sammi's a lot to deal with, y'know?"
"Oh yeah," Fiona agrees, and leans forward. "But what about Senator Jackson?" she says, mimicking Sammi. "Don't tell me you were there a whole week without a meeting with her?"
"Yeah, no chance," Ian says with a grin. "Dinner nearly every night. She's…kinda like you'd expect a politician to be, I guess. Lots of opinions about stuff she knows jack about."
"Ain't that the truth," Fiona says. "And what else, you get to hang out with Lip? How's he doing?"
"He's doing great, actually," Ian says. "You were right not to stop him going. He's in his element out there. We did some tourist stuff, but he had to work some of the time. And—" He cuts himself off before he can let slip that Mickey was there, but Fiona's already looking at him questioningly. "Mickey was there," he says resignedly. "So we had to cut the second day short."
"Mickey? Well, that sucks," Fiona says. "Hope he didn't put a damper on your trip."
Ian sighs. "Not really," he says. "But we talked a little. He…came on to me." Fiona's eyebrows shoot up before she can stop them, and Ian laughs. "Don't worry, I turned him down. Not like I'm interested in him, right? But some stuff came out and…I think maybe I was wrong about Robbie."
"Really?" Fiona asks, and Ian just nods. He doesn't feel like sharing details, even if he hadn't promised Mickey to keep it a secret. He's too worried that stuff about Jimmy might get let slip along with it. "Well then," Fiona said. "You'll not be too bothered that he's left town then?"
"He did?"
"Yeah, he came by a couple of days ago looking for you. Said he'd had something come his way that he couldn't pass up, that he was heading out of town for a while."
Ian's not expecting the sheer sense of relief that washes over him at the prospect of not having to face Robbie, the realisation that he's not stuck with the choice of either pretending everything is fine or having to make it clear that he knows now what Robbie's done. Instead, he can just wipe Robbie out the same way he intends to do with Mickey, like none of it ever happened. He can just go back to college and pretend the summer was just a washout in which nothing out of the ordinary occurred. The thought's pretty appealing.
"Cool," he says, when he sees that Fiona's waiting for a response. "Anyway, how are things here?"
She shrugs. "Same as always," she says. "Debbie's pretty much ready to go next week. Carl's still being weird. Liam's still not an ounce of trouble. Maybe I'm finally getting it right?" She grins, and Ian thinks that maybe it looks a little less fake than it had the week before.
"And you?" he asks, and maybe the grin starts to look a little fake again.
"Oh, I'm good," she says. "Work's ok. I've, um, got a date tomorrow."
Ian can't help but smile. "Yeah?"
"Yeah," she says, like it's a decision she's only making just now. "I figure, I gotta move on, right? Fuck Jimmy. Who needs him?"
Ian raises his bottle, clinks it against hers. "I'll drink to that," he says. "To new starts."
"New starts," she echoes.
New starts, Ian thinks to himself. He can work with that.
