Lip became something of a permanent fixture after that. He promised not to tell anybody about Mickey's amnesia. And he said he wouldn't tell Ian because it would only distract him and the guy didn't need to be distracted over in a warzone. Mandy frowned at that, but Mickey understood.
He sort of liked having Lip around. Liked the added masculinity in the house. He liked the fact that he could cook a little better than Mandy and that he liked to talk about intelligent things. He liked the weed he brought, liked the fact he chipped in to the bills without being asked. He liked that having Lip there made the house feel a little less empty and a little more like a home.
When Lip proposed, Mandy asked Mickey what he thought before she answered. He told her that he thought she should go for it because their kids would be geniuses and they wouldn't look half bad either. She'd laughed and said that meant he had to walk her down the aisle, but he just shrugged and told her that he'd be offended if she didn't make him anyway.
He was slowly starting to remember what it was like to be Mickey Milkovich.
He remembered how it felt to have your fingers broken and how it felt to break someone's kneecaps in return. He remembered how it felt to be shot in the leg and he remembered the words he'd said to lead up to that. He remembered kicking some guy's head in because he'd upset Mandy. He remembered how much he hated seeing Mandy cry. He remembered how it felt to be gay, how it created this sort of fear that gripped him inside. But he also remembered how it felt like to take it up the ass and how great that felt. He remembered that little thing Ian used to do with his hips that hit that spot just right. He remembered that he called Ian, Gallagher and that sometimes he'd call him Firecrotch.
He remembered what it felt like for Mickey Milkovich to be in love. He remembered that it was scary and alien and made him want to punch something. He remembered that he'd used to hate Ian was much as he loved him, just because he made him feel. He remembered that Mickey Milkovich wasn't supposed to feel. He remembered how Ian's shit eating grin had used to make him squirm.
He remembered Ian most of all, over everything else.
When the wedding came, it wasn't anything great, just in some run down shitty church with the reception booked at the Alibi Room afterwards. It had been scheduled so that Ian would be there for the occasion and Lip had told Mickey he was sorry with pain in his eyes. Ian was bringing his boyfriend to the wedding, apparently they'd met on one of Ian's weekends off from the base and had been trading letters the entire time he was away. His name was Toby. Mickey had just shrugged and said it was alright, because he didn't have any claim to Ian anyway.
But it still hurt, they all knew it still hurt.
Still, it was Mandy and Lip's wedding and it wasn't fair for him to ruin it. So he put on a smile and a suit and he walked Mandy down the aisle. She looked beautiful in her long white dress that Mickey had worked double shifts at the construction site and painted some old lady's living room to held her afford, because he'd meant it when he'd said that there was no way she was returning her wedding dress afterwards. Mandy was all she had, she'd helped pay off his hospital bills and he'd been there for him whenever he needed her and even when he hadn't. The least he could do was help buy her dress.
She'd cried when she'd first put it on, with Mickey sitting there in the room, watching her and he'd had to run and get a roll of toilet paper because her mascara had been running down her face and they couldn't let it ruin the dress.
The multiple colours that had been in her hair when he'd first woken up in that hospital room, the colours that had been there in his few fleeting memories of her in the past were gone now and her hair was its natural rich brown. She had it curled and it feel over her shoulders, shiny and soft looking.
The bachelorette party had been Mandy's way of trying to cheer Mickey up, he knew that. She'd booted Lip out the door and made him go out with his brothers and she'd managed to get Mickey pretty reasonably drunk by the time that the male stripper came. It was just the two of them and that stripper, not the best of bachelorette parties, but Mickey had to admit that he had fun. Especially when he ended up fucking the stripper in the bathroom.
He hadn't had much sex in the past few years, only when he was drunk and Mandy dragged him out clubbing or something.
Lip winked at him when he delivered her down the aisle and handed his baby sister over and Mickey had shook his hand and smiled back because he was glad Mandy was going to get to be with someone who made her happy. And if Lip didn't do that, Mickey would just kill him for it. They all knew that.
Ian was Lip's best man and he stood on the opposite side of the alter to Mickey, with his brother Carl and all of Lip's sisters who'd been bridesmaids. Mickey stood on his own on Mandy's side of the alter, because none of their brothers had come, they didn't even know about the wedding. What little Mickey remembered about their brothers, he knew it was a wise decision for them to be absent.
He hadn't even met them yet, or at least the him with amnesia hadn't.
Mickey was one of the people who clapped the loudest when they said their 'I do's' and kissed and he honestly couldn't remember ever being any happier. Because if Mandy was happy then he was to, because he didn't have anyone else to celebrate for.
She'd attempted to teach him to dance and at the Alibi Room after Mandy and Lip had had their first dance to some cheesy song, Mandy made the DJ play 'You're gonna go far kid' and dragged him onto the dance floor. He'd gone bright red and it had been awkward because he didn't really want to dance and he didn't know how to dance, but he'd tried because it was Mandy. At the end of the song she'd laughed at him and fetched them a couple of shots that they downed with nothing more than a blink, because their throats were used to that familiar burn by now, they were Milkovichs after all.
While the rest of the party had gone on, Mickey sat at the bar talking to Kev who ran the joint and was half running the bar. He was a pretty decent guy, his wife was loud though. Although, not nearly as loud as the Gallaghers. He'd never really met them before, he couldn't remember anything about any of them other than Ian and the new version of him only knew Lip. He'd made sure to learn their names though. Fiona was the oldest and she was married to some guy called Jimmy who Lip told him was a car thief. Then there was Lip and Ian and a redheaded girl called Debbie who seemed like the quietest of all of them. Mickey wouldn't admit it, or maybe he would, he didn't know anymore, but the guy Carl kind of freaked him the hell out, he was definitely bordering on sociopathic and he made sure to stay the hell away from him. Then there was Liam who was the youngest and didn't look like he could possibly be related to any of them, but somehow was.
Lip's Dad Frank was passed out in the corner. Mickey didn't want to go near him either, because he remembered a little bit about Frank. He remembered that he wanted to kill Frank, but this Mickey didn't like the idea of killing anybody. Especially for a reason he couldn't remember, so he just stayed away.
"Heeeeey, Mickey!" a hand clapped down on his shoulder and he jumped a little bit.
On the other side of the bar, Kev smirked at the drunken Lip, who'd decided it would be a fun idea to drape himself across Mickey's shoulders. "How much have you had to drink?" Mickey asked him, pretty sure the idea of a wedding wasn't to get so drunk that you didn't remember it.
"Not enough," Lip said, his words slurring a little and Mickey rolled his eyes.
"Oh, I think you've had plenty," he said and then looked at Kev, "What's the best way to sober him up?"
He didn't want anything ruining Mandy's day. Not even her drunken husband.
Two minutes later Kev pushed a glass across the bar and Mickey picked it up and grimaced. "What the hell is in this?" he asked.
"Tomato juice, worchestshire sauce and lemon juice," Kev said, grinning kind of evilly, "Works every time on his Dad, trust me."
Mickey pulled a face, but twisted around slightly to get Lip the hell off him and onto a barstool. "Drink this," he instructed, tilting Lip's face up when his head lolled forwards. He was almost completely out of it.
"Is it alcoholic?" he mumbled.
"Yeah sure," Mickey muttered back and held the bottom of the glass as Lip chugged it back in one. It was only a couple of minutes before his eyes went wide and he turned a little green and Mickey just had time to snatch the offered bucket off of Kev before Lip was throwing up.
He grimaced and looked away, but that didn't really help the stench.
"What the hell did you do?" Ian asked him, coming over and rubbing his brother on the back, pulling a face at the contents of the bucket.
"Sobering him up," Mickey replied truthfully.
Lip lifted his head up a little and scowled, "I fucking hate you."
He laughed, he couldn't help it, "I'll remind you of that next time you're high and try to pick a fight with a club's bouncer."
"You have to admit that was a pretty good night though," Lip muttered, wiping his mouth on a napkin that Mickey handed him. He was pretty impressed, because whether it was the drink or the puking, Lip did seem to have sobered up.
"You weren't the one that got chatted up by a forty year old woman," Mickey said, grimacing at the memory, "And you would think it was a good night anyway, you were fucking high." Lip thought every time he was high was the best moment of his life.
He snorted, "That woman had fucking dodgy taste, she was obsessed with you."
"Oh thanks," Mickey replied, but he wasn't really offended.
"The answers going to be no now when I ask you to cook us breakfast in the morning, isn't it?" Lip asked, pouting slightly which looked sort of stupid.
Mickey just shrugged, "Oh I'll make Mandy breakfast, you can just sit and watch her eat it."
"My new wife wouldn't be that cruel," Lip said, sounding absolutely positive about that. They both looked at each other and laughed, because yeah, Mandy really would be that cruel. Whether or not she'd made vows that meant 'what's mine is yours'.
"She's a Milkovich, it comes with the territory," he said, smirking a little, which soon turned into a frown when Ian's new boyfriend sauntered over. He wrapped his arms around Ian's waist and smiled. It sort of made Mickey feel better that it took Ian a minute or so to actually realise he was being held. He'd been a bit busy frowning at Mickey.
The boyfriend, Toby was Ian's height with light brown hair and a stupid smile and the part of Mickey that was the old him wanted to punch him in the face, but the person he was now didn't really do all that well with senseless violence. Not unless he was high on coke that was.
"I don't believe we've met," Toby said, smiling at Mickey in a way that made his knuckles itch, "You walked Mandy down the aisle, didn't you?"
Mickey nodded, "Yeah, I'm the brother."
"She looked beautiful," Toby gushed and Mickey was starting to realise that he was one of those classic gays, one of the stereotypical ones. Mickey didn't know why that annoyed him a little bit. "Her dress was amazing."
Even though he was starting to realise he couldn't help but hate the guy talking to him, even Mickey couldn't deny what he was saying was true.
"It looked expensive," Ian put in, "Is she going to have to return it?"
Mickey snorted, "Like I'd let my baby sister return her wedding dress."
"Mick, you can't really steal a wedding dress," Ian said, frowning at him a little, "I'm guessing she hired it or something, that kind of means you have to return it."
"Yeah well, she didn't hire it," Mickey said, knocking back the shot of vodka that Lip knowingly handed to him. Lip was oddly silent though, like he knew this was a conversation that Mickey needed to be having on his own.
Ian was still frowning at him, "How the hell did she afford it then?"
And Mickey would admit he could see how unlikely it was sounding, that they'd actually managed to buy that dress. But it offended him a little that Ian seemed to be jumping straight to the conclusion that they'd acquired the dress by some dodgy means. "Mandy didn't," he said, rubbing the back of his neck, "I took double shifts and stuff to help her afford it."
"Doing what, pushing drugs?"
Had the old him really been this bad?
He hated that he already knew the answer to that question.
"Yeah, sure, we'll go with that," Mickey muttered, not wanting to have this argument because he knew it was all pointless anyway. That and he really didn't want to break his hand again punching something. "You mind if I cut out early?" he asked Lip, "I got shit I have to do."
He didn't, but he could tell Lip understood.
He nodded, "Yeah sure, man, I'll see you when we get back from our trip."
They couldn't afford a proper honeymoon, so they were spending the weekend in a hotel. A pretty nice hotel admittedly, so it was probably as good as a honeymoon. Calling it a trip though was probably exaggerating it a little.
"Have fun," he muttered and didn't look at Ian again as he moved across the make-shift dance floor to where Mandy was talking to Lip's sister Fiona.
She grinned at him, a little drunkenly when he approached, but because she was Mandy, she saw the pain in his eyes within a heartbeat. "I'm going to take off," he said, knowing his expression was apologetic. He didn't really want to leave, but he couldn't stay there any longer. He felt like he was about to be sick. "Have fun on your honeymoon."
Mandy wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek. "You okay?" she muttered in his ear and he nodded because her hair was sort of filling up his mouth with the way she was hugging him. "Thanks for everything, Mick," she said when they pulled apart, smoothing her hands down the front of the dress to emphasise what she was on about.
"You're all I have," he replied honestly, "You don't need to thank me."
Her expression told him that yes, she thought she did, but she didn't say anything else. She just touched his cheek briefly, fleetingly and then he was walking away. He didn't know quite where the hell he was going, but it just had to be away from here, away from Ian.
He was finding that it was becoming increasingly difficult to hide it when the person he had been and the person he was now collided together. They were worlds apart, but somehow the same and it confused the hell out of Mickey. He supposed because of that, he couldn't really expect anybody else to understand either.
So why did his brain keep telling him that Ian would know? That Ian would understand?
