He felt it before he even went to look. He heard it. The soft whimpers accompanying agonizing grunts and the way he tries to growl more so because he doesn't want you to hear the pain in his voice. It was exactly like when he'd been shot – twice.
Ian's hands were gripped so tightly on either side of his dresser that it hurt more to let go. Each tendon and bit of bone screamed in protest because it was safer here, holding onto the guardrails. His stomach rolled and he had a moment of being 6 years old and wanting to call out for Fiona.
Because a monster was under his bed and in his closet and inside his skin making a home for itself. But this monster, he never looked it in the eyes. And the fear crawling around inside of him making him sick was that Mickey's eyes would show him only one thing –
That he wasn't the monster, and the only thing whispering scary words into the night was Ian. The dealer and the dealt hand to his own crippling fears.
Mandy was short-circuiting next to the body on the couch. Her hands flitting back and forth like she could somehow fix it with a magic word. The stench of blood – which was unmistakable – began to cloud Ian's senses and he closed his eyes to lean his head against the doorframe.
He could feel Mickey's eyes on him, watching him.
"Oh my god Mickey I'm so sorry oh my god –" Mandy's words sounded on a loop and he really wished she'd shut up. Let him take in the moment in peace. Because you never realize how much you miss it and how easily you let it slip past you – when you've found something all over again.
A hand fell on his shoulder and Ian snapped his eyes open feeling almost like he'd fallen asleep. Lip furrowed his eyebrows. "You okay?"
"Hm?" Ian clapped his own hand over his brothers and smiled. "Course."
He walked to the couch and leaned over to see the red seeping into their cushions. Mickey's proof of existence, always stains on Ian's skin and clothes and now his couch. He was angry at how casually he left himself behind in pieces to be missed.
"You just gonna fucking stare or are you gonna help me before I bleed out?" His jaw was tight; the words were ground out and tense. It was obvious he was in pain and Ian wanted to press his finger right into the wound and leave his mark this time.
But the water lingering just barely over Mickey's blue eyes stopped him. Because he can only appreciate pain as much there is pleasure on the other side of it. "Keep pressure on it."
Mickey rolled his eyes. "Yes I fucking know to keep pressure on it."
"Yes I fucking know I got shot."
Ian smiled and walked over to the drawer full of random shit they didn't know what to do with. It seemed fitting somehow.
Lip was still standing by the doorway to Ian's room watching his every movement. A look in his eye that said all he needed, Ian didn't even feel the need to ask about it. He was worried about him.
"What are you doing?" Mandy looked wildly in his direction. Pure panic etched on her face. "Are you helping?"
"Bitch you're the one who should be helping!" Mickey ground out before reeling away from her instinctual punch.
She gasped and went back to apologizing. "Oh my god I'm so sorry!"
"What happened?" Ian's voice croaked and felt dry.
Lip finally moved and walked around to the kitchen table. There was left over food from before he went off to work that night. Stale bread and cold coffee.
"Mandy stabbed him for me." A self-satisfying grin played at his mouth. "She clearly cares enough to not want someone randomly killing me on the streets of New York City."
She whipped her head around. "Who said I was aiming for him?"
Mickey threw his head back in a bout of pain and Ian watched transfixed. He could feel everything the man before him felt. Like they were implanted into each other. Genes and DNA mixing to make something wicked and twisted and non-functioning.
What happens when the one thing in the world that makes it worth living is the thing that will kill you. Were they all on one grand kamikaze mission? Love me, kill me, leave me and take me with you all at once.
"Here—" Ian moved around to Mickey with an old rag and a roll of masking tape. He thought the rag was clean – clean enough.
He sucked in a breath in preparation for the contact. Ian stopped just inches over the bloodied shirt, the hem already curled up from where Mandy had first tried to get a better look. His fingers shook, just a little, just enough to make him feel young.
"Is that gonna make it infected?" Mickey's eyes darted to the rag in his hand.
He felt like it was a loaded question. "I don't think so."
Mandy was too out of her mind to notice anything happening – she'd always been blissfully unaware. But Lip was practically screaming in the silence. His entire presence being a reminder to Ian that this was happening and this was significant. Because his brother was a witness now, it was no longer only Ian mumbling a name in his sleep to have it be lost on Todd's ears. He guessed he should be thankful Todd never said anything about it, but he wondered how he could miss it.
Should it have said enough that the man sleeping next to him didn't understand he wasn't who Ian dreamt about?
Mickey's shirt stuck in odd places again his skin. The air drying the blood faster than anyone was trying to clean it up. It was a shallow cut, but those were always the worst anyway. They made more of a mess. Because once you're skewered deep enough there gets to a point when you're just bleeding inside and filling up with it, people can't see the damage that way.
"Ow fuck!" Mickey's word spit onto Ian's skin. A droplet of saliva that now felt like the most important thing in the room rested near his neck.
Lip lit up a cigarette. "Where did you even come from?"
Ian saw Mickey's hand reflexively reach out just slightly for his own as he dabbed the rag against mangled flesh. His finger's hung in the air for seconds before slamming back down to the couch and digging into the fabric even harder than before. He was going to rip it.
"Fuck off."
"What's going on?" Fiona was sitting on the counter drinking a beer. It had been three days since he'd last seen Mickey and she had been one of the last people to talk to him.
A piece of hair fell into her eyes. "What do you mean?"
His blood boiled. "What's going on Fiona?"
She took another sip. Her shoulders were slumped further down than what could have been comfortable. She was probably fucking up her back.
"Where were you the other night Ian?"
No. This is not what was happening. She wasn't going to turn this back around on him. That's not why he brought it up.
"Don't change the subject." He could feel himself cracking. Wavering in his anger and becoming more desperate. "Please."
"You ever hear that quote about how if two people try and kill a guy which one is responsible for it?" The air seemed to feel thicker in the room all of a sudden. "Like if a guy goes out into the desert with a canteen of water –" The beer was empty now. "And one guy poisons the water, but another guy pokes a hole in the canteen – who killed him?"
"What are you talking about?"
Fiona put her head in her hand and shook it back and forth. The thoughts in her mind practically clanging together audibly. "Who killed him Ian? If he dies of thirst but it was poisoned anyway – who killed him?"
He ripped off pieces of tape and haphazardly fixed enough of a bandage onto the pale skin to be satisfied that Mickey wouldn't pass out.
"You should probably go the hospital." Ian hoped that his voice didn't waver as much as it felt like it was.
"No." Mickey turned his head into the crook of the couch and cringed one more time.
They all sat in silence. Nothing but the sound of an occasional bite of pain from Mickey and an anxious sigh from Mandy escaped their lips. Ian got up and walked to the refrigerator. The blood on his hand mixed with the condensation from the beer he grabbed for and made it look like the bottle was bleeding. Dripping down ominously and pooling back into his palm, he thought back to Fiona.
Back to the question that had been kicking around his mind since she first said it. Who's fault would it be? Who killed the guy?