Kash
Kash doesn't know what exactly he's doing back in Chicago.
Well.
He knows precisely what he's doing, it's just the why here that's a mystery. Getting Linda to divorce him after all these years of mutual ignorement just so he can remarry a man that loves him, no less, even a few years ago would've seemed like an impossible fit. A fever dream straight out of a fairy tale that had nothing to do with his actual, real life.
Yet here he is, standing on the South Side's dirty, bloodied soil, almost a decade later and feeling as frightened as the day he left.
It doesn't really help that time has changed this place as much as it changed him, either. The neighborhood may look a lot more tidy than he remembers it, with its tiny cozy coffee shops and organic food markets but the stench of the old South Side demons sunk so deep into the bones of every building, every little nook and creek, every dark corner, that no gloss and a shiny coat of paint will ever be able to conceal it. It just makes it easier to ignore.
Kash knows those demons pretty well, though. He used to hide from them in the depths of the faux safety of his store; he used to run from them in poorly lit alleyways, with heart drumming louder in his chest than the whole orchestra of skeletons he used to hide in his closet. He never forgot the times he didn't run fast enough.
Being back is… haunting.
But Linda won't sign the papers anywhere else and Kash for once in his life doesn't want to be a complete pussy, so he takes one last deep breath, clenches his jaw tight and enters the mall building he's supposed to meet Linda in.
He knows that he technically still has some time before Linda shows up, but he's also aware that if he doesn't go in there now, he will chicken out like he always does and everything will go to shit. So instead he braces himself for the inevitable as he passes right through the open coffee shop area where Linda agreed to meet him. He wanders the mall aimlessly, looking at displays of glasses and little boots selling vegan cupcakes, and tries not to notice how much his hands are shaking in his pockets.
He doesn't realize when exactly did he enter a clothing store, too distracted by the ways this day could end up a disaster, but by the time he's walking up the suit ally, pondering absentmindedly what kind of tux he would want for the wedding, he's painfully aware of his time running out. Rationally he knows Linda will sign the papers — she was always the woman of her word in a way he couldn't quite ever muster — but what will it take for her to do so, it's an entirely different story. So Kash worries. He has no real power over her, never had, and even though she wants to be free just as much as he does, Kash has no doubts she also wants to punish him for all that trouble and suffering he's put her through. That's okay, though, Kash deserves it. He accepts it. But Linda can be a tarrying force of nature when she's pissed and Kash also doesn't doubt she will be.
It's only when he starts heading to the main hall again when someone yells impatiently across the store and Kash can feel his blood run cold.
"GALLAGHER!"
Rationally speaking, Kash knows there is a whole army of Gallaghers running through the South Side, and then even more completely unrelated ones littered throughout the city. Chances that it's the one he really doesn't want to meet are so slim that almost nonexistent. Still. It's not like he can just tell his body not to tense up in an irrational panic response at the mere thought of Ian Gallagher bursting the bubble of his new life like a cheap balloon with just his unsolicited presence.
When he turns around to gauge the danger, though, it's not Ian walking towards him.
"Mickey?" Kash can't help the words escaping his mouth in an incredulous gasp even though it's probably the worst option for everyone involved. Because there is no way Mickey Milkovich, sauntering over maybe ten feet away, wouldn't hear the undignified shriek that may or may not have escaped his mouth at the sight before him. And isn't that a shock?
If Kash had ever thought about what future could hold for one Mickey Milkovich, the terror of his younger days — which he didn't. He never thought about the future back then — it certainly wouldn't be a shopping mall uniform. Then again, he would've never imagined life free of Linda for himself either, so maybe his judgement isn't worth shit anymore.
Mickey stops and looks at him with no recognition, and for a second Kash thinks that maybe today, just today of all days the luck is in his court. But then Mickey's head tilts slightly as he scratches his brow intently and Kash knows there is no way out of this now.
"Towelhead?" Mickey asks with confusion clear in his voice and Kash suddenly remembers how much he hated that slur. "Thought you fucked off to pussyland for good."
Ah, that charming personality. Good to be reminded why he didn't miss Chicago even for a day.
"Just passing by," he says weakly, because Kash might've spent the last ten years of his life trying to stand up for himself but Mickey Milkovich is not someone he'll ever be able to talk back to. There is just this intrinsic air of danger around him that only intensified since Kash has last seen him as a boy, and testing how much — or how little — cheek will get him his teeth knocked in is not something Kash is really willing to try.
He is saved from further embarrassing himself in front of his former enemy/tormentor when the shop's telecom creeks and someone yells even closer this time:
"Gallagher!"
Kash can't help the wince shaking his whole body just for a split second, but Mickey must notice the change on his face because his own appearance twists playfully and he clicks his tongue taking a step forward.
"Lookin' for someone, Julia Roberts?"
Kash doesn't have time to answer, though, because there's a mountain of a man coming from behind a stack of shirts that looks very displeased. He pats Mickey on the shoulder and Kash swallows convulsively because even the ill fitted suit the stranger is sporting cannot hide the thick, swell muscles of his arms.
"Can't you hear me, Gallagher? Office, now," he demands in a low voice that promises nothing but agony and pain, and then turns his sharp attention to Kash of all things and Kash is suddenly very sure he's going to die right here, in the middle of Chicago's crappy shopping center.
"You caught a thief, huh?" the man asks Mickey pointedly and for a moment there Kash thinks he's doomed. Thinks Mickey is going to frame him, just like that. That he'll take away his freedom and his future like Kash did to him all those years ago and won't even blink.
But Mickey smiles, one of those little, crooked things that usually meant he's gonna fuck you up any second now — Kash was very intimately familiar with that smirk once upon a time — and reels back a little, not making any attempt to get away from the mountain man.
"Nah, just a lost customer," Mickey slurs and Kash's breath hitches. Then he turns to the big man in his immediate vicinity and without much ceremony looks him straight in the eye. "Calm your tits, I'll be right over. Gotta escort this one out first."
The man doesn't say anything, just shakes his head at Mickey's antics, probably knowing better by now. His curious eyes don't leave them even for a moment before he disappears behind the mannequin display, wandering off.
"What. Surprised? Told you I like 'em sweet," Mickey says with a cocky smirk and a wiggly eyebrow, and it's that same nastily bold expression he sported all those years ago, the same one that Kash shot him for, only not really. It's still horrifically taunting and Kash thinks he maybe deserves it now, if he understands correctly and Mickey and Ian are still together now, after all this time, but there is something else to it, too. Something he has never seen in Mickey before.
It's a crazy thought, one completely off the rails bonkers, but Kash thinks it's happiness he's seeing shining through all that familiar bravado. He looks at Mickey Milkovich — no. Mickey Gallagher, the notorious South Side thug and general Bad News omen, and sees a man that is happy in his own skin. Kash has no idea if it's marriage that did it for him, or maybe just ditching his family's legacy along with his name, but that silent, underlying confidence is something he would want for himself one day, too.
"Yeah. You did," Kash admits quietly and doesn't smile. There isn't much else he can say.
"Now get the fuck out of my store, dipshit!" Mickey spits and Kash knows this is his last warning, so he does. It's time to face the music, anyway.
A/N: Out of all Ian's exes I like Kash the least. Like, go die in a fire, bitch. But since this is his POV, I couldn't exactly trash him, now could I? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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