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The blizzard caved him in.
It came out of nowhere, not even mentioned on the weather broadcast Lip had checked that same morning, trying to make sure the upcoming day was warm enough to work on the gas problems in the Gallagher house - the renovations were starting, and Lip needed to stay on top of them if they planned on selling the house at the highest price possible. He was a step away from exiting the said place when snowflakes started ruthlessly falling from the angry, grey clouds above; the ones that had drawn themselves suddenly over the clear blue sky, blocking the Sun from view.
Lip thought the excuse sounded even better and, weirdly, more poetic than he hoped it to. He hadn't expected the snowstorm to pose the perfect alibi for his absence at home, and yet, here he was, using it as just that.
He most certainly knew the storm was coming; his house - soon-to-be-former house - wasn't far away, a simple ten-minute walk from his current location at his childhood home. Yet, he made no move to leave, not even when his phone pinged with a short text from Tami, alerting him how the snowfall began to increase in volume, and how the wind unnaturally picked up in speed.
Tami was right, as usual. Lip considered it weird how he found his girlfriend insufferable for something as meaningless as pointing out facts. The snow had been getting thicker. When Lip last checked, less than half an hour ago, the front of the house was blanketed in pristine, white powder that glistened in the dusk.
He never replied to Tami's text. He deemed it useless.
Glancing through the dirty windowpane now, seeing how night had fallen and dark was encompassing the town, Lip saw the blurred-out lights of the half-broken Southside street lamps. The rest of the street was imperceptible through the snow-induced fog, the hollering wind sweeping away the fallen snow, swirling it around in the air.
If anybody asked, he didn't know the storm was coming -- he didn't have a single clue.
Perhaps he planned on lying to everyone, including himself, because his mind finally picked up on a usable excuse. A small hint at peace made Lip grasp onto the presented opportunity and hold it tight in his grip, afraid he'd accidentally let it go if he thought too hard about it or about the consequences it might string along. Perhaps he needed a break.
Nothing ever went the way Lip planned, anyway.
It was his mistake, really, for thinking he could use the upcoming downpour as justification for not being home with his girlfriend and son; for taking a night off to simply lay back and close his eyes, not worrying about Tami nagging about the house and the money or Fred being a baby.
He would stay at the somehow empty Gallagher house, sprawl out on the couch, turn on the TV, grab one of the rare cans of soda amongst the endless bottles of beer from somewhere deep in the old, rusty Gallagher fridge, and relax, at least for a little while. At least until the rest of his siblings started to drift back in; that's when Lip would pick himself up, head back to his own home; more so the personal hell he was creating - the house he rented from Milton kept reminding him of his constant failures - and proceed to lie about why he wasn't there sooner; how he didn't consider it safe enough to go outside until now.
The plan was perfect. The excuse was valid. The house was empty.
Naturally, it was Lip's mistake for underestimating the power of mother nature and the interesting ways she worked in, and, most of all, for underestimating his siblings who were never simply away from the shared space.
He had been 'relaxing' on the dirty - even though newly bought - couch for a few measly minutes, Coke can in one hand, the remote in the other, flicking through the channels and enjoying the blissful silence of the empty house, when, suddenly, the lights above him flickered.
Lip observed as they quivered for a few moments, reminding him somewhat of the blinkers on Tami's tiny red car, before they altogether gave out, immersing him into the darkness.
***
He should've known the Gallagher house wasn't empty - it never was, not even on the days where every single one of the family members had something to do in the outside world; something long and complicated that wouldn't have them return to the Southside for hours. He should have known his family, even though he loved them beyond words could explain, would somehow find a way to crawl back into his life when all he wanted from them was to disappear, just for a little while.
Even then it had to be crowded as fuck.
Lip had been wrapping up his conversation with Tami - more like wrapping up getting screamed at by her for leaving her on seen when she texted him about the storm less than an hour ago, back when it was mild enough for him to be able to get back home; the excuse obviously hadn't been that perfect - when Mickey, seemingly out of nowhere, sauntered down the stairs, each step creaking under his weight.
His presence in the house Lip had thought empty this entire day appeared so unexpected that when Lip saw his figure slowly descending from the second floor, he jumped higher than a fucking cat, scared shitless. It took him a few moments of rapid breathing and eye-squinting before Mickey made a sound so unbelievably Mickey that allowed him to finally slow his increasing heart rate.
When Mickey's figure became discernable in the pitch-black room, Lip heaved another sigh of relief. It wasn't because it was Mickey - although that in and of itself was somewhat of a plus - but because it wasn't a murderer looking for a body to burn, a rational fear in Lip's opinion (at least considering how he thought he was alone this entire day, and yet here Mickey was).
He wondered what the fuck Mickey was even doing here. Weren't he and Ian supposed to be out today, doing God-knows-what with their time, attached to the hip even after claiming how their honeymoon phase had ended, long overdue?
Whenever Ian mentioned how it was over for a long time now, almost always after Mickey did something stupid that Ian forgave him for almost immediately after bitching about it, Lip had to snort - it would be a fucking miracle if anyone managed to separate Ian and Mickey long enough from each other to be able to even consider the honeymoon phase to be over. They literally spent less than an hour apart a day, and they fucked more than all of the Gallagher siblings combined - he didn't know if that shit was normal for just-got-married-yesterday newlywed couples, let alone the two of them who had been married for almost a year now and have been together for fucking ten, breaks and all.
Before the questions were able to leave his mouth though, Mickey was already breaking the tense silence, whispering somewhat loudly, as if Lip not being able to see him also impaired his hearing. Mickey's voice sounded more like a hiss to Lip's ears.
"What the fuck are you doing here? I was literally a second away from killing you with a baseball bat!"
Since Lip knew Mickey couldn't see his forehead crease in confusion, he asked, still somewhat breathless from the jump scare he had not too long ago, "What the fuck are you talking about?" Mickey was obviously not carrying a goddamn baseball bat.
Although he was pretty sure Mickey had no aforementioned baseball bat on him, Lip still glanced around, seeking out the wooden object, afraid he had missed almost getting pummeled to death with it by his scary Milkovich in-law; but when his eyes spotted nothing but air, he turned his gaze upwards again towards Mickey's face, an incredulous look on his face.
Where the fuck was the bat!?
"We thought nobody was home when the power went out. And then, all of a fucking sudden, we hear a voice downstairs, and somebody pacing around the house."
Lip didn't miss the we. "You didn't think it could be me here? Or Carl? Fuckin' Frank even, just talking to the walls again?"
"Fuck you, asshole. I suspected it was your dumb ass, but Ian insisted I go check anyway. I left the baseball bat at the top of the stairs when I recognized your whiny, smart-ass voice."
Lip rolled his eyes and imagined Mickey doing the same, although neither of them could actually see each other in the pitch-black living room.
"Well, it's me." He said lamely in response.
Mickey scoffed. "No shit."
He was whisper-shouting still, and Lip refrained from asking why.
He also refrained from wondering if the dark made his brother-in-law more tentative than usual. It probably did considering how Mickey, although he was in the safety of his own home, was tenser than usual. Lip had a nagging feeling it had something to do with him being raised in the Milkovich house, the literal house of horrors.
Mandy had once told Lip - back when they were a dysfunctional couple just starting to open up about their lives and the awful shit that happened to them, trusting each other well enough to know - that the bad stuff mostly ever happened at night time.
At night time when the lack of light helped them avoid his gaze and when the silence was so loud they couldn't find it in them to disturb it with their screams.
Lip remembered listening to Mandy's awful stories back then - the ones she had warned him not to pity her based on, not with so many words as it was with sharply pointed looks - and he remembers her saying she had it the easiest out of them all.
If Mandy had it the easiest, who then had it the worst?
Shaking himself out of the growing dark thoughts, he finally noticed his eyes adjusting to the dark. Mickey's face was now unmistakably his, not just a shadow which the annoying voice belonged to. Lip took a better look at him, taking notice of his messy hair, the scowl he was wearing on his face, and even his clothes; the too-big boxers and a too-large shirt that were hanging off his limbs, evidently Ian's.
"Ian upstairs waiting for you to kill the intruder?" Lip heard the smirk in his own voice as he asked about his little brother, and he could see Mickey battling a smile at the mention. They both knew Ian - the same Ian who was a bulk of a human being - was the biggest scaredy-cat of them all.
"Probably shitting himself right now," Mickey answered, snorting to himself.
"It's a wonder he sent you down here instead of forcing you to stay with him for protection."
"The true wonder is that he hasn't come down here to check to see if I'm dead yet."
Lip cocked an eyebrow, amused. "Will he, eventually?"
Mickey, who had been resting his hands on his hips, his gaze turned up towards the direction of his and Ian's room, now turned his head to lock his gaze with Lip's. He then proceeded to shrug. "I give it a minute."
Lip rose to the bait, always eager to prove Mickey Milkovich wrong. "I give it two."
Mickey didn't tear his gaze away, a small smile playing on his lips, as if he knew a secret Lip didn't.
When the old stairwell creaked, not even ten seconds later, Lip understood Mickey did, in fact, know something Lip didn't - he knew the way his brother's mind worked, at least when it came to his husband.
"You kill him yet?" Ian whispered into the living room, and Mickey chuckled, his voice rising to its regular volume. Lip was aware Ian's presence probably calmed him. It was obvious in the way Mickey's shoulders, previously rigid, slumped carelessly against his body as soon as Ian moved away from the railing and started moving toward them.
"Nah." Mickey joked. "I didn't think you'd let me. If I did, you'd probably have me sleeping on the couch for a week."
Lip felt his eyes rolling back into his head again. "Comforting to know your husband murdering your brother counters to a week of sleeping on the couch."
He glanced at Ian who was grinning at the two of them - Lip and Mickey, who were comically standing in the middle of the living room, during a blackout, discussing murder with a baseball bat, intruders, and their favorite ginger who was, with his growing Joker-like smile, getting annoying as fuck.
Ian finally closed the distance between them then, laughing as he did. "Sorry, Lip, but, it probably wouldn't even be a week. He'd crawl back under the covers the same night."
"And you'd let him?" Lip was only slightly afraid his brother wasn't joking.
Ian shrugged in response, stopping right beside Mickey. He placed his hand on Mickey's shoulder instinctively, as if they had to be touching at every given moment of the fucking day, and Mickey, in return, snaked his own arm around Ian's back, his hand slipping dangerously low towards Ian's ass, as far as Lip could see.
Lip then understood it was going to be a long night. There was no light, no heating, no internet, the door was blocked with snow, and he was stuck in the Gallagher house with the most affectionate couple he knew.
It was going to be a very long night, indeed.
"What took you so long to get down here anyway? I could've been murdered for all you knew." Mickey locked eyes with Ian as he feigned offense, snapping Lip out of his thoughts.
Ian pulled his phone out of the pocket of his sweats. He shook it lightly in the air. "I was actually texting the others to see where they were. Took me a while to reach all of them."
"They good?" Lip asked, feeling guilt sink deep into his bones.
He hadn't thought of doing that — he hadn't even thought to check in on his own family, let alone the rest of the Gallaghers. He hadn't, even for a moment, consider caring if the blizzard disturbed them in any way, but rather reveled in the fact his own supposed newly-acquired peace was disturbed. Tami was the one who had called him first, not the other way around. She shouted a little, asked him if he was safe, and told him she and Fred were okay.
When Lip told her he was heading home immediately, she told him not to bother. Tami didn't sound angry or disappointed at that point in the conversation — she sounded... accepting. Of what, Lip didn't know.
She also pointed out how the snow had probably caved them in anyways, which she was right about, once again. When Lip tried to open the door, still on the phone with her, it didn't budge. It didn't matter how hard Lip tried pushing, the door stayed put.
When Tami assured him, once again, she and Fred would be fine - that there was always the backup generator she'd manage to figure out — Lip attempted to ease her discomfort with softly-spoken words. He knew it wasn't much, but he hoped it was something.
It was right when they hung up that the whole 'Mickey scaring him shitless' thing happened.
Ian nodded in answer to Mickey's question. "Yeah. Carl's at the Alibi with Kev and V. Says they got snowed in pretty quickly, but he doesn't mind because, free beer. Debbie and Franny are with... Calista, I think? I don't know really, but they're okay. And Liam was gone for a sleepover anyway."
"Frank?"
Lip felt stupid for asking about him too, but it seemed as if he wasn't the only one thinking it when Ian rolled his eyes and muttered, "He's okay. Carl found him passed out in front of the Alibi. Dragged him back in."
Lip didn't reply and the three of them stood in silence for a few moments before Mickey loudly posed the question that had probably been nagging all three of them separately from the moment they discovered they were going to be snowed in together for the rest of the night - or at least until the blizzard calmed down enough for the others to leave their own shelters, come back home and clear the snow locking them in.
"So, Gallaghers," Mickey announced chirpily. "We gonna keep standing around here, chit-chatting for the rest of the night, or are we gonna do something? Cause it doesn't look like the power's coming back any time soon, the heating's not working and the walls are thin enough as it is. We gotta stay warm somehow."
Ian and Lip both turned to look at him, expressions blank.
When Mickey realized how sexual his words sounded, his eyes widened like saucers.
"You dirty motherfuckers! That's not what I fucking meant I can't even look at you two right now. Maybe this dark thing is actually good for something." When he finished gagging at the thought of a threesome with Lip - and when Ian finished laughing at him for it-, Mickey sighed loudly. "This is gonna be a long night."
Both of the brothers nodded.
Yeah, it was.
***
Lip had always been the type of guy who never went too long without a girl. In fact, he almost always had somebody — whether it be a fling or an actual girlfriend — he spent his time with outside his family, not even prompting him to make long-lasting friends, although he had those too. The point being, Lip never really found himself feeling left out in the whole relationship department; he never felt like he was missing out on something by not having a girlfriend because he always did have one. He had a girlfriend before Ian did; he had a girlfriend before Carl did; he had a girlfriend before Debbie did; hell, he had a girlfriend now.
And yet, none of that eased his discomfort as he became the biggest fucking third wheel on the entire fucking planet.
Hanging out with Ian and Mickey — no, sorry, being forced to hang out with Ian and Mickey. because they were literally snowed in — was like being constantly reminded of the fact you were lonely, even if you technically weren't.
Lip thought to himself; he was in a happy, committed relationship, right? He was genuinely content and satisfied with his love life and with Tami. He saw himself one day settling down with her, being her husband and the best possible partner as they raised their child together.
And yet he still felt like hadn't gotten any in years — like he hadn't been getting child-resulting great sex on the daily — simply by spending twenty fucking minutes alone in the dark with the most obnoxious couple he'd ever encountered. Lip used to think Jimmy/Steve and Fiona took first place when it came to being annoyingly and lustily in love, but since Ian and Mickey got married, they've really been giving new meaning to the scale Lip used to measure and rank them upon.
At first, it was them being inseparable while they figured out what to do for the light and heat. It was them not being able to spend over two minutes apart while one of them went to grab the goddamn candles from the kitchen, and the other blankets from upstairs.
But no, they couldn't even do that, so Lip was forced to go upstairs by himself in search of covers and thick blankets in the different, messy Gallagher rooms, while the other two were tasked with going through the kitchen drawers and cabinets to find the candles Lip wasn't hesitant they even had.
In the end, Lip managed to acquire enough comforters to go back downstairs, but it seemed as if Ian and Mickey were doing the exact opposite of what Lip was — not only did they not find the fucking candles, they hadn't even been looking.
When Lip went to the kitchen to see if any progress had been made, thinking the noise in the kitchen was them rummaging carelessly through the different places in the room, he realized some most certainly had — the progress of Mickey's shirt coming off.
"Oh my fucking God, you can't wait for one night!? One single night!" He had exclaimed when he witnessed the horror of Ian being half-naked, tearing Mickey's shirt off.
Ian had looked at him sheepishly and Mickey had frowned. His shirt went back on, but the scowl remained, at least until Ian gently rubbed his hand against the back of his neck, and smiled secretively at him, then proceeded to wink.
Lip almost gagged at the scene.
When Mickey noticed the bundle of blankets on the living room floor, he turned to look at Lip with a, what Lip considered, stupid-ass look on his face.
"You do understand Ian and I have different alternatives for keeping warm. We could all go out separate ways now." He glanced at Ian as he said, flirtatiously, "Ian and I can go back to our bedroom and continue what we started,"
"For the fifth time today." Ian quipped in, his head tilting in thought gently as he thought over Mickey's words.
"Yes, for the fifth time today." He then looked at Lip. "And you can just go get some shut-eye. You have a baby and all that shit, you must be tired."
Lip didn't say anything for a few moments, but when he did open his mouth to speak, he asked the thing that had been bugging him.
"Five times? Really? How do you... manage?" Lip refrained from looking at Mickey's ass.
Neither man replied. They just shared another one of their looks.
Lip also contemplated Mickey's suggestion — the one about them going their separate ways —, but, if he was being honest, he didn't want to spend the rest of the night alone in his old bedroom, without his girlfriend or son or any company at all really. He knew he'd let his thoughts wander, and they wouldn't go anywhere good. He'd been feeling guilty about his supposedly perfect plan the entire evening so far; he didn't need to spend until morning doing the same.
"Let's keep each other company until we feel like going to bed, huh? I mean, not like we really hang out much." It was Ian who made the decision for them, and Lip didn't mind at all, although the whole 'we don't hang out' part wasn't true.
Lip simply didn't like Mickey well enough to hang out with him — he saw him every single day anyway, what was the point? He was annoying when they were alone, and he was way too touchy when they were alone with Ian, point proven by Mickey's shoulder touching Ian's at that exact moment. Mickey was family to Lip, sure, but he was more like an annoying distant cousin than a plausible friend. It's why they probably won't ever hang out just for the sake of hanging out.
"So, what do you assholes want to do then?" Mickey asked.
"Candles," Lip replied. "We need to find the fucking candles."
And eventually, Ian did find them, along with a dusty deck of cards that probably hadn't been used since Ian and Lip were kids with no phones, no internet, and nothing else to do but wing the rules of Poker, pretending to be more grown-up than they actually were.
Lip remembers asking Fiona once to teach them how to play, thinking she knew how. And when she didn't, they played with rules each sibling made up as they went.
He remembers teaching Carl the same way. He remembers trying to teach Debbie too.
Maybe he'd teach Liam the game one day. He wished he had the time to do so now.
"Wanna play to kill the boredom?" Ian asked, the playing cards in his hand.
"We don't know any games and Mickey here is a professional probably, with all of the Milkovich poker-nights he must've spent bringing Terry and his buddies beer." Lip teased and managed to duck away from Mickey's foot kicking his shin.
"We know Rummy. We can always play Rummy."
Mickey laughed. "Yeah pussies. Let's play Rummy. You'd probably lose any Poker game anyway."
When the game began, Lip hadn't been sure how it was going to play out. It wasn't as if he didn't know how to play a good game of cards. Usually, he won most of the games he entertained himself with, but he never really played with a Milkovich before. What was Mickey's strategy? His tactic, game plan? Was he planning on bluffing his way through it like he bluffed his way through everything else? Or was he planning on pissing Lip off — something he could do by simply opening his mouth — until Lip made some obvious mistake that cost him the game?
Candles were lit around them, near enough to illuminate the space, but far enough not to accidentally knock over with their limbs. The three of them were sitting on the floor, each fourteen/ fifteen cards in hand. They were playing Rummy, a simple game, one that could go on for hours if one wished it to. Usually, between three people, fifteen games were supposed to be played, three times five, but since the night was a blur of darkness and coldness, and the scary whistling wind outside, they settled to play without keeping score instead. The rules were the same, but instead of the designated game number, they'd play as many as they could before it got boring.
The game wasn't competitive at first; Lip won a round, Mickey won the second. The third went on for a little while longer, but Lip ended up winning that one as well. It was fun, kind of. They didn't talk much; the conversation mostly consisted of endless bickering between Lip and Mickey, and Mickey and Ian, along with obnoxious sexual teasing between— well, it was obvious between whom it was.
The game became somewhat tense when Mickey made an offhand comment about how Lip couldn't play for shit.
"Even Ian plays better than you."
Ian gave him a baffled look to which Mickey responded with a shrug. "It's a compliment, dumbass."
Lip snorted but refrained from commenting on the statement. Ian couldn't play for shit. He was good at a lot of things; scamming, working, shooting; but card games — Poker, Black Jack, Rummy — it didn't matter how hard he bluffed, teased, poked, cheated; the man just couldn't win.
So, not only was Mickey saying that to get a ride out of Lip — so that's the tactic he's going with — he also thought that particular one would work.
"I feel bad for playing with a bunch of wussies," Mickey said as he laid down a series of card alignments on the floor in front of him. He threw out a card, only one remaining in his hand. If you had one card left, the chances of you winning were bigger than if you were waiting around to clean out all your cards in one go.
Lip knew that, and thought, fuck it, before he laid out his own cards, now having the same amount as Mickey. He had been waiting to clear out, but the stake was higher now, and he wasn't planning on losing.
"Game on, motherfucker."
Mickey rose an eyebrow. "Wanna sweeten the pot? Bet on something? Losers," He glanced at Lip and then at Ian, "have to do all the babysitting for the next two weeks."
Ian groaned, and Lip was not far from it. If Mickey was so sure of himself and his ability to win to put that specific bet on the table, maybe Lip should say no, before he lost and got himself trapped in two weeks of hell with Ian. Fred was hard work enough, but if you added Franny into the mix?
Lip shuddered.
And yet, on the bright side, if he won, Mickey and Ian would be the ones babysitting Freddie whenever Lip needed them to, and he couldn't force himself to pass on that opportunity no matter the consequences. Right now, all Mickey and Lip needed was a lucky card to win, and eventually one o+would get it before the other.
He locked eyes with Mickey's. "Deal."
Lip never really thought he'd be playing a game with his brother and Mickey Milkovich where the bet involved taking care of children, but here they were. And if Lip thought he had been competitive and tense before, it was nothing compared to now.
Mickey and Lip kept drawing from the deck, glancing at the cards on the floor, trying to see if they could fit them in somewhere, and when they couldn't they would angrily throw them down to the pile, cursing at their luck. Lip didn't even pay attention to Ian, and when he haphazardly threw a card down, it landing near Ian's foot, he didn't think much of it.
It was Ian's turn anyway, and he still had all of his cards in hand, and since the goal was to have none, Lip knew he was either preparing to clear out fully or simply didn't have enough cards to place them out on the floor.
Ian glanced at his deck and then at the card at his foot.
"Come on, man. Hurry the fuck up." Mickey scolded his husband, but Ian paid him no attention as he picked up the discarded card, settling it somewhere in his deck, and slowly laying down all of his cards, throwing the final one down between Ian and Mickey.
Lip watched, mouth agape, as Ian smiled at the two of them.
"Have fun watching Franny and Fred, bitches. I'll make sure to let Debbie and Tami know they've got two very willing candidates at their disposal."
It was Mickey who broke the silence buzzing with shock by throwing down his now-unimportant card, exclaiming, "God fucking damn it!"
Ian chuckled as Mickey shot him a murderous glare. "Come on, Mick. It's your fault for not believing your own words. I do play better than Lip."
Mickey shook his head. "You literally lose every game we play!"
Lip watched as his brother shrugged. "I didn't lose this one." Ian had a coy smile on his face, and as much as he hated losing, his brother's happiness was overpowering the feeling.
Mickey thought so too because when Lip looked at him, he was staring at Ian with a soft look on his face, no longer agitated or angry.
Ian couldn't play for shit, but he won now. They were both... proud of him.
"You guys wanna play another game or are you too angry to do so?" Ian teased, breaking Lip out of his trans.
"No thanks, Ian, I think I'll just sulk for now." He replied as Mickey picked up the cards and shuffled them.
"I'm done too. It's not fun when the bet doesn't have anything to do with blow jobs and sex."
Ian scoffed, throwing his head back in laughter. "You're the one who made the bet!"
"Well, dear ol' husband of mine, I didn't really think I'd lose!"
"Okay, okay." Ian said, "What do you wanna do then? It's not even fucking midnight."
"Wanna play truth or truth?" Lip dared to ask.
Mickey groaned. "What are we, teenage girls?"
"C'mon Mick, it'll be fun."
"Ian, you may a teenage girl but this ain't a fucking sleepover."
Lip's eyes were rolling so hard, he was afraid they'd stay stuck in the back of his head. "How bout you stop bitchin' and play, or just admit you're scared to answer stupid questions."
"I ain't scared." Mickey scoffed.
"Then shut the fuck up and play."
And they did play, then. The questions were stupid at first, all ranging from dumb stuff like, "who's your favorite sibling?" from Ian; "so, Lip, do you even get any?" from Mickey; questions Ian refused to answer, like "why do you not like bottoming?" from Mickey, again — why he deemed it appropriate to ask that, Lip didn't know — and questions Mickey refused to answer, like, "why do you like asking stupid questions?" from Lip.
"Who was the first person you were in love with?" Mickey asked Ian, all of a sudden.
It was another stupid question, in Lip's opinion. The first guy Ian was ever in love with was the same guy that had him taking a bus to juvie every other week so he could see him. The same guy Ian bitched about not wanting to commit. The same guy Ian left town for; the same guy he almost ran away for. The same guy sitting next to him.
The answer was obviously Mickey.
Ian confirmed it, by simply replying, "You."
"Bullshit."
Ian's face contorted in confusion. "Mick, I fell in love with you when we were fifteen. There was nobody else before that."
"Kash?" Lip couldn't stop himself from asking.
When Ian simply made an expression as if he had eaten something sour, Lip realized how stupid his own question was.
"He was a pedophile."
"Glad you caught on," Mickey added, rolling his eyes.
"You thought I was in love with him?"
"Well, back then, you protected him enough for all of us to think so."
Lip remembered when he first found out Ian and Kash were fucking — Ian went on about things that only made sense for somebody who was in love to go on about. He never saw the bad in Kash's doings. He never saw the bad in Kash fucking a fifteen-year-old.
"I wasn't in love with him. Point blank. Who the fuck were your first loves, then?"
"You."
"Karen."
They answered simultaneously.
Ian and Mickey turned to look at Lip.
"Not Mandy?" It was Ian who asked.
Lip considered it for a moment, but the answer didn't change. He loved Mandy back then; he wanted to be with her, wanted to keep her safe. But he always kept going back to Karen, no matter how hard he tried not to. When Mandy ran her over, not only was that the end of them, but a clear reminder to Lip that letting her go was easier than he thought it to be.
"Karen." He repeated.
Mickey snorted. "You treated Mandy like trash anyway."
"I didn't treat her like trash."
"Fuck you, Lip. My sister and I talked. It wasn't just you Gallaghers ganging up on us, we were ganging up on you too. You two think you knew her, but you didn't, not as well as I did, anyway. She trusted you Lip. She trusted you to love her back."
His words made Lip feel guilty. "I can't force myself to love somebody."
"Then you shouldn't have fucking led her on!"
They fell into silence after that. A silence Lip considered worse than the one he would have endured if he was alone with his thoughts — at least it wouldn't be Mandy occupying them. He felt so guilty about it. Mickey was right. Lip never treated her the way he a boyfriend supposed to treat his girlfriend. And maybe their breakup did lead to things in Mandy's life that were fucked up and maybe wouldn't have happened if they did something differently, but he couldn't change it now. He could only hope she was okay. Lip didn't know if Ian and Mickey kept in contact with her. He didn't want to know.
"You gonna fuck over Tami the same way?"
Lip shook his head. "No."
"She the one?" It was the first time Ian spoke since the topic came up.
"How am I supposed to know? I can see myself settling down. Marrying her."
"The decision shouldn't be hard," Ian added.
"Says you." Lip bit back at Ian's tone, and he was afraid he'd stepped over a line, but Ian didn't seem phased.
"I was against marriage because I thought it wasn't necessary. Why ruin what we had by not giving Mickey an out if shit ever got..." He contemplated what to say for a moment.
"Crazy?" Mickey tried filling in, not angry, but rather understanding. Lip realized the two must have talked about it. It seemed like a conversation that wasn't happening for the first time.
"Yeah. But, look how good that turned out. I don't regret it for a single second."
Mickey leaned into Ian more from where he was sitting on the floor, absentmindedly shuffling the cards. "Me either."
When Ian pressed a kiss to Mickey's temple, Lip realized that maybe the decision shouldn't be hard.
Maybe the decision wasn't hard for Lip at all.
Maybe when the money became less of a problem, and when the kid was a little older, he'd get down on one knee and propose.
He wanted to be able to kiss Tami's temple as they talked about how they loved their marriage, comfortable in each other's arms.
Maybe one day.
"This game sucks," Mickey concluded.
"What do you wanna do then?" Lip asked, genuinely interested in knowing how Mickey planned on spending the rest of the evening. Eventually, they'd all go to bed, but Lip was pretty sure none of them were tired, and he most certainly didn't want to spend the next two hours listening to Ian and Mickey fuck for the fifth time today.
"Eat," Mickey said. "I'm hungry. Haven't eaten since we got back home today and that was around like, two. Ian, you too. Come on."
"How the hell did I not know you two were home this whole day?"
How the hell did he not hear them?
Mickey seemed to catch on to Lip's thoughts. "A ball gag does wonders." He grinned.
When Ian and Mickey disappeared into the kitchen, Lip shut his eyes tightly, trying to get the image out of his head.
He glanced at the clock.
11:56pm
Long fucking night.
***
After eating and arguing about ratios the entire time — whether or not they should be wary of how much food they have in case this caved in thing lasts (a suggestion made by Lip) or if they should eat whatever the fuck they want whenever the fuck they want (a suggestion made by Mickey, obviously) — they sat down, relaxing in the silence. The candles had been put out a while ago, and they were sitting quietly in the dark, Mickey and Ian resting against a wall, thick blankets underneath as paddings, and Lip sprawling out on the couch, covered by a thick blanket himself.
Lip was beginning to get lulled by the sound of snow falling outside, not as rapidly as before, that being the only thing piercing the stillness of the early morning/late night.
And then, from the side of the living room Mickey and Ian were on, there was a noise.
Lip thought it sounded like...sucking.
When a muffled moan escaped one of the men's mouths, Lip jumped up from the couch, startled. "Are you making out right now?"
"What?" Lip heard Ian asking, breathless. It was all the confirmation he needed.
"Just stop, or go upstairs. I don't need to witness a porno starring my brother and brother-in-law." He added in horror.
"Fine, we'll stop."
And then it was silent again.
Ian and Mickey didn't stop making out.
When Lip interrupted them for the second time, they got into an argument. An argument resulting in Mickey opening the window — a safety hazard if Lip ever knew one — grabbing snow and shaping it into a ball, and flinging it at Lip.
Lip was a second away from tackling him to the floor when Mickey started shivering from the cold, something bound to happen considering he opened the goddamn window in the middle of a blizzard. The room was colder now too, but not by much, since Mickey wasn't stupid enough to let it chill out the entire place.
When Mickey didn't stop shivering — karma's a bitch —, Ian pushed him down on the couch, wrapping blankets around him. Mickey fought against it at first, but when Ian told him to shut the fuck up and stop arguing, he did. In the end, the biggest blanket on top of Mickey was Ian, and Lip had to beg they wouldn't get sexual.
But it didn't. In fact, the only thing the two of them did was talk to Lip and amongst each other.
It was weird how three grown men during a snowstorm at two in the morning became suddenly more open. It was as if all of their defenses were down, so they just talked.
They talked about their jobs, their money problems (Lip's money problems), their latest scams, the kids ("how's Freddie?" and "do you guys think Franny will be alright?"), Liam ("where is he gonna live?" "I'm talking to Tami about it tomorrow"), Debbie and Sandy ("what a shitshow" "I guess Gallaghers and Milkoviches don't mix, you're just the exception"), the house and the memories they made in it ("Carl broke his arm there" "oh, and his leg here" "didn't that cop break something there the other day too?" "Fiona used to read to us there" "Pussies" "we used to hide in the van" "you and Lip, or you and me?" "wait, you guys had sex in the van too???" "we had sex everywhere, Phillip, you should be scared"); and when they fell asleep, three men in the living room, like a fucking movie, Lip slept well.
When morning came, so did the heating and the power, along with the rest of the Gallaghers, clearing out the snow to get into the house — it was barely snowing outside now. Lip was finally released from the confines of the living room. He only nodded at Ian and Mickey when he greeted the others and headed back to his own home. They didn't talk about how they spent the early hours of the morning just laughing at dumb fart jokes like they were high. It was an unspoken agreement they'd take that to the grave,
When he finally came back to Tami, apologizing and kissing her, and promising he was going to be better, that he would try, she smiled at him. Later on in the day, when they were lounging on the couch, Fred nestled in between them, she jokingly asked him if he was able to survive in the house with Mickey and Ian on his own for the entire night.
He didn't tell her much, but he didn't say it was bad. He also didn't say he maybe wouldn't mind having it again, under different circumstances.
But when Tami got a text from Ian saying Lip and Mickey would be babysitting Fred for the next two weeks, he cursed the previous night with his entire being and prayed for something like the previous night never to happen again.
He was only partially serious.
And when Mickey texted him, out of the blue, saying how he could probably make Franny admit he was her favorite uncle out of the two of them while babysitting her tomorrow, Lip smiled.
Game on, motherfucker.