Sorry it's been a while for this one, but hopefully maybe it was worth the wait. . . I dunno. . . either way enjoy. . .
Mandy was the next one to find out about the scars and that was because she had no concept of privacy at all. She burst into his room with a grin on her face that fell off so quickly it was like it had never even been there in the first place. She just stared at him. Stared as he was sitting there with the bottoms of his trousers rolled up so that he could rub cream into his calves. They both froze and just stared at each other, Mandy's eyes bugging out of her head and Mickey's heart pounding so hard it was threatening to burst right out of his fucking chest.
"Well shut your fucking mouth," he snapped at her eventually and wished he hadn't, because he was expecting her to made a snide comment back at him or something. He wasn't prepared for the way the tears spilled over and ran down her cheeks, smudging her make-up in a way that she fucking deserved if she was going to wear that much of it.
And then she was next to him on the bed, pressing against his side and still staring with wide eyes at the ruined skin of his legs. "What did you do?" he'd never heard his sister sound so small before. So heartbroken. It was pitiful and it wasn't something he knew how to deal with, but he couldn't run away from it. If he ran, Mandy would talk, she'd spread the word that Mickey was fucking ugly on the outside now too.
Or at least even more so.
And so Mickey explained, in a dead voice and not looking at his sister once. He explained. He just kept rubbing the cream into the burns, feeling the tight skin loosen up, like a coil that had suddenly been released. It felt good, but he hated it at the same time. He hated that he had to do this just to feel normal. He hated that he needed this cream more than he needed anything else.
The one time that he risked a glance sideways at Mandy, she was staring at him like she was trying to work out whether or not he was lying. He looked away quickly and didn't look again. He didn't even know why he was so ashamed to have to tell the story. Both Kara and Tegan had called him an idiot for hating the burns, but to him, being burnt in the first place was evidence that he hadn't tried hard enough to protect them. He'd said he'd protect them and he hadn't done. He had failed. Kara had been in a coma and Tegan had a fucking bullet wound in her shoulder for fuck's sake.
He felt like every semblance, every ounce of control that he had ever had was slipping away from him. And the thing Mickey hated more than anything was to feel out of control. It was why he'd always turned tail and run when things happened with Ian. It was why he'd always shied away from any form of commitment or responsibility. Because now, now he was trapped. Now he had no choice but to battle on through and Mickey didn't know how to do that.
He didn't plan on ever giving up, not till someone put a fucking bullet in his skull, but he still didn't like it. Not at all.
"Mickey?" she asked eventually, after the silence had stretched out between them, weighing them both down, pressing them down into the ground.
He finally made himself look at her and he hated the sight of the black lines smudged down her cheeks. He hated them more than he hated a lot of things, because Mickey had never liked seeing his baby sister cry.
"Mick, why did you leave?" she asked, her voice quiet, but seeming loud in the cramped room, "Why did Dad want to kill you?"
He wanted to look away, but he couldn't. He couldn't tear his eyes away from hers. "You know why," he told her, because he knew she did. Or at least he was pretty positive that she did. Mandy hadn't been there when he'd told his father, when he'd screamed his own death sentence out. No, she'd only been there to see him flee, to see him run. But he would have thought she'd been told. Judging by the look on her face and the shake of her head, he was wrong.
"Don't make me say it," he was practically begging, because he didn't know how to say those words out loud. He'd only just managed to tell Kara and even then it had been with a foul taste in his mouth. He wasn't ashamed of it, but he didn't like saying it. It still sounded like a condemnation to his own ears to hear the words. Something Terry had deeply engrained into his thoughts since he was a child.
He could tell how concerned Mandy was by the way her eyes widened and the tears stopped. She knew Mickey didn't ever beg for anything. He never had done. Not even when their Dad had had his arm twisted up behind his back and was threatening him, trying to force him to beg or apologise. Mickey had never cracked, but now here he was, broken and ruined beyond recognition with an edge to his voice that he'd never wanted to hear.
The house had always been stifling, but right then it felt like it was pressing in on him from every side. It felt like it was slowly choking the life out of him. He felt sick and twisted up inside. He felt like he was burning from the inside out. Like something was trying to claw its way out of him and reach the light. Except there was no light in this house. There had never been. It was all shadows and darkness, mixed up and churning in a fog of drugs and booze and abuse. The Milkovich house was like another world. It was all backwards and wrong. It was violent and tainted and Mickey could feel his family name practically branded on his skin.
It made him squirm, made him die inside every time everyone called him by his last name. "Milkovich!" It meant he was one of many. It meant he was tarred with the same brush as all of the others. He was "Milkovich" to the outside world and "boy" to his father. He was the same, just another one doomed to fail. Except he wasn't. He refused to be. He was "Mickey", the name laughed out from a child's lips, Mandy's eyes lighting up as she grabbed at his hair with small fists, smiling and happy and unknowingly setting him free a little bit inside. He wasn't "Milkovich" or "son", he was Mickey.
And then he was "Mick" breathed out in the middle of sex, rough and raw, the emotion clogged up in between the letters. He was "Mick" said with a smile and a laugh and a look in Ian's eyes that made Mickey twist up inside in a way that he didn't understand, but also in a way he didn't hate. He was "Mick" when a thumb swiped over the scar on his thigh, when Ian thought he was asleep, when he could whisper "Mick" reverently, like it was a prayer. And Mickey didn't stop him, didn't open his eyes. He just clung to that small glimmer of light, that new name, that new brand, the one he wanted to wear proudly but didn't know how to make it show.
Until he became "Milkovich" again. Passing Ian in the street and slamming his shoulder hard into the redhead's, barging past because he couldn't look. He couldn't see Ian, not standing next to some guy, not smiling at someone else, branding someone else with a new name and a careful touch. "Who's that?" the guy had looked over his shoulder at Mickey and Mickey had just kept on walking away.
"That's just Milkovich," Ian had replied and there was that. He wasn't "Mickey" he wasn't "Mick", he was nothing again. He was one of the same, tarred with the same brush all because of a name.
Just like that it was too much, far too much. Just like that the walls were closing in on him, pressing against him and making him choke. Making him gasp for air. So he tore free. He tore free with a fist to his father's face and his backpack stuffed with the only things he ever would want to take. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" his father spat blood out onto the floor as he rose back up to look at his son, to look at Mickey. Because this time he was seeing Mickey, he was seeing Mick, he wasn't going to be one of the same anymore.
He refused.
He laughed, his head tipped back and the sound harsh. "Well there's the thing," he sneered out, his muscles bunching as he prepared to bolt, to get out and to not come back. He wouldn't come back, he was sure. "Nothing's fucking wrong with me, you just made me think there was."
Terry was slow on the uptake, he didn't understand, but then he didn't need to in order to want to beat the shit out of his youngest son. He was going to anyway, Mickey knew that. But this time Mickey wanted him to know. He didn't care if it was the last thing he ever said, but he wasn't going to die as "Milkovich" or as "boy" and he wasn't going to live as that any longer either.
"I may be a fucking queer, but you're the one that's fucked up," Mickey snarled out, straightening up a little more because there was the thing. He wasn't even scared. His father was a terrifying person, but right then, Mickey wasn't scared. He was flying off of pain and anger and years of self-hate. He was running off of need and for once, he was doing something for him. Pure and simple. For him.
"Get the fuck out of my house," Terry was red-faced and furious, but he was shocked as well and Mickey knew he had until that shock wore off, "No son of mine is going to be a fucking faggot."
And Mickey laughed again, never once taking his eyes off of Terry, because right there – right there! – was the point. "Gladly," he sounded too calm even to his own ears, sounded too calm even as he got ready to bolt, "Because I ain't your fucking son."
The he was running, crashing past Mandy and for a second he thought he saw a flash of red, thought he saw Ian next to her, but Mickey didn't look back. He just run. He didn't turn back even when he heard the sounds of Terry following him, of Mandy screaming. He just got the fuck out of Chicago. He just ran until he could feel the tension that was wound tight around his chest, choking him, killing him slowly release. He didn't stop running until he found "Mickey" in a friend's smile. He didn't stop running until he found "Mick" in a little girl's sleepy mumble, her arms winding around his neck and the fear fading out of her eyes.
And then he ran some more.
"I'm gay," he told Mandy with his teeth gritted together and his expression completely serious, "That's why, because I'm gay."
She didn't expect it, obviously, but she didn't react like he thought she would. She just rolled her eyes at his seriousness, punched him hard on the arm and then lying back to rest on her elbows as she said, "Yeah well Mickey, you're still my favourite." And there it was, that same smile and light in her eyes as when she'd said it the first time.
"Mickey" not "Milkovich". He was different not the same.
He just snorted and bumped her with his shoulder, setting aside the tub of cream. He didn't even flinch when she reached out to trail her fingers down the marred flesh, like she was checking it was really there and not just a figment of her imagination. "I've seen worse," she muttered as she stared up at the ceiling, her hand withdrawing from his skin and just like that, the tension wrapped around him started to unwind again.
"The fuck you doing here anyway?" he asked her so that he didn't have to try and think of words to say to that.
Mandy just shrugged, the picture of relaxation as she laid back completely and splayed her hands flat against her belly. "Oh yeah," she said, not looking at him, "I'm pregnant."