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After it happened, Mickey left. Couldn't deal. Everything around him reminded him of him, his whole house reeked of red hair and pale skin and freckles and long limbs curled around him at three in the morning. He couldn't sleep in his bed anymore. Could barely look at it; even his clothes were tainted. So he left.
Terry getting out of prison was another motivation to skip town. One of them wouldn't be walking away from that fight. Mickey was too fucked up from what happened with him —he wasn't sure he wouldn't just let his father get it over with and kill him, so he could stop hurting so much. At that point, Mickey would have done anything to stop loving him, to stop feeling like there was this rotting crater in his chest.
Svetlana followed him, with Nika and Yev by her side. He didn't ask her to come with him, didn't really plan on it, didn't really want her to come with him. It turned out to be better that way though. When he asked her about why she followed him, she told him that she was doing it for their son, not for him.
But she was kind to him anyway, and made it a point to not talk about him, so Mickey always thought that maybe there was a part of her that followed for his sake too.
They moved from a shitty neighborhood in Chicago to a slightly less shitty neighborhood in Cleveland. Fucking Cleveland. But that was where Mandy had ended up, so that’s the only place that Mickey thought to go.
Mandy helped him probably the most, by sitting up with him late at night, smoking and not talking, just being there. Then a day finally came where he did talk about it. Mandy cried. He cried. She rubbed his back like their mother used to do, while he sat on the front steps of their slightly less shitty house, elbows resting on his knees, head hanging between his shoulders; he took deep breaths to stop crying. It didn't work, until it did.
Mickey hated crying, it made him nervous and angry and it reminded him of all those times when he was little, when Terry would yell at him to stop crying like a little girl.
It took a while. It took patience. It took bad hook-ups and good hook-ups and drinking until he passed out face-down in bed.
(He drank like that for longer than he should have, until Yev was five and asked him why he was drinking beer at breakfast. Mickey had never considered that a terribly abnormal thing until that moment. He’d grown up with Terry having beer for breakfast, and never stopping until he was passed out face-down in bed. So Mickey Milkovich stopped drinking. It was a shock to everyone. And yeah it sucked and there were times when he wanted to drown himself in bad whiskey, but he didn’t. Because he’d die before he let himself become Terry.)
But eventually, he was okay. Not great, but okay. Yev made him smile. Svetlana gave him shit, but less so now. She still didn't talk about Ian, but Mickey got the feeling that she missed him. Ian had been a big help to her and had loved Yev so much.
(When Yev was seven, he was going through boxes of Mickey’s old things. He found that old picture of Ian, the crumpled up one of him that Mickey had held on to for god knows how long. Yev didn't remember Ian. Mickey hadn’t expected him to. Dad, who’s this? That’s… that’s Ian. Who’s Ian? Someone from South Side. Was he your friend? He was my best friend.)
They were in Cleveland for ten years. Ten whole years. Mickey had a relationship with a guy named Jackson for a while. Maybe loved him, in a way. Maybe. It was hard to tell what that even was anymore, but he had been happy for a while.
Jackson had muddy brown hair he shaved down every summer, and brown eyes that lit up like gold in the sun, and olive skin that tanned dark from working outside; he was barely taller than Mickey. But he was funny as shit, and was good to Yev, and they were pretty happy.
But whatever they had, whether it was love or not love or almost love, whatever they had eventually ran out. And so they parted ways after a teary conversation and one last fuck. Mickey was sad to see Jackson leave. So was Yev. But sometimes it just happens that way.
And then Mickey got a phone call about a year later.
Bittersweet didn't even begin to describe the feeling that he felt at the words, “I’m sorry to have to tell you that your father has passed.”
It was a heart attack. Mickey didn't think Terry could have one of those. Maybe his heart was sick of being forgotten and decided to just give up.
Mickey had hated Terry with everything he had in him, for so long that eventually he started feeling indifferent. After everything that Terry had put him through, for his entire life, there was no love left for the man —there was nothing. Terry was still Mickey’s father though, so in a weird way, it kind of hit him, if only for a moment. He didn't have parents anymore. He officially felt like an orphan.
Mickey took his family out for a proper dinner that night. Lobster and steak and all that shit, because he’d been getting a steady paycheck now and could afford it —well, he could afford to get lobster for him and Mandy, anyway.
The only reason he went back to South Side was to tie up loose ends —the house, scraping some money together for a coffin to throw his father in, that kind of stuff. He didn't go to the funeral. Not a lot of people did.
Mickey went to South Side by himself, the youngest Milkovich boy, the one that the rest of the siblings looked to to get shit done. Of course it fell in his lap. Mickey didn't mind this time though. Terry was dead.
The house had turned into squatter territory. Mickey let it be.
There was nothing left for him there anymore.
Purely for old times sake, he took a lap around the neighborhood. It was fall, a bit chilly and Mickey needed a jacket as he walked around. He thought that his childhood neighborhood would have been completely gentrified by now. But it wasn’t.
He walked under the train tracks, bullet holes still marred the columns from his target practices. Then he walked to the old empty buildings that used to be apartments or offices, he never really knew, but there was even more graffiti. That place put a bad taste in his mouth, remembering what happened, how he beat the hell out of Ian there. That hadn't been one of his best moments, but he had been so hurt and angry and he felt like he was drowning; Mickey never had good coping skills back then.
When he walked to the baseball field, his chest hurt a little bit. He just stood there for what seemed like an hour, staring at the dugout. But he smiled, because those were good times and he wouldn't change anything about them for the world. He still couldn't believe how far Ian went to get him to react, to get him to stop treating him like glass. God that was a good fight they had. Mickey hadn't been in a fight for years.
On the way back to his rental car, Mickey stopped by one last place. It was still called the Kash and Grab, still looked exactly the same. It still smelled the same too. He didn't recognize the kid at the register.
Mickey knew he was lingering, knew he looked shady as fuck just kind of walking around the store, trying to mentally imprint everything. The kid probably thought he was getting ready to rob the place.
There was so much history in this little shitty store. Where he and Ian had built many of their memories, spending hours working together, talking shit and laughing and making fun of each other; sneaking back into the freezer when they had the chance to fuck as quickly and as quietly as they could. Mickey couldn't count how many times he had knocked over bottles of soda while trying to grab onto the shelves.
He hadn't noticed that someone else had come into the store and went straight to the glass doors of the cooler for a drink.
Mickey would recognize that red hair anywhere. He would recognize those shoulders anywhere, the way that he stood. Ian fucking Gallagher. His back was to him. Ian didn't see him, looked like he was just trying to get in and out as quickly as possible.
Before he could stop himself, Mickey smiled. Before he could stop himself he said, “Ay, they got any Slim Jim’s in this shithole?”
The speed at which Ian whipped his whole body around could have broken records.
Mickey couldn't wipe the smile off his face if he tried, his tongue catching in the corner of his mouth. He didn't know it was possible for Ian to get even more attractive, but he had. He didn't know Ian could smile quite that wide or that his eyes could crinkle like they did when it happened. He forgot how boring the stars looked compared to that smile.
“Mick,” Ian breathed.
Mickey nodded, feeling his eyebrows arch upwards, feeling his chest swell, feeling this overwhelming urge to laugh. So he did.