Chapter Text
There was a universal truth in place that seemed to keep the fabric of south Chicago held together tightly like an expensive woolen coat: Gallaghers were catnip to Milkoviches.
It had to be one of Newton’s laws. Centripetal force or whatever. All Mickey knew was that it was real and powerful shit. It’d led to the disastrous high school courtship of his sister Mandy and the oldest boy Lip, their inevitable breakup shaking the thin walls of his shitty house with its intensity and somehow reaching right through his noise cancelling headphones. Lip had cheated on her with his ex. Mandy ran over the bitch with her car. Mickey found it best not to ask for any details.
Now his cousin Sandy had followed suit, shacking up with single mom Debbie just four months into a tumultuous relationship. Fucking lesbians. He could swear to you that he hadn’t heard them do anything but fight and fuck for the entire length of time they’d been together. But Sandy was happy, oddly, and with her gone and his asshole father sent back to the clink for giving his P.O. a shiner, the Milkovich household was down two and roomier than ever. You wouldn’t catch him complaining about that.
Even his older brother Iggy had a thing for Fiona way back in the seventh grade — and that little dalliance went about as well as any of the others did. He’d flipped her skirt up in the hallway on their way to lunch and she’d knocked him back into the lockers with a right hook.
But his one consolation through the storm of flying kitchen utensils and colorful insults remained the simple, blissful fact that rang as true as the initial proverb: he was immune.
Lip had just gotten engaged to the mother of his kid, Carl was dating a literal Cadet Kelly, and Liam...was in middle school. Not to mention their other brother, who’d fucked off to the army the second he’d turned eighteen. Mickey had never met the guy. Mandy said he was alright, but he would just have to take her word for it.
The new Fiona Lishman and Sandy’s ginger each had an extra X chromosome apiece than he’d care for, covering every last one of his bases. He sent up a silent prayer in thanks to whatever the fuck was up there every time he was reminded of just how truly batshit the Gallaghers were that he wouldn’t have to feel the cosmic and terrible pull of attraction to any one of them.
*
“It’s like he wants to get his ass beat,” Mandy muttered over the potato she was peeling. “Y’know?”
Mickey unfortunately did. He also didn’t have to ask who she was talking about; they’d been helping Sandy move into her new place all afternoon and the whole Gallagher rat pack was hauling Debbie and her kid over. Lip had come with baby Freddie in tow, and when he wasn’t shushing everybody at the slightest sound he was clinging to Tami, committing the cardinal sin of being in a happy relationship when Mandy was coming up on a year single.
Mandy whipped around at the lack of response from her brothers, eyes narrowed. “‘Why yes, Mandy, I agree. Gee Mandy, thanks for making dinner for us while we sit on our asses doing fuck all.’ I swear to god a Ouija board could summon better company than the three of you.”
Iggy and Jamie looked up from their bong guiltily. She scoffed.
“Okay, new rule. Whoever doesn’t help with dinner doesn’t fucking eat. Sound fair?”
His brothers got up from their dents in the couch begrudgingly, wandering over to the cabinets in a half hearted search for ingredients. Mickey slunk further into his armchair, hoping that his phone covered enough of his face to avoid the agony that was cooking with Mandy.
“Mickey, don’t think I don’t see you over there hiding from me. Get in here and chop these carrots or I’ll shove one so far up your ass your shit turns orange.”
“Jesus,” Mickey groused, throwing his phone onto the coffee table. “This how you always treat the staff at Mandy’s Diner?”
“You’re more than welcome to unionize, bitch. See how well that feeds ya. Unless you’ve got a craving for Hana Sushi,” she jerked her head to the menu on the fridge. Mickey grimaced. The Midwest was the last place to be setting up a joint selling raw fish. His intestines could attest to that.
So he shut up. He wished he could say the same for Mandy. But as he was cutting up vegetables, she showed no signs of ever stopping her endless stream of complaints, thankfully moving on from Lip’s transgressions to the bitchy old Northside women that came to her nail salon. Tuning her out was old hat for him by now, but he found his ears perking up when he heard something that sounded suspiciously like him being signed up for a job he hadn’t accepted.
“Sorry, what was that?” He swung around, eyebrows raised to mid-forehead.
Mandy rolled her eyes. “Honestly, does anyone in this house listen to me? I said that Jimmy’s mom stopped by? Fiona’s Jimmy? Said they could use help with the heater at their place, it’s been acting up and it’s almost winter. They only live right next door to the fuckin’ rest of them, Mick, it’s not Timbuktu.”
“I know where Barbie and Ken live, fuck you very much,” he slid the carrots from the cutting board into the boiling pot. “Couldn’t they have asked me themselves? This afternoon maybe, when we were shipping Sandy off to Alcatraz?”
“Mm-hmm, but they don’t like you,” Mandy grinned. “Hence the grapevine. Plus you’d have probably told them to fuck off.”
“Would not,” Mickey said defensively. Upon further consideration, he definitely would have.
Mandy patted his shoulder on her way past him to check on the pot. “Whatever helps you sleep at night.”
Mickey groaned, rubbing black spots into the backs of his eyelids with his thumb and forefinger. “Don’t do that shit again. My good graces only extend so far - the family of the chick my cousin’s banging is where the degrees of separation stop for me.”
“‘Good graces’,” Jamie chuckled. Mickey leveled him with a glare that was too familiar to be effective.
“‘Boo hoo, my sister gets me work so I can afford rent and groceries.’ I should be charging you a commission, asswipe,” Mandy said.
Mickey gave her a very particular finger for that. “With the amount of Oreos you’ve snatched from my stash for the past twenty three years, you owe me.”
“Eat a dick.”
“Careful Mandy, he’ll do it,” Iggy said.
“Fuck you,” Mickey grunted. “Fuck. Does this mean I’m gonna be spending even more time with the Babysitter’s Club?”
Mandy smiled over her tasting spoon. “I hope you like termites and daddy issues.”