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The Gallaghers sat in their living room, chatting about this and that, when someone started hammering on the door.
"Who the fuck is that?" Lip mumbled and went to open the door.
In front of him stood a fucked up looking Mickey Milkovich, whiskey bottle in hand, clearly drunk.
"Where is he?" He growled and didn't wait for the answer, instead just stormed past Lip into the living room.
"Mickey?!" Ian asked surprised and was on his feet immediately.
"You, fucking asshole!" His words were slightly slurred "I want a fucking explanation from you, now!"
"Ay, Mickey, fucking leave, come on get out!" Lip already made the attempt to throw the drunken man out, but Ian stopped him.
"Lip wait, let him", he walked further into the room, standing by the couch to look at his ex-boyfriend.
"Explanation for what Mickey?"
"For fucking it all up, how about that? Why, Ian? Why did you have to fucking ruin it?" Mickey started to walk through the living room, as if he was headed for the kitchen but he stopped before the doorway and turned around to him.
"Ruin what?"
"This! All of fucking this!" His voice was loud, almost yelling through the room, He pointed back and forth between the two of them "Why did you fucking HAD to ruin It? Everything was fucking... perfect. For the first time, ever, in my life, it was good and great and... I cared if I lived or died or was in jail or not, and you ruined it - again, by the way!"
Ian bit his lip and looked to his family, it's been three weeks since Ian broke up with Mickey and no one had seen the Milkovich since he had left the Gallagher house back then.
"Maybe this isn't the right place for this conversation, Mick"
"Why not? Aren't they supposed to know what a fucking asshole you are? Are you embarrassed? Of me or yourself?"
Ian took a deep breath and crossed his arms in front of his chest.
"I told you why I broke up with you, Mick. You can't fix me, I have that disorder and you can't change it"
"Who the fuck tries to change it?" He put his hands on his head and let out a frustrated groan, "Fucking hell, I just didn't want you to die in a car crash together with the kid, you stupid bastard! Fuck!"
He turned around as if he wanted to go to the kitchen but then stopped and turned back to Ian.
"And then you run away with Monica! Where the fuck is the logic in that! Weeks of 'oh I'm not Monica!' " He mimicked Ian in a high pitched voice, " 'I'm not like Monica' 'I will never be like Monica' 'Don't act like I'm Monica' 'I don't have what Monica has' 'Don't treat me like I'm like Monica' " he went back into his normal voice and stared Ian down "'Oh you know who I'm gonna run away with? Fucking Monica! Are you completely dense?!"
Ian looked down in shame, biting his lip.
"Mickey that's enough, stop" Fiona stood up.
"Oh, then tell me that I'm wrong Bitch!" He shook his head and turned around again to go back to the kitchen.
A second later he changed his mind and came back out "And it wasn't even the first time, that you ruined it all! You keep doing that! The last fucking years! You ruined it and ruined it and somehow, I was always the bad guy! That's some motherfucking talent!"
Ian swallowed hard, even if he wanted to say something, he probably couldn't.
"Years of this bullshit from you! 'Oh Mickey, I don't care that your dad would kill you if he knew you were gay I'm gonna be mad that you don't want to be my boyfriend' " he started mimicking Ian in the high voice again, " 'Oh Mickey, if you don't kiss me I'm gonna keep on fucking this zombie in front of you' 'Oh Mickey You just got raped but I'm the one who is hurt and makes jokes about it!' 'Oh Mickey, you have to marry your rapist but I'm the real victim of your selfishness and gonna make you feel guilty about it!' 'Oh, Mickey your dad, who almost killed you, forced you to marry your rapist so I'm gonna run away to the motherfucking army!" He yelled the last part and they could see Ian flinching at his harsh words.
The other Gallaghers, that knew nothing about this story were too shocked about this reveal to do anything to stop the Milkovich.
"But hey, we aren't finished yet, right? 'Oh Mickey, if you don't suck my dick every day I'm gonna run away again' and my personal favourite 'Oh Mickey, if you don't come out in front of your homophobic, sadistic Nazi dad, who almost killed you and had you raped the last time, and the rest of your family you don't fucking know about what they are gonna do to you, I'm gonna leave you and never talk to you again!", he screamed at Ian, who flinched again and swallowed, biting his lip hard, " And then it went on 'Oh Mickey, after pressuring you into a relationship for years I'm just gonna fuck someone else!"
Mickey made a step in Ian's direction "You thought I didn't know about it?" He asked lowly "Apart from the fact that you let some queen fuck you without a rubber for some fucking porno, I also know about the other times. You think I wouldn't notice? I did fucking notice. But I kept my mouth shut, why? Oh, right, cause your siblings said, it's a symptom of that fucking disease and wanted to lock you up in a psych ward and I was against it! So, I kept my mouth shut while you cheated on me because I didn't want to lose you! How fucked up is that, huh?" He yelled the last part again.
"How could you do that to me Ian?" He asked lowly again "Any of it! All you cared about was me committing to you, saying what I felt, so I did, and you left me because of it. You wanted me to say that I love you in one of my darkest times and were mad when I didn't. Now I said it, twice, and you left me in the same breath. I'll never get behind that."
Mickey shook his head again and this time really went into the kitchen.
Silent tears were floating out of Ian's eyes, he rubbed them away with his sleeve but there was no stopping.
He wouldn't have thought, Mickeys words could ever hurt him so deeply.
He sobbed and took a deep breath before going after him.
Mickey leaned against the kitchen counter and stared at the whiskey bottle, taking a big sip, and staring at it again, as if he was playing a game.
"Mick" Ian whispered, his face was red, and tear stained, his voice broke Halfway through the name.
Mickey look at him and his face softened.
"Why are you crying?" He asked quietly and walked over to him, cupping his cheeks, "Why are you crying, Army, huh?" He used his thumbs to rub the tears away, "Don't cry, please, I hate it when you cry, can't stand it, you should never cry, you should always be happy" he whispered and started kissing his tears away, little butterfly kisses all over his face before hugging him, as if he couldn't remember that he was the reason Ian cried.
Ian hugged him back, hiding his face in the crook of his neck.
The Ginger sobbed into Mickeys shirt, he felt even more awful when the Milkovich comforted him - He didn't deserve to be comforted by him.
Mickey was right, every syllable that had left his drunk brain and whiskey stained lip had been true, and Ian had never seen it out of his perspective. In his own eyes, he had been in the right most of the time but hearing how Mickey had experienced his behaviour hurt his heart. And after he had put him through all of this, he broke up with him, and even after that, Mickey could stand here and comfort him.
Ian pulled back a few inches and looked into Mickeys blue eyes.
"Why are you doing this?"
"Doing what?" He asked confused.
"Comforting me? After you just told me what a piece of shit I am, you still comfort me, even though I don't deserve that."
Mickey shrugged and looked helplessly up at him.
"Because I love you. I can't just let you stand here crying. Caring about you... it's like breathing, I can't stop it, and I will try to do it, even if it's you who suffocates me."
Mickey let go of him and went for the back door.
"Where are you going?" Ian asked, the pain still in his voice.
"I'm tired, maybe I'll jump off a bridge and see what happens. Seems a good night for that" he mumbled and left.
Ian sobbed again and then quickly wiped his face with his sleeve again and ran to the front door to get his shoes and jacket.
"What are you doing?" Fiona asked.
"I just... I need to make sure he gets home alright." He explained quietly and went after his ex-boyfriend.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mickey woke up with a painful headache.
He looked around his room and found the whiskey bottle from last night under the bed, it was empty.
The Milkovich sighed, this meant he would have to get up and get a new one. Didn't seem like a good plan given the dizzy feeling in his head.
He made an attempt on standing up though and managed to make his way to the attached bathroom first. Since he had the house to himself, he slept sometimes in one bed sometimes in another, he couldn't sleep in the one that used to belong to him and Ian once. He just couldn't deal with the memories and his smell that was still on the pillows because he also refused to wash it, so he could keep Ian's smell a little longer. Most of the time he would sleep in his old bedroom.
He took a piss, brushed his teeth to get the disgusting taste out of his mouth and took a cold shower, hoping it would help the headache somehow.
He threw on some oversized shirt, that probably belonged to Ian, and sweatpants before making his way to the kitchen.
He stopped in the doorway when he saw someone standing by the stove.
He must be dreaming, maybe hallucinating, something like this.
He looked from his room to the kitchen, trying to see if anything else was different, this must be a dream. He had those often in the last time.
The redheaded Gallagher turned around to him.
"Hey" he said, he looked him up and down and his eyes stayed on the shirt for a second, "I didn't expect you to be up so early. How is your head?"
"First of all, please talk quieter, my head is about to explode" he mumbled "And second, what are you doing here?"
"Breakfast" he shrugged and put some aspirin and a glass of water in front of Mickey, "And we need to talk about yesterday."
"Yesterday?" He asked confused.
"You don't remember?"
"Remember what?"
"You came to my house... drunk... screamed at me...", he trailed of.
Mickeys head rebelled against the attempt of thinking, but he found some memory parts from the evening before.
"Oh... yeah, there is something along those lines. That doesn't explain why you stand in my kitchen making breakfast."
"Last night I brought you home, making sure you don't jump off a bridge or some shit."
"Oh please, if I wanted to kill myself, I'd shoot myself."
Ian took the gun next to the stove and held it up "With this one?"
"Hey, careful, I'm playing a game of Russian roulette with that one."
"Russian roulette?"
"One Shot per week" Mickey shrugged.
"So, you try to kill yourself every week?"
"It's more like a game of fate, because who fucking cares if I'm lying dead in a corner or not? Could you imagine how long it would take them to find me?" He breathed out a humourless laugh.
Ian sighed and switched the stove off. He brought two plates with scrambled eggs over to the kitchen table.
"Eat"
"I don't want you to die, Mickey" he said after a while.
Mickey just shrugged.
"I thought a lot about the things you've said last night. I know you can't remember most of it, but... You pretty much told what an awful person I am in front of my whole family. I never realised who much I hurt you, how selfish I was and what an awful person all together, especially when it came to Svetlana and your dad."
Mickey kept eating his eggs, not looking at the ginger. He didn't react to his words at all.
"I'm sorry." Ian said eventually and put his fork away, "I'm sorry for all the shit I put you through. I really am... so fucking sorry. For everything."
Mickey knew Ian was waiting for an answer, but he didn't have any, so he just shrugged and kept eating.
"Isn't this what you wanted? I feel bad"
"I never wanted you to feel bad" he mumbled.
"I'm sorry. I apologised. Isn't that what you came to hear yesterday? Or was it so I would take you back?"
Because Ian would take Mickey back. After yesterday, after hearing Mickeys perspective, after seeing all the mistakes he had done, he wanted a second chance. He was better with the meds now, took them religiously. He wanted to make all the pain up to Mickey, make it better, be the boyfriend he deserved.
Mickey just scoffed.
"Take me back? No. I don't know why I came over. Maybe to beat you up, to castrate you, cut my fucking initials into your skin or stab you in the face. I don't know. But I know, that you wouldn't take me back. You could have anyone. You had me, you didn't want me anymore, hell if you ever really wanted me at all, I don't expect you to magically change your mind. And I wouldn't come to your house and beg you to take me back, like some Bitch."
Ian exhaled deeply and desperately tried not to start crying.
"Last night, you said you love me."
"Of course, I do" he shrugged "I don't just randomly stop with that. But since when does me loving you change anything?"
Mickey got up from the table and put his empty plate into the sink, before opening the fridge and getting a beer out.
A tear slipped out of Ian's eyes.
The Gallagher got up.
"I want you back" he said with a firm voice, "I want you to take me back. Let me do it right. Let me show you that I can be a good boyfriend to you. Just give me a chance to show you that I can be everything you want and need... just... please." More tears slipped out of his eyes.
Mickey didn't look at him, he stared at the beer can in his hand and took a deep breath.
"No" he said finally.
"No?"
Mickey shook his head "I came running back to you over and over. Always did what you wanted and always got hurt in the end. I'm tired of it, Ian. I can't... I can't do this another round and another round and another round. Because no matter how often you fuck up, I somehow always forgive you. Somehow, I always do everything to get you back and make this work. You weren't even ready to take some fucking pills. That's how important this was to you. But I'm tired of coming around."
Ian sobbed loudly.
Mickey tightened his hand around the beer, trying to not give into Ian's tears,
"So I tell you, what we will do now. You leave my house. And you will do what you did the last three weeks.", he exhaled deeply "And I will do what I did the last three weeks. Because this is what you wanted. And I'm not gonna guilt you into coming back. And you're not gonna make me come back either."
"So, you just expect me to go home and wait until you killed yourself?"
Mickey shrugged "Yeah. We're all dying eventually. Who cares?'
"I care! I care and I don't want you to die!"
Mickey shrugged again "But that's no reason to be in a relationship Ian. It's just not enough. So, you will just go on with your life like you planned on doing, without me. And I forbid you to cry about that, because you didn't cry when you broke up with me either, you didn't even have any emotion in your voice left for me. And I'm not gonna wait and pretend like you love me just to hear that voice again."
"I do love you Mickey." He sobbed, he was full on crying now and he remembered that drunk Mickey yesterday wasn't able to see him cry without comforting him.
Now Mickey refused to look at him.
"No, you don't. That's the thing I had to accept in the last weeks. You don't love me, it's as simple as that." He shrugged "Now, go. Just do this for me."
Ian was about to break down in Mickeys kitchen.
But he slowly walked up to the door.
If this was what Mickey wanted, he had to at least respect this wish.
He hoped Mickey would stop him though, every step he did, he wished Mickey would stop him. But he didn't.
He reached the door, opened it, he looked back at Mickey, who watched him with tears running down his cheeks as well.
"Mick-"
"Get out"
Ian pressed his lips together and stepped out of the house. He pulled the door shut behind him and leaned over the railing of the front porch. Taking a deep breath.
Then he heard a gunshot from inside the Milkovich house and he could hear his world shatter behind him.