A/N: Hey, guys! Sorry I haven't posted for, like, a year or more. I've been crazy busy, but all this COVID-19 quarantine business has shut my life down for a while, so I started a new fic. I know I should finish what I've started, but I'm not that kind of bitch. Maybe I'll continue them later in the quarantine, but probably not. I got this idea because I also have the great combo of an eating disorder and ptsd, and I feel like Mickey would have some kind of control issue. Therefore, I picked food because I'm struggling with it and want an outlet. Also, I hope my #1 fan Paula comes back for this one. I miss you, girl. I worry about you amid this COVID-19 crisis. Please be safe out there and wash your damn hands! Enjoy!
Just as a note, trigger warning for anorexia, later bulimia, and later mentions of rape. Stay safe!
It started at fifteen.
With no one around to ensure that Mickey always had food - his father had been in jail off and on and his mother had been dead for a year - it became easier to just not eat. At first, he had cut back just because there wasn't much around to be had, but soon it became something else. When he was hungry, he got an odd sort of high. Everything was just a little bit out of focus, farther out of his reach. Nothing mattered as much.
The summer was his favorite. He could go two or three days without eating, then. He'd subsist on water alone. No one saw a thing.
It was fuckin' heaven. Except, you know, when it wasn't.
The headaches came first, of course. Without proper nutrition, those crop up left and right. They grew into migraines at times, and Mickey would have to stay and bed and wait them out, usually sleeping most of the time. Sometimes he was able to score drugs to dull the throbbing.
Then, nausea. Mickey would wake up and feel disgusting. He would use this as an excuse not to eat, of course, but it wouldn't go away for the first twenty-four hours of his fast.
Eventually, he wouldn't feel hungry anymore, just tired. He was always tired. When, in the past, he could beat the shit out of two or three guys with no problem, now he could barely do one. If that wasn't enough, his temper was worse; he was constantly getting himself into situations that he couldn't get out of. His siblings had to step in more than one to save his sorry ass.
It all changed when he met Ian at sixteen. While the other boy knew he was thin, Fiona was the one that figured out that something was wrong with Mickey's eating. The first time her little brother brought the thug home for dinner, he barely touched the pizza they had. Carl ended up finishing his piece later in the night. Several dinners later, she took Ian aside with her concerns.
"Ian, look," Fiona said. "Have you ever noticed how small Mickey is?"
Ian shrugged. "I guess. I mean, it's probably just his family stuff. They probably don't have a lot of money."
Fiona shook her head. "No. I don't think that's it, because he'd be eating the food we gave him here if that were the case. He's not; he just pushes it around his plate and barely touching a thing."
"What are you trying to say?"
"I think he's trying to be that small. I think he's doing this on purpose."
Ian shook his head. "That's fuckin' crazy, Fi. Why would he be doing that? Maybe he just hates your cooking."
"I don't think that's it. Have you seen him eat much anywhere else?"
"I mean, no, but we aren't exactly that close are we? I don't typically eat around him."
Fiona shrugged. "I'm just telling you what I see, okay? Keep an eye on him."
"He's not my boyfriend, Fiona," Ian insisted. "He's not going to want him to butt into his personal business, okay? Just leave it be."H
Even as the words left his mouth, he knew there was little chance that she would.
During the weeks that followed their conversation, Ian had an increasingly harder time closing his eyes to what Mickey was doing. Once Fiona had pointed out the signs, it was nearly impossible to miss them. The boy barely ate, and when he did, it was never much. He got jumpy when Ian would touch his sides, and when his weight was commented on, he would lash out. Sex was something that happened less and less frequently and it was rare that it happened with Mickey completely unclothed. He almost always had a shirt on.
Finally, soon after becoming official-or, something akin to it- Ian could no longer stand around and watch Mickey starve himself.
They were in the boys' room, post-sex. It had taken almost everything out of Mickey, and he lay across the bed, eyes half-lidded, when Ian finally spoke.
"Why don't you eat?"
It was like someone had punched him in the gut. The air left his lungs and it felt impossible to get it back. Blood roared in his burning ears.
"What the fuck did you just say?" Mickey's voice was tense, just like his body was. His hands balled into shaking fists. "What the fuck did you just say, asshole?"
Ian shook his head, putting his own hands in the air. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. I just wondered, okay, Mick? I just didn't know if there was anything that you needed to talk about."
Mickey sat up, shoving Ian out of his way. He wanted a clear shot of the door. No one had ever called him on this before, at least not so directly, and he was scared. The game was up. If he were honest, it was both what he had been dreaming about and also what he had been dreading for over a year now. He'd stayed up many nights just hoping someone would notice, but now that they had, he just wanted to run.
"Get out of my fucking way, Gallagher." Mickey said, starting to push his way to the door. It felt like he was walking through neck-high sludge. He could hear this breath in his ears, and he briefly wondered if Ian could hear it as loud as he could, too. He was nearly to the door when a hand grabbed his wrist.
"Mickey, please!" He could hear Ian say, and the grip on his wrist tightened. "Let's just talk. Can we please just talk?"
Mickey shook his head. Everything felt far away and the breathing in his ears picked up. "No, I don't want to talk to you, Gallagher. Just-just let me go."
With a final pull, his arm was yanked from Ian's grip. He headed out of the room and down the stairs, hand on the wall to keep himself upright. When he got into the kitchen, he immediately turned into the bathroom. The door slammed shut and the lock clicked.
From there, he sank to the floor, head on the cool edge of the toilet. Mickey couldn't stop shaking. This was the end; he couldn't come around here anymore, not as long as he wanted to skip meals.
To be completely fair, he thought, he wasn't skipping that many meals. It wasn't like he was going crazy with it or anything. He would just fast for a couple of days and then eat smaller portions for a few days and repeat. It wasn't as bad as Ian was probably making it out to be.
Ian's feet slammed hard on the stairs above Mickey's head, and part of him hoped that other boy would assume he'd just gone home. A knock on the door made it clear to him that that was not the case.
"Mickey? Can you come out? It's Ian."
"I know what your voice sounds like, dipshit. Fuck off."
There was some shuffling, and Mickey stared at the feet under the door. They lingered a minute before leaving. The thug relaxed, every muscle screaming in exhaustion.
Mickey was left alone for what was maybe forty-five minutes. In that time, the adrenaline of being found out had left him, and he was able to drift to sleep on the bathroom floor. It sounded uncomfortable, but it was actually much cleaner than his own bathroom, where he had slept more than once in the past.
A knock at the door awoke him. If he had been alert, he would have heard the people arguing in the kitchen. The topics ranged anywhere from why someone was hogging one of their bathrooms to why that person had to be a Milkovich.
"Mickey?" Fiona called through the door, pausing only to squelch the arguing voices of her kids. "Listen, Mickey. It's Fiona. I need you to come out, okay?"
"Fuck you," he snapped, emphasizing his words with a kick to the door.
"Break it and you buy us another one, Milkovich," Lip's muffled voice said.
He had to get out of there. There was nothing else he could do. They all knew by now; fuckin' Ian probably told them all.
Scrambling to his feet, Mickey looked around the bathroom. The window! He shoved the things resting in the window frame to the floor and pushed it open. He shimmied out in seconds. He hadn't realized that the drop was so far, but he hit the ground running towards home.