"It was an honorable discharge." Ian held a gun to his head, his hands were shaking and Mickey wondered if maybe he'd pull the trigger by accident.

"That's not true." His voice sounded raw.

Ian shook his head side to side and tears started to fall down his face. The insanity running through his body actually made him momentarily terrifying.

Mickey grabbed the barrel to move it away, but recoiled in pain. It was burning hot.

"Don't you feel that?" The words fell from Ian's mouth and not his. And the thought that was weird because he wanted to ask Ian why he was holding a burning gun and it must hurt his hand –

It was only when he looked down at his own body that he realized he was the one who'd been shot.

Mickey woke up panicked. His body felt like it had been torn from the dream faster than his mind was able to catch up. He ripped the thin, scratchy blanket off his body and scanned his bare skin for bullet holes. All that stared back at him were handprint bruises beginning to form on his hips.

Ian moved next to him still asleep but clearly dreaming. His body twitched and his skin was hot and flushed like he had a fever or was recovering from a good fuck.

"God damnit Gallagher." He shakily dragged a hand through his hair and let his head fall back down onto the pillow. "I think you're gonna kill me."

Eyelids fluttered and he found himself staring directly into Ian's eyes.

Something cloaked his pupils and Mickey wished he could have had longer to pick apart what it was – but just as fast it was there it was gone.

"Hey." The morning rasp in his voice made Mickey want to curl inside himself.

"Bad dreams?"

Ian shook his head no. "You?"

He licked the inside of his bottom lip. "Nope." They were awful liars.

When he still went to school somewhat regularly Mickey had been in science and had to put a growing plant underneath a dark box. The only light available was a small square cut out on the side and he remembered thinking that it was going to fucking die without any light.

Three weeks later he stormed into the class and ripped off the box because he felt so shitty about killing this plant but it wasn't dead, it had grown toward the light. It was crooked and twisted and had actually knotted itself around another plant but still it was alive.

The sun peeked through the blinds of the window next to them and Mickey couldn't help but wonder if they were like that stupid ugly plant.

"I missed you."

He closed his eyes and let the words make him high. His hand moved to Ian's stomach and he just wanted to say so much but it would ruin it. He couldn't be eloquent and beautiful with his sentences because words were meant to kill. When fists failed you, words never would.

Ian moved closer and practically sighed at his touch. It reminded him of when it all started. When everything was desperate and fragile and not knowing if the other would turn away.

"What's this one?" Mickey found that his voice came out as a whisper. He didn't even know he was capable of whispering.

Ian put his hand over the one Mickey was using to follow a raised gash just under his ribs. They had been tracing each other's wounds all night until there was nothing left to do but stop asking questions. "War."

"What happened?"

He shrugged his shoulder and he couldn't help but stare at the way Ian's muscles bunched together. "Got stabbed."

He wasn't sure why but Mickey felt like something changed right then. Like he had flipped to the last page and saw that someone dies between here and now but he can't see who just yet.

"You seem in a good mood." Fiona smiled at him and continued plopping down breakfast for Carl and Liam. "Get a good night sleep?"

He grabbed some toast from Carl's plate and laughed at the scowl he gave him. "Yea a little."

Fiona beamed and it made him uncomfortable at how much joy it gave her. "Well good keep it up kiddo."

He smiled tighter this time and nodded. "Where's Debbie?"

"Oh she stayed over a friends last night. Some skank that has all the boys lining up at her door so I'm hoping she comes home without an std."

"Sister sex – gross." Carl put down his fork and shook the thought out of his mind.

He wanted to gag.

"And that's my cue." He flipped Carl the finger affectionately and turned to head back upstairs.

"Oh Ian wait!" Fiona called up to him. "Mandy called wants to go out to lunch with you and the baby. I told her you were still dead to the world but you should go over. Get out of the house."

"Yea sure sounds great." It didn't.

He wandered back into his room and stood staring at the ruffled sheets on his bed. The air still smelled like Mickey.

Since Lip mostly lived at the Milkovich house now he was rarely sleeping there anymore. Carl had been passed out on the couch no doubt drunk and unable to make it to the room and Liam was at the phase where he wanted to sleep in Fiona's bed so that she could make his nightmares go away. This left Ian with the closest thing he could call to his own room for the first time in his entire life.

He threw his shirt off to the side and dug to find a cleaner one. The mirror near the door reflected the scar Mickey had been so intrigued with just moments before he snuck out.

Ian traced it over with his own hand now. It was ugly as fuck, knitted like the skin hadn't wanted to heal correctly just to accentuate the memory all the more. 'What happened?' 'Got stabbed.'

When you have so many scars you tend to rank them. It's the best way to remember them. This was his favorite, second only to where Mickey has kicked him in the face.

"What the fuck are you doing?" He couldn't think, everything was so loud and there were bodies everywhere. The man screaming at him was bleeding out, Ian couldn't help him. "Are you crazy?"

He hadn't known that the bomb would go off anyways. It had been for nothing. Why did he ever think that war could combat war?

His eyes screwed shut and charged his arm toward himself with sure confidence.

He fell to his knees and let go of the hilt of the knife in his hand, the blade now lovingly nestled inside his skin with precision. The last thing he saw before he passed out were the eyelids of his only friend there flutter closed.

He scowled at himself in the mirror before reaching pulling the new shirt over his head. On his way out the door he realized that it was actually the shirt he'd bought Lip for Christmas a few years back.

The thought that he should go back and change stomped out by the realization that he'd been playing his brother for so long now. It only seemed fitting.