The air was too thick as he breathed in and he could taste something metallic in the back of his throat that almost made him gag. Except he recognised another smell, something underneath the clogged up, heavy smell. It was barely there, but it felt like everything he was, the thing that made him who he was, his soul maybe or whatever, that recognised the smell. And that was why Mickey's feet moved him forwards instead of backwards.
He didn't have a clue where he was and he had even less idea where he was going, but he was pretty used to that feeling. Mickey never knew where he was headed, if anywhere. He thought maybe it was the streets of New York, except there were no people, no cars and no signs or anything. Everything was just bare and empty. Mickey thought for a second that maybe he should be scared, but he was a Milkovich, they didn't do fear. Not really.
Out of the corner of his eye he could see tendrils of darkness creeping up the building, but every time he twisted around to look there was nothing there.
The smell was getting stronger, but at the same time so was that taste in the back of his throat. It was clogging up his senses, thick and heavy and weighing him down. Coughing didn't help and he tried to spit but his tongue suddenly felt like sandpaper in his mouth.
Mickey wasn't normally clumsy person, he'd grown up in a house where breathing could warrant a punch; so being clumsy had never been an option. Mickey was a careful sort of person, or at least he liked to think so. He wasn't so sure what he thought of himself anymore.
He grunted as he hit the floor, his feet sliding against the ground suddenly and everything span in shades of black and white and grey; but then Mickey hadn't seen in colour for a long time. He pushed himself up onto his hands and knees and suddenly everything was stained red. It was sticking to his skin and clinging to his clothes, soaking through the material and moulding them onto him slick and warm.
"Mickey."
His name was whispered, the voice so familiar that it made something inside of him break and scream. He looked away from the red on his hands and staggered to his feet, following the smudged path across the floor. It wasn't a street anymore, it was just a plain slab of concrete. He slipped several times and then almost crashed to the floor when he found them.
Kara and Tegan were lying pale and motionless beside each other, their faces turned up to a sky that wasn't there. They looked peaceful, like they were asleep, except Mickey knew the difference. They were lying off to the side, untouched by the red, painted in shades of white and grey. Darkness licked up around them like flames and Mickey could feel the prick of tears behind his eyelids.
"Mick."
He tore his gaze away from Kara and Tegan and found him. He was slumped in a puddle of colour, his back resting against a wall that hadn't been there a few seconds ago. The edges of it were charred and blackened and the cracking paint was smeared with blood. Ian was dressed in combat uniform, his jacket stripped away and cast aside, almost completely swallowed up by the red. His hands were pressed against his belly and Mickey could see the red bubbling up through his fingers, could see it striped across Ian's cheekbone like war paint.
"Mick."
His lips barely moved when he spoke, but Mickey could hear his name clearly, the weight of it slamming into him like a truck. A choked sort of noise dragged its way out of his lungs as he crashed down next to Ian by the wall, scrabbling to hold his face, pushing his thumbs against the corners of Ian's mouth to try and force the grimace into a smile just slightly. His fingers curled around behind Ian's ears, pushing into his hair a little.
His hair had always been so bright, but it looked dull now in comparison to all the blood.
"You were supposed to save us," Ian said, his voice nothing more than a whisper even though Mickey heard it like a shout. His fingers lifted up from the wound on his stomach to curl around Mickey's wrists, the pressure barely there at all and that wasn't right, that wasn't right at all because there had never been anything weak about Gallagher touching him.
Every touch had always felt like a brand, searing right through to Mickey's soul, but this didn't. This touch was barely even there. He felt like maybe he wanted to cry and then he knew he was because Ian's hands were moving to his face, pressing against his cheeks and smudging red against them. But Mickey didn't care, he just hauled Ian closer by his grip on his head, pressed their foreheads together, their hands touching as well.
"You weren't supposed to leave me," Ian said, but it didn't sound like the accusation it should have been, "You weren't supposed to hurt me."
Mickey shook his head against what Ian was saying, because he didn't get it. Ian had never gotten it. Mickey was never supposed to do anything. He'd never wanted to hurt Ian. He'd rather had hurt himself a thousand times over rather than hurt Ian, but it had been inevitable. Just like everything seemed to inevitably come to an end for Mickey. All of the good things, they all ended too soon.
"I'm sorry," he muttered against the darkness as it closed in around them, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
And he was. He was more sorry than he would ever be, more sorry than he ever make Ian understand. More sorry than he knew how to say; because Mickey had never been good with words, he'd never been a talker, not like Ian was. "I'm sorry."