Chapter Text
“Fuck.”
Mickey stared down at the shaking pregnancy test in his hand and the fucking cheerful pink plus sign staring back at him. Taking a deep breath, he threw it into the bathroom sink and rubbed a hand across his face. His whole body was trembling.
“Fuck,” he repeated, unsure what else he could really say. He wandered back over to the sink and stared down at the stick again. It hadn’t changed. Of course it hadn’t fucking changed. But was he really... pregnant? Ian used condoms... most of the time.
“FUCK.”
He winced at the volume of his own voice and the sound of footsteps coming down the hallway. He stepped towards the door, intent on closing it before whoever it was got there, but was stopped when Mandy pushed on the other side. She gave him a weird look as he pushed to shut it and asked, “What’s up?”
“Nothing,” he snapped. “Trying to take a fucking piss in piece.”
Mandy raised an eyebrow incredulously and poked her head through the crack in the door. Her mouth dropped as she asked, “Are you using my fucking pregnancy tests?”
“Fuck off.”
“Mickey,” she said, shoving in. She had enough force behind her and Mickey was off his game enough that she easily made her way into the small room. She knocked him to the side and looked down at the sink. At the bright pink plus sign. “Fuck.”
She looked back at him, blue eyes wide, and said, “Fuck.”
Mickey stared back at her, unable to come up with a more eloquent way of saying what he had already said three times. Then she shook her head, regaining some control over herself, and crossed her arms over her chest. “Well, congrats, right?” she said.
“Congrats?” he repeated. “Congrats on another mouth to feed? Congrats on putting more hospital bills on our shoulders? Congrats on keeping myself from making a goddamn paycheck for god knows how long? We’re barely fucking afloat here, Mandy.”
“But a baby’s always a good thing,” she countered. “And it’s never a good time to have one and you and Ian have been talking about it so...” She shrugged. “Congrats.” She nodded and forced a smile, like she really meant it that time.
But Mickey was a thousand miles away. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck. Ian.”
Mandy stared at him. “Yeah. Ian. Or is it not Ian’s?”
He took a half-hearted swing at her, which she dodged easily before leaning back onto the sink. She drummed her fingers against the porcelain, waiting for a response to her question. Mickey sighed. “I have to tell Ian.”
“Well, yeah.”
“How?”
She shrugged and then turned to pick the stick out of the sink. Waving it in the air, she said, “You could always just show him this.”
He stared at her for a moment and then said, “You know I peed on that, right?”
Mandy dropped the stick immediately and reached forward to rub her hand against Mickey’s t-shirt. Wrinkling her nose, she said, “Next time you use my stuff, fucking ask first.” She left the room, leaving the door to the bathroom wide open behind her.
***
Mickey paced the living room nervously, rubbing his hands together as he waited for Ian to come home. Every time he heard a noise he glanced out the front window just to see a truck going by or a bunch of kids breaking bottles or the goddamn neighbour mowing his lawn one more fucking time. Eventually the guy was going to run out of grass.
Then, finally, it was Ian who made the noise. He walked up to the front door, running a hand through his red hair, and looked tired as fuck. And Mickey froze. His feet stopped moving, his mind stopped turning, and his lungs stopped breathing.
The front door opened and Ian walked in, still sweaty from his shift at the club. He unzipped the top of his sweater and glanced towards Mickey, still frozen near the front window. “Hey, Mick,” he said, heading into the kitchen. He grabbed a bottle of water and chugged half of it before looking back at his statuesque boyfriend. Frowning, he asked, “You okay?”
Mickey just stared at him. His heart was pounding so loudly in his ears that he could barely hear a word that Ian said. He watched as Ian gave him a weird look and stepped forward, intent on reaching out to him. Before he could though, before he could even get halfway towards Mickey, Mickey blurted, “I’m pregnant.”
Ian stopped next to the kitchen table. “What?”
“Pregnant.”
The two of them stared at each other for a long moment, neither of them moving. Then Ian repeated, “Pregnant?”
Mickey nodded.
And slowly, very slowly, a smile broke out across Ian’s face. All his earlier fatigue faded away and he let out his beautiful laugh before looking back at Mickey, his eyes shining. He stepped forward, looking down at Mickey’s belly, and asked again, “Fucking pregnant?”
Mickey nodded again.
And, when Ian looked up into his eyes, he couldn’t help but smile back at him. He laughed too, Ian’s mirth contagious, and swallowed back the few tears that prickled at the backs of his eyes. He sniffed when Ian laid a hand against his belly and then sobbed harder when Ian looked up at him in complete wonderment.
Ian wrapped his arms around him and Mickey collapsed into his shoulder, not knowing how he could ever feel happier in his entire life.
A long moment later, Ian pulled back and took out his phone. Shaking his head, he said, “I gotta tell Fiona.”
“You’re gonna text her?”
“Why not?”
“Because-” Mickey paused and snatched the phone from Ian’s hands. He deleted the message he was sending to Fiona and looked up at him in exasperation. “Don’t you think this is something that has to be said in person? Or, you know, later? We don’t know what could go wrong or-”
“Mick,” Ian said. He reached out to caress Mickey’s tear-stained cheek and shuffled his feet forward so he could press their foreheads together. His breath was hot against Mickey’s skin as he whispered, “Everything’s gonna be fine. And everything’s gonna go our way. And you’ve got nothing to worry about, okay?”
Mickey nodded shakily.
Ian tilted Mickey’s chin up and smiled so broadly Mickey couldn’t help but smile back. “Now give me my phone.”
Mickey rolled his eyes and relented.
Ian took his phone and happily texted his sister. Mickey watched as his fingers tapped away then discarded his sour expression for a happy one when Ian looked at him again. “All done,” Ian said. “Everyone knows.”
“Everyone?”
“Yeah. Texted the whole family.”
“You did what?”
Rolling his eyes, Ian grabbed his arms and said, “Everything will be fine.”
“Fuck you.”
“I’ll fuck you.”
Mickey pushed him away and waved a warning finger at him. “That’s how we got into this mess.”
As Ian laughed, the doorbell rang and Mickey headed over to open the door. When he did, he was greeted with a full-on assault from the Gallagher family. Fiona stood front and centre, holding out her phone like it was some sort of weapon, displaying a text that read WE’RE PREGNANT!!!! Behind her were Lip and Debbie, trailing a reluctant Carl and a blissfully ignorant Liam.
“Hey, congrats,” Fiona said with a smile. Then she stepped into the house, walking past him, and asked, “What the fuck, Ian?”
Mickey looked over his shoulder at their confrontation as the other Gallaghers streamed into the house. Lip patted him on the shoulder and Debbie offered him a smile that he caught out of the corner of his eye. Carl stopped in front of him as his sister and brother fought and asked, “When’s the baby coming?”
“Uhh-”
“Boy or a girl?”
Mickey stared at him.
“You know fucking anything?”
“You can’t know anything this early,” Debbie snapped, coming back for her brother. “He’s not even showing.”
Carl stuck his tongue out at her and the two of them started fighting over the sounds of Ian and Fiona arguing over whether or not it was appropriate to tell someone you were pregnant over text message. And Mickey stood near the front door, looking over the whole family, wondering how the hell he was supposed to bring a child into this mess.
Then Fiona reached forward and hugged her brother. Ian smiled and squeezed her tightly. Debbie and Carl stopped fighting long enough for both of them to wish them congratulations. And as soon as Fiona pulled away from Ian, she started detailing a plan to get Mickey the right vitamins and them into a birth class and every other thing that Mickey had never even thought about until that exact moment.
Ian smiled through all of it, taking all the information down in his phone.
Liam tugged at Mickey’s leg and Mickey looked down at him, smiling slightly. Liam asked, “Where’s the baby?”
“The baby?”
He nodded. “Fiona said there was a baby.”
Mickey stared at him for a long moment and then patted his stomach. “Baby’s right in here.”
Opening his mouth, his eyes going wide, Liam asked, “You ate the baby?”
Laughing, Mickey shook his head and slid down onto the ground so he could look Liam in the eye. He said, “No. The baby is... new. He needs some help getting along in the world right now, so he’s in here” –Mickey pointed to his stomach– “until he’s ready to survive on his own. You get that?”
Liam stared at him for a long moment and then said, “So I was in Fiona’s stomach?”
“Umm...” Mickey trailed off, unsure of how to explain the kid’s absentee mother to him.
But then Fiona picked him up off the ground and said, “It’s time to go, bud.” She smiled down at Mickey and said, “Really, congrats. I’m happy for you guys.”
“Congrats!” Liam shouted.
And then all of the Gallaghers filed out of the house.
Mickey looked up at Ian, who was still standing by the kitchen table, looking a little overwhelmed by all the attention himself. He met Mickey’s eyes with a smile and then walked over to sit beside him on the floor.
“You all right?” he asked.
Mickey nodded.
Ian leaned his head onto Mickey’s shoulder and kissed him through his t-shirt. He mumbled, “I’m really happy, you know that?”
“Me too.”
“Yeah?” Ian looked up at him.
Mickey smiled. “Yeah.”
Ian shifted forward and kissed him slowly, pressing his hand to the back of his neck. The kiss only broke when Ian smiled, unable to contain himself, and the two of them looked at each other, so close together that when they blinked their eyelashes tangled together.
“You’re fucking pregnant, Mick,” Ian whispered.
“I know, asshole.”
“I love you.”
Mickey nodded. “I love you too.”
Then Ian kissed him again and all Mickey’s doubts were gone. If there was anyone in this world that he wanted to have a baby with, it was Ian. And if there was any family in the world he felt confident would take care of it, it was the Gallaghers.