It was more than a little bit strange altering his routine now that Kara was awake. Not that he minded in the slightest, but it did drag up the question of whether or not they were going to leave again once she was discharged. He thought the chances of them going were slim if only for the reason that Carl and Tegan were closer than ever and as stupid as it was, it would probably kill Mickey inside if he had to separate them.
He told himself that his desire to maybe stick around in Chicago had absolutely nothing to do with any other Gallagher other than Carl and even then, he told himself that it was only for Tegan. Of course, Mickey also sort of knew that he was lying to himself. He felt like an idiot because now that he'd seen Ian, spoken to him even though he hadn't really spoken to him at all, he couldn't get him out of his head.
Not even after Tegan had been shot and Kara had woken up. All of his thoughts somehow managed to find their way back to Ian fucking Gallagher. It was stupid. In fact, it was beyond stupid. It was pathetic. And it didn't help that Ian kept popping up in the most random of places. It also didn't help that Gallagher had decided he was going to frequent the Alibi a lot more than he ever would have normally done. Mickey didn't know his reasons, didn't want to let himself think that it had anything to do with Mickey since it most likely didn't. He wondered if maybe war had taken some sort of toll on Ian or something.
He didn't have the courage to ask.
They didn't talk during those times when they'd both be in the same place. If Ian noticed that he kept seeing Mickey around, then he didn't say anything about it. Neither of them commented at all. Except Mickey couldn't help but think that it was almost like they were magnets, constantly being pulled towards each other. He couldn't help but wonder if he was the only one who wasn't trying to pull away all that hard. He'd worked out that Gallagher hadn't forgotten about him, but that didn't really mean anything. Well, okay, no, it meant something. But it didn't mean what Mickey wanted it to. It didn't mean Ian gave a shit, because when Gallagher gave a shit about something, he fucking voiced his opinion. And he hadn't said anything to Mickey, so obviously, he didn't care enough to.
And yet, Mickey knew he wasn't imagining the glances that Ian slid his way when he thought the ex-con wasn't liable to notice.
A part of Mickey felt like a coward for not confronting Ian about the past, about the present, about anything. He felt like a coward for not acknowledging Ian at all, even though he wanted to. The difference was, he knew that it was for the best. He had bigger things to worry about than Ian Gallagher, than his old love life, than any love life at all. He had the girls to protect and bills to pay and it was all so stupidly domestic that it made his teeth ache.
"So Ian's the one you used to fuck isn't he?" Tegan asked when it was just them in their apartment. Mickey had already downed a few beers and was halfway through smoking a joint, which was probably the only reason she'd had the courage to ask him.
He scowled, "And why the fuck would you think that?"
Tegan snorted and rolled her eyes. "Jesus, I'm not stupid," she replied, stretching out where she lay on the couch and sticking her feet into his lap, "You always act weird around him and it's pretty easy to put the pieces together, you said he went off and joined the army and Ian just came back from a tour with the army, so really, if you think about it, it's pretty simple."
She twirled a piece of her hair around her finger. "That and if he wasn't the one you used to fuck, you'd actually do something other than glance at him sideways whenever he'd nearby," she said and she had that expression on her face that implied that she knew everything that there was to know. It was annoying, especially since right at that moment, it was accurate.
"He's a nice guy," she continued when Mickey didn't say anything, not that she probably expected him to. She knew him well enough to know when he was going to open his mouth and when he was going to keep it the fuck shut. "You could definitely do worse."
Mickey snorted, he couldn't help it, "Yeah and he could definitely do better."
He flinched when she smacked him on the arm, the reasoning behind the hit clear by the look in her eyes. Not that he actually met her eyes, but he still saw it anyway. "You're acting like there's even a fucking chance anyway," he replied, blaming the alcohol on the fact that he couldn't seem to not shout the words, "We're done, Gallagher and I are done, we were done a long fucking time ago."
Tegan just rolled her eyes again and shrugged ever so slightly. "You're an idiot," she said in a matter-of-fact sort of way.
Mickey didn't say a word, because maybe he was.
Despite that conversation with Tegan though, nothing changed. He still avoided Gallagher when he could, still didn't speak to him and Ian didn't say anything to him either. It was the way it should be, simple, easy and without any fucking complications. So why did it hurt? Mickey didn't want to think about the answer to that question, he really didn't.
It was stupid, completely stupid, but Mickey thought that he felt like a robot. He developed a new routine pretty quickly, incorporating Kara in more now that she was awake. It was a challenge to stop her from smoking and he could just see it getting harder when she actually got out of the hospital. He'd been right when he'd said that she hadn't taken that news well. She'd actually cried, which was stupid. And she'd punched him when he pointed out that maybe they'd save money on beer now that she had no excuse to spit it out. She'd actually hit him hard enough that he bruised.
And yet, the idea of bruises only made him think of Gallagher, which was pathetic. He couldn't stop himself from remembering when Ian had made a passing comment saying that Mickey bruised easily. It was a statement that Mickey had thought was seriously fucking stupid, but he'd stood there after Ian had left and found every single one of the bruises on his pale body that the redhead had inflicted, the handprints on his hips, the hickeys on his spine, the bite marks on his neck. There'd been bruises on his thighs, on his arms where Ian had gripped them.
Mickey had thought after that that maybe he did bruise easily, but then he'd taken a punch to the jaw from one of his brothers and hadn't bruised at all. He thought that said something about Gallagher. He had been the only one who'd ever been able to mark Mickey. He'd been the only one to be able to mark him both visibly and inside. It was stupid, but that didn't stop it being true.
More than anything though, it was confusing.
Of course, now though, Mickey was marked on the outside even worse. It wasn't just little bruises he could trace back to a good fuck. No, it was horrible burns up his legs, twisting around his calves and marring him forever. He'd had his check-up and been told to keep using the cream. Like he would have stopped anyway. Apparently, they were improving, but Mickey didn't see it. They were still ugly. He was still ugly, he always had been. He could remember his mum telling him that Mickey was too twisted and dark on the inside. He remembered her saying that even if he was good looking, he was always going to be ugly, because there was no light inside of him, nothing to shine out. His mother had hated him, so Mickey had hated her. He blamed her for the fact he was fucked up. Her and Terry. It was both of their faults.
The day of the check-up, Mickey had finally given in and shown Kara the burns on his legs. He'd sat with his feet up on the bed and hadn't stopped her when she'd rolled up his trouser legs. He hadn't stopped her when she'd run her fingers over the rough, ruined skin. He'd only moved when she'd started to cry, wrapping his arms around her in a way that was far too intimate for them. They didn't do that sort of thing, but he didn't know what else to do. He didn't know how else to stop the tears, so he just hugged her.
She didn't say anything and neither did he. And later on, he pretended not to hear her murmured, "I'm sorry." He didn't need her apologies. It wasn't her fault. It had been his choice to go in there, his choice to walk through the fire. None of the blame was on her. Besides, he figured it had just been premature karma for Tegan having gotten shot because of him.
Just that thought alone made him want to gut his brother. The fact the guy was headed to jail did help a little though. It was one less person to worry about.
When Mickey woke up, later on in the morning than usual since it was his day off, he didn't even register the voices at first. He just walked straight out of his room and into the kitchen to grab some painkillers since he'd drunk himself pretty much into a stupor that night. He didn't even have an explanation why other than stress, but Tegan didn't say anything. He thought she understood something that he didn't, but he didn't particularly want to dwell on it.
It was only when he dropped down on the couch with a coffee in hand that he realised several thing. The first being that Carl was there. The second being that Mickey was in nothing but his boxers and the burns crawling up his legs were visible in all their glory. There was no hiding them and even though Carl was staring, he wasn't reducing himself to looking so weak that he'd bolt out of the room. Even if he wanted to.
"What happened?" Carl asked, completely unashamedly.
Mickey could feel a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth when Tegan punched her boyfriend in the arm. "I don't know what you're talking about," Mickey replied gruffly, not comfortable in any way, but he didn't think it was all that cowardly just to not talk about it. Tegan would probably fill the guy in later anyway. If he was being honest, he was surprised that she hadn't done so already.
"The burns," Carl said bluntly, because he was an idiot and apparently terrible at catching a hint.
Tegan hit him again, "Dude, shut the fuck up."
"I got burnt," Mickey said sarcastically, not liking the expression on Tegan's face because he didn't understand it and if he didn't understand it, he couldn't get rid of it. He caught the tub of cream that Tegan tossed to him from the coffee table and figured since they were apparently all fixating on his legs, he might as well put the cream on now rather than in his room.
He had tubs of the stuff lying around all over the apartment for no reason other than he didn't like having to go hunting too far for them when his legs started to get uncomfortable. And they always were in the morning, something about having spent so long in a hot bed making them itch and his skin crawl.
"Yeah, but how?" Carl asked, "You said it had something do to with Tegan's Dad?"
"Mickey saved my mum's life," Tegan said in a low voice, since she'd obviously worked out that Carl wasn't going to drop the subject and Mickey wasn't going to say another word. He was staring at his legs so hard that she probably thought he was about to have a fit or something. He'd never applied the cream so carefully in his life, but he couldn't bring himself to look at Carl, to see the disgust in the kid's eyes. Mickey was already plenty disgusted himself. "My Dad set fire to our motel room and Mickey ran back in to get her out."
"Oh," Carl said, like he hadn't been expecting that, like it surprised him to no end that Mickey had actually been capable of doing some good. He found it impossible to not be just the littlest bit insulted at that.