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In the beginning, Mickey doesn’t feel anything at all. Well, physically, he can feel the heat of the fire even from yards away. He can feel the acrid smoke assault his nose and trickle into his lungs. He can feel a hand– probably Ian’s– resting on his shoulder. But his emotions seem to have burned away with the wedding venue, leaving his insides charred and hollowed.
It’s as though his mind is floating above him with the smoke. He feels disconnected from his body and the magnitude of the situation. There’s a distant discomfort when he sees Ian’s worry and anger, but that feeling quickly sinks into the numbness.
It isn’t until he’s sitting in the Gallagher kitchen that his emotions start to slither through the cracks. As Debbie rattles on about good triumphing over evil, he’s shocked that she has the audacity to feel hopeful in this situation. It starts off as a dazed confusion, but then blossoms into utter dismay when the rest of the family begins to go along with her idea. Didn’t they understand? Terry won. He always won and he’d make damn sure the losers knew where they stood.
Soon enough, Ian joins the conversation and throws in ideas of how to salvage their wedding ceremony. And that’s when the gravity of Terry’s actions hit him. That’s when the rage begins to bubble.
Mickey was intimately familiar with anger. As far as he was concerned, anger was what allowed him to survive his miserable childhood. It sparked him to get back up when beat to the ground and fueled him through the days when there wasn’t enough to eat.
But today’s anger is different than it had been in the past. It isn’t driven by terror and hopelessness, an act of desperation against the wrath of his father. This is a pure and all-consuming rage that didn’t just hunger for violence, but shrieks for it. This fury is a pointed blade, precise and driven by one purpose. He knew without a doubt that his father was going to die by his hands today.
In a swift motion, Mickey slips out of the kitchen while everyone continued to brainstorm. He doesn’t bother grabbing his piece– not because he doesn’t think he needs it, but because he isn’t thinking at all. Any logical thought is crushed by the growing weight of his rage.
Before he knew it, he’s barging through the Milkovich front door. Terry’s sitting on the couch with a smug grin on his lips while speaking to his buddy who likely aided in the arson. Mickey barely registers the other’s man presence as he closes the gap between him and his father.
Mickey roars and then finally, finally, there’s blood. Terry’s nose crunches beneath his fist and he’s able to fit in two sharp jabs before his father rebounds. His head jerks to the side as Terry’s left hook slams into him.
“You hateful piece of shit!” Mickey bellows, barely tasting the blood from his split lip. His body is a flurry of fists and blood, and everyone’s shouting but all he can hear is his heart pounding in his ears and the ringing tenor of his yells. “You couldn’t let me just have this, huh?! God forbid I feel happy for a fucking day. You really think you can scare away the faggot in me?”
At first, Mickey seems to have the upper hand. He manages to knock Terry to the floor, his head making a solid thump as it falls against the vinyl wood. Their noises are animalistic and guttural– Terry grunting and snarling while Mickey’s roars grow louder with each kick that he sends sailing into his father’s gut. In that moment, Mickey isn’t fighting for his wedding or his relationship or even himself. That’s how he’ll remember what triggered the violence, but during the heat of the moment, the why of his actions are irrelevant.
It's no longer the fiery sparks of a rage-filled justice. This is cold and black and leaves no room for mercy. Having never felt anything quite like this before, he feels drunk off of it. Fear and reason have taken flight and left his mind rooted in a frenzied rampage. It’s as though time is passing in stuttering jolts, marked only by the swing of a blow and the echo of bone against flesh.
The two are grappling with each other on the ground when Mickey is yanked back by Terry’s friend. Before he can fully pull him off, Mickey tightens his grip around his father’s shirt. Going along with his backward momentum, Terry crashes his forehead into his son’s face.
Mickey’s head feels full of static and his vision goes white. The force of Terry’s blow sends him back on the ground. He feels pressure on his chest as his father’s friend pins him to the floor with his knees planted on each of Mickey’s arms.
“And you say I’m the dick rider.” Mickey huffs derisively at the straddled position he finds himself in.
He hears heavy steps from behind him. Craning his neck, he sees his father, out of breath and masked in blood, with a pistol directed at his head. “I should have ended this shit when I caught you gargling that pansy’s balls.”
Mickey bucks wildly underneath the older man, a vein on his forehead threatening to burst. “Fucking do it! The fuck took you so long?” His vocal cords strain and burn. “You already knew I’ve been next door taking it up the ass. Fucks me so good I’m surprised you don’t hear me screaming his name.”
A yell born out of years of rage and disappointment bursts from the older Milkovich. Both him and Mickey are so blinded by anger they miss when the Gallaghers tumble in from the front door.
“Get the fuck off him!”
Mickey’s breath hitches and his brain stutters at the panic-stricken voice. It pierces through his deranged fury and jolts him back to reality.
For Ian, the sight before him feels like a sick déjà vu. Suddenly he’s 15 again, his heart pounding as he watches Svetlana mount Mickey while Terry stands with his gun trained on him. Back then, he’d been choked with fear, and he couldn’t shake the shameful intrusive thought that he had let that happen to Mickey.
He feels those same tendrils of terror coil in the pit of his stomach, but this time, he’s looking at Terry instead of the gun. He’s looking at this hulk of a man who seemed bigger than life, but now, covered in blood and slightly hunched over, looked as breakable as he made Ian and Mickey feel that terrible morning. And suddenly, Ian’s charging.
Terry cocks the pistol but before he can pull the trigger, he’s knocked to the ground. He groans in pain and quickly notices that the gun slid out of his hand. He clumsily attempts to sit up, but as he raises his head, Ian directs a solid punch to his jaw. Unlike Mickey, it isn’t a blow that has the sole purpose of causing pain. It’s instrumental, a well-placed hit that leaves him unconscious.
Without another thought, Ian turns his attention towards Mickey. Terry’s accomplice is at the mercy of Lip and Carl who swiftly subdue him with a few sturdy jabs. Amidst the chaos, Mickey is still on the ground.
The flames of anger continue to lick at his chest and prod at his muscles. He knows he’s steps away from ending all of this, but in place of vengeance is the fear that he’ll actually do it. He’s acutely aware of how much that murderous rage that consumed him was like his father, and he’s terrified that after giving into it, he won’t be able to leave this house without finishing up what he started. And so he stays laying there.
Ian’s by his side in an instant, his worried face hovering into Mickey’s line of sight. “What’s wrong? What hurts?” His eyes dance around Mickey’s body as his hands gently poke and prod, examining him for severe injury.
“I’ll kill him.” Mickey’s voice is wet and low. “If I get up and look at him, I’ll kill him.” The words tumble out of his mouth like a cursed prophecy rather than a lethal promise.
Ian’s eyes soften, “He’d deserve it if you did. And you know I’d hide the body with you.” His playful tone does nothing to hide the truth of his words. “But you’re more than that. More than him.”
Mickey’s teeth dig into his already split lip, the pain of it finally registering as his adrenaline dissipates. Along with feeling the aftermath of his brawl, he sluggishly processes the last hour or so. He’s not going to kill his father, and he sure as hell isn’t getting married today with the shape his body is in. He lets out a breath that’s more of a groan than a sigh. “I fucking hate that cocksucker.”
Ian’s lips twitch into a smile at the irony of his words. “He’s a regular limp wrist, ass licker.” He lightly tugs at Mickey’s hand. “Now come on, let’s get the fuck outta here.”
As they make their way back to the Gallagher house, Debbie is already going into full wedding planner mode, talking about how this was just a “setback” and that now they’ll have more time to put together a proper ceremony.
Her words float by the hopefully-very-soon-to-be-newlyweds, and the two of them make their way to Ian’s room.
Mickey plops onto the bed with a sigh, his muscles aching and his bones heavy. The anger has reduced to hot coals and is replaced with the warmth of Ian’s body next to his. In a way, Mickey feels relieved. He was used to his father ruining any chance of a happy memory, and although he outdid himself this time, he didn’t win.
“You know we’re gonna have to go bigger for the ceremony now, right?” Mickey raises his eyebrows expectantly. “Like I’m talking the full homo shebang. Glitter, tigers, glittery tigers, all that shit.”
Ian chuckles, “Yeah? Then we’ll need to change the party favors. You think anal beads is a lil too much?”
The two of them go back and forth, laughing and soaking in each other’s presence. These were the moments they loved best– when time and space seemed to shrink to just the two of them. When their minds were quiet and their laughter was loud. When their love roared like a raging inferno.