Ian smoked 6 cigarettes that night. The most he'd smoked in a row since leaving Chicago. He stayed huddled by the window blowing out each puff of tobacco and nicotine into the night wondering if Mickey was looking down from upstairs.

Todd rolled over in bed rustling the sheet Ian had tossed over his face. He didn't smoke – hated the smell. Ian still hadn't told him that he'd only half quit.

The end of his cigarette burned bright angry red and orange heat against the inked sky. People always say that it's hard to see the stars when you live in the city but Ian had been counting them for an hour. 631 – maybe, a rough estimate. He may have counted a few more than once.

But he didn't understand how people didn't see them. Littering the sky like the only thing that will ever truly be infinitely forever. All you had to do was look up.

A soft knock sounded on his door and he tensed darting his eyes toward Todd. Mandy peeked in slowly before Ian smiled and held up a hand to tell her he'd come out. It wasn't worth the risk to wake up the stranger in his bed.

He stubbed out the butt into the ashtray on their table. Mandy sighed. "He still think you quit?"

"I half quit." A smiled pulled at his face. "What he doesn't know wont kill him."

Mandy sat down and rested her head in his lap. The couch molding to accommodate their bodies and he leaned back to drape his arm around her waist. The apartment had never seemed so quiet.

He could listen only to their breaths and the way they rasped and sighed and sputtered to different tempos. Each exhale of hers wanting to match his and the whole dance made it difficult because Ian found himself holding his breath longer just to line it up with hers.

And once you start focusing on breathing it's impossible because pretty soon you're asking yourself – how does my body do this? How does it remember to do this task so continuously that I don't even notice and when they say loving someone is like breathing it's true. The second you're aware of it you're afraid of it stopping, of losing that crucial part of what's keeping you alive.

So naturally in that moment it stops. Your breathing coming out in measured and more difficult thought out actions instead of natural progression. Your love – painful and hot and pricking your finger just to say I'm a part of you now and you know that if it goes, so will you.

"What are you thinking about?" Mandy's voice was whispered and shy. Afraid to disturb the silence but swallowed up by it anyhow.

He stayed focused ahead, eyes trained on the wall trying to forget about breathing and he saw that there was a smudge. It should have been nothing to him, not even noticeable but there it was – glaring.

A little reminder left to say hey, you're not that clean. If walls could talk right? That whole thing.

Ian moved his fingers to brush Mandy's bangs away from the caked lashes of her eyes. She'd been crying for hours and had nothing left to show for the emotions besides bad makeup and exhaustion.

"I wish I could love you." It hurt him to feel her relax into the words. "I would if I could, I'd love you forever."

She rolled onto her back with wide almost childlike eyes bearing into him. His hand still entangled with her and they could have passed for a couple.

Her lips formed a home around each word – the weight of them falling deep into the pit of his stomach.

"He breaks your heart." Mandy smiled sadly and nodded before a tear leaked down from the corner of her eye leaving a stain on his pants. "He really does, he breathes and breaks your heart."

Ian tilted his head back against the couch and staring holes into the ceiling, hoped that Mickey could hear their every word.

Mandy had wanted to see his apartment. Her eyes were wet rats all dripping and sticky and black. No doubt housing some sort of toxin that would blind her if she just blinked the wrong way. Mickey wanted to tell her to fuck off and go home.

But he couldn't say no. He could, technically – but not really. And he'd asked for this. It had been inevitable. His sister's nails biting into him as she insisted I need to see it Mickey. Like the proof of existence would somehow make the bitter burn of his abandonment easier.

Ian hadn't wanted to come. Said he was tired and needed time as Todd wrapped a slimy hand around his waste and left Mickey with hate in his veins.

He scratched at the chills prickling his arm before stamping out the cigarette on the balcony railing. The smoke puffing out from Ian's window no longer visible and maybe he'd finally gone to sleep.

The keys on his cell phone stuck with each punch of his finger. A string of 'fucks' falling out when the '3' hit twice instead of once.

The night crackled around each ring and Mickey almost hung up thinking it was too late but then - "This better be good."

"Not really."

The line rustled and he could hear her bed creaking as she shot up. "Mickey? What's going on why are you calling me?"

Fiona's voice jumped with an agitation that he could only assume parents get when their kid calls in the middle of the night. But I thought you were sleeping little tommy! He cracked his knuckles and wondered when he'd been worthy enough to elicit that response from her.

"I saw Mandy." The line buzzed silently. The type of sound you can only hear in silence, which was – ironic. "She stabbed me."

"Did you deserve it?" Fiona, ever the mediator.

He laughed. "Probably."

A car door slammed from outside, a cab probably – maybe Ian had kicked Todd out after all. "How was it?"

He knew what she meant. Who she was talking about. Mickey didn't need to speak Ian's name for the ugly facts of it to seep through all the way back to the Southside. But suddenly it felt like no time had passed and maybe he was just a few blocks over from the head of the Gallagher household and they were talking by mistake. Ian should've answered and he would just hang up on Fiona leaving her to angrily scream about why the fuck is Mickey Milkovich calling me?

He heaved out a shaky breath. "Painful."

"You know –" Fiona started, "the case is technically still open." He could hear her flick on a lighter. "No one really cares but Tony – he's a good cop."

"Yea I know." Mickey picked at the sheets on his bed. "It's not like I'm coming back."

They stayed silent and his bladder ached – he had to pee so fucking badly.

"Mickey?" Fiona questioned with a lilt to her voice that seemed alarmingly like Mandy's. "You know I get why you did it right? All of it." The line fell back into a lull of thought. "It's just you made your bed."

He laughed while spotting a new stain in his sheets. Blood, jizz – who even knew anymore -

His back relaxed to such an extreme as he leaned down to mold into his mattress that it actually kind of hurt. A pleasurable pain that always told him he'd sleep well that night.

Another car door, another shuffle of feet and clicking heels wandering around trying to find some place to sleep that night. He closed his eyes and pretended that every person outside his window was just as fucked as him.

"And now I've got to lie down in it."