Chapter Text
When Mickey Milkovich was growing up, living on the southside of Chicago was far from easy, but that he could deal with. What he had trouble dealing with was the fact that everyone around him seemed to have something he didn’t and that bothered him.
At age 5, Mickey first realized he was different. He had just started Kindergarten and all the kids were sitting in a circle, when the teacher asked them to go around the class and tell everyone their favorite colors. Most kids answered: Red, Blue, Green, Pink; But when it was Mickey’s turn to go he just looked around confused at his classmates and answered, “I don’t have a favorite color.”
“Oh come on, sure you do,” The teacher said trying to encourage him.
“Nuh uh,” Mickey said crossing his arms and shaking his head.
“Here Mickey look,” The Teacher held up various objects to Mickey, A firetruck, A toy frog, and A banana. “Which color do you like better?”
Mickey stared at the objects questioningly for a moment before he said, “they are the same. Stop trying to trick me.” He then got up and stormed out the door slamming it along the way. The teacher looked concerned and grabbed someone to watch her class as she went to find Mickey sitting in the hall with a pouting look.
“Mickey, are you ok sweetie?” the teacher asked in a soft voice.
“No, that was not very nice.”
“I’m sorry, but I wasn’t trying to trick you. I just wanted to help you pick a favorite color. Did they really all look the same to you?” She asked cautiously.
“Yeah, and my shirt matches them too,” Mickey said now pulling out his shirt to look at it.
Realization dawned on the teacher’s face as she sat staring at the bright red of the little boy’s shirt. She tested Mickey throughout the day with various books and colors and found out that he was red-green colorblind. He seemed to be able to point out blues as a separate color, but all shades of reds and greens kind of faded together into one color group. Yellows took some time but eventually he began to tell the difference between it and the other colors he was seeing.
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20 Years Later…
At 25 years old Mickey’s life was pretty good. He had moved away from the southside at 21, deciding to actual do something with his life. Now 4 years later, and he has an apartment in the city, a shitty apartment, but a roof over his head regardless, and a stable job at a tire shop as assistant manager.
He never let his condition affect him, even when his coworkers tried to be assholes and give him no information on a car coming in except ‘oh it’s the red one’. Being colorblind was always something he was pretty open about, but what he was not open about was the fact that he was also gay. Mickey felt like life just decided to fuck him over and always make him draw the small stick, because really who wants to be a gay, colorblind, walking, talking piece of southside trash? This is why he left, to be himself and not have everyone knowing him and all his business. That is until one day someone walked into his shop that knew him and his family all too well. “Mickey?”