So this chapter is basically because of blondiegoldeneyes because I wasn't going to write a chapter in Mandy's point of view, but it was suggested so I altered what was in my head slightly. Hope you enjoy. . .
Contrary to a lot of quite popular belief, Mandy wasn't stupid. Sure she didn't have any fancy degrees or an amazing grade point average in school, but she was smart. In her own way, she was smart. And she liked to pride herself on being pretty damn observant. And yet nothing, quite literally nothing could have prepared her for what she saw when she walked into the bathroom that morning. Mandy wasn't an idiot, she wasn't stupid, but she had had absolutely no idea about this, none at all.
She kept replaying the words in her head from that night, about Ian being drunk, about Mickey apparently having experience in that area. About there being a 'last time'. But Mandy hadn't thought it would have led to something like this. She wouldn't have thought it would have had anything to do with anything other than sort of strained friendship. She hadn't even really thought of them as friends, acquaintances more than anything. They knew each other, simple as.
But what she saw in that bathroom wasn't just acquaintanceship.
Ian had his face tucked into Mickey's neck and a leg over Mickey's hips. His fingers were in Mickey's hair and his shirt and Mickey's arms were around Ian, a hand at his back and a hand on his thigh, holding him in place. They were clinging to each other, like the world was falling out from underneath them and they just needed something to hold on to. Like this was necessary, like it was just them in their own little bubble, locked away from the rest of the world.
They looked peaceful, which was a weird thought considering that they were in a bath, wearing crumpled clothes and Mickey had dried drool on his cheek. Both of them looked rumpled, clothes a mess, hair amuck. Ian's shirt was pushed up at the back so that Mickey's hand was pressed against bare flesh and Ian's grip on Mickey's shirt, bunching it up a little meant that part of Mickey's pale stomach and abs were visible, the trail of hair that travelled downwards.
As she watched, Ian shifted a little and Mickey's hand instantly clamped down on his thigh, pulling him back closely again, regaining the closeness that had been lost when Ian had shifted. And in response, Ian did nothing other than flex his fingers in Mickey's hair and move so that he was a little bit more on top of Mickey than he had been before. His face pressed a little more against Mickey's neck, nuzzling and Mandy knew she wasn't imagining the smile that she saw turning up the corner of Ian's mouth.
And yet they were both still asleep. She could tell from their breathing that they were both still asleep.
If Mandy hadn't known that her brother was gay before, she definitely would have known then. But that was the thing. It hadn't really seemed real before that moment. Sure, she'd been questioning him about it, reaffirming it, making him say it over and over again, but she'd never seen it. And the image she had in her head of seeing her brother being gay wasn't anything like this. Because this wasn't harsh or brutal, it was soft and gentle and tender and it was so completely raw that it made Mandy want to cringe. But it also made her want to smile as well.
But she was also mad. Mad because this was her brother and her best friend. The best friend who okay, she may be married to his brother but was still a little bit in love with. Maybe a lot in love with, but that was fine because Mandy had accepted a long time ago, had seen a long time ago that Ian was gay and therefore she just had to deal with it. But seeing that, seeing this, it was almost too much. She didn't know how to deal with it, she didn't know what to think of it. She didn't know if this thing that she was being confronted with had had a past, or if it had a future or if it was just one of those things that had happened in a drunken moment. She didn't know and Mandy didn't like not knowing. It confused her.
She tried to picture them dating, tried to picture her brother happy and smiling and in a relationship with Ian. With anybody, but most of all with Ian. Mickey wasn't the relationship sort of type, but she knew he was possessive and selfish. And she wondered if Mickey beating Cole up in the cage last night had been evidence of that. She wondered what that told her about the situation. If it told her anything at all.
Mandy wasn't an idiot, she wasn't a genius like her husband, but she was smart in her own way. She loved her brother and she loved her best friend more than she was supposed to. She had no problem at all with either of them being gay, even though a teenage her would have killed for Ian to be straight. Mandy wasn't an idiot, she knew that if what was in front of her had a future, she would grit her teeth and deal with it even though she knew it would be the weirdest and potentially hardest thing she'd ever have to do.
Mandy wasn't an idiot, Mandy was actually pretty smart, but right then, she was completely out of her element. She didn't know how to deal with that. But she also didn't want anything to happen to either of them, she didn't want anything to ruin what they could be building between them and so when she heard someone let Cole into the apartment, she reached over and switched on the shower, letting the water rain down on them and ducking out of the bathroom right as she heard Ian's yelp and Mickey's curse.
No, Mandy didn't know how to deal with whatever that was in there. She didn't think Mickey knew how to deal with it either. Because they were Milkovichs at the end of the day and the tenderness that had been displayed right then in that bath had supposed to have been bred out of them. Apparently it hadn't been.
Even though Mandy didn't know how to cope with seeing that, she knew that as a Milkovich, it was blood before anything else. And as her best friend, she had to protect Ian as well. So she would, she'd keep her mouth shut and she'd keep Cole away from that bathroom while they sorted out whatever the fuck had gone on between them.
She'd let them do that, she'd do what she had to do and then when they went out that night she was going to drink her weight in alcohol to try and drown out the thoughts and images in her head. Yeah, that was what Mandy was going to do. She thought it sounded like a pretty good plan.
