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It was like he'd never left. Four years and nothing had changed, not one bit. It was just as shitty a neighbourhood as it'd always been; kids running around with ripped clothes and yelling obscenities at each other, graffiti on every building, drugs being dealt in street corners - just the regular shit neighbourhood. No wonder the kids who grew up in it got so fucked up.
"Hey stranger."
Ian looked up at the sound of Mandy's voice, smiling when he caught sight of her standing a few metres away. She took a few quick steps towards him and put her arms around him, giving him a hard hug. "I missed you, boyfriend."
"I missed you too, girlfriend," he replied and buried his smiling face into her hair. He really had missed her a lot. It was her and their times together he'd thought of when the shooting and loss of limbs got to him too much, when he layed down in the camp, unable to sleep. And his family. His family that he'd left without giving even the slightest heads-up, his brother who's identity he stole. His family who he loved.
"Come on, let's dump your bag at home and get something to eat, hm?" Mandy smiled up at him from his arms, taking a step back and reaching for his hand.
"Yeah, okay," he replied and swung his bag over his shoulder while taking Mandy's hand.
It was almost six hours after he arrived home when the news reached him. It made him feel too many things and nothing all at once. It made him choke on air he didn't inhale, it made his eyes tear up. It made it up to the Top 5 worst things to ever happen.
Half an hour after finding out about- about it, he was kneeling in front of what he hoped he'd never have to see. He was crying. He was crying and he was cursing. Cursing the world for being what it was, cursing the humans that lived on it, cursing his life, cursing his first love who was buried beneath him.
"You asshole! You don't, you don't get to," he pressed his knuckles into his eyes, sobbing and cursing himself for being pathetic. "You don't get to be- be dead."
"I never thought I'd hear the fucking day Mickey! The day when you of all people, you opted out. You were supposed to always be here, you piece of shit, you don't get to," he let his head fall on the tombstone, breathing heavily in and out. The thought of Mickey dying had never been a permanent thought in his head, he'd always survived everything that was thrown at him. He always had.
"Except this wasn't thrown at you, was it? You did this to yourself, you coward!" It was tiring to cry, to cry over someone who wasn't even there to tell him to suck it up and stop acting "like such a fag". Fuck. It wasn't fair.
Why had he survived the fucking army while Mickey hadn't survived the suburb? It wasn't fair. It wasn't, it wasn't, "it isn't fair!"
He didn't know how long he'd been half-laying over the tombstone while crying over his dead friend - his dead love - when Mandy found him. She didn't say anything, just looked at him with teary eyes.
She took him home and tucked him in, singing a song he'd never heard while petting his head. He remember Mandy telling him it would be alright, he remember Lip coming into the room and sitting down on the side of the bed and he remember Debbie peeking in from the door.
But most of all, he remember promising himself to make things fair.