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When Mickey wakes up, his head is pounding. He squeezes his eyes shut and turns away from the window, which is letting in bright morning light. He stares at the clock. 7:26 AM. Mickey rolls onto his back and presses the heels of his hands against his eyes. When he drops his hands and looks around the room, it feels like the empty beer and whiskey bottles sitting on the floor are mocking him.
Mickey sits alone at the kitchen table. The house is silent; Mandy is gone, has been for a while. Svetlana took Yevgeny and is living with Kevin and Veronica, and Iggy is off doing whatever the fuck he does during the day. And Ian…Ian’s living back at the Gallagher house. Without Mickey.
He sighs and stands up from the table, and pours his cold coffee down the drain.
***
A few days later, Mickey wakes up and the room is still dark. When he glances at the clock, he sees it’s 3:47 in the morning. He sighs and buries his face into the pillow, tries to fall back asleep. But the cold, empty space beside him keeps him awake, so he drags himself out of bed and into the kitchen. Mickey cracks open a beer he pulled from the fridge and stares around at the dark rooms, and the silence weighs down on him.
***
He hears Ian’s words in his sleep. He has nightmares almost every night; Terry, shoving him onto the couch, and then it’s Terry beating the shit out of him on the floor of the Alibi, and then it’s Ian, Ian punching him at the dugouts, Ian calling him a faggot. The scene shifts, and he’s standing in front the Gallagher house, out of breath.
“I love you.”
“The hell does that even mean?”
“This is it. This is you breaking up with me.”
“Fuck.”
Mickey wakes up in a cold sweat, tears stinging his eyes. He pulls his knees up to his chest and takes deep breaths, trying to stave off the oncoming panic attack.
***
He decides to visit Carl.
When he walks in, Carl’s face lights up. Mickey grins, the first time he’s done so in days, and it makes the muscles in his face hurt. As soon as he sits down, Carl starts talking a mile a minute.
“Dude, it’s crazy here. There’s all these gangs, and man, I’ve learned so much shit.”
Mickey listens, asking questions and smiling at Carl’s excitement. A while later, his smile fades when Carl asks the worst possible question.
“How’s Ian?”
How the fuck should Mickey know? He hasn’t spoken to Ian since the breakup. Hasn’t spoken to any of the Gallaghers. He can’t say that, though. The kid looks so hopeful, so Mickey lies.
“He’s good,” Mickey says, trying his hardest to put a smile on his face.
“He taking his meds?” Carl asks, and Mickey winces.
“We’re getting there,” he says, and Carl seems satisfied.
Carl talks for a little bit more, and Mickey checks the time and sees that he has to go.
“Thanks for coming to see me, Mick,” Carl says, and Mickey’s heart hurts when he hears the nickname.
“No problem, kid,” Mickey says. He turns to go, but a few steps away he turns back. “Stay safe in there. Don’t do anything stupid.”
Carl nods and gives him a sarcastic salute. “Yes, sir.”
***
Mickey misses Mandy. He misses sitting with her in silence when neither of them could bring themselves to talk. He misses the nights when they were little, not long after their mom died, when they would sit and talk quietly in Mandy’s room. He misses the way she was always there for him, how she would sit with him and talk him through his panic attacks. He misses joking around and laughing with her. He misses having a sister. He misses having a friend.
Some nights, when the house is too quiet, he tries to watch a movie. But whenever he sits down on the couch, he’s reminded of that damn sleepover, and all the shit that came with it. Those are the nights that he drinks himself unconscious and wakes up to smashed bottles on the living room floor.
***
One morning, Mickey wakes up at 5:24. The sky is a pale gray outside his window, and it looks like it’s going to rain. He sits up in bed and stares at the picture of Ian that’s still hanging up on the wall. It feels like the Ian in the picture is laughing at him, and he suddenly pushes himself out of bed, grabs a backpack, and starts stuffing it with clothes.
Mandy has been gone for far too long, and the house is always too quiet. The silence crushes him, makes him want to smash bottles against the wall just to hear some sort of noise. He doesn’t know what Kenyatta’s doing to her, but the thought of him touching her makes him want to scream. He’s going to go to Indiana. And he doesn’t know how, but he’s going to save her. He’s going to get his sister back.
Svetlana doesn’t care about him. She hasn’t called, hasn’t texted, hasn’t tried to contact him in any way. Mickey assumes that she has finally just given up.
None of the Gallaghers have tried to contact him either, but he hadn’t expected them to. And if Ian hasn’t called yet, he’s not going to at all.
There’s nothing for him here.
The only thing that makes him pause is Iggy, but Iggy will understand. He always does.
Mickey shoves some more clothes into the bag, and then throws in all the cash he has. He grabs some food from the kitchen, and his guns and some medical supplies. He pulls open the door and is about to walk out, but something makes him stop and turn around.
He looks at the dirty walls, the cluttered kitchen and living room. This is the house where he knew his mother. This is the house where his father abused him. This is the house where he protected Mandy, and she protected him. This is the house where he held Ian after he came out. This is the house where he lived with his boyfriend and his wife and his son. This is the house where he built a family.
Mickey lets the door slam shut on his way out.
The car is parked out front, and he dumps his bag into the passenger seat before sliding behind the wheel. He takes a deep breath and looks over at the house one more time, at the chipping paint and the overgrown grass. As he starts the engine, he wonders if he’ll ever come back.
When the houses start to get nicer, Mickey laughs. Look at him, leaving the Southside.
He rolls the windows down and turns on the radio. It’s some classic rock song, and Mickey turns it up.
He just drives.