hyperthymic | and the shadow of the day will embrace the world in grey, and the sun will set for you

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and the shadow of the day will embrace the world in grey, and the sun will set for you

--

The combination of spiked booze and his meds which already made him a lightweight had Ian out like a light before he could drag his sorry ass up the stairs, collapsed into the recliner, squeezed in next to Mickey. The impromptu party that Frank and Monica had thrown to celebrate their -- third? Fourth? Wedding had been surprisingly fun and free of drama which was a rarity when it came to the Gallaghers these days. Usually whenever Frank or Monica were involved things would get especially volatile (lover's spat aside).

Especially when they were involved.

So things go off without a hitch. Everyone dances with everyone, he hugs his mom and means it when he smiles at her and says he's happy to see her happy. She kisses him, tells him how proud of him she is and he can't help the warmth that brings him. She even hugs Mickey and tells him to look out for her boy because she'd know if he wasn't, and she likes him so it would be unfortunate to have to kill him which has Ian cackling with laughter at his boyfriend's face.

When three am hits, Ian is swaying so much on his feet from exhaustion and everything else that Mickey is yanking him to his feet but he really doesn't think he's gonna manage the stairs unless he wants to carry him up and as funny as that would be, he takes pity on him. Ian drags him over to the recliner and squeezes them both onto it, falling asleep in a matter of minutes.

Waking up the next morning and the night before feels hazy and distorted and there's a crick in his neck from the god fucking awful angle he'd slept in, Mickey sprawled out over his body, head heavy on his chest. Despite everything there's a bubble of happiness in his chest that he can't quite shake as he looks over at the mess of the living room and kitchen. Bottles and glasses and food, a box of pizza left open on the dining room table. Debs and her boyfriend (fiance? he's not sure what to consider Neil) are sleeping on the sofa, Liam on a pile of blankets in front of the TV. Further in are Frank and Monica bundled under blankets. Lip and Fiona were the only ones to make it up the stairs from the looks of it.

Everything is calm. Quiet in a way that the house normally isn't -- yelling and coming and going, people throwing things or slamming things. Ian sighs, closing his eyes and playing with Mick's hair as he feels himself drifting back into slumber.

Like all things though, the quiet doesn't last.

Frank's voice cuts through the quiet, rising in intensity that has him finally blinking the sleep out of his eyes to look up towards the kitchen where Lip is stood frozen in shock at the scene before him. Ian blinks again and the sound kicks in -- and Frank has that tone. He's heard it a few times in the short period he's been working as an EMT, that's fear and desperation. Around them the others are beginning to wake. "Mickey, Mick. Get up -- get -- sorry -- " Ian says trying to wriggle out from underneath him because he's not yet awake before none too gently pushing him off of him so he can lurch to his feet and pad to his parents and brother.

"Is she breathing - ?" He asks his brother who seems as lost in the whole thing as he feels. His heart is pounding in his throat and he thinks he might throw up. Instead, he kneels down on the side opposite Frank and reaches for the pulse point in his mo -- no, another patient. If he thinks of her as his mother he's not sure he'll be able to do it. No pulse. Unresponsive pupils. "Someone call an ambulance, now!"

Doing CPR is like second nature to him, compressions to the chest, then breathe -- compressions, then breathe. Ian focuses on the counting and lack of response as he works, rather than who he's doing it on or the reactions of everyone who's woken up at this point to the scene in the living room. Stopping to check for any improvement and finding none before starting again. Actions becoming sharper, a little more desperate as they don't wield any results. He barely even notices the tears pouring down his face.

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It takes a few beats for Mickey to wake enough to understand what's happening: Ian's shoving him off before his limbs get the message, and he staggers on his feet as the panicked shouts from across the room resolve into something his fuzzy mind can comprehend.

Is she breathing?

He crosses the room in a few quick steps, moving the smallest Gallagher, Liam, out of his way not so much out of concern for what the kid might witness as a need to be closer to Ian as he works. Still, the effect is the same; at some point Debs comes up to claim her younger brother and get him into the kitchen, and Mickey is left floundering for some way to actually help.

Someone's already calling 911; he's pretty sure it's Lip. Ian works with relentless focus and Mickey can only watch as though hypnotized, afraid to move or speak lest he pull his boyfriend's attention. It's not the first time he's seen someone die, but it's the first he's seen anyone try this hard to save them. And the first time it's mattered, because if Ian can't save Monica, Mickey's not sure that he can pull Ian back from where his mind will take him. So he holds his breath and waits like everyone else until the paramedics arrive what seems like an eternity later and one of Ian's coworkers moves to take over.

That's Mickey's cue; he walks over to touch Ian on the shoulder, to pull him gently away as another of the EMTs sweeps in to strap something over Monica's face so they can keep breathing for her while they move her.

"Ian. Hey, come on. You did good, but they've got her. Take a break."

Ian is not sure how long he's been going at it when the door opens and the help arrives; he recognizes Sue with her gear and a few others coming in - Mickey is at his side and trying to pull him away as they begin to take over. Sue gives a nod and he lets Mickey guide him onto his feet, wrapping his trembling arms around his boyfriend and clenching his fists around the material of his shirt. Right now he's the only thing keeping him upright.

The EMTS finish and begin loading Monica onto the stretcher and wheeling it towards the front door, he can hear them speaking in hurried tones as they move out of the house and back to the ambulance. The entire thing takes less than five minutes but the house is once again left quiet in a wave of shock. Ian lifts his head from Mickey's shoulder to look around the room where the rest of the family is standing around in silence, looking from one to the other as if nobody is quite sure what to do next. He feels that same loss of control, that same uncertainty. There's no love lost between Monica and most of the family, but nobody had been prepared for something like that to happen.

It's Fiona who shakes herself out of the stupor that has fallen over the house, telling everyone to throw some clothes on and be out the door in five, before pulling out her phone to dial V and Kev because they're not all going to fit in her new car. Everyone trudges off and Ian continues to cling to Mick.

This is why he'd become an EMT in the first place, yes to save people but also that if something happened to his family he'd be able to help. To do something. Ian had lost patients before - it's happened a few times now and it's painful, he doesn't think he's ever going to get used to seeing someone die like that. But he knows when something is hopeless now; because there are some points that you have to accept a person is gone and that's what this feels like. It's that same feeling of helplessness he'd felt while Mickey had bled out in his arms all over again.

It feels like failure.

"We should..." He says quietly, but he doesn't move.

Edited 2024-06-22 08:01 (UTC)

Mickey holds onto Ian just as tightly, letting him cling without saying anything for a long few moments. There's nothing to say; Mickey's acutely aware of the reasons Ian became an EMT. He knows what this moment is stirring up in his boyfriend; he was there, for fuck's sake, even if he wasn't conscious for most of it. Fiona had pulled him aside later to give him a rundown of what had happened, and then she'd hugged him so fiercely he was stunned out of reacting for a good ten seconds before he managed a week let go of me, lady and wriggled out of her grasp. That's when he really processed how close it had been, and how badly Ian had been affected by it. And he's seen it again since, the few times Ian had lost a patient on the way to the hospital. That stricken and far-away look he's wearing when he comes home, and how he seems to crumble all over again when he looks at Mickey and remembers.

It fucking sucks, and there's no way to make it suck less, so Mickey doesn't try until Ian finally speaks. He pulls away slowly, keeping both hands on Ian's arms to steady and ground him.

"Yeah. Want me to see if I can get the car from Iggy?"

Mickey's not sure if either he or Ian want to be trapped in either car with a fuckton of upset Gallaghers and no breathing room. He'll do it if Ian would rather have his siblings, but if Monica's dead -- which seemed pretty damn likely -- Ian's going to need an escape route if things get to be too much. There's a reason he still sleeps at Mickey's more often than here.

"Go take a minute, change clothes or whatever you need. I'll stay here and make sure we've got a ride."

He knows Ian gets annoyed when he hovers too closely, and that sometimes he just needs space to reset or regroup or whatever. And he knows that of the siblings, Ian was the most attached to Monica. Mickey wanted to put some space between Ian and whatever stupid shit the rest of these assholes were gonna fill the silence with.

It's a testament to how well Mickey knows Ian that he knows what he needs, often thinking of things even before he does himself. But sitting in the car with his siblings while they speculate and theorize and make arrangements isn't something that he'll be able to handle right now. Out of all of them, except for Debbie (on occasion) Ian was the closest to his mother, even before getting her disorder. When he was younger, he was the one who Frank singled out for the fact that he looked like her; it hadn't taken long to realize he was his dad's least favorite but longer to understand why.

Just another thing she'd screwed him over on.

He swallows, nods. "Yeah. Yeah, not sure I could put up with all of... that right now." He sniffs, clasps a hand over Mickey's. "Thank you." What he wouldn't give to go back onto the sofa and cuddle some more, go to sleep and maybe this would all be some fucking nightmare.

Ian goes through the motions of going upstairs and getting dressed, not bothering to do much more than that, grabs a hoodie and hurries back down to the kitchen to pour himself a glass of water and take his pills. He swallows them down ... pops an extra anxiety pill just to be on the safe side and grabs one of the stale muffins that have been sitting on the counter. It sticks to his throat but he pays it no mind, only taking a few bites before dumping it.

By that time everyone is back downstairs and heading out to the waiting cars. Ian grabs the diaper bag for Franny as his sister adjusts the hold on her daughter, putting it into the car for her and turning back to wait for Mickey. Nobody questions him not climbing in after them. His breath rises in the chilly air in a puff of smoke and he rubs his hands together.

By the time Ian emerges from the house, Mickey's already called his brother and run down the street to grab the car and bring it back. Technically breaking his promise to stay here, but he'd gotten the promised ride and pulls up in it just as the others are starting to pull away. He waits for Ian to climb in and then waits another few seconds just... to get some more space between the two of them and two vehicles' worth of Gallagher drama.

"Hey, man. You don't wanna do this, we can just not. Pass the hospital and keep on driving."

To where, Mickey doesn't know. Doesn't care, to be honest; wherever Ian is, that's home. Fuck the rest of it. Monica will still be dead or not in a few hours' time, but maybe what happens right now can suck a little less in the meantime.

Ian folds into the front seat, hands clasped in his lap as they speed off. The results will be the same if they go now or not. He stares at the center console and shakes his head. Really, Ian loves his family, he does. But they won't notice if he's not there, they'll call him later to update him and he can always say his goodbyes later (because that's what it will be), on his own and away from their concern.

They think he doesn't notice, how they watch him when things get difficult. Looking for any sign of him slipping, going manic, going off of his meds. And that sounds absolutely cloying right now, he might flip a table if they so much as look at him weird. It's only out of concern for his well-being, but he wishes they'd do it in a way that didn't feel like they thought he was seconds from an episode every time he's even just slightly upset.

And Ian feels like Mickey is the only thing keeping him utterly grounded at this moment.

"Yeah. Just for a few hours, I think. We can go by after... I'll let Fiona know not to wait up."

Mickey's surprised by how readily Ian agrees to his off-the-cuff suggestion. He'd been prepared to go sit in a hospital waiting room to wait with Ian for confirmation of what no one wants to say out loud, so he doesn't have a destination in mind. It doesn't matter; he knows what Ian needs right now is to be away, and it's not hard to head out of the city and just cruise for a bit, letting the silence settle not exactly comfortably, but not uncomfortably, either. It's never uncomfortable when it's just the two of them and no one else's bullshit.

After a while he glances over at Ian almost shyly, acutely aware that he doesn't have the words to make this better. That he doesn't even know where to begin.

"You wanna talk about it, go ahead. I ain't the best with words but I can shut the fuck up and listen."

Ian didn't reply right away, replying to Fiona's text, then unsurprisingly his phone dinged again with a message from Debbie. ok, i'm with Mickey. talk to u soon. Then he put his phone in his pocket, shrugging at his remark.

"I dunno, you know? I just... dammit. I'm pissed cause she comes back all of a sudden after being away for literal years and just dies? What the fuck, you know? Like she really couldn't wait to give us all one more terrible memory of her -- But also..." He sighs, slumping down in his seat and rubbing at the bridge of his nose. The brief moment of anger burning out like a snuffed candle in a hurricane. "I don't know how to feel. I don't blame anyone for feelin' like they do about Monica, but... she's really gone. For good this time. I'm pissed but I -- I dunno, it doesn't feel real. And I don't want to be the only one who's torn up about it."

Mickey's quiet after Ian finishes, mostly because he's not sure what there is to say. He has nothing to offer that will make it less shitty, and he's not going to claim any bullshit like maybe she's not dead. Ian would know better than anyone else in that house what a dead person looks and feels like, and false hope isn't something Mickey knows how to give.

He's got a dead mom of his own, though. That's gotta be worth something.

"Mine died while I was in juvie the first time. Couldn't even go to her funeral if I'd wanted to. Dunno if she'd have wanted me to anyway."

He glances over at Ian, gauging how his words land. He's not looking for a pity party, or trying to suggest that he had it worse -- he hadn't seen his mom much since he was a kid, not unless he or one of his siblings was seriously in trouble and Terry couldn't be bothered to deal. She'd gotten away and hadn't looked back, and most of the time Mickey didn't feel any kind of way at all about it.

Most of the time.

"I'm not saying it doesn't suck, just maybe it's worth something that she tried."

Ian's brow furrows as Mickey brings up his own mom, glancing over at him. "You've never really talked about her before." He'd met Terry (unfortunately) a few times, but never Mickey's mom - not that he'd gone around there that often before that beyond occasionally to hang out with Mandy. Maybe there wasn't much to say; if she hadn't been in the picture before her death.

Dead moms and shitty fathers. Growing on the South Side meant you had one or the other. Sometimes both.

"I don't doubt that she cared in her own way." Monica, when present would take her kids shopping, talk and laugh with them, she was the reason Debbie got her daughter back, her last visit she'd tried to get Ian enrolled in the army and pitched a fit when they told him that he wasn't of age yet. The memory pulls a small smile to his lips, often overshadowed by what happened a few days later on Thanksgiving. "She tried to get better for us a few times. Never lasted. She'd run off, go back to drugs or Frank would sabotage her; flush her pills so as not to break her free spirit." He scoffed bitterly.

Mickey shrugs and looks out the window; he doesn't like to think about his mom much. It seems like a good way to stay sad, and Mickey doesn't do sad if he can help it.

"Wasn't around much. Terry ran her off pretty early."

She'd come back a few times while Terry was locked up and none of the older cousins were around to handle adult shit. The last time had been when she'd picked Iggy up from juvie and stayed just long enough to remember why she didn't want to. Mickey couldn't blame her; it's not like he or his brothers had given her a lot to be proud of.

"Anyway, your mom loved you, and it sucks that she's gone. Doesn't have to be more complicated than that if you don't want it to be."

"How did she - ?" Ian starts before cutting himself off. "You don't have to answer if it's not something you want to talk about." He understands; his parents are not a favorite topic of his either - he can't think of a single positive quality about his father whenever people ask about his upbringing. His phone dings with the sound of an incoming text followed by a few more and he doesn't need to look at the phone to confirm what he's being told.

He texts Fiona back in silence, and pops his phone back into his pocket.

"They tried to revive her at the hospital but she was gone." A beat. "She was already dying, it wasn't a drug overdose or anything like that. Told Fiona I'd go with her to see the Mortician to help with burial arrangements - just wanna make sure she doesn't have her remains put in a cardboard box."

"I dunno, heart attack or something. Natural causes, whatever that means. I don't even know if she was my real mom; it's not like Terry was faithful while she was here."

Laura Milkovich hadn't been an especially great mother as far as Mickey could remember, anyway. She hadn't been abusive or anything, but she'd let Terry be Terry pretty much unchecked both before and after she left. Mickey can't say he'd particularly miss her. He just kind of wishes he'd actually had a parent who gave a shit.

When Ian gets his news Mickey slows down and glances over at Ian with his brows furrowed in concern.

"Sorry, man. That sucks. You wanna go back?"

Mickey's fairly sure the answer to that is a resounding no, but he'll defer to what Ian wants.

"Frank isn't my real dad, either. Monica fucked one of his brothers on PCP, or so she said - Clayton, lives on the Northside with a wife and a house with a white picket fence. Lip wanted one of us to not be his, I think he was jealous it wasn't him."

If he was, Ian thinks that Lip would've done what Ian didn't want to; and that was move in with him. Get some semblance of a normal upbringing, maybe get a dog, have parents who show up to school meetings. The idea of it seemed farfetched to him, and his brother hadn't understood why Ian hadn't wanted that. Maybe there's a universe out there where Laura Milkovich had taken her kids away from Terry and his influence. Maybe that's the one where Ian had been raised as Clayton Gallagher's kid and maybe, they somehow still found one another.

He sighs. Already he can feel the headache building behind his eyes for what he knows is gonna be a four alarm Gallagher shitshow and while he'd just love to go find somewhere secluded and far from family and death and what the fuck ever Frank is gonna do, and get some quiet alone time with his boyfriend before everything -- it's just better to go now and make sure that the bloodshed isn't that bad.

"Fuck no, but I probably should anyways. Maybe we could hit up a drive through for breakfast at least?"

"Jesus. Did he know you were his? Kinda fucked up if he did and never helped you out or anything."

Mickey could understand Ian not wanting to accept it, but family when you were a Milkovich meant helping out whatever cousin or half-sibling walked in the door, usually with some sort of crime. The Gallaghers weren't all like Frank. They had too much pride to do half the shit his family did to survive, and Mickey was honestly kind of glad for it. Ian was a good person. Better than Mickey, of that much he was certain.

A worse person would've told the rest of that family to go fuck themselves right now. Mickey might've been that person if the occasion had called for it, but he'd try to keep the peace for Ian's sake.

"Yeah, I'll take the long way back and we can grab some greasy breakfast sandwiches from that one place that always looks on the verge of being shut down."

Best breakfast sandwiches on the South Side, though, shitty drive thru aside.

"Don't know if he did, to tell you the truth. He looked as shocked as anyone when two kids from the south side showed up on his doorstep, claimin' one of them was his kid. His wife sure as well wasn't happy about it." He tapped his fingers on his knees. "But honestly? I don't think he would've done shit, even if he knew. Probably just wanted to leave Monica and her particular brand of crazy behind." But it makes him wonder if there's more family out there, but probably most of them either didn't care or also - didn't want anything to do with them. Else they'd have helped. Maybe Fiona wouldn't have had to give up her childhood to take care of her siblings, there would've been some kind of normalcy.

Or maybe not.

It feels stupid to dwell on what ifs or might've beens, but... he allows himself to think of it, if Monica had someone in her life to try to keep her in one place, to take her meds, to give her some kind of stability. Because that's one thing that Ian has learned since his diagnosis; how easy it is to fall off that path. Without Mickey he's not sure where he'd be. Ian loves his family and they love him but sometimes he couldn't take the way they handled him with kid gloves, or like he was a powder keg ready to go off. Mickey trusts him when he says he's taken his meds without going into the bottle to double check.

It's not like he can blame them after everything, but still.

Ian lets his eyes glance over towards Mickey. Just watching the look on his face as he drove, the slant of his brows, perfect fullness of his mouth.

And driving him around to help him deal, getting him shitty breakfast sandwiches? How did he get so lucky. Even in the shadow of his mother's death, he doesn't feel alone, or lost in the face of that loss.

"Hey Mick, can you pull over for a sec? I want to see something."

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and the shadow of the day will embrace the world in grey, and the sun will set for you

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