Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was a lovely day out, and Sarah was stuck inside the office waiting for new arrivals.  Typical.  She didn’t even work here, but she volunteered once a week, a fact that she knew the other residents thought was odd at best and unethical at worst.  She didn’t care, though.  So she had some civic pride, sue her for caring about the upkeep of their home!  It had been hard enough getting a job good enough to keep her here after Justin left her, and she was darn well going to keep a good thing going.

But it would be nice if Melanie didn’t always stick her with the worst shifts.  Sarah stared out toward the pool and tapped her pen against the desk, impatient.  She was supposed to be passing off keys to the new couple moving into apartment 218, but they were late.  Almost 30 minutes already.  She certainly hoped that it wasn’t typical for them.  The last thing this place needed was another self-absorbed couple that shirked the rules and expected everyone else to cater to their whims.

Another 15 minutes later, and she had all but given up on them.  There was only a quarter hour left in her shift, and then it would be someone else’s problem anyway.  But as she starting packing her purse, grabbing her greek yogurt from the mini fridge under the desk, the door burst open, sending the bell up top into a cacophony of jingles.

“I’m just saying,” said the man coming in, “it’s about time she took some fucking notice.”

Sarah winced at his language as she straightened, ready to remind him that he was in polite company—families lived here, for goodness sake—when she caught sight of him and stopped in her tracks.  The ripped jeans normally wouldn’t have phased her, being at least fashionable if in somewhat poor taste, but the mud caking their hem around heavy work boots was a different story.  Not to mention the untucked and unbuttoned flannel with—were those torn sleeves?  What on earth?

“Come on, Mick,” someone said plaintively behind the dirty man hogging the doorway.  “I know Debbie can be a bit much—”

The first man barked a short laugh as he moved further into the room, letting the door fall back against whoever was behind him.  It reopened a second later, revealing a tall, red-haired man who looked completely opposite to his rough companion.

“—but she’d do anything for Frannie,” the newcomer finished, as if a heavy wooden door hadn’t been closed in his face seconds before.

The dirty one scoffed.  “Sure, Gallagher,” he responded.  “But stop pretending her version of anything is the same as yours.”

Oh, no.  Sarah swallowed as she realized that these two—Gallagher and his companion—were most likely who she was waiting on.  At least, that last name matched the one scrawled at the top of the move-in paperwork that Melanie had handed her that morning, though she supposed there was a chance that it was a coincidence.  Giving them both another once-over, ignoring the way they kept talking as if they hadn’t even noticed her, she decided that must be it.  After all, she couldn’t imagine that the man in the torn jeans would ever live here.  Besides, Melanie had said that a couple was moving in, and no one else seemed likely to appear.  

“Excuse me,” she said loudly during a break in their conversation, “but can I help you?”

Both men quieted immediately, and she abruptly found herself on the receiving end of two very different stares.  The dirty one’s eyes were cold and hard, his eyebrows raised nearly to his hairline as he raked his gaze over her from head to toe and back.  She half expected him to leer, used to attention from his type when she walked down still-developing streets, but instead his mouth twisted in something like a grimace. She almost shivered at his intensity until he looked away, leaving her looking into the softer green eyes of his companion.  That one, Gallagher she reminded herself, gave her a grin as he stepped forward to put himself between them, and she found herself relaxing without intending to.

“Hi, are you Sarah?” he asked, his tone completely changed and much more charming than it had been just a moment ago, when he was speaking to the other one.  “Melanie told us to meet you here, I’m Ian Gallagher.”  Of course he was.  “You have keys for me?” he prompted when she didn’t offer right away.

At least he wasn’t so bad; the red-head was polite if nothing else, a vast improvement already over the impression they both made when they first came in. If she just focused on his wide, open smile, maybe she could ignore the scowl already taking over his friend’s face.  Surely the other man wasn’t moving in with him.  There didn’t seem to be many redeeming qualities about the first man so far, blue eyes and strong arms aside, and Gallagher seemed the type to need more romance than a thug like that could offer.  She couldn’t imagine why he had brought such surly company along at all, but maybe he needed the muscle to help move in.  Sarah supposed she couldn’t fault him for that—he probably wanted to get things set up so his girlfriend could settle in properly.

Suddenly she was aware that they were watching her again, and that she had taken much too long to process such a simple request.  “Of course!” she said with a brightness she didn’t feel.  There would be no faulting her customer service, of that she would make sure.  “I have your keys right here, Mr. Gallagher,” she said, opening the top desk drawer.  It squealed on unoiled slides, revealing a short stack of paper with a plain keyring balanced right on top.  She grabbed up the whole pile and slid it shut with a hip, not looking at Gallagher as she added, ”and Melanie said that your partner would be with you?”

When she risked looking at the red-head again, he seemed a touch confused, his eyes darting between her and the man that had come in with him.  Sarah refused to follow his gaze and see what that one looked like now, even though she could still feel eyes on her.  

“Uh, yeah,” Gallagher replied.  Sarah heard a snort from the other side of the room, but refused to recognize it.  Neither did Gallagher, but he did look up like he was trying not to roll his eyes before he reached a hand out for what she held in an obvious appeal.  “Well, we’re ready to get settled, so…”

“Oh, of course!” she agreed readily.  “Well, here we are, Mr. Gallagher,” she said as she held out the bundle of paper and keys.  “You’re right upstairs and to the left, and I’m right here if you need anything!”  

This time, the cough from across the room sounded oddly like the words “bootlicker bitch”.  But before she could even process the gall of that outrageous response to common courtesy, Gallagher was taking the keys from the top of the stack of papers and turning away.

Sarah reached out just fast enough to grab him by the arm, her polished nails biting into his skin when he didn’t stop moving quite quickly enough.  He went still, and the atmosphere in the room got heavier, making the hairs on her own arm bristle.  She let go immediately, but couldn’t let the sudden discomfort of the situation stop her from doing her job.

“Don’t forget the move-in paperwork, Mr. Gallagher,” she said firmly, holding out the full stack of papers again.  He seemed to relax at the explanation, though the mood of the room didn’t lessen.  She really wasn’t looking at that other man now.  Gallagher stuck his new keys in the pocket of his snug jeans and went to take the papers from her, one hand above and one below, but she didn’t let go.  “You’ll need to fill this out and upload it to the resident portal,” she told him.  “Everything is new, of course, but we recommend taking pictures in case anything comes up on future inspections.”

He hesitated a moment when she loosened her grip, before sliding it all slowly out of her hands.  As he did so, his bottom hand brushed hers, and she felt the unmistakable imprint of a wedding ring.  

Even odder that he wouldn’t bring his wife with him for this than just a girlfriend, she thought, but distractedly tucked that information into the back of her mind.  Maybe he just wanted to spare his partner the behavior of his help.  And as he finally took his things with a muttered, “uh, thanks,” and turned to leave without a goodbye, clearly moving to hustle the other man out the door, she was almost sure that was it.

“Wait, inspections?” the one was saying in a too-loud voice as they left.  He sounded incredulous.  “What the fuck, Ian, why would they be inspectin’ anything?!”  His vocabulary had not improved in the minutes that he hadn’t been talking.

Gallagher opened the door and ushered him through with a hand firmly set on his back, glancing back to Sarah and talking over the endless, agitated comments coming from his friend as they left.  

“Bye Sarah, and thank you!  I’m sure we’ll see you soon!” he called over his shoulder.

“Like fuck we will, asshole, you little…”

Their voices faded as the door slammed shut behind them, leaving Sarah standing in sudden silence.  Well.  That was something.  She wasn’t sure she looked forward to having the tall one as a neighbor if his rough companion was ever going to make another appearance, even if he seemed pleasant enough on his own.  Maybe his wife would be better company.

Then the clock struck twelve, and she started.  She could worry off the clock, but she had to get going, and fast.  She had a meeting at one for her actual job, and she couldn’t miss that for whatever this drama was.  She finished packing up, hoping against hope that the two men would be long gone before she left the office.  She’d see the red-head again, she was sure, but after today she knew that there wasn’t enough time in the world to prepare her to see his friend again.  With any luck, she wouldn’t need to.

———————

Unfortunately, she saw the short, foul-mouthed one again first.  He was standing just outside the office door, hands in raggedy pockets, scuffing his dirty workboots against the clean pavement when she locked up, ready to head up to her own apartment after her shift just two days later.  He didn’t seem to notice her as she stopped still with her key still in the door, watching him stare out across the open courtyard and empty pool.

She hesitated to approach him, but loitering was specifically prohibited in their bylaws, and there was no sign of Mr. Gallagher at all.  If he wasn’t visiting a tenant, he really did have no business here.  Bolstered by that knowledge, she pulled her back up straight and approached.

“Excuse me,” she started quietly.  In the right or not, there was no need to court trouble, and he didn’t look like the type to appreciate brash interruptions.  But he didn’t seem to hear her at all, just pulling a hand out of his jeans to pluck an unlit cigarette from behind his ear and place it between chapped lips.  And oh, that did it, there was absolutely no smoking allowed in common areas!

“Excuse me!” she said louder.  The man started, twisting around to stare her right in the eye.  His gaze was as disconcerting now as it was when they first met, pale blue eyes cold and calculating as he scanned her briefly before returning his eyes to hers.

“What?” he said shortly.  His disinterested tone was at odds with his sharp attention, and she suppressed a shiver.

“You can’t be here,” she answered immediately, refusing to be cowed by his demeanor.  He could try to be as intimidating as he liked, but she was in the position of authority here.

As soon as she thought it, she realized that an authoritative presence might not be the best thing to put forward around this one.  He dug around in a deep pocket and pulled out a cheap, worn lighter, using it to light up his cigarette without breaking eye contact.  When he took the cigarette from his mouth with two fingers to exhale, she couldn’t help but notice the smudge of ink across his knuckles, and she almost gulped.  Yeah, this one probably had problems with authority.

It was too late to back down, though, so she doubled down instead.

“If you’re here for your friend Mr. Gallagher,” she tried, “then he should have explained the rules to you.”

He took another careless drag, and drawled, “Rules, huh?”

“Yes!” she said.  She knew she sounded too excitable, but it was better than sounding afraid.  “We have very strict guidelines for visitors around here, sir, and if you can’t—”

“Sir?” he choked out, suddenly laughing and almost dropping his cigarette.  His abrupt change in attitude startled her, as did the sight of sharp white teeth against his pale face, and she didn’t have a response ready for that at all.  “Do I look like a sir?” he managed, leaning down to rest his unoccupied hand on one knee.  “Geez, lady,” he practically wheezed out, “you gotta loosen up.”

She was saved from having to find a response to that when Gallagher, all long legs and shocking red hair, appeared from the door to the complex gym.

“Mick?” the new tenant called out when he spotted them.  “What are you doing down here?”

Thank goodness for small mercies.

“Oh, Mr. Gallagher!,” Sarah greeted eagerly.  Strong independent working woman or not, she wasn’t going to turn down backup right now.  “So good to see you, how are you and your partner settling in?”

His eyes bounced between her and his friend, who had straightened and was now leaning against the wall of the office with one dirty, booted foot against the clean white plaster.  Sarah winced.

“Alright…” the red-head answered slowly as he made his way closer, skirting the pool until they were all on the same side of it.  Something seemed to pass between the two men as he neared, something with raised brows and pursed lips, but she did her best to ignore it.  

“So happy to hear it, really,” she offered.  And she was.  Mr. Gallagher had been nice enough so far, and the sooner they got settled, the less she would hopefully see his current companion.  And on that front— “Just so you know, though, we do have a strict policy for guests,” she started, “so if you and your wife could just—”

“His what?” came an angry squawk from the friend.  He pushed off the wall and took a step toward her, shoulders suddenly bunched up nearly to his ears, and threw his still lit cigarette to the ground.  Sarah took an immediate step back, watching with wide eyes and grabbing at her purse strap like she could get the mace out of its depths by sheer force of will.

“Mickey,” Gallagher said lowly, moving forward to place a warning hand against the other man’s chest.

“Oh, are you not married Mr. Gallagher?” Sarah rambled.  “I’m sorry, I just assumed, with the ring—I felt it when you—”

“Felt it?”  The rough one had stopped his advance when Gallagher touched him, but now he was turning on the other man instead, bringing up both arms to shove against broad shoulders.  Gallagher took a half step back.

“What the fuck does she mean, she fucking felt it, Ian?” There was no hiding how incensed he was, and Sarah was completely confused, once again, by his turn of character.

“I don’t know!” Gallagher was shouting back.  Neither man was paying her any attention anymore, and she knew she should use that to her advantage.  But there was something weirdly desperate, almost intimate, about the way Gallagher’s wide eyes didn’t leave his friend’s face, and she couldn’t stop herself from butting in yet again.

“Just, when he took the papers,” she said clumsily.  “The contract, the other day, in the office—I thought he had a wedding ring.  I’m sorry if I misunderstood—”

They were looking at her again, and she cursed her incessant need to meddle. Gallagher looked ready to respond, but his friend beat him to it.

“Oh, he’s fucking married alright,” he said shortly, trying to step closer again.  Mr. Gallagher’s lips tightened, but his eyes were oddly soft when he pushed back with the hand still on the other man’s chest.  “He ain’t got no fuckin’ wife though.”

“Um.”  Sarah licked dry lips and backed away a little more, letting her purse fall off her shoulder into easier reach.  “I don’t understand…”

“Mickey…,” Mr. Gallagher warned again at the same time.

“He’s married to me, bitch.”  She hadn’t moved fast enough, nor had Gallagher caught him firmly enough, and the words were hissed right into her face from just inches away. She could feel how wide her eyes were, how red her cheeks had gotten, and it apparently spurred him on.  “Oh, you got a problem with that?” he all but whispered.

Sarah swallowed.  This close, his eyes were even bluer, his hair a dark contrast, and his lips were pink were they shaped around the the threat.  Despite herself, she felt something more than fright, and she pushed it down as hard as she could.  “Not at all,” she whispered back.  “I just--”

“Come on, Mickey, let’s go—” Gallagher was saying, pulling his friend—his husband—away.  He left her space easily, but pulled out of Gallagher’s grasp as well, face still hard.

“No,” he told him.  “I wanna hear about this wife of yours, douchebag.”  Sarah thought he sounded hurt more than angry at this point.  “Did you not fucking tell ‘em about me?”

Gallagher sighed.  “Of course I did, Mick,” he answered, “your name is on the goddamn lease—”

“It fucking better be bitch, we’re payin' for this shit with money from my fucking business!”  And with that revelation, Gallagher’s husband was suddenly gone, storming off around the pool and into the building that held his—their—apartment.

“It’s our business,” Gallagher reassures her after a beat, without even glancing her way, like that was the biggest takeaway from all of…that.

“Right,” she agreed faintly.  “Of course.  Um, I’m just going to…” she motions away from the office door that they are somehow still standing right outside, and he nods immediately, stepping back.

“Of course, of course,” he says.  “You should get home.  Oh, and don’t worry about my husband,” he added as he walked backward in the direction the other man had gone.  “He’ll get over it, he’s just…adjusting!” he finished with a wince when a crash came from behind him.  A ceramic pot rolled across the concrete at the edge of the pool, leaving a trail of dirt behind it.  Sarah wondered absently what had happened to the sapling it used to hold.

“I’ll fix that,” he said quickly, jogging across the open area and disappearing around the corner.

Sarah stared at the dirt surrounding the crisp white pool, then at the charred spot on the pavement where a heavy boot had crushed that burning cigarette into the ground.  Absently, she knelt down and brushed at the ash stain, knowing it would do no good.  She’d have to get Billy out here with the hose to clean it up.

Standing, she walked away, in the opposite direction of the two men that apparently lived in her building now.  Something told her that a hose wouldn’t be enough to clean the place up after them now that they were here to stay.  Mentally moving Ian Gallagher from taken, to married, to married to a man that could rip her spine out through her throat and smile about it in her head, she tried to focus on that and not how unexpectedly sweet Gallagher had looked chasing his lover after that ridiculous scene.  She may be a confident single woman taking charge of her life and taking care of her home, she thought as she got into her little red car and pulled out of the parking lot toward the closest bar, but Christ she needed to get laid if that mess had almost sparked something in her.

Chapter Text

Thunk.  Thunk.  Thunk.

Chris groaned as he was pulled out of sleep by the shaking of the wall behind his head. “Not again,” he grumbled as he tried to dig his head further into his pillow.

Thunk.  Thunk.  Thunk.

When rolling over and putting his pillow over his head did nothing to dull the noise coming from next door, he finally gave in and sat up.  Running a shaky hand through short, sandy-brown hair, he looked over at the other side of the bed to see Gina still sleeping soundly, without a care in the world.

“How the fuck?” he whispered to himself, reaching out and poking her shoulder with a thin finger.  She just muttered in her sleep and rolled over, taking the blankets with her and leaving Chris with bare, cold legs.

Thunk.  “Fuck”.  Thunk.  Thunk.

A strangled scream got lost in Chris’ throat.  Great, they had moved on to the vocal part of the evening.  He already knew way too much about his neighbors, who he had yet to even meet, thank you, just from their nighttime antics.  Well, and daytime antics, sometimes, to be fair.

“Ian.”  Thunk.  “There, fucking there, man—”  “Shut up, Mick.”

Yes, please, shut up Mick, Chris thought as he swung his legs off the bed.

Thunk.  “Gonna make me?”  “Got my hand on your throat, don’t I bitch?”

Oh God no.  Chris picked up the pace as he grabbed his pillow from the bed and scooped up a spare blanket, making his way on stiff legs to the door of the bedroom.  He glanced back at his wife, loathe to leave her lest she wake up to this torture on her own, then—

“That all you got, tough guy?”  Thunk—Thunk.  “Fuck you, I’m gonna fucking pound you so hard you can't even—”

Nope, Chris thought as he high-tailed it out of there and fell onto the living room sofa, wrapping the blanket around him like it would keep out the sounds coming from next door.  If Gina woke up, she was a big girl; she could deal with their crazy sex-addict neighbors herself.

———————

The next morning, he was staring bleary-eyed into his Cheerios when Gina wandered into the kitchen still wearing her pajamas.

“Mmm,” she moaned as she stretched.  “I slept great last night.”  Chris just stared at her, bewildered, as she came up to the table and draped herself over his side, giving him a smacking kiss on the cheek.  “Do I smell coffee?”  She asked, making her way toward the French press on the counter.  The untied ribbon of her pink bathrobe trailed behind her, and Chris watched it make patterns against the clean tile floor.

He snapped out of it when his wife thrust a fresh mug of expensive light roast under his nose, taking his original, now-cold cup from his elbow and tossing it in the sink.  “Where are you this morning, huh?” she asked him casually, taking down a clean mug for herself.  “You weren’t in bed when I woke up, and by the looks of it you’ve been up awhile.”

“Uhm,” he mumbled.  “Sorry.  Just…,” he trailed off, mind catching up to the conversation.  “Wait, you slept well?”

“…Yes?” she answered slowly.  “Think we finally scheduled the thermostat right.”  Like that was all there was to a decent night’s sleep, Chris thought.  Typical.  “Why, didn’t you?” she asked as she came to sit with him at the table.

“No,” he said shortly.  She just watched him, and after a second he huffed out a sigh.  “Our neighbors were at it again.”

She looked amused when he glanced up at her, her eyes sparkling and eyebrows raised.  “What, really?”  She almost sounded impressed, and he quickly hid his down-turned mouth in his coffee.  “Didn’t they just wake you up yesterday?”

“Yes,” he answered, and he hated how it sounded like a whine.  “And the night before that, and the afternoon before that when I was trying to take a nap because they woke me up the night before that.”

His wife looked like she was about to start laughing, and he couldn’t take it anymore.

“It’s not funny, Gina!” he shouted, slamming his mug down and sloshing hot coffee over the side.  He hissed as he wiped his wet hand on his silk sleep-pants, and got up to head toward their bedroom for a change of clothes.

“It is a little though!” she called after him before he slammed the door shut.

———————

This was it, Chris thought to himself.  It had been a long day at work on little sleep, and his back was killing him after crashing on the sofa for two nights in a row.  He was going to talk to the neighbors, tell them to knock off this newlywed schedule they seemed to be on, to have some consideration for others for once in their privileged lives.  

He had seen them before they even moved in, barely in their twenties and apparently rolling in it.  He had been going back up to his own apartment when he saw the tall one pay their deposit in cash—cash!—the other one looking sullen when it was handed over.  His daddy had probably given him that money.

Well, some people had had to work to get here, and he wasn’t about to let those two newcomers take away from his hard-earned indulgences.  Work had been terrible lately, and he rarely made it home at a reasonable hour to begin with.  Gina had been stroppy about it, of course—this morning had been her best mood in a long while, goodness knows why since they had barely touched each other in weeks.  Turning on the warmer in their expensive-as-hell, temperature-controlled, adjustable bed last night had been the closest thing to action he’d seen since his boss had commented offhand a month ago about his chances of stepping up the management ladder.

And okay, maybe the late nights and lack of intimacy were getting to him.  Hearing his neighbors going at it at all hours wouldn’t have made him this angry a year ago, after all—he would have been more likely to laugh with his wife at the absurdity of it, or make bets on when their honeymoon period would end.  But knowing that did nothing to change the irritation he felt right now, so Chris still stalked up and rammed his knuckles into the white wooden door of apartment 218.

There was no answer.  He knew they were home, he had seen them moving through the window before he walked up, so he hit the door a little harder the second time.

Nothing.

He was just gearing up to really let loose on that useless piece of wood when it suddenly flew open, and his hand almost connected with the face of the shorter, surlier half of the couple next door.

Cold blue eyes took in the scene Chris was making, and thin black eyebrows nearly moved off his neighbor’s face when he saw Chris’ hand still hovering in front of him in a closed fist.  Chris lowered it hurriedly, barely noticing the smirk his neighbor gave as he did.

“Right,” the man said, the hand not holding open the door coming up to brush at the side of his nose.  “What the fuck do you want?”

Chris abruptly forgot everything he had been ready to say when he caught sight of the crude tattoos adorning the man’s knuckles.  He didn’t think he needed to see the complete phrase they made with the other hand to get the general gist of it.

“Um,” he said eloquently.  “I just…”  Those eyebrows raised even farther, almost disappearing into tousled black hair.  “I’m your neighbor,” he finally blurted out, and winced inwardly at how panicked he knew he sounded.  The cool, accomplished businessman act that he wore to work all day apparently fell away all too easily with a simple challenge from a stranger.

Silence, and then, “Okay?” his neighbor questioned.  “Nice to meet you, man, but I’m kinda in the middle of something here, so…”

He made to close the door, and Chris threw out a hand to stop it.

“The fuck, man?” Great, now the guy  sounded annoyed.  But Chris had come here with a purpose, and gosh darn it he was going to see it through.

“It’s just, last night…and a few nights before that…since you got here, really, I guess…” he rambled until the door started to slip closed again against his palm.  “You’re really loud!” he finally managed to spit out.

The door opened again, the dark-haired man suddenly grinning.  “Oh yeah?”  he asked.  “We disrupt your beauty sleep, grandpa?”

And Chris took issue with that—he was only in his late 30s, after all—but didn’t waste the opening.

“You did, in fact,” he said, back on track now and feeling more confident now that the other man didn’t look so…angry.  “Your headboard keeps hitting the shared wall, you should really move it out a few inches—”

“Don’t have a headboard, old man.”  The neighbor looked almost bored now, but Chris supposed that was better than angry.  Then a lightbulb seemed to go off, and he added, “We got this little table thing though, by the mattress."  He took his hand away from the door to gesture around hip height, as if showing Chris what he meant.  "Ian did me on it last night.  That what you talkin’ about?”

Um.  That was not something Chris had expected to hear.  Neither the location of the previous night’s activities nor the confirmation that this particular man had apparently been the one making most of the noise.  No wonder his voice had sounded vaguely familiar from the start.  

“Maybe?” Chris offered hesitantly.   “But uh, that’s not all…I can hear you through the wall sometimes.  All the time?” he questioned.  “Most of the time, at least.”

It was no laughing matter, yet it seemed that’s exactly what this man was doing.  Laughing, a low chuckle bubbling up from deep in his stomach.  Chris did not appreciate it, feeling more out-of-place by the second, and pressed on, “Can you just—”

And was promptly cut off.

“Just what, man?” his neighbor parrots.  And great, he looked angry again, tattooed fingers tight where they had resumed their grip on the door, the other hand coming up to grip the frame.  Chris gets a clear picture of the message now, Fuck U-Up, and isn’t that just special. It just looked like he was trying too hard, honestly—who had that kind of grit and lived here? Chris had seen that kind of fakery too much among the young sons of the men he worked with, pretending to be fed up with their easy lives even while their parents sent them to school, paid their mortgages, and paid off any hands that tried to touch them.

Further incensed by his neighbor’s clear disregard for common decency, Chris tried to pull the tattered threads of his work persona around himself again and geared up anew to make his point.  His neighbor wasn’t done, though, and beat him to it.

“Just keep it down?  That what you mean?” the man questioned.  Chris started to nod, but there was apparently more.  “What, you want us to have shitty sex or somethin’?” 

“What?”  Chris scrambled for something to say, not having planned for this type of blunt aggression, his carefully constructed plans torn to pieces again already.  “No, just—”

“Just stop making noise?,” his neighbor interrupts again, sounding incredulous.  “Man, you try being quiet with your husband drilling nine inches straight into your fuckin’ prostate."  Those blue eyes didn't break contact with his, daring him to comment as his neighbor further clarified, "And I sure as hell ain’t gonna tell him to stop.”

Oh God.  “Of, of course not,” Chris tried, wondering how they had gotten so off track again so quickly. But he refused to just leave, even knowing at this point that the exchange was going nowhere.  Gina would never let him live it down if she found out.  “But if you could just—”

“Ugh, fucking fine, man,” the other man said in a resigned tone, before turning his back on Chris to shout into the depths of his own apartment.  “Hey asshole!”

Chris started at the vulgarity of the address, but the other inhabitant of the apartment apparently found nothing wrong with it as a muffled voice called back from what Chris thought must be the bedroom.

“Yeah Mick?”

“You need to buy me a new gag,” the neighbor—Mick, you’d think Chris would remember right now as many times as he had heard it through the wall—yelled back.  “The neighbors are complaining already, I told you they would you fucker!”

The muffled voice responded, “You know I could just—”

“No you can’t, firecrotch,” Mick cuts him off, as if he knew what was coming.  He seemed to do a lot of that.  “Your dick’s got somewhere else to be.  Unless you grew another one in the last fucking hour?”

There’s no response forthcoming, and Mick nodded like he won something before turning back to Chris, who still stood open-mouthed in the doorway.

“There,” Mick said firmly.  “Taken care of.”

And then the door slammed in Chris’ face.

———————

Gina was already home when he walked in the door, puttering around in the kitchen by the sound of it.

“That you, hun?” she called out, and he kicked his shoes off in the entryway before making his way in to join her.  She stood at the stove, stirring something in a pot, and he took in the sight of the pasta strainer in the sink and the Parmesan cheese on the counter and sighed.  Spaghetti again, then.  

He said as much as he turned to take two plates down from the cabinet.  “Oh hush,” his wife scolded him.  “You can complain the day you bother to cook for yourself.  Or the day you’re actually here when I start.”

She had him there, and she knew it. 

“Besides,” she continued, “This is a new recipe.  Well, sort of.”  She set her spoon down and moved to help him set the table, grabbing forks from the drawer as she went.  “I got it from Ian!”

Chris went a little cold.  “Ian?” he asked with forced casualness.  Surely there was more than one Ian in the complex, not just the one who’s name he had been hearing every night as he—

“Yes, our new neighbor!” Gina replied, and oh.  Guess not.  “I met him down at the gym today, such a nice man,” she said as she opened the fridge to grab a head of lettuce for a salad.  “He said his sister always made this for them on special occasions, and if it satisfied five hungry kids, it should be good enough for us, right?”

Chris stopped what he was doing and stared at her.  “Wait, five kids?” he asked.  “Did she—”

“Oh, they weren’t hers silly,” Gina answered without needing clarification.  “No, apparently his parents weren’t around, poor man.  Said his sister raised all of them, can you imagine?”

He couldn’t.  His own parents had never been saints, but they had been there.  Too much, if he was honest.

“They’re from the southside, you know,” Gina offered in a lower voice, almost conspiratorial, and Chris almost the dropped the knife that he had been ready to hand her for chopping their salad.

“Southside, huh?” he asked casually, sure that couldn’t be right.  Back when he was growing up, the kids at school had told him all about that part of Chicago, and none of the stories had been good.  He remembered wanting to check it out one day, getting as far as the train station, before his mother caught up to him and almost tanned his hide for even thinking about it.  She had sat him down the next day and showed him article after article about what happened down there, and even now, knowing that it was becoming almost respectable, he couldn’t imagine living there.

“Yeah,” Gina confirmed.  “Ian and his husband both grew up there.  Built up their business from scratch, got up enough to start a better life out here.”  She sighed.  “It’s awfully romantic, isn’t it?”

Chris thought back to tattoos and crude nicknames, and said “Not sure that’s what I’d call it.”  He was starting to gain a grudging respect for the neighbors, though, and he didn’t like it one bit.  So they acted like trash because they grew up like trash, what was the big deal?  Nor did he like the sudden feeling of relief, almost gratitude, at the new knowledge that his neighbor, who was most likely capable of doing him actual harm, had restrained himself.  He tried to convince himself that none of it meant they deserved a break as his wife continued to wax poetic about them.

“He asked about our furniture, too,” she was saying as she dished out their dinner, and he tried to tune back in the best he could.  “Something about trying to find an adjustable bed his husband wanted.”

“No,” he said quickly, newly horrified.  “Tell me you didn’t.”

Oh, but she had.  “Of course I did silly, we love ours!  They’ve just been sleeping on an air mattress, can you believe it?  Said they had their old bed ready to bring up, but that’s no good either, really.  They deserve something new.  So I gave him the name of the store, told him they deliver.  I think they were going to see about getting it as early as tonight!”

That was it.  He was done.  “I’m, uh, not hungry anymore,” he choked out, leaving the kitchen to make his way deeper into the apartment. 

“Where are you going?” Gina called after him.

“To set up the guest room!” he called back.  There was no way he was going next door again knowing that his neighbor’s tattoos might actually live up to what they said, but he couldn’t spend one more night trying to ignore the sound of them.  Something told him they wouldn’t be any quieter with a fancy bed to fuck on, and there was no way they had time to find the louder one a gag before tonight.

“I’ll see you in the morning!”

Chapter Text

Billy Sanchez was watering the flowers out front when he saw them.  They pulled up in an emergency vehicle, driving too quickly and with too much purpose to be off duty, but there were no lights or sirens.  He watched them as they approached, swerving into a regular space and halting abruptly.  Two men hopped out, one on either side, and the tall redhead that had been driving made his way around the front of the vehicle, giving the hood a tap as he did.  With two more long strides, he joined a shorter, darker man on the passenger side, and they moved together to the double doors at the back that proudly proclaimed AMBULANCE: KEEP BACK.

Billy slowly twisted the end of the garden hose he held to stop the stream of water, waiting to see what was happening.  Without at least lights, this wasn’t a pickup, and surely there would have been more of a hubbub around the place if an accident had just occurred.  And while Billy had taken a personal day earlier in the week—his new granddaughter was home from the hospital, and his oldest nephew was kind enough to fill in around the grounds so he could have a visit—he had never been left out of the loop on major happenings.  He knew that he was hardly the best of friends with the tenants here, as no matter where you went, there was always a divide between residents and staff, but he liked to think that someone would inform him of something so major that an ambulance ride was required.  Melanie would have called, at least, if only to warn him to be on the lookout.

Everything pointed to some other explanation, but he was getting riled up despite himself just considering the options.  His heart started to beat harder as he thought of the people he knew here—there was that couple toward the back on the first floor, the ones that had thanked him for clearing the walkway so the wife’s wheelchair could make it through, or that girl up on the second that always waved at him with a smile while she tried to hide her bruises.  They kept mostly to themselves, unlike the rest of the hip young crowd that had found this place, and maybe no one would even know if something had happened to them while he was gone.  He clenched his hands around the house, breath quick, and considered the options.

But when the two men reappeared around the side of the ambulance, there was no gurney in sight, no sign of medical supplies, and no third person requiring assistance.  The two ununiformed men were definitely carrying something, but it had nothing to do with their clearly labeled ambulance.  In fact, it was something so unexpected that Billy’s heart and breath had barely slowed before they caught again in bewilderment.

It was a mattress.

An old, badly stained mattress, he realized as they came closer, some of the splotches suspiciously dark.  And now that his fear was fading, Billy found anger taking its place.  There had been problems with trash dumping here before, but nothing of this caliber.  If these two thought they could take a shortcut with medical waste just because they were off duty, willing to cause a panic in the process just to avoid a trip out of their way or some paperwork, they had another think coming.  How dare they come here like this just to toss off their burden like Billy’s well-tended grounds were some common dump?  

Already worked up again, if in an entirely different way, Billy quickly wound the hose he still held and set it at his feet.  He felt his face growing red in indignation as he took a few big steps to intercept the men at the sidewalk and block their way onto the property.

The shorter of the two men saw him first, his face just peeking out from behind his shared load, and gave a short nod in greeting.  When he realized that Billy wasn’t moving, though, his brow furrowed, and wrinkles appeared on the surface of the mattress as his grip tightened.

“Yo,” he said, then, switching his gaze to his companion, “Ian.”

The other man didn’t seem to hear him, nor notice when he started to slow, the mattress dipping between them as the slack increased.  He just kept coming, walking backward with the side of his head pressed into the mattress they carried, and stepped right into Billy.

The mattress crashed down as they both stumbled, the tall redhead falling forward over it while Billy took an unsteady step backward.  Billy was no small fellow, and he was rather accustomed to being an immovable object, but that man had more power to him than it appeared.

He’d have to keep that in mind if this got ugly.

The stranger recovered first, straightening quickly and throwing out a hand to stop the advancement of the man that accompanied him, who had immediately dropped his own end of their burden to dart forward.  He turned to look at what had halted him, and winced when he saw Billy.

“Shit, I’m so sorry,” he offered easily.  “Didn’t see you there, you okay?”

The man with him responded before Billy could, a scowl now etched on his face.

“The fuck, man, don’t apologize,” he demanded sourly, completing his advance to stand one step in front of the taller man, between him and Billy.  “This asshole saw us coming, he’s the one should be sorry.”

The only acknowledgment he got was a large, pale hand on his shoulder, which he promptly shrugged off with a glare that he then turned on Billy.  “What’s your problem anyway?” he questioned roughly, like he wasn’t the one trespassing and posing as an on-duty medical professional.

“No disposals here, fellas,” Billy answered, crossing his arms over his not-inconsiderable gut.  He saw eyes flick over him, and noted the way his stance was observed and dismissed.  These two had clearly never seen what a healthy man with a bit of weight on him could do in a fight, he thought, eying them in return and deciding that he could handle himself just fine.  The little one might act tough, but there wasn’t enough of him to be a threat.  “This is private property, not the city dump.”

The short one actually seemed to relax a little after registering Billy’s stern countenance and firm words, oddly enough, just snorting and turning away to rub at his nose.  But the other one, the gangly redhead that had almost sent Billy sprawling, just looked confused.

“Um,” he said.  His pale eyebrows drew together, green eyes crinkled at the edges.  “I’m sorry,” he apologized again, “but…disposals?”

Billy nodded at the mattress that now lay on the ground, refraining from commenting on the whole oblivious act the kid had going.  “Looks like that’s from an accident,” he said knowingly, “and I’m guessing you know about the commercial dumpsters out back.”  He had told the council that they shouldn’t keep the huge dumpsters once construction was finished, but they had yet to realize that he was right, that folks like this would notice and start taking advantage.  A look of understanding slowly crossed the redheaded stranger’s face, and Billy added gruffly, “Too bad for you, I can’t let you leave it there.”

“Jesus.”  The short one was facing them again, clearly trying to smother a laugh.  “You hear that Gallagher?  That mattress is so shitty he thinks somebody died on it!”

“It’s not that bad, Mickey,” came the plaintive reply, the man called Gallagher looking away from Billy to briefly raise his eyes like he wanted to roll them.  “And it’s not trash,” he told Billy as he looked him in the eye again, “it’s ours.”

Oh, Billy thought.  Well, he’d have to deal with that, too.

“Can’t let you set up here, either,” Billy pivoted easily.  He hadn’t thought that these two looked that desperate, especially since they seemed to be gainfully employed, but he supposed there was no knowing these days.  Some kids just liked the streets, and camping out by a complex with all sorts of amenities was mighty appealing to folks that weren’t used to roughing it.  He had seen his fair share of college kids on corners after they blew through their stipends too quickly, told off one of his own sons for trying to do the same years ago, before it was such a common thing.

“Wait, you think we’re squatters?” the short one—Mickey—clarified.  He didn’t sound so amused anymore, his brows drawn down again, a thick black line over hard eyes.  

“Wouldn’t be the first time, lad,” Billy answered, trying to keep the balance between casual and no-nonsense with his tone.  Somehow both men seemed more concerned with Billy thinking they were homeless than they had with being seen as opportunists, and while he was still sure that he could handle the situation, there was no need to get their hackles up prematurely. 

As they continued their standoff, another car pulled into the lot behind them, an old but sleek model with scuffs on the grill and a few chips in its silver paint.  Billy hurriedly stepped closer to the two intruders when he saw it park in a space toward the back.  

“Look, you gotta go,” he told them firmly.  It wouldn’t do for the residents to see this, they counted on him to keep things right.  It may not be in his job description, but he figured keeping the place free of intruders was like keeping the sidewalk free of weeds.

Then a figure stepped out of the car, and Billy almost groaned, dropping his arms to his sides.  Of course it was that one, the businessman from the second floor that always seemed to notice when something was out of place.  There was no use trying to hide the situation from him—he had probably already seen them anyway.  Billy vaguely remembered a time when interactions with the man had been passable, if not pleasant, but the last few months had almost turned him into a different person.  A person that Billy did not much like.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Williams,” Billy greeted when the newcomer is still a few yards away, trying to step around the two men that still hadn’t moved off the sidewalk or retrieved their horrible mattress from the ground.  He inwardly winced when they both turn to see who he addressed, then looked on in horrified silence as Mickey actually lifted a hand in an aborted wave.

“Hey neighbor,” Mickey said in a droll tone.  “Sleep alright last night?”  Billy stared him in confusion, and noticed his companion Gallagher giving him a similar look.  Billy felt better to know that he wasn’t the only one apparently out of the loop here.  

Even more surprisingly, the new arrival just offered Mickey a grimace-like smile and scratched the back of his head.

“Uh, yeah actually,” he answered.  “Thanks?”  

Billy could feel his expression slacken at the almost cowed tone in the man’s voice.  The last time Billy had heard him sound anything but hassled or vexed was when his wife had followed him down to the car one morning and told him that if he couldn’t get off at a reasonable time that night, he could just stay at work.  After that, the silver car had been in the lot more often than not when Billy left for the day, but Mr. Williams still hadn’t dropped the attitude that caused the altercation.

What could a total stranger have done to garner such a reaction?

Mickey just nodded, either ignoring or not seeing the puzzled glances he was getting.  “Just don’t get used to it, man,” he warned.  “Can’t wear him out in the shower every night.”  

“Mick,” Gallagher hissed, eyes wide as he not-so-discreetly elbowed the other man in the side.  He seemed to have caught on, at least, but Billy was still lost.  Mr. Williams was a little red, but just looked…resigned?

Well, formality had never failed Billy in a crisis, and he needed to take control of this situation again.  “Mr. Williams,” he began, “I was just telling these men that they can’t bring their things in here.”

Mr. Williams looked almost surprised for a moment, but his expression cleared quickly, taking with it his earlier hesitance.  “Oh, right,” he said, then focused on the other two men with apparent determination.  “My wife said she talked to you about furniture,” he started, looking at Gallagher, “when she met you in the gym?  Sounds like you got on.”

That was not the response Billy had expected.

“Uh, yeah,” Gallagher responded slowly.  “You’re Gina’s husband, then?  Chris, was it?”

“That’s me,” Mr. Williams—Chris, though Billy would never presume to call him that to his face— answered with a forced chuckle.  And Billy was more confused than ever, because while Gina was a lovely woman, she wasn’t the type to chat with strangers that snuck into the complex.  And her husband was no longer the type of man to make nice with them, either.

They were still talking, though, and Billy did his best to follow.

“Did Gina not tell you about big deliveries?” Chris was asking.  “You have to use the service elevator to get things upstairs,” he clarified when Gallagher shook his head.  “It’s around the back, but you’ll need a manager’s key to use it.”

Mickey had been quiet once Gallagher started talking, standing back with a quirk of a smile just barely bending his lips, but now he reached out and flicked the redhead behind the ear with one hand.  “What you waiting for then?” he asked when Gallagher flinched and gave him a quick glare.  “Get your ass moving, get us that key so we can get done.”

Gallagher did roll his eyes this time at the other man’s antics, but agreeably turned toward the leasing office—and toward Billy.

Billy didn’t move.

“Um,” Gallagher said.  “’Scuse me.”

Billy looked at Chris, to find him watching the exchange curiously.  They obviously all knew each other, and Billy was starting to question his initial reactions to these men, but he wasn’t quite ready to step down.  There was just no way that these two, with their brash arrival, crude language, and worn possessions, were now among the polished and orderly people he worked for.

He didn’t have much of a choice, though, all evidence pointing to a rather intense misunderstanding—not remotely his fault, he held—and when Gallagher slipped past him on the sidewalk with a shimmy and a hop, he let him go.

Silence was left in his wake, the three remaining men shifting awkwardly.  Chris looked like he was forcing himself to be there, and Billy thought that Gina apparently getting on with the ginger might have something to do with that.  Mickey just stared off into the distance after Gallagher, seemingly completely uninterested in either of them.

Billy broke first.

“So,” he said on a cough, finally relaxing his arms.  “Not squatters then?”

Chris abruptly choked on nothing, and Mickey snorted.  

“Not fucking squatters, man,” he answered simply.  Then, softer, “Just moved in.  Asshole signed the damn lease.”  Like he knew it was questionable.  Like he knew he didn’t belong there.  Billy relaxed just a touch more.  

That little insight made him take a second look at the man in front of him.  Hair and skin clean, clothes worn, dried mud and dirt flaking off well-used boots with tightly knotted laces.  The smudge of tattoos on his hands, more ink just peeking through above the collar of his shirt as he tugged it down with twitchy fingers.  And a hint of red high on his cheeks as his eyes looked anywhere but at the people and buildings around him, flicking quickly over the ambulance, the street, and the mattress at his feet.

And with a great internal sigh, understanding all too well the feeling of being just outside belonging, always questioned, always watched, Billy made the conscious decision to let it go.  

Chris glanced between the two of them, but when nothing else was forthcoming, he restarted the conversation himself.  

“What are you bringing up, anyway?” he asked Mickey, like the answer wasn’t literally laying in front of him on the pavement.

“Mattress,” Mickey huffed, giving the thing a not-so-light kick with a muddy boot.  It left a dirty mark on the fabric, but one that blended in well with the general look of the thing.

“Right,” Chris said, eying it distastefully.  “I thought you were getting one of those fancy new beds like we have?” When Mickey just looked at him, he added, “The smart bed, fully adjustable, temperature controlled.  Gina said Ian was asking about it.”

“Wait, what?”  

The sound of feet on pavement reached them then, Gallagher returning from the office at a trot.  He reached them quickly on his long legs, barely panting as he came to a stop next to Mickey.

“Hey, Melanie’s headed back to the elevator now,” he said, then bent down to grab an edge of the mattress.  “C’mon, Mick, let’s get this up.”

“Wait a second, fuckhead,” Mickey demanded with a glare.  Billy could see Chris’ eyebrows rise and felt his do the same.  Gallagher just looked up questioningly.  “You found that damn bed?”

And the mattress went back down.

“Uh, yeah,” Gallagher answered, scratching the back of his head. 

Mickey scoffed.  “What the fuck are we wasting time with this shit for then?  Let’s go get it man!”

“Mickey,” Gallagher started cautiously, darting a look at their audience.  Billy didn’t even pretend he wasn’t listening.  Gallagher continued, “it’s a little out of our price range right now…”

“Fuck that,” Mickey said, waving a tattooed hand.  “I’ll get it in our range.  You know, I heard Iggy’s out—”

And that was closer to what Billy had expected out of the man all along, he thought, feeling a bit of that original apprehension sneak back in.  He still didn’t like the idea of him being around this place.

“No, Mick,” Gallagher interrupted immediately, exasperated.  “We fucking talked about this.  You call Iggy, and I dig my shorts of the closet and call the club.”

As much as he wanted to be right, though, Billy couldn’t help but notice the small smile just barely touching Mickey’s face, the faint lines of laughter crinkling around his eyes as he, apparently knowingly, started an argument right there on the sidewalk.  His full attention was on his partner, and while he might have meant some of what he said, while it might have been something he wanted to do, Billy could tell that he  had already given in.

Still, that last comment seemed to have hit a bit of a nerve, and Billy watched Mickey’s eyes narrow, a slight tick developing in his jaw.   “You wouldn’t.”

Gallagher raised his brows in response.  “Try me.”  

“Uh, guys?”  Chris awkwardly interrupted their standoff.  “I thought you said Melanie was waiting for you?”

It was enough to break the weird tension that had fallen between the two, and Mickey finally bent down to grab the edge of the mattress.  “Pussy,” he muttered, but he kept quiet as Gallagher took the other end and lifted.  They set off at a brisk pace toward the back of the complex and the service elevator, leaving Chris and Billy behind at the edge of the parking lot.

“So,” Billy started, still watching the two walk away.  It looked like they had started bickering again already, aiming unbalanced kicks at each other under their burden.  “New neighbors?”

“New neighbors,” Chris confirmed, somewhat glumly now that they were out of earshot.  

“The wife likes them?” Billy prompted.

Chris sighed.  “The wife loves them.”  Billy glanced at him from the corner of his eye, and Chris caught it, flushing slightly.  “We’re working on it,” he answered the unasked question, spurred by the late nights, silly arguments, and not-so-gentle admonishments that he knew Billy had observed over the last few weeks.  “I’m working on it,” he amended, and Billy nodded as Chris turned to walk away, scuffing his feet against the pavement as he went.  He turned back once, to offer a short warning: 

“Be careful with those two.  Gina says they’re Southside.”  Like that meant something to anyone who hadn’t grown up with a white picket fence.

Billy walked back to the flowerbeds once he was gone.  Bent to pick up the hose.  Turned it on, finished watering the plants.  Maybe he didn’t know everything about this place, he thought to himself, and he definitely still knew nothing about the newest residents.  But he still knew some things, and he thought he was starting to learn others already.  Like the way that Gallagher’s endless energy apparently made young housewives and bitter businessmen try to make friends, or the way that Mickey’s abrasive attitude hid an uncertainty that Billy recognized from his own youth, from being a young man working long hours for the families of his richer peers.  And the way that try as they might, everyone would always see the two of them as something separate, like Chris seemed to.  Just like they saw Billy, or anyone else that commuted to work from a grungier neighborhood.

But before he turned the hose off again, Billy still put his thumb over the top and used it to spray slightly yellowed water over the front of that damn ambulance, knowing it would dry in salty splotches on the windshield.  They might live here now, and he might understand them just a little, but they didn’t get a pass for scaring the hell out of him like that.

Chapter Text

It was early on a Thursday evening when Jill made her way down the hall to apartment 216, juggling an armful of towels and a water bottle as she freed a hand to knock, shave-and-a-hair-cut style.

A quick tap-tap came from the other side before the door opened to reveal Gina in leggings and a bright pink tank, hair piled atop her head in a messy bun.

“Ooh, look at you!” Jill whistled, and Gina laughed.  “Ready to hit the gym?”

“You have no idea,” Gina groaned.  “I would really love to punch something right now, but I’ll settle for running until my legs fall off.”

Jill offered a sympathetic grimace.  “That bad, huh?”

Gina sighed.  “Not really, just the usual.  We were doing better, but…” she cut herself off, face settling into a firm look.  “Enough of that, it’s girl’s day!” she declared, and linked her arm through Jill’s, making her lose her grip on her precarious pile of supplies.

“Shit, sorry!” Gina bent down to gather it all up, and Jill knelt beside her, grabbing at the water bottle as it rolled past them.  She missed, and it came to rest against a worn black sneaker.

“Need help?” came the deep voice of the shoe’s owner, and Jill let her eyes follow the long line of his legs, encased in slim-cut jeans, to the tight stretch of his shirt over a muscled stomach, and finally, to the beaming smile on his pale, freckled face.

“Ian!” she greeted warmly as he bent to grab her bottle.  His hand dwarfed it as he held it out to her, and she stood to take it with a smile of her own.

Gina rose with the rest of her things, and Jill accepted it all from her without looking away from Ian.  “What are you up to?” she asked.  “Isn’t it a little late to be getting home?”

Ian shrugged, rubbing the back of his neck.  “Had to run an errand,” he told her, lifting his other hand to shake a little paper bag.  The sound of rattling pills filled the hallway, and he brought the pharmacy bag back into his chest to still it, looking mildly embarrassed.

“Everything okay?” Gina asked, and Jill tried to discreetly elbow her, but it was too ungainly and obvious when she almost dropped her things again.

“Yeah,” Ian answered with only a moment of hesitation.  “Yeah, just routine stuff, you know?”

“Sure,” Jill agreed easily.  They all stood there, just looking at each other, and she gave a little giggle at the sudden air of awkwardness between them.  “Well, we’re just off to the gym,” she told Ian, taking a step back.  “Time to work off some stress.”  She nudged Gina as she turned to go, the other woman glancing back at Ian before following.

“Hey, wait a sec,” his voice came from behind them.  “Mind if I come with?”

Jill was a little surprised, but Gina grinned, spinning back around.  “Of course!” she said eagerly.  “You can spot me again, Jill can’t lift enough.”

Jill gave a faux gasp, whacking Gina on the arm with her free hand.  “Hey!” she protested.  “Are you calling me weak?”

Gina just laughed, and Ian joined her with a soft chuckle.  

“Just let me grab some stuff,” he said, edging toward his own door.  He fumbled for his keys, slotting them into the lock.  “Be right back!” he called as he disappeared into his apartment, the door slamming behind him but drifting back open just a touch.

They stood awkwardly in the hall as they waited, listening to the faint sounds coming from behind the not-quite closed door.  There was a hushed greeting, the squeak of shoes on tile, and then a clearer voice, raised slightly to be heard.

“Where you goin’ so fast?” it said.  “Thought we were gonna chill, man.”

Ah.  That would be Mickey, the husband, Jill thought, and inwardly winced.  The husband that was prone to violent outbursts and fits of pique, who Ian was apparently blowing off to hang with them.  She imagined that wouldn’t go over very well.

Ian’s reply was muffled, and Jill imagined that he had gone back to the bedroom to change and grab his gear. 

Turning to Gina, she talked over the hushed sounds.  “When did Ian spot you?” she asked, trying to ignore the arguing tones coming from the apartment.  “Thought we always went together.”

“You were out with Alan,” Gina answered, “and Chris was—” she cut off as Mickey’s voice came through again, and they stopped pretending not to listen.

“With who?” Jill heard Mickey ask, and reminded herself to tell Alan that they needed a new deadbolt.  For purely unrelated reasons, of course; she was sure Mickey was a great guy underneath all the…well, underneath himself.

She could hear Ian again as he approached from the other side of the cracked door. “I told you, Gina and Jill.”  He sounded exasperated.

“And I asked you who the fuck that was?” Mickey repeated, louder.

Ian opened the door a fraction, his back showing, and spoke into the apartment.

“You’ve met them, Mickey,” he said dryly.  “I know you know who they are.”

“Fucking fine, man,” Mickey huffed from inside.  “Go do your stupid gym stuff, see if I care.  I’ll just get started without you.”

Ian laughed.  “Sure you will, Mick,” he answered, backing farther out the door.  “You know you could just come with me,” he added.  There was no response to that, and Ian shook his head after a moment as he turned and kicked the door closed.

He was all smiles when he faced them again.  “What are we waiting for?” he asked.  “Let’s go.”

——————

They had been at gym for nearly an hour when Mickey wandered in.  Jill caught sight of him first from his reflection in the mirror as she watched her form with the free weights, looking out of place in his jeans and boots as he shuffled through the door.

He was glancing around the room, obviously looking for his husband as he tried to play it cool, and stopped still when he apparently found him.  Jill followed his gaze, and grimaced as she let the weight she was holding drop.

Shit.

Ian had long since given up on Jill and even on Gina, who had begged off halfway into their session when she saw Chris's car pull up through the narrow window by the exterior door.  He had moved from spotting her on the bench press—damn, that woman could lift—to doing a set of his own, and it was the identity of his spotter that had Jill cringing where she sat across the room.

Because of course, it was Jake.

Jake, the single guy from apartment 104 who flirted with anything that moved, her included, despite talking to him more than once about it.  She was pretty sure he was straight, just an attention whore, but doubted that would matter to Mickey. He was already striding over to the bench with his jaw clenched.  And she had to admit it looked…concerning, from an outside perspective.

Ian was struggling on his last rep, always one to overdo it, so he had Jake’s full attention.  And Jake’s attention was nothing to balk at; the intensity of those dark eyes could be intimidating under his perfectly coiffed blonde hair, and they were fixed on the shift of Ian’s chest and arms as he flexed under the weight of the bar.  Still, it wasn’t anything damning, and when she saw Mickey pause, seeming to argue silently with himself, she thought that maybe he would let it go.  Until…

Until Ian’s elbow gave out and Jake reached to grab the weight from him, hand covering pale, freckled fingers as he safely lifted it and placed it on the rack.  Jill hurriedly looked back to Mickey’s reflection to see him scowl at the apparent intimacy, then make for Ian again.

Double shit.

“The fuck are you doin’” she could hear him ask from clear across the room.  His voice was brusque, and rude, and reminded her of how he sounded before he threw a chair into the pool not that long ago—not a good sign at all.

Ian let go of the weighted bar and slowly sat up, looking at his husband curiously.

“Uh, working out, Mick,” he said like it was obvious.  “Like I told you?”

Mickey snorted.  “Didn’t tell me you had a new gym buddy, asshole,” he accused, wiping at his brow with the tip of his thumb.  “Thought you were here with a couple of fuckin’ girls.”

Ian sighed.  “I am, Mick,” he replied.  “Look, Jill is right over there,” he added, meeting her eyes from across the room with a pained expression that clearly said save me.  She gave a little wave, but Mickey didn’t even bother to turn and look.  She got up anyway, putting her weight back in the holder and walking to hover behind them.

“Oh yeah?” Mickey challenged.  “If you’re here with her, then who’s this joker?”  He jerked his chin at Jake, who met Jill’s eyes over his head, amused.

She shook her head at him, but Jake didn’t take the hint.  Not that she expected him to.

“Hi,” he offered with a crooked smile, extending a tanned, manicured hand.  “You must be Mick.”

Mickey eyed his hand distastefully until it dropped back to Jake’s side.  “How the fuck do you know that?” he asked, and Jill hoped with her whole heart that Jake wasn’t going to be a self-absorbed asshole today.

“Oh, I know Ian,” he said casually, tilting his head toward the red-haired man on the bench, who looked this close to giving up and putting his face in his hands as he realized what was going on.  Jill was ready to join him, especially when Jake added, “We met when he complimented my ripped, sweaty abs on his first day.  Think it was love at first sight.”

And, well.  Triple shit.

“The fuck did you say?” Mickey growled, hands forming fists at his side.

“Mick,” Ian tried, standing to get a hand on his husband’s arm.  Mickey brushed him off.

“No,” he said lowly, “I want to hear what this assface said about my husband.”  He emphasized the last word, fingering the silver ring on his hand.  “And you,” he added with a glare and a finger pressed forcefully to Ian’s ribs, “are gonna explain it after I turn his sweaty abs into a giant fuckin’ bruise.”

“Woah, easy tiger,” Jake laughed, hands up in surrender.  Jill wanted to kill him when Mickey glowered, his easy banter making things a million times worse.

“What did you call me?” Mickey hissed, taking a step forward until Ian threw up an arm to block him.

“Hey,” Jake continued, finally seeming to catch onto the fact that his life might hang in the balance of his next words.  “I’m just joking, man. I’m not even gay.”

Maybe he wasn’t as dumb as he seemed, Jill considered.

Mickey was not placated in the least.  “Yeah?” he spit out.  “That’s what I used to say too, fucker.  If you didn’t notice, it didn’t take.”

“Not gonna change,” Jake reassured.  “I just admire a good form when I see it,” he added with a quick wink at Ian.

Nevermind, he was that dumb.

Mickey shoved Ian away to take a step forward, and Jill wished that she had gotten to Gina’s just a little earlier so they could have avoided this whole thing.  She watched Mickey’s arm cock, sure she was about to witness a murder, when Ian interrupted.

“Mick, pause,” Ian said firmly, and miracle of miracles, his husband actually listened.  He stood there, awkwardly poised with his fist half raised, practically vibrating with tension.

“Jake, go,” Ian said next, his tone and face brooking no argument.  “Now,” he added when Jake opened his mouth, “before I let him hit you.  We’ll talk later.”

And then he had Mickey by the arm, dragging him off to an empty corner, leaving Jill and Jake behind.  Jake looked at her, eyes sparkling with humor, and she just shook her head at him.

“You’re an idiot, you know that?” she told him.  “Pretty sure that man has killed people before.”  She wasn’t sure at all, actually, but he had been in jail for something, she knew from Ian, and it didn’t seem that much of a stretch.

“I can hold my own, hun,” Jake said knowingly, and she scoffed in his face.

“You may be pretty,” she responded, “but even Alan could take you in a fight.”

She left him there, sputtering, and moved closer to Ian and Mickey.  They were huddled together now, speaking quietly.  Rather than interrupt a private moment, she sidestepped to the nearest piece of equipment and started to inspect it, eavesdropping.  She just wanted to make sure Ian was okay, she told herself.  It had nothing to do with the way Mickey’s fist had relaxed to grip at the loose fabric of Ian’s shirt, or the way his angry eyes had turned downcast and soft in the minute she hadn’t been looking.

“He’s not even my type, Mick,” Ian was reassuring him earnestly, hands on the other man’s hips.  His thumbs were absently stroking his husband’s sides under that cut-off vest he was always wearing.

“I know,” Mickey agreed softly as she listened.  “That white-haired old fucker on the treadmill better watch out, though.”  

Jill wasn’t sure what that meant—Mr. Jones, going at a steady walk over to the side, was a perfectly nice man—but it sounded like a story for another time.

“Didn’t think you’d done anything,” Mickey admitted.  “Just…” he bit his lip, eyes lifting to search Ian’s before dropping again.  “Don’t like people touchin’ what’s mine.”  His hand played with the neck of Ian’s shirt, tugging it down until Ian grasped his hand with his own, laughing softly.  Ian tilted Mickey’s head back up with soft fingers, smiling.  

“I am yours, though, Mick,” he breathed, nudging the other man’s nose with his own.  “You know I am.”

“Yeah,” Mickey murmured, leaning closer for a second before pulling away entirely, dropping Ian’s hand and turning his back.  “Better keep it that way, Gallagher,” he called over his shoulder as he walked away, missing the grin that threatened to take over Ian’s face.

Huh, Jill thought, watching him go.  That went…better than expected, all things considered.  She never would have guessed it from the first time they met, but as dangerous as Mickey might be, Ian seemed to have tamed him.  Not that she would ever say that to his face—she liked all of her limbs right where they were, thank you very much.

 Ian made his way over to her, looking at the equipment she idled by.  “Ready for some lats?” he asked, as if nothing had transpired.  She took her cue from him and shrugged, moving into place, and he set the machine for her before moving to the one next to it.

“He always like that?” she asked casually after they had done a few reps.  Ian didn’t answer, so she added, “your husband I mean.”

He chuckled as he pulled down the bar.  “Yeah, pretty much.”  His voice was light, but his eyes were cautious when he looked at her.  “That a problem?” he questioned.

Jill shook her head quickly, focusing on the pull in her muscles.  “Not at all!” she answered.  “He’s just, uh…” she stumbled a bit, looking for the right words.  “He certainly makes an impression,” she settled on, and watched Ian grin again.

“That he does,” he agreed, eyes flicking to the door Mickey had strolled out of.  His voice was soft as he repeated, “That he does.”

“He get jealous a lot, though?” she pushed, and he shook his head.

“Nah,” he answered.  “Not anymore, not really.”  He did another rep. “He’s just working through some…personal stuff right now.”

She didn’t know too much about their past, but with what she did know, she imagined that there was plenty of personal stuff to last them both a lifetime.  But from the moment she had just witnessed, she supposed they had a lifetime to deal with it.

She let go of the bar and stretched out her back, groaning.  “Well,” she said, “Gina will shit her pants when she hears she almost missed a fight.”  She moved over toward the wall to snatch up the water bottle she had left there, taking a long swig, and Ian followed to do the same.  

“She told me about Mickey’s little talk with Chris you know,” Jill confided, “when he stopped by to complain.”  Ian almost spit his water out.  

“What?” he asked weakly once he had recovered.  Jill giggled at the look on his face.

“Yeah,” she said, “she was kind of hoping that witnessing your honeymoon phase would make Chris step it up, but...” she shrugged.

Ian blushed to his ears, though he gave her a look she couldn’t decipher at the term honeymoon.

“That type of thing happen a lot?” she asked again, and this time he laughed.  

“Oh yeah,” he told her with a fond smile.  “And I don’t think that’s gonna change.”  They stood there side by side, sipping their water quietly.

“Anyway,” he said abruptly, “I better be getting back, before he comes to find me again.”

“You do that,” Jill agreed.  “Don’t think I’m up for another round of that with Jake.”

Ian snorted as he grabbed up his things, eyes narrowed as his gaze sought out the other man.  “He goads my husband like that again, he won’t have to worry about what Mickey will do,” he told her.  “I’ll take care of it myself.”  He sounded serious.

Oh, Jill thought, watching him leave with wide eyes and reevaluating her perception of the couple.  Maybe Mickey wasn’t the only dangerous one.  She shook her head as she took another drink.  As long as they tamed each other, it didn’t really matter.  Now if only Alan would show that kind of incentive…

Chapter Text

It was a lovely day, almost unseasonably warm, and Lyla had just gotten settled into a chair by the poolside with her husband when a little girl in a striped swimsuit came running over.  Her red hair streamed behind her as she looked over her pale shoulder and laughed.

“Franny, no running by the pool!” someone shouted from farther off.

The child just giggled, called back, “You gotta come catch me!” in a high voice, and ran straight into Lyla’s unmoving chair.  

It jostled just enough at the impact to send Lyla sprawling, her hands reaching out to slap against the ground before she could completely tip over the side.  Her husband Charlie was there in an instant to right her, gently lifting her until she could lie back again against the seat rest.  She closed her eyes for just a second, letting that familiar helpless feeling wash through her and away, and when she opened them, she looked straight into wide, pale blue eyes on the brink of brimming with tears.

“Oh,” Lyla said softly, and those gentle eyes cleared, turning bright and cheery in an instant.

“You’re okay!” exclaimed the red-haired girl, pale arms flapping absently as she bounced on her bare feet.  Charlie’s arm appeared from around Lyla’s side, and Lyla grabbed onto it, preventing him from shooing away their new little guest.

“I am,” Lyla answered quietly.  “Are you?” she asked as her husband settled in against her, one arm wrapping protectively around her shoulders.  She smacked it lightly without looking back, and he pulled away with an audible sigh to go back to his own chair a few feet away.

“Of course,” the girl answered, as if the question was the silliest thing she had ever heard.  “I’m Franny,” she introduced herself, and it sounded like a continuation of her response. Of course I’m okay, I’m Franny.  Lyla smiled.  She could barely remember feeling that indestructible.

Franny beamed back, tiny white teeth flashing against her flushed face, and then two men were hurrying up to them, clearly out of breath. 

Lyla shrunk into herself again as the taller one immediately knelt at the girl’s side, taking her shoulders into large, freckled hands.  His hair matched hers, a burning red under the afternoon sun.

“You can’t run off like that, Franny,” he scolded her.  “What did your mother tell you?”

Franny pouted, sticking out her lower lip and staring down at the ground, and the other man kicked the first in the side.  Bare foot or not, it didn’t look gentle, and the man on the ground winced as he looked up with narrowed eyes.

“What the hell, Mick?” he asked plaintively, and his companion just shrugged his broad, muscled shoulders and thumbed an eyebrow.

“Don’t tell her to listen to her mom, man,” Mick answered.  “You know the kind of shit your sister says.”

That seemed to take the wind right out of the red-head, and he returned the shrug.

“Yeah, alright,” he agreed.  “Fair enough.”  His attention shifted to Lyla, then, and he offered a cautious smile without getting up.  

“Hi,” he said. “Sorry about that, uh…” he trailed off with a questioning look.

“Lyla,” she introduced herself.  “Lyla Freeman.”  She lifted a hand to point back to where Charlie was no doubt watching nervously.  She was amazed he hadn’t come back already.  “That’s my husband Charlie over there.”

The red-head nodded.  “I’m Ian.  We just moved in.”  He looked like he might say more, but the girl shuffled her feet beside him, and he stood up instead, wincing and rubbing at his knees where they had pressed into the concrete.  He reached a hand down to Franny, and she looked up with wide eyes as she took it.

“Come on, Franny,” he prompted.  “You want to get in the pool, yeah?”

“Yeah!” Franny agreed immediately, all signs of her chastisement gone in an instant.  She started off toward the edge of the pool, dragging Ian behind her, and he went with a brief glance at the other man and a hand brushed against his bare arm as he passed.

Lyla watched them go, watched as the red-haired man scooped up his miniature clone and tossed her into the water with a splash.  Franny shrieked in the way that only little girls can, then again as he cannonballed in next to her, sending up a wave that washed right over her head.

The man that still stood on the pavement next to Lyla’s chair was observing the two with soft eyes, his lips quirked in a small, telling smile.

“They yours?” she asked him, and he started, turning to look at her like he had forgotten she was there.  That had been happening a lot lately, but she thought it had more to do with his preoccupation than the way she tended to fade from people’s minds these days.

“Uh, yeah,” he answered, one hand rubbing at the name tattooed on his chest as he peered between her and the real claim on his attention.  “I mean, kinda.”

“Surrogate?” she dug deeper, and he was suddenly facing her head on, a scowl erasing the easy smile he had just moments ago.

“What are you talkin’ about?” he demanded.  

She started to shrink back, then steeled herself and stared him straight in his cold, blue eyes.  “I asked a question, I didn’t threaten you,” she said scathingly.  Asshole, she didn’t say.  She had been holding back for so long, it felt good to let a bit of her old self slip through again.  Something about seeing that little carefree girl was bringing things out in her that had been absent for far too long. 

Surprisingly, the man softened, if only a touch.  He coughed, looking at the ground, before meeting her gaze again.  “Yeah, uh…sorry.  I’m just a bit…” he trailed off, waving a hand around like it explained everything.  

She took the olive branch for what it was.  “So?” she asked him again.  “What’s the story?”

He still eyed her a bit warily, but answered.  “No story,” he said.  “That’s my, uh.”  He swallowed.  “My husband.”  He glanced back over his shoulder to where they played in the water, the girl trying her best to dunk a full grown man under the surface.  “And our niece,” he added.

Lyla nodded, but he wasn’t looking at her anymore.  “’Scuse me,” he muttered as he moved toward the water’s edge.  “I should probably…”

And he was gone, slipping into the pool on the shallow side, striding toward the other two through the water.  “Uncle Mickey!” the girl cried, and he grabbed her arm to help her clamber up onto his shoulders.  “Now I’m taller than Uncle Ian!” she celebrated, and Mickey laughed, a surprisingly happy sound for such a rough man.  

“Hear that, Firecrotch?” he goaded his husband.  “Can’t win now, Franny’s bringing in the big guns.”

Lyla could see the Ian roll his eyes all the way from her seat.  “Too bad she didn’t pick the real big guns,” he bantered back, lifting his own arms from the water in a muscle man pose.

“Oh fuck right off with that shit,” Mickey demanded laughingly, clearly not concerned with monitoring his language around a child.  “I went to the fucking gym for you, you dick.”  

“You went to the gym to make up for scaring away my work-out partner, Mick,” came the exasperated response.

“Hey, keeping guys off your ass is a damn good workout,” Mickey tried to insist, but it came out a little garbled as Franny reached down to squeeze his face in her tiny hands.

His husband burst into laughter at the image of Mickey’s squished cheeks, and Lyla smiled, settling back more firmly into her chair.  She missed laughing like that with Charlie, she realized, glancing over to where he sat with a book on his knees.  She missed a lot of things about him.  He was always so careful, now, she thought as she turned to watch the three strangers roughhouse in the water.  It made her feel as weak as she probably was.  But she could never tell him that; he worried, her Charlie, and he tried so hard.  So she just leaned back and watched others play, and eventually dozed off to the sounds of their laughter.

——————

Lyla woke to a scream, and scrambled as her eyes shot open.  She abruptly realized two things:  First, that she couldn’t move her legs, and it hurt as much now to remember as it did every morning since the accident.  Second, that the scream was one of joy, not of fear, and she looked up to see that happy little girl clinging like a monkey to the back of the gruff man that hadn’t hesitated to call her his.

“Deeper, Uncle Mickey!” she shrieked.  But he shook his head quickly, sending water droplets flying from his short black hair, and started prying at the arms wrapped around his shoulders.

“No can do, little red,” he told her, beckoning his husband over.  “That’s me out, Gallagher,” he said as he finally fought free and passed her off.  “All you from here.”

“Mickey, I know you can swim now,” his husband sighed as he took the girl, who abruptly plastered herself to him, trying to climb up his chest. “You’re down here all the time.”

“No, I can float,” Mickey corrected, making his way to the side of the pool and hoisting himself out.  “And not with that red-headed octopus tryin’ to pull me under every 10 seconds.”

“You owe me, Milkovich!” his husband called as Mickey moved away.  Mickey just threw up a middle finger and kept going, aiming straight for the stack of towels balanced on a nearby table.

Lyla looked away when he started to dry himself, glancing over to her own husband.  She sighed when she found him.  Charlie’s head was bent over his book in his own chair, eyes closed, sound asleep.  She could hardly blame him—they had been up late last night when her legs wouldn’t stop spasming, and she had banished him to the sofa when he wouldn’t stop fussing at her, trying to make it better.  He was always trying to make it better.  It was exhausting.

But now that she was awake again, she wished he was up and hovering like usual.  Based on the movement of the sun, it had been at least an hour since they set up out here, and she had told him they couldn’t stay too long.  It was time to get back so she could take care of some things, but she was loathe to wake him and ask for help after her fit of pique the night before.

Her eyes were still on her husband, hand idly running over her lower stomach to feel for signs of distension, when the black-haired stranger approached.  He stopped at her side and she looked up, curious, to find that he had found a worn beige hoodie somewhere to pull on over his trunks.

“You, uh.”  He coughed once, rubbed a tattooed hand against his mouth.  “You doin’ okay over here?”

Lyla smiled.  For all his tough exterior, and the sudden surge of irritation he had shown earlier, he seemed a nice enough man.  Reminded her of Charlie just a little, or at least Charlie before.  And for the second time, she felt a bit of her old self rising to the surface.  She decided to embrace it.  

“Right as rain,” she answered drolly, and saw Mickey do the slightest double-take when her tone didn’t match her smiling face.  She nodded at Charlie, still asleep, and added, “Just waiting for that one to wake up so he can get me home to take a fucking piss.” 

His eyebrows slowly raised at her language, a delightedly wicked grin taking over his face when she cursed.  He licked his top teeth, glancing back at her husband and his, then gave her an obvious once-over with those bright blue eyes.  

“I’m gonna like you,” he told her confidently, and she laughed.  

“I’m very married, kid,” she reminded him, and he scoffed.

“So am I,” he responded.  “Super fucking gay, too, according to my gay-ass husband over there,” he added with a thumb over his shoulder.  “So what?”

So what indeed.  

“If you like me so much, why don’t you see what you’re in for?” she offered.  “You can help instead.”

It was a reach, she knew, probably for both of them.  It was rare that she let anyone but Charlie help her, and her new friend didn’t really seem the sort.  But to her surprise, he nodded quickly.

“What do ya need?” he asked.

She blinked.  “My chair,” she told him.  “Charlie left it over there, by the—” 

Before she could even point, he had spotted it, sitting unobtrusively by a potted plant against the wall.  He strode over and grabbed it by the handles, tugging it in her direction, then stopping and staring in puzzlement when it didn’t move.  Before she could tell him that the brake was on, he just stooped and hoisted it up by the armrests instead, and awkwardly carried it over.

Halfway, he stumbled, just managing to keep it from crashing to the ground.  He cursed loudly enough to wake the dead—the dead, but not Charlie, who kept on snoring away in his chair.  Ian noticed, though, head whipping around from where he was watching their niece execute increasingly complicated jumps into the deep end of the pool.

“Mick?” he called over.  “What’s going on?”

Mickey glanced back at him, but kept on toward Lyla.  “Mind your business,” he scolded, voice strained from exertion.  “Just helpin’ a neighbor out.”

Lyla watched as Ian raised his eyebrows.  “Since when do you—”

“Uncle Ian, you’re not watching!” Franny interrupted with a pout, stomping her bare foot.

“Yeah, get back to the kid, Red,” Mickey agreed breathlessly, adjusting his grip.  “We’re fine over here.”

Fine might be a bit of an overstatement, Lyla though as he lugged the chair the last few feet to her side.  But it soothed his husband, who turned back to the child, and Mickey finally set the wheelchair down with a thud.

“Fuck that thing’s heavy,” he huffed, wiping his forehead with one hand.  It stayed there, scratching along his hairline, as he asked, “You uh, need some help with that?”  The hand came down to gesture at the chair.  “Need me to lift ya or somethin’”?

“No thanks,” Lyla answered dryly, preparing herself for the transfer.  “Buy a woman dinner, at least, before you try to carry her away like a caveman.”

She delighted in his aborted giggle.  It had been so long since she made someone laugh.

“Maybe later,” he offered, watching carefully as she got herself situated.  He stayed back as she started to wheel herself away, and she was grateful that he didn’t try to push her.  

“You coming?” she asked before she got too far.  He hesitated, looking back at his family.  She almost let it go, but…it was nice to have some company.  At least, company that didn’t treat her like an invalid.

“Come on,” she encouraged.  “You can get the door for me.”

And he shrugged, then followed with a casual, “Yeah, okay.”

They were quiet as they walked—well, rolled.  But it was a peaceful quiet, circumstantial; it wasn’t the strained kind of silence of people not knowing what to say to the cripple.  Lyla let herself enjoy it.  They did get a strange look from the groundskeeper as they went past, his eyes narrowed at her unexpected companion, but she waved him off with a smile.  As pleasant as he was, that was another man that tried too hard to take care of her.

When they got to the door, Mickey opened it, and hovered outside as she crossed the threshold.

“Come in already,” Lyla told him when he made no move to do so.  “Don’t start being shy now.”  

He did, closing the door behind himself and standing awkwardly in the entryway.  “You always leave that shit unlocked?” he asked, gesturing over his shoulder with a thumb.  

“Why not?” Lyla shrugged as she rolled further into the apartment.  “Not like anyone is going to steal from the poor crippled woman.”

She heard him snort, then mutter, “You’d be surprised,” as she rolled out of sight and into the bathroom.

“Be out in a minute,” she said, grabbing a catheter from the basket on top of the sink.  “Make yourself at home.”

——————

When she emerged from the bathroom in her chair a short while later, Mickey was still standing by the door where she had left him, fidgeting.  She sighed.

“You can sit down, you know,” she said as she rolled over toward the coffee table and set her brakes.  “You’re reminding me of Charlie," she added, “always hovering.”

Mickey just looked at her, thrusting his twitching hands into the front pocket of his hoodie.  “He’s your husband, ain’t he?” he shrugged.  “He’s gotta worry about you.”

Lyla rolled her eyes.  “He can worry all he wants,” she agreed, “but he could damn well keep it to himself sometimes.”  Mickey eyed her under his brow, head tilted low, and she felt the urge to continue.

“How would you feel if your husband wheeled you around everywhere and had to help you take a shit,” she challenged.  “Then tried to play caretaker every time you so much as sneezed?”

That got him to grin.  “I’d kill the bastard,” he claimed, then, “Don’t seem like you need much help to me.  Not like when my old man got stuck in a chair."

“I don’t,” Lyla griped.  “But try telling him that.”  She shook her head.  “Your father deal with dependency well?” she asked.  “Because I sure as hell don’t like it.”

Mickey grunted a short laugh.  “Nah, drove his nurse to murder.”  He raised a brow.  “Literally.”

Lyla felt her eyes widen.  “Um,” she tried.  “What?”

Mickey waved a hand at her, dismissing the topic.  “Not important,” he said, shuffling his feet.  “But he definitely didn’t like folks taking care of him.  Didn’t like folks in general, really.”

They were quiet for a moment, Mickey leaning back against the door, Lyla in her chair.  Then Mickey broke the silence.

“You let him, though,” he said abruptly.  Lyla knew she looked confused when he quickly elaborated, “You let your husband take care of you.  That’s…” he hesitated, toying idly with the string hanging from his hood, eyes darting around until they settled straight on hers.  “That’s good,” he finished softly.

“It is,” she agreed readily.  He nodded once, then dropped his eyes again.  

“Ian, uh…my husband,” he started slowly.  “He didn’t always.”  A beat.  “Let me.”

She almost didn’t want to ask, afraid to disrupt her new friend’s sharing mood, but—

“He hurt?” she asked briefly, relieved when he shook his head.

“Nah,” he answered quietly.  “Not like that.  Just…” he trailed off, looked toward the door, then visibly steeled himself and moved over toward the sofa instead.  He sat down with a huff, the cushions creasing to accommodate him, and leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees, hands clasped between them.

“He’s sick, sometimes,” he confided, and Lyla leaned in toward him.

“What kind of sick?” she prompted, and he relaxed just a little more, head falling briefly as if it hurt to keep it up for so long.

“The in his head kind of sick,” he told her, then quickly added, “I mean, it’s real, it’s just…it’s his fucking brain, right?”  He looked up under his eyelashes, gaze searching, eyes softening when she nodded in understanding.  And then he was off, like a dam had suddenly opened between his thoughts and his mouth.

“It’s crazy,” he told her.  “Not him, I know it’s not him, but it does crazy things to him.  Makes him do crazy things.”  He laughed, but it sounded on edge, a sharp sound in what should be a quiet moment.  “He tried to get rid of me so many times, you wouldn’t fuckin’ believe it if I told you.  And it’s been good, for a while now, he’s been good.  But it’s like…I keep waitin’ for the other shoe to drop, you know?”  He unclenched his hands to scrape them against his face, press them into his eyes, and she felt her own start to itch with the telltale sign of held-back tears.

“You’re waiting for him to leave again.”  It wasn’t a question.  She knew exactly how he felt.

He breathed out, long and hard.  And then:

“Yeah,” he said simply.  “Yeah.”  He rubbed a hand over his eyes again, then dropped it loosely by his side.

If she could, she would go to him.  Instead, she just sighed, and watched as he slowly pulled himself together again, piece by piece.  First his body, then hands, then his face, until he looked like the man that had stormed over to her after his niece no more than an hour ago.

“Sorry,” he offered when he was back.  “We’re in a good place now, talked all this shit out, but sometimes…” He breathed out heavily.  “I don’t know, it just gets me again.”

“Don’t mention it,” she reassured.  But she couldn’t help but push, just a little.

“He feels the same, you know,” she told him.  The space between his eyebrows crinkled, then smoothed as she clarified, “He worries that you’ll get tired of taking care of him.”  She rocked forward as much as she could to make sure he was looking her straight in the eye.  “I know I do.”

“I know,” he answered simply, gaze clearer than it had been since he entered her home.  “Trust me, I know.”

Then his wicked grin was back, and he added, “Good thing good old Charlie and me are too fucking whipped to leave your decrepit asses.”

And she laughed, and laughed, and laughed.  And he laughed with her, spitting out things like “Maybe we’d shack up together,” as they chortled, and “Franny could be our flowergirl, Debs still has her dress,” as Lyla slapped her unfeeling knee.

They were still giggling when a knock came and the front door creaked open, Charlie poking his blond head in cautiously.

“What’s going on in here?” he questioned curiously.  “We could hear you all the way out at the pool.”

And that set them off again, Lyla waving her hand at her husband as they tried to stifle it.

“We’re fine, I’m fine,” she gasped out.  “Just getting to know our new neighbor here.”

She could tell from his face that he was concerned, but he hid it well for once, and she loved him for it.

“Alright,” he said easily.  “Just checking.”  He tilted his head to look at Mickey.  “This one’s fellow is looking for him, though; seemed more surprised than me that he wandered off.”  

Lyla calmed enough to level a look at him—more surprised than the man whose paraplegic wife had disappeared while he was sleeping, really?—and reached a hand out to her new friend.  Mickey took the hint and stood, taking her hand and swiping his thumb softly against the back of it before making his way to the door.

“Guess I better go rescue him from the little she-devil,” he snarked, all signs of their conversation gone and smirk firmly in place as he walked away.  He stopped for just a moment at the door, squaring off with Charlie until the other man made way for him.

“Catch you later!” he called over his shoulder, and left without looking back, on his way to his husband and the little girl that so obviously held his heart between them.

Charlie let the door shut after him, and turned a questioning eye on Lyla.  “What was that about?” he asked.  She held out her arms to him, and he came over to lift her out of her chair.  Her arms went around his neck as he pulled her up, carrying her carefully to the sofa that Mickey had just vacated and sitting down with her still in his arms.  He made to shift her to the side so she could sit on her own, but she clung on, and after a moment and a brief, startled look, he settled in with her on his lap instead.  For the first time in what felt like ages, she relished the way his arms held her up.

“Nothing,” she answered his question, tucking her head between his neck and shoulder and breathing.  “But I think I just made a new friend.”

He was still for just a moment, and quiet.  Then he bent his neck to press his lips to her hair, and they were turned up in a smile.

Chapter Text

Melanie was taking Ms. Susanna for her evening constitutional when she spotted a child she didn’t recognize sitting alone in the courtyard.  He was hunched over at one of the tables by the pool, scribbling in a tattered notebook, with open books surrounding him on the table and the ground.

She paused as Ms. Susanna finally squatted, and tried to place him.  There weren’t many children in the complex, and, though she would never say so out loud, she was fairly certain that none of them were…well…African American.

In fact, the only African American couple she could think of at all were the Johnsons, and they certainly didn’t have any children.  They had been quite adamant that one of the selling points of the place was that it catered more to young professionals than families in the first place; the Johnsons were quiet people.

Determined to get to the bottom of it—she should know all the people who lived here, after all, and if they had trespassers she would need to deal with that, too—Melanie hurried Ms. Susanna along.  The poodle obediently fell into step as they crossed the narrow lawn, skirting the pool to approach the child.  He was wearing bulky headphones attached to what looked like a rather old phone, but he glanced up as they neared, eying both Melanie and the dog at her side.  His eyes seemed to settle on the bright pink bow on Ms. Susanna’s collar, and his lips tilted up.  When Melanie offered a small smile, though, they fell again, and she could almost see him decide to dismiss her as he turned back to his books.

Well.  How rude.

She stopped a few feet away, Ms. Susanna sitting pretty at her feet as soon as she did.  The boy pointedly kept his eyes down, even when she cleared her throat, and she assumed that he must have whatever horrendous music he was listening to turned up too loud.  Children his age had no concept of moderation, after all.  

She took the final few steps to his table and rapped her knuckles against the edge to get his attention.  He stiffened, but did not acknowledge her.

“Excuse me,” she started loudly, and he sighed, setting down his pencil without looking up. He did move his headphones off one ear, though, which Melanie considered progress.  

“Who do you belong to?” she asked, casting her eyes around the table for any identifying information.  But there were no names on the papers or the books, nor was there a guest pass or apartment key in sight.  Just a pile of what appeared to be elementary textbooks, worn and filthy, and a clearly second-hand backpack open next to them.

The rude young boy snorted at her question, and at her obvious inspection of his belongings, but he finally looked up and met her eyes.  His own were dark and guarded, brows drawn low, and far too serious for someone his age.

“You make a habit of asking black kids who owns them?” he asked curtly, and she blanched.

“Wha—no, of course not,” Melanie replied immediately, the hand not holding Ms. Susanna’s leash pressing against her heart.  She wasn’t prepared to be on the defensive, here, and she didn’t like it one bit.  Besides, how dare this child insinuate such a thing?  “I didn’t mean it like that,” she added firmly, almost reprovingly.

“Oh, I know you didn’t,” he admitted, leaning back in his chair.  “Doesn’t make it better, though,” he said pointedly, quirking an eyebrow.

“Context matters, young man,” Melanie declared archly.  “You can’t just go accusing people of ill intentions toward people like yourself, not these days.”

His other eyebrow joined the first on it’s journey up his forehead.  “People like myself, huh?” he asked dryly.  

She could see how that might sound, but really, hadn’t she just mentioned context?  “This has nothing to do with you being African American,” she insisted, and he scoffed.

“Why are you talking to me, then, if not ‘cause I’m black?” he returned, emphasizing the last word.

It wasn’t the same, she wanted to explain; she had cause to be suspicious of a boy she didn’t recognize occupying space on private property that she was in charge of.  But before she could continue, Ms. Susanna started to whine.  Glancing down, she saw that the dog was looking up toward one of the overlooking balconies, where a crisp white curtain fluttered through an open sliding door.  

Well.  She didn’t need to be getting into a public argument with a child in broad daylight, especially on such a sensitive topic; she had an image to maintain for the property.  She snapped her fingers to refocus the poodle’s attention, and tried to get herself back on track as well by ignoring the boy’s last little quip.

“Who are you here with, then?” she asked more clearly.  “This is private property, not a public park.”  Though based on the look of him and his possessions, that might not be a concept he was overly familiar with.

He rolled his eyes, attitude now firmly in place, apparently. “Nobody,” was his short and unsatisfying answer.
  
Ms. Susanna was getting antsy, tugging at the leash in a way she rarely did anymore, and Melanie was losing patience as well.  She was going to be late taking the poodle to the groomer if this took much longer, and she needed Ms. Susanna looking her best for the stud she had coming in a few days.

“Well, who brought you here?” she tried, determined to beat this little boy at his own game.

“Took the train all by myself,” he replied, crossing his arms.  She noticed a stain on the side of his sleeve, and bit back a grimace.  “I’ve been doing it since I was, like, seven.”

Somehow she didn’t doubt it.  Melanie took a deep breath, winding Ms. Susanna’s leash around her hand in the way they teach you never to do.  “You know what I’m asking,” she claimed, and leveled him with her very best disappointed stare.  The one that even dogs knew meant business.

It didn’t seem to phase him—he even rolled his eyes again, the little brat—but he did finally relent.  “I’m here to see Ian,” he offered begrudgingly. 

Melanie huffed, and Ms. Susanna started to whine, picking up on her frustration.  She tightened her grip on the leash, and the dog quieted again.

 “And who is that?” Melanie followed up testily.  Really, just spouting off a random name like that would make everything okay?  He must think himself some sort of scam artist.  He would learn that those tricks didn’t work on her.

He leaned forward, looking exasperated, like she was the one dragging this whole interaction out.  Bracing his folded arms on the table, he clarified, “Ian Gallagher?  218?”

Ah.  Things suddenly made a little more sense.

“Oh, the Gallaghers,” she voiced.  Some of her apprehension regarding those particular tenants must have come through, because the boy was glaring at her now.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked roughly.  If he weren’t so small, she might have been afraid of him.  As it was, though, his head barely cleared the little table, and the headphones now barely hanging on over one ear served to make him appear even smaller.

“Nothing,” she reassured him nonetheless.  No need to stir up trouble with those two, if he really was here to see them.  On the other hand, maybe a well-placed hint or two would make it’s way back to them…

“We’ve just had some complaints, recently,” she continued slowly.  “Mostly just about how loud they are, a few outbursts, nothing too serious.”  She looked around at the mess he had made around the table.  “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that?” she asked.

His posture didn’t change, but his face went from anger to amused disbelief in a heartbeat.  “Clearly you’ve never had to share a room with them,” he responded, then shook his head.  “Or a city block, for that matter.”

So they were always like that, then.  It didn’t surprise her.  What did surprise her, though, was the mention of sharing a room.

“You live here with them, then?” she questioned.  “They didn’t mentioned that when they applied.”  And if they had, she wasn’t so sure that they would have gotten a lease.  If she recalled correctly, they had a one-bedroom unit, which was no place to keep a child.  Where would he sleep?  They probably didn’t even have a sofa yet, going by their surprise that the place came unfurnished.  She had thought that kind of cute, at first.  Until the rough one started trying to steal communal property to make up for it.

“No, I—” the boy began, but he was cut off by another voice, calling out from behind Melanie.

“Yo, bro!” it yelled, and Ms. Susanna went crazy, twisting against her leash and barking up a storm.  She was typically better behaved, but she didn’t like being surprised.  Melanie shushed her, cringing as the wrapped leash squeezed her fingers too tight, and turned to find the rougher half of the aforementioned couple strutting toward them.  He carelessly stomped through the small strip of grass at the edge of the courtyard, only narrowly missing the mess from Ms. Susanna that Melanie had yet to pick up, and she winced internally.

“Hi Mickey,” the child called back as Melanie got Ms. Susanna under control.  And really?  He called her out for an innocent question, but didn’t comment on this man’s improper address?

“That’s highly inappropriate,” she said as Mickey approached, but only got an odd look from both of them for her trouble as the boy stood to greet him.  They clasped hands and tugged each other in for a quick pat on the shoulder, the new arrival looking almost comical as he stooped to do so.

“What are you doin’ here?” Mickey asked the boy when they separated.  “Thought you had that thing after school.”

The boy grimaced.  “Canceled,” he said.  “Thought I might as well come by and study, Franny was driving me crazy at home.”

Mickey laughed.  “Yeah, I’ll bet.  Little squirt’s been a ball of energy lately.”  He tousled the boy’s hair, finally knocking those abhorrent headphones completely free, and added, “Thought summer school was bad enough, you gotta study now too?”

“Not like I learn anything during the year at public school,” the boy pointed out as he bent to grab his headphones from the ground, and Mickey shrugged.

“Fair enough, kid,” he agreed, then turned his gaze on Melanie, who had finally calmed Ms. Susanna and was watching them interact silently.

“You need somethin’?” he asked rudely, and Melanie drew up to her full height, something she was thankful to have the advantage of whenever she had to interact with him.  Mr. Southside, she called him to herself, and he certainly fit the bill.

“This child here,” she started, ignoring the way they both snorted at her phrasing, “just informed me that he’s been living with you and your husband.”  The resulting double-take pleased her, Mickey looking between her and the child with alarm on his face.  

“Is he a foster?” she pried.  She never would have thought that a reputable agency would give two ex-cons a child, but she supposed odder things had happened.  Like the fact that they lived here.  But the next thing out of Mickey’s mouth put that idea to rest.

“What?” he asked, then almost talked over himself to say, “No, he’s a Gallagher.  Liam Gallagher.”

She hadn’t expected that.  But before she could clarify, they were ignoring her again.

“Something go down at home, kid?” Mickey asked Liam, sounding concerned.  Melanie was a little surprised by how…fatherly he sounded.  But she supposed he did just say the boy was family.

“You know you can crash, but you shoulda called or somethin’”, Mickey was saying, and Liam shook his head. 

“Nothing like that,” he answered, then asked, “Where’s Ian?”  Melanie joined him in looking around for the tall redhead that was never far behind his husband, hoping he would show up soon.  He was always the more reasonable one of the pair.

Mickey just shrugged, reaching forward to poke through the textbooks on the table.  He scowled at one of them—an English book, it looked like—and flipped it closed before answering.

“He’ll be around in a minute, just parking ‘round the corner,” he shared absently as he turned another book toward himself, swatting Liam’s hand away when he tried to rescue it.

“Isn’t there like, a whole parking lot right there?” Liam asked, exasperatedly trying to gather his things so that the man couldn’t keep touching them.

“Eh, they don’t like us keeping the ambulance on site,” Mickey told him, grabbing the pen from the table and clicking it.  “Something about curb appeal, public image, that kind of shit.”  He clicked it again, then tossed it down, where it clattered against the child’s phone.  Liam didn’t even react, just grabbed it and stashed it in the pocket of his worn jeans.

Melanie broke in again.  “It’s hardly shit, Mr. Gallagher,” she said firmly, only to earn yet another eye roll from Liam.

“Mickey’s a Milkovich,” he said, “not a Gallagher.”  Mickey grinned and grabbed him around the neck playfully.

“And don’t forget it, twerp,” he taunted, and they tussled for a moment before heavy footsteps sounded on the concrete, approaching.  Ms. Susanna didn’t bark this time, thankfully; instead her tail started to pound against the pavement in an irregular staccato beat.  Melanie pressed a hand into the fluffy fur on her head to keep her calm.

“Nah,” the previously missing Ian Gallagher said as he came up behind them and tugged Mickey off the boy by the neck of his shirt.  The other man went easily, leaning into Ian’s side for a breath before standing on his own again, albeit with an arm around his husband’s back.  “He’s an honorary Gallagher, right Liam?”

“I guess,” Liam answered with a little smirk, and Mickey stretched a leg out to kick lightly at his knees, earning a smack on the back of the head from Ian.  It was the most childlike behavior Melanie had seen out of any of them, the boy included.  Seen with her own eyes, anyway; goodness knew Mr. Milkovich was prone to childish tantrums, based on the reports she had received.

“Thought you were coming later?” Ian asked the boy, who repeated the explanation he had given Mickey.

“Had to get away from the house,” he said. “Too loud there.”

Ian nodded.  “Don’t blame you.  Come one, let’s go up.”  He gestured toward the building and started moving, dragging Mickey along, when Melanie made her presence known again by coughing loudly.  The tags on Ms. Susanna’s collar jangled as she lifted her head at the sound, bringing immediate attention to them.

Ian stopped quickly.  “Everything alright, Melanie?” he asked, ever the gentleman compared to his partner.  He smiled at her, soft and bright, but she wasn’t going to lose track of her mission that easily.  

“That depends,” she answered, then asked, “Is your…son staying with you?”  She wouldn’t have imagined that he had a child, much less one so old.  She might have expected it of his husband, but if he wasn’t a Gallagher…well, it was the most likely explanation.

Ian’s eyes went comically wide, though, at the question.  “My what now?” he asked, voice going high and breaking halfway through.  His husband just burst out laughing—the full, hands-on-knees variety.  Even the kid started to chuckle.  Ms. Susanna perked up at the sounds, and tried to investigate, but Melanie kept her on a short leash and she sat down again with a annoyed huff.

“Have I missed something?” Melanie asked them testily.

“Ian don’t got no kids, lady,” Mickey caught his breath enough to get out.  “His adventures in the big bad hetero world have never gone real well.”

Ian himself flushed at that, but he didn’t dispute it.  He just shrugged helplessly when Melanie looked at him.

She was really getting tired of the way they all spoke around the issue at hand.  “That’s not the only way to have a child, Mr. Milkovich, and I know that you’re aware of that.”

“I’m not adopted either,” Liam chimed in, still giggling.  “Trust me, they checked.”

Well that didn’t make things any clearer at all.  “You said his last name was Gallagher,” Melanie pointed out.  “I just assumed—”

“Well, there’s your problem,” Mickey said, cutting her off.  “Liam’s not his kid, he’s his kid brother.”

Oh.  Well, she supposed that might make more sense.  “Will your brother be staying with you then?” she asked yet again.  At least that explained one thing, she thought to herself—no wonder the boy hadn’t been bothered by that casual address earlier.

Mickey answered her query before Ian, the actual brother, had a chance.  “He’ll stay if he fuckin’ needs to,” he said, stepping forward and away from his husband to crowd her.  Ms. Susanna, who had relaxed enough to lay at her feet, rose and growled at him, but with one look he had her sitting again.  Melanie would kill to have that kind of power over her own dog.

“You got a problem with that?” Mickey prompted her, and she forced her thoughts back to the present.

She did, in fact, have a problem, but she sure wasn’t going to say so now.  “No, of course not,” she replied instead, “but I have to consider the other tenants—”

“You think they’re gonna have a problem with us taking in his kid brother?” Mickey scoffed.  “You sure have a shitty ass opinion of your neighbors, lady.”

Only of you, Melanie didn’t say. And how dare he speak of service or her opinion on others.  ““Excuse me,” she said tersely instead, “but we pride ourselves on maintaining a quiet, orderly place to live, and—”

“You know,” Mickey interrupts, “You’ve never said anything about Franny, though.  What’s up with that?”

Melanie paused.  “I…I don’t know who that is,” she admitted.  Nor did she know why on earth it was seemingly relevant to the discussion at hand.

“Little red-haired girl, looks a clone of the jolly green giant over here?” Mickey expanded.  When there was no recognition on Melanie’s face, he chuckled lowly, looking to his husband and rubbing at his eyebrow with a thumb.  “She stays with us like once a week, how has it not come up?”

Ian was frowning, now, looking between Melanie and his husband.  At some point his hand had migrated to his little brother’s shoulder, where his grip was clearly tight.

“Why haven’t you ever mentioned Franny?” Ian asked suspiciously.  “She’s a hell of a lot more intrusive than Liam.”  

Liam himself looked uncomfortable with the route the conversation was taking, but he didn’t shrug off his brother’s grip.  If anything, he moved a little closer, readjusting his own hold on the bag slung over his opposite shoulder.  Melanie hadn’t even noticed him grabbing it, the boy suddenly quiet as a mouse.

Melanie was uncomfortable as well, but refused to show it.  Instead, she wracked her brain for any memories of the girl they spoke of, twisting the leash between her hands as she thought.  Finally, she thought she had it.

“You mean the little girl that visits with Lyla?” she asked wonderingly.  She had thought the girl was part of that little family, the way she always bounced around at the side of the woman’s chair.  Come to think of it, she had seen Mickey with them, once, but never Ian.  Strange.

“I didn’t know she was yours,” Melanie admitted, without addressing the fact that no, she had never approached anyone about little Franny’s presence.

Mickey nearly growled at her.  “She isn’t—we just covered this, jesus,” he chided.  “She’s our niece, Lyla helps out when she’s here, because some people don’t fucking judge every person they see.”  He glared at her harder with the next bit: “Thought you prided yourself on knowing this shit?”

“Easy, Mick,” Ian warned, and his husband spun around to face him.  Ms. Susanna, not liking the sudden movement, started up with a low growl, underscoring Mickey’s apparent anger.

“Fuck that,” Mickey spit out.  “This bitch is fuckin’ profiling your brother, dickhead.”  He gets closer to his husband, presses a finger against his chest.

“Know the first thing she ever said to me?” he asked.  Melanie winced, knowing what was coming.  “Some shit about a whites only policy.”

“That was about the—” Melanie tried to interject, but he just waved a hand in her direction.

“Yeah, the curtains, whatever,” he dismissed.

“Had worse from your family,” Liam chimed in, and Mickey leveled a look at him.

“Well she ain’t family,” he pointed out, “and you are.”

Melanie lost track of the argument entirely at the look on Ian’s face at that response.  Because his concerned look turned into a slow smile, and then a beam that took over his whole face, eyes twinkling and all, as he looked at his husband.  His husband who, under the new scrutiny, fidgeted and glared at all three of them in turn.  Only Ms. Susanna, who had calmed again and lay down at Melanie’s feet, escaped his gaze.

“What?” Mickey barked.  Ian just smiled wider, if that was even possible, and Liam rolled his eyes.  Melanie refrained from commenting as Mickey grabbed the boy by the strap of his backpack and started pulling him out of the courtyard.  She had had enough of the man’s ire at this point, warranted or not.

“Whatever, you deal with this,” Mickey called back to Ian as he walked away.  “I’m taking the kid for ice cream or somethin’.”

“Wait, really?” Liam asked as Mickey shoved him ahead, and then they turned the corner and were gone.

Ian’s attention turned back to Melanie, his smile fading.  She met his eyes for a moment, then looked away, down to where Ms. Susanna was idly licking a paw.  She tugged at the leash to make her stop.

“I really didn’t mean anything by all this,” she tried to reassure Ian without looking at him.  From the corner of her eye, she saw him nod, and started to relax.

“I know,” he acknowledged.  “We’re just…” he trailed off, looking thoughtful.  “A bit protective,” he finished.  Melanie tried not to grimace at the understatement.

“Liam’s been through a lot, though,” Ian continued softly.  “More than he should have for a kid his age.”  He sounded sad.  His voice hardened, however, with his next sentence.  “Don’t give him any more trouble when he visits,” Ian warned.  “Like he said, he’s had enough of that from people like Mickey’s shitty relatives, and he doesn’t need it here.”

“I still need to know if he’s staying,” she pointed out.  “I can’t have people just wandering around the property, Mr. Gallagher; you agreed to our policies when you moved here.”  She wanted to hit herself for bringing it up again, but it was her job, dammit.  She had to do her job.

Ian just sighed, eyes turning up to the sky before settling back on hers.  “Melanie, they just come by some times, they don’t live here,” he stated plainly.  “I know we didn’t tell you he was coming, but we’d tell you if anything that important came up.”

“Now if you’ll excuse me,” he said before she could respond, “I need to go catch up to my husband before he tries to get Liam to drive the ambulance again.”

She had nothing to say to that as he loped off after the other two, rounding the corner in seconds.  Then she had her hands full restraining Ms. Susanna when she lurched up and tried to chase after him.

Those two were going to be the death of her, Melanie thought idly as she got the dog under control again.  Violent tantrums, noise complaints, unsupervised children, and apparently encouraging the delinquency of a minor, though she shouldn’t have been surprised by that last at this point.  

She scanned the balconies one last time as she led Ms. Susanna away, glad to see that all the windows and doors appeared to be closed.  That had not been her best moment, she could admit to herself, context or not.  Still, the mystery was at least solved, for now.  And if any other unsupervised children showed up, she had a feeling she knew who to call first.

Chapter Text

It was another sunny day, and Sarah was working the office again.  This time she was glad, though—it was much too hot to be outside anyway, and the air conditioning in the leasing office was a luxury that she didn’t have to pay for.

Not that she was hurting for money, but still.  It was the principle of the thing.

She was working on some filing that Melanie had left for her, music turned up loud on the office computer to relieve the monotony, and missed the tinkling of the bell as the door opened.

Someone cleared their throat in front of her, and she looked up, startled.  The paper in her hand fell slowly to the desk, landing right on the rim of her coffee cup, and she cursed as she picked it up again and inspected it for marks.

The interloper chuckled lowly, and she set the paper down properly this time and straightened.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Milkovich,” she greeted, and he smirked a little, plump lips turning up at the corner.

“Thought I told you not to call me that,” he reminded her, blue eyes twinkling under the artificial lights.

Sarah had gotten to know him and his husband quite a bit better in the time they’d been living at the complex.  They didn’t run in the same circles, but she’d seen them around enough, heard about them from other residents; it wasn’t even always in the form of a complaint anymore.  Ian Gallagher had made his share of friends among the women, especially when it came to keeping creeps off them in the gym or at the pool, but even Mr. Milkovich—Mickey, as he insisted she call him every time she said it—had his admirers.  Lyla, who she spoke to regularly concerning accessibility on behalf of the board, was particularly taken with him.  

It had been hard to keep seeing Mickey as the rough man she had first been introduced to when his new best friend was the most sweet, reclusive woman Sarah knew.

Then one day Sarah had locked her keys inside her car in the pouring rain, just standing there with her purple umbrella and tugging fruitlessly at the door as she tried not to cry, and they had shown up out of nowhere in that obnoxious ambulance of theirs.  They just hopped out and walked right over, like they were actually some sort of emergency service, their coats getting drenched, hair stuck to their faces in a matter of seconds.  Mickey had popped her door open with less effort than turning a key while Ian made sure she wasn’t hyperventilating, and they had even walked her to the door of the office before taking off upstairs to their own unit.

It had seemed weird to keep thinking of them as rough, southside boys after that.

“Right, sorry Mickey,” Sarah offered now with a smile of her own.  “What can I do for you?”

On good terms now or not, it was still unusual for him to come by, especially on his own.  His husband was usually the one to seek out the office for whatever reason, knowing that he was the easier of the two to work with most of the time.  Mickey was doing better on that front, too, now that he had settled in a bit more, but he was still a tad…unpredictable.

Mickey just scratched the back of his head, almost shyly, a departure from his typical gruff, direct approach.

“I need the keys to that elevator again,” he finally said, overly casual.  “The big one?  Got somethin’ coming today.”

“Oh?” Sarah asked, obediently opening the bottom drawer to grab the requested item.  “Thought you guys got everything already,” she prodded.  “Ian said that new bed was the last of it.”

Mickey actually blushed at the reminder of that encounter, when Ian had seen fit to tell her exactly what all the bulky pieces were when she met them at the delivery truck.  Sarah almost giggled at the red flush over that tough facade, but it wasn’t like anyone in the complex was unaware of the two’s nightly activities.  They’d been caught more than once stumbling drunk through the halls, hanging off each other, and though the noise complaints had stopped, Gina still sometimes referred to their antics with a wistful sigh when they went out for drinks at the end of the week.

“Yeah, well,” Mickey muttered.  “There’s more.”  He lifted his head to glance at the clock on the wall behind her, and grimaced.  “And it’s probably here already, actually, so can we speed this up?”

“Right, sure,” Sarah answered, slamming the drawer shut and palming the keys.  “Just let me lock up real quick.”

Mickey did a double-take at that.  “What do you mean, lock up?” he asked, voice starting to rise.  “You don’t gotta come with me, just hand me the fuckin’ keys.”

Sarah lifted her hands in a what-can-you-do gesture, key ring dangling from her index finger.  “New rule, sorry,” she informed him.  “Melanie insisted.”  

Honestly, Sarah thought it was a little ridiculous, but the woman had said something about loiterers and unsolicited deliveries and it was easier to just agree than to question it.

Mickey snorted, and shook his head.  “Of course she fuckin’ did,” he grunted.  But he didn’t argue when Sarah nudged him out the door and exited behind him, turning to lock it before setting off toward the back of the complex.

“Did Ian tell you what she said to his little brother?” he asked as they walked, his boots scuffing the path when he didn’t lift his feet all the way.  Ian hadn’t, and Sarah tried to say as much, eager for new gossip.  But she was cut off by the sound of squealing young children as they rounded the building and faced the service lot out back.

Two identical little girls immediately came running, latching themselves onto Mickey’s legs with wide smiles and high-pitched shrieks.  He stumbled back, arms up and out wide for balance, eyes comically wide.  If Sarah wasn’t too concerned with trying to figure out where the children had come from, she would have thought it was adorable.

“Mouse!” one of the girls shouted, both of them giggling when he tried ineffectively to shake them off.  He got a hand on one small head and pushed, but it just made them cling tighter.

“What the..” Mickey muttered before looking up and toward the parking lot.  “Yo, Kev, come fetch your damn demon spawn!”

Sarah followed his gaze to see a rather large man sitting on the bumper of a shiny black truck just off the curb, bald head shining in the hot afternoon sun.  His huge, muscled arm was wrapped around the shoulders of a beautiful woman, her long locs piled on top of her head and sweat beading her brow.

The man called out to Mickey with a grin. “They’re just excited to see their Uncle Mickey Mouse!”  It earned him a glare from Mickey and a punch on the arm from the woman tucked under it, and he winced dramatically.

“What was that for?” he asked her, sounding wounded, at the same time as Mickey complained forcefully, “We’re not even fuckin’ related!”

The woman rolled her eyes at them, pushing up off the chrome bumper and shaking free of the big guy’s hold.  She strolled over toward Sarah and Mickey, impressively high heels clacking on the pavement and making already long legs seem endless under tight denim shorts.  It made Sarah look down at her own pastel capri pants and worn flats, flexing her feet inside the satiny black fabric.  

“Honestly,” the woman muttered as she approached. “Men, am I right?”  She directed that toward Sarah, who was so surprised to be addressed that she completely failed to respond.

But the woman’s attention had already moved on anyway.  “Amy, Gemma!” she barked.  “Let the angry little man go, come on.”  She gestured toward her side, and the children pouted and whined but did as they were told, releasing Mickey’s legs.  

Mickey shook his legs out and grumbled, “Hey, fuck you too, Vee,” getting a slap on the back of his head for his trouble before the woman crouched down to tug her girl’s clothes straight and give them a push back toward the truck.

“Not in front of my kids, Milkovich,” she chastised as they went, then surprised them both by standing and pulling him into a hug.

Mickey flailed for a moment, arms akimbo, and Sarah got to witness an strange succession of emotions cross his face before stopping on resigned affection.  He patted Vee awkwardly on the back until she pulled away.

“Where’s your better half?” she asked when she released him, but Mickey ignored the question.

“You bring it?” he asked instead, gruff as ever.

“What a way to say hello,” Vee drawled dryly.  “Kev, you hear that?” she called back to the man she arrived with, who had hoisted his daughters up into the truck bed where they were happily chattering away and pulling each other’s hair.  “Think the hood rat missed us,” she added with a sly grin and raised eyebrows.

Kev pointed a finger at the two girls, ordering them to stay put—even Sarah already knew that wouldn’t do much good—and ambled over.  He was even taller now that he was upright, dwarfing them all as he came up beside Vee and got his arm around her again.

“Course he did!” he exclaimed, squeezing her to his side.  “We’re his favorite old business partners.”  His expressive face scrunched as he thought about that.  “Wait, were we partners the second time or did he just work for us?” he wondered out loud.

Mickey cut in.  “I worked for me,” he said sharply, thumbing his nose.  His eyes darted back and forth before settling on his own feet.  “Did you bring the thing or not?”

Vee snorted.  Sarah couldn’t decide if it sounded wrong or perfectly right coming from such an entrancing woman.  

“Of course we brought it,” Vee confirmed.  “You can see it from here if you open your damn eyes and look.”  She nodded toward the truck, and Sarah squinted against the sun to see what was inside.  Standing up just over the sides, with one of the girls holding herself up on it, was…an old crib?

What did Mickey need a crib for?

“Well get it down here then, the fuck are you waiting for?” Mickey was urging.  “Come on, Ian’s gonna be back soon.” 

He looked oddly nervous about that, and Sarah had to wonder why.  Surely whatever this was about, his husband would be on board with it.  She knew they didn’t have kids of their own, but there always seemed to be at least one around the place lately.  Last time she had seen Ian, he had a toddler on one hip and was holding his niece’s hand down by the other; the man clearly adored children.

Vee voiced the same thought.  “Why all the secrecy, anyway?” she asked, confusion clear in her voice.  “Did our little chat about partnership at the Alibi not stick?”

“Yeah man,” Kev joined in.  “Thought Ian would love this kind of thing.”

Mickey blew out a breath.  “He does, numb nuts,” he started, speaking insultingly slowly.  “Hence the fucking surprise.”  He widened his eyes for effect as Kev’s mouth opened in an overdone ‘O’ of realization.

Vee just cackled.  “Ooh, fancy word for a basic bitch,” she taunted, jumping back when Mickey made to kick her.

“Yeah yeah, laugh it up,” he groused.  “You keep goin’ and I’ll give your kids BB guns for their birthday.”

Kev’s eyes lit up.  “Can I have one too?” he asked, excited until Vee smacked him in the chest with the back of her hand.  “Fine, fine, whatever,” he relented immediately.  He started to head back to the truck, presumably to fetch the crib, and stage-whispered “She’s no fun,” behind Vee’s back, pointing and everything.

Sarah had to suppress a giggle when Vee just looked up the heavens for patience, and wondered if the other woman had always planned to have three children.

The moment was interrupted by a new voice coming from behind them.

“Mickey, you out here?” Ian asked as he rounded the corner of the building.  “You weren’t upstairs, and I—” he cut off when he processed the scene in front of him, breaking into a huge smile.

“Vee!” he shouted, trotting across the rest of the distance between them and bypassing his husband to gather Vee up into a tight, rocking hug.  “What are you guys doing here?” he asked as he pulled back, hands still on her shoulders.  “I thought you were busy in Kentucky this week.”

Vee returned his smile, reaching up to tussle his curly red hair.  “Just came by to say hi,” she said easily, “and bring you two a little somethin’.”

Ian looked ready to ask what, but dropped the question at the twin shouts of Kev and Vee’s girls, who had jumped down from the truck and come back over.

“Ian!” they yelled, barreling toward him the same way they had greeted his husband.  Instead of looking confused or pulling back the way Mickey had, though, Ian knelt, holding out his long freckled arms.

“There’s my honorary nieces!” he greeted the two warmly, scooping them together into a group hug.  “Man, you guys got big!” he told them, lighting up even more as they giggled.

“Where’s Kev?” Ian asked a moment later, after releasing the girls and straightening up with a faint groan.  The two children immediately ran off again, chasing each other across the blacktop, and his question was answered as his eyes followed them toward the truck and their father.

“Wait,” Ian said slowly, “is that the crib?”  His brow furrowed as he looked at Vee, casting a wary eye back at Mickey.  “I, uh, thought I told you we didn’t need that,” he added lowly, as if hoping that his husband wouldn’t hear.

There was obviously a story there, one that Sarah wasn’t privy too, and she ached to ask even though she knew better.  She knew them well enough by now to know that anything that made Ian Gallagher show caution was probably something best left alone.

Mickey was the one to reply.  “Told ‘em to bring it,” he revealed, voice husky and hesitant.  He didn’t look at Ian when he said it, even though the other man wasn’t facing him anyway.  He just stared to the side, past Sarah, biting his lip and rubbing his left thumb over his wedding ring.

“Mickey?” Ian turned to him, obviously perplexed.  “But you…” he trailed off, blinking excessively.

Mickey just shrugged, rubbing at the back of his neck, almost the same nervous tic he had shown back in the office when he asked Sarah for the key in the first place.  “Figure we might have to watch Fred sometime,” he tried casually, but Ian shook his head.

“They have a pack’n play,” he murmured, seeming almost dazed.  “Mickey, what—”

“Yeah,” Mickey interrupted emphatically, finally meeting Ian’s eyes.  “With a huge fuckin’ hole in the—look, you want it or not, man?”

Ian visibly softened.  “Of course I do,” he affirmed, and to Sarah it sounded like so much more than accepting a piece of furniture from their friends.  It sounded like a vow.

“Then does somebody wanna go help my husband unload the thing before he breaks his damn neck?” Vee asked, and they both started.

“Yeah, of course Vee,” Ian assured her, tearing his eyes away from Mickey to walk out onto the blacktop.  “Mickey, come on.”

Mickey huffed, but followed, looking much more at ease after whatever that exchange had really been about.

Sarah was left standing on the sidewalk with Vee, who let out a sharp whistle that had her girls running to them.  “Gotta keep ‘em out from underfoot so they don’t kill their daddy,” Vee explained shortly as they got closer.

“Of course,” Sarah agreed.  Then, because she couldn’t help herself, “Have you known Ian and Mickey very long, then?”

Vee snorted, then the girls were there, and she took a minute to put a hand on each of their heads and send them to sit over by the wall, out of the way.  They grumbled, but went, plopping down and promptly trying to shove each other over.  Vee watched them for a minute, then turned back to where the boys seemed to be arguing over the best way to get the crib down from the truck bed, Mickey gesturing wildly as Kev and Ian did the heavy lifting.

“You could say that,” Vee offered in answer to Sarah’s question.  “We live next to the Gallaghers ever since they moved in, so Ian grew up with us.  Mickey, though,” she tilted her head, observing the way Mickey interacted with his husband and her own.  “Well, let’s just say he’s really grown up,” she finished, lips twisting in an amused smile.  

Sarah nodded.  “Getting married will do that to you,” she agreed, but Vee laughed and shook her head, giving her an unreadable look.

“No, honey,” she said.  “Having a human shit stain for a father and figuring it out the hard way will do that to you.”

Sarah was saved from responding to that by the three men awkwardly carrying over the crib that they had finally gotten down in one piece.  Kev held one entire side in his burly arms, Mickey taking the other and Ian trying vainly to push the smaller man aside and help.

Sarah and Vee stepped aside as they set it down roughly on the walkway.  Kev moved back, and Ian took his place across from Mickey, beaming.

“Thanks, guys,” he said, hands on hips as he surveyed the worn piece of furniture.  “You know, this is in really good shape after what the girls probably put it through.”

“Oh, no,” Kev responded.  “We’re keeping that one.”  To Ian’s confused look, he clarified proudly, “Yep, talked Vee into another kid down the road!”

Vee crossed her arms.  “And you know how expensive that’s gonna be,” she reminded her husband, who had the grace to look at least a little sheepish about it.  “We’re gonna need all the hand-me-downs we can get.”

“Where’d this one come from, then?” Mickey chimed in.  “Thought you just had it in storage.”

“Yeah, it was—” Kev’s response was stopped by an elbow to the gut from his wife, who suddenly looked like she was ready to murder him.  “Uh, anyway,” he switched gears quickly, “where are we going with this thing?”

Sarah didn’t know what they were trying to hide, but she jumped in as Mickey’s eyes narrowed, not sure she wanted to find out. 

“The elevator is this way,” she told them with a gesture of her arm toward the gate at the end of the lot.  Kev moved to pick up the crib again, but Vee grabbed his arm, nodding toward the girls.

“Think you guys can handle it?” she asked Ian and Mickey.  “We’ll stay here with the kids, they wanted to go look at the pool anyway.”

“Of course,” Ian was quick to agree.  “We’ll be right back down, take you guys to lunch or something.”  He bent awkwardly to nudge Mickey with his foot under the crib, and his husband nodded, making a small sound of agreement.

“Sounds great, hun,” Vee smiled at them.  “We’ll see you two in a bit then,” she said, motioning the children toward her.  The four of them moved away, back around the building toward the courtyard and the pool, leaving Sarah alone with Ian and Mickey.

“Sarah, get the door for us?” Ian asked, bending his knees to get a good grip on the crib.  Mickey followed suit, and between them, they managed to wrangle the thing to the elevator door.  Sarah hurried to jam the key into the panel and get it open, the two of them dropping the crib just over the threshold and crowding into the back.  Sarah squeezed into the front corner to press the button for the second floor, and the doors slid closed again.

The freight elevator was much slower than the one the residents used, and it took a moment to creak to life.  As they waited, Sarah couldn’t help but glance back at the two men, pressed together against the back wall even though the elevator was plenty wide enough for them to spread out.  Ian had a hand on Mickey’s back, rubbing up and down, and Mickey was leaned into him ever so slightly, eyes droopy.

“Thanks,” Ian murmured, almost too quiet for her to hear.

“For what?” Mickey asked softly, and Ian pressed smiling lips into his hair. 

“You know what. It’s gonna be great, Mick,” he whispered.  “I promise.”

Mickey’s lips turned up at the corners.  “Soft bitch,” he mumbled.  “Just for Lip’s kid,” he added more firmly.  “For now.”

“I know,” Ian answered as the elevator finally came to a slow stop on their floor.  “Bet it’ll still drive somebody crazy,” he said at a normal volume, and with a smirk.  “Us having a baby around here.”

Mickey pulled out of his hold, ready to take his place on the other side of the crib once the doors opened.  “Fucking Karen can mind her own damn business,” he declared, and Sarah almost forgot to step out of the way in her confusion.  How did Mickey already know their new tenant when the paperwork had just come in that morning?

“Her name is Mela—,” Ian started, then laughed as he lifted his side of the crib again.  “Wait, has Liam been showing you memes again?”

Ah.  Never mind then.  Sarah should probably stand up for her employer, but instead she just stifled a giggle.

The aborted sound caught their attention as they finally made it out of the elevator.

“We got it from here, Sarah,” Ian told her.  “We’ll take the stairs down.”

“Yeah, uh, thanks or whatever,” Mickey said, tilting his head in her direction, and she gave him a smile pressing the button to let the doors close again.

She could hear them in the hallway before the elevator started it’s descent, arguing over who had to walk backwards down the hall with their burden with insults and barely concealed innuendo (Man, everything about you is backwards, you might as well do this backwards too.  No way, if anyone’s used to bringing up the rear, it’s me.  Get your ass up there.)

Sarah grinned to herself as their voices faded under the mechanical whine of the elevator.  She didn’t know what all those two had been through, or how they got here.  There was definitely more to them than she had once thought, when Mickey wandered in all those weeks ago in dirty shoes and old worn clothes, and left his mark in ash and soil on the pavement.  But no matter how far they came, she supposed they would never lose that Southside something, that quality that had them taking used furniture from friends and fighting each other for fun after every soft moment.  And maybe, she thought as she emerged back into the natural daylight and went to find their friends by the pool, hoping for some more gossip, maybe that was a good thing.

Chapter Text

Karen was getting tired of this.

“This” being trying to move all of her own heavy furniture into her new apartment by herself.  When she had decided to rent this place, she hadn’t realized that she’d be responsible for handling that type of thing—this was the first time she’d be living on her own, and her parents had always had someone else to do all their menial labor.

Getting away from her parents was kind of the main point of moving here, though, so she couldn’t exactly go to them for help.

So, here she was.  Standing in front of the doorway to her new West Side apartment with a chair that was apparently too wide for the door, and too heavy for her to lift without the dolly it sat on.  Contemplating geometry and wishing she had taken school more seriously instead of constantly skipping just to piss off her dad.

She was just about ready to try again—she thought maybe, with just the right leverage, she could get the thing on its side and push it through that way—when the door to the stairwell opened behind her.

“I’m tellin’ you, man, you ain’t doin’ it right,” said the man that entered the hallway.  “You gotta really get your hips into it.”  Another man laughed, and there was a muffled sound like someone being hit in the arm.

“That right, Mick?” came the second man’s voice.  “You know all about moving your hips, don’t you?”

Karen rolled her eyes where they couldn’t see.  Great, just what she needed—a couple of frat dudes living on her floor, boasting about all the girls they’d fucked.  She knew the type.  Hell, she’d dated the type almost exclusively, before Max brought her to her senses.  He’d swanned in one day with his long hair and his skateboard, tugged her ponytail as he went past, and punched her jock boyfriend in the face for protesting.

She hadn’t looked back since.

“Just sayin’,” the first man was answering, “If you wanna grow fuckin’ tomatoes, you gotta get used to diggin’ holes for ‘em.”

Wait.  What?

Karen shook her head to herself.  It didn’t matter what they were talking about; they were loud and annoying, like that old boyfriend whose car Max had vandalized on their way off campus for the last time.

And even if they weren’t that type, even if ‘tomatoes’ and ‘digging’ weren’t some weird new euphemism, Max still wouldn’t like them.  Not that Max liked most people, but he really didn’t like other guys being around. 

With the way Karen’s eyes were known to wander, she didn’t really blame him.  Look at how he’d gotten her, after all.

Maybe she’d get lucky; maybe these two strange men were just passing through.  But their footsteps got louder, not softer, as they moved down the hall, until finally they came to a stop directly behind her.

Karen closed her eyes in exasperation.  Well, damn.

There was a brief, whispered conversation that she couldn’t quite make out as she pretended not to know they were there, studiously examining her disobedient furniture.  If she ignored them, they’d probably just—

“Uh, excuse me,” one of them said abruptly, apparently having won their muffled argument.  “Do you need a hand there?”

Karen sighed.

“Got two hands already,” she answered dryly.  “Something special about yours?” 

She winced inwardly as she said it—Max had told her to stop giving people openings like that—but all she got in return was a soft laugh from one man and a short snort from the other, like he was trying not to giggle and failing.

“I mean, not really,” the same one admitted.  She could almost hear the smug smile in his voice when he added, “but I might have a couple other advantages.”

Karen rolled her eyes at the obvious line, and spoke as she turned.

“Look, I’ve already got a boyfriend, so you can take your advantages and shove them up—”

She stopped as soon as she got a look at them both.  Or rather, at the way they were standing.

The taller one, tall but not gangly, could probably lift her and her chair without breaking a sweat.  And honestly, she might let him, just to get a better look at that shock of red hair and see if felt real.

But that might not go over too well with his companion, a stockier man with a pouty mouth and expressive eyebrows that were already raised just enough to make lines appear above them.  A pale hand was wound through the dark hair at the nape of his neck, and his own rougher fingers were hanging onto the belt loop of the taller one’s jeans.  As she watched them, his thumb came up to caress the small patch of freckled skin revealed by the redhead’s too-small shirt.

She started when that shorter man coughed pointedly, and met his eyes just as he raised his free hand to scratch at his nose.

“Keep your eyes in your head, lady,” he prompted.  “Cause the only place he shoves those advantages is up my—”

“Mickey!” the redhead hissed. 

Mickey rolled his eyes.  “Whatever, you prude,” he snarked, pushing on the other man’s hip and then pulling him back just as quickly.  His partner barely swayed with the movement, and that clearly just to humor him, but Mickey didn’t seem to mind that he hadn’t made more of an impression.

It was weird.  Max always liked to see her react when he did things like that, but Mickey just offered a brief smile and moved his hand to his partner’s back instead.

“You want help or not lady,” Mickey directed to Karen as his hand migrated all the way up to the redhead’s shoulder, gripping lightly.  “Ian here has better things to do than wait for you to decide if you need him and his chivalrous ways.”

He made to shake the other man, Ian, again, but Ian just laughed and covered Mickey’s hand with his own, holding it there for a moment before both their hands dropped again.

Karen was opening her mouth to reply—maybe she’d actually say yes, they seemed harmless enough at this point—when she was interrupted.

“She don’t need no help from you,” a new voice came from behind Karen, and she bit her lip. 

Karen usually noticed when Max was approaching; it had been a while since he had managed to sneak up on her.  But she didn’t have to look back to know that Max was there, no doubt swaggering and posturing as usual.  It was what had gotten her attention in the first place, after all, and he had never changed.

She looked anyway.

There he was, in his ragged white tee and over-sized cargo pants, long blond hair stringy and stuck to his face from his afternoon nap.

“Max, I thought you were sleeping,” she said, as he skirted around the chair in the doorway to sling a possessive arm around her waist.

“Well, I woke up,” he answered, eyed pinched in that way they got when she said the wrong thing.  She supposed it wasn’t the best way to greet one’s live-in boyfriend, but he had surprised her.

“That okay with you?” he added when she didn’t respond, and she smiled softly at him until his eyes gentled.

“Of course, hon,” Karen said, sugary sweet.  “These men were just offering to help me get the chair in—”

“Got me for that, dontcha?” he asked, looking annoyed again already, and she nodded immediately in agreement. 

Not that he had actually been doing much helping today—she’d brought up all the boxes herself, and the only reason he had a place to rest at all was because the new mattress had been delivered and set up by the time he arrived.

She wasn’t going to say that, of course.  Max tended to get a little sensitive about things like that, about her taking care of things without him.  Said it made him feel like less of a man.  It reminded her of how her dad talked when her mom had gotten that new, higher-paying job, and she wanted her relationship to be better than that.

“In that case,” Mickey drawled, reminding everyone of his presence, “we might as well get going, huh?”

He took a step back, grabbing Ian by the hand to pull him along, but Ian stayed put.  His eyes were on Max’s arm, wrapped tightly enough around Karen’s hips to have her leaning awkwardly into him despite the foot of space between the rest of their bodies.  He eyed them both strangely, then, and Karen resisted the urge to pull away from Max and straighten her shirt where it had ridden up over her stomach.

Mickey paused, taking notice of his partner’s attention. 

Unfortunately, Max noticed, too.

“You sniffing ‘round my girl, homie?” he challenged, scanning Ian up and down with squinted eyes and pursed lips.  Max sniffed, and wiped his nose with his free arm, planting his feet just a little wider and adding, “Cause I got somethin’ to say ‘bout that.”

Whatever that something was, it was definitely the wrong thing, Karen thought as Mickey stepped forward. 

Mickey moved up next to Ian again, then past him, ignoring the hand that Ian put on his arm as he went by.  Mickey put Ian behind him, like he wanted to shield him, and kept moving until he stood almost toe-to-toe with Max.

Karen could smell his cologne from where she was trapped almost between them, hidden as it was under the smell of sweat and sun and dirt.  There was dirt on his face, too, she could see now, and she wondered idly how it had gotten there as the intensity of the moment washed over and through her.

“Watch it,” Mickey growled lowly, his voice bringing her mind back to the situation at hand.  “Or you won’t be sayin’ anything anytime soon.” 

He brought his hands up and cracked his knuckles, revealing the crude tattoos written over them.  Karen couldn’t quite make out the letters, but she had a feeling that they were a bit more…real…than the dirty song lyrics Max had printed on his side.

“Mickey,” Ian sighed before Max could respond, and Karen was grateful.  For all his bluster, Max would never take that guy in a fight.  Hell, he could barely take—

“What?” Mickey asked, but he let Ian pull him back with a hand on his bicep.

“Just head inside, alright?” Ian urged, thumb stroking the skin of Mickey’s arm under the short cut of his sleeve.  “I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Why you sendin’ off your guard dog, huh?” Max goaded with no sense of self-preservation, and Karen fought not to close her eyes at the obvious disdain in his voice.  Max had never been very good with people he couldn’t relate to, and soft touches between men weren’t something he was used to seeing.  Or soft touches between anyone, she sometimes thought.

“Think you can take me on your own, tough guy?” Max threw out next, clearly unwilling to stop even when Ian seemed to be on the side keeping him from getting hurt.

But somehow, the rough challenge seemed to make Mickey relax, the tension going out of him as he rested a hand over Ian’s on his arm.

“Alright,” he agreed with Ian’s proposition, squeezing his hand once and backing up obediently.  “But make it quick, or I’ll get started without you.”  He took another step back, raising his eyebrows.  “Tough guy,” he tacked on before he turned, and Ian smiled like it was a joke.

Everything was quiet for a moment as Mickey dug a key out of his pocket and unlocked the door across from Karen’s, casting one look back before letting it close behind him.  Max shifted nervously on his feet, sending Karen swaying with the motion, and held her even tighter.

She winced just in time for Ian to look back and see her, and his soft green eyes went hard and cold as he stepped forward and squared off.

“He’s not my guard dog,” Ian said lowly.  Dangerously.  Karen shivered at his tone, but Max just scoffed, even if Karen could feel the sudden heat that flushed his body, the new tenseness in his muscles.

“What the fuck is he then?” Max asked, and Ian chuckled.  It sounded colder than anything else that had come from his mouth, like it didn’t belong there at all.  It should have been scary, but it almost made Karen more comfortable to feel his anger.  At least anger was predictable, in a way Ian hadn’t been so far.

“He’s my husband,” Ian replied simply, firmly.  Not waiting for their reaction to that information, he immediately pressed on.  “So no, I’m not ‘sniffing ‘round’ your girl.”

He didn’t give Max time to respond to that, either, leaning in closer.  He rested a hand on the back of the dolly holding the chair that started it all, and gripped it tight.

“But if I was,” Ian added quietly, “and I had to go through you to get to her?”  He smirked.  “You can bet I’d wipe the floor with you.”

Somehow, Karen didn’t doubt it.  His husband might be the more brash of the two, but Ian was physically intimidating on his own, without all the bluster that built up people like Mickey, or like Max.  Ian didn’t need tattoos and threats to make his point.

Max tried to gather his own bravado to stutter out a response, but Ian was already backing away again, as swiftly as he’d approached.

“Might wanna keep that in mind,” Ian said casually as he made his way to his own door, reaching behind himself for the knob.  “Just in case.  And hey, new neighbor…,” he paused, looking at Karen.

“Karen,” she told him, ignoring Max’s responding pinch at the delicate skin of her side.  Ian nodded.

“Karen,” he said, a touch more gently.  “If you ever do need help, give us a holler.”  He grinned, but it looked wrong—a little too tight and a little too wide for his freckled face.  “We both have sisters; we’re used to it.”

He met her eyes for a brief moment, and Karen saw in them a softness and an understanding that she didn’t expect.  Like he knew her, more than he should after such a short encounter.  That he saw her.

That he saw her, with Max.

Karen felt a chill, but she didn’t shiver this time.  She was still as a stone as her new neighbor turned around and disappeared into his apartment.

“Used to what?” Max asked.  His arm had relaxed around her, but she still couldn’t move from his side.

Karen had a feeling she knew, but she didn’t want to say it out loud.  Not to herself, but especially not to Max.

“Nothing,” she said instead, and was proud that her voice came out right.  She rubbed warmth back into her hands; she hadn’t even realized that they’d been clenched.  “I guess he just likes helping people.”

Max snorted, then coughed when it irritated his throat.

“Well, he better stay in his lane,” he stated.  “Don’t care if he’s married to a dude, he don’t need to be hanging ‘round here, right?”

Karen was silent, still watching the closed door across the hall.  Max shook her a little to get her attention, his fingers gripping the skin above her hip a little too hard.

“Right?” he asked again, more firmly.

“Of course, babe,” she murmured, raising a hand to stroke his.  His grip finally loosened, and she stood a bit straighter.

“Okay, cool,” Max muttered, sucking on his teeth.  “Gonna go nap some more, you good?”

And before she could answer that she was not, in fact, good—that she did, in fact, need quite a bit of help with the chair that he was still ignoring even as he left her side—he was gone again, into the recesses of her new apartment.

Karen stood there for a moment.  She closed her eyes, and took a breath.  Considered knocking on the door across the hall, then thought better of it.

Instead, she turned back to the chair, and gave it one good, solid kick.

It didn’t make it magically move inside, but it did make her feel a little better.

Hitting things always did; that was just one of the things Max had taught her.

***

Now that she knew who they were, Karen kept seeing her new neighbors around more and more.  Ever since that first meeting in the hallway, they seemed to be everywhere, all the time, at least whenever she was alone.  They never spoke, but they were there, and it felt like they were somehow distant and hovering all at once.

When she went for a run down in the gym, Ian was there, running right next to her.  Sometimes he nodded in her direction, but more often he was already too engrossed in his workout to notice that the body next to him had changed.

When she wanted to take a dip in the pool, Mickey was there, reclining on a lounger next to another woman from the complex, or helping her in and out of her wheelchair.  He never said hello either, even though the woman—Lyla, Karen thought, the one Max had run into on the elevator and gotten annoyed with for moving too slow—sometimes waved.

And now, as Karen was trying to leave her own apartment to go to work, already late because Max wanted her to call out and help him with some weird new scheme instead, one of them was right there across the hall.

“Max, I’ll get fired if I’m late again!” she called back into the apartment as she slipped out the door, cursing when her purse caught on the knob.  Max said something from inside, but she wasn’t listening.

“I’ll help you when I get back, I promise!” she added as she finally got the bag loose.

“And when the fuck will that be?” came Max’s faint but raised voice, and she let the door close on the rest of whatever he had to say.

“Uh, everything alright?”

Karen spun around, hand on her chest to calm her heart at the sudden interruption.

It was Mickey.

He was standing there just outside his own propped-open door, wearing swim trunks and a loose shirt and holding a bright pink inflatable tube over his shoulder.

The tube was sparkly and had a unicorn head on it with a rainbow horn, and somehow it only made him look more intimidating.

“Fine, fine,” Karen assured him, voice a little high and antsy fingers clutching at the purse strap up on her shoulder.  “Just running a little late, that’s all.”

She went to move past him, but his eyes narrowed at something, and he threw out a hand.  It didn’t even touch her, but she immediately stopped anyway, just inches away from his splayed fingers.

“What’s that?” Mickey asked gruffly.  Karen just looked at him, confused.  His first words to her since that initial confrontation in the hallway, when he tried to stop Ian from helping her and threatened Max right in front of her face, and they didn’t make any sense at all.

Then he nodded down at her arm.

Karen looked.  The sleeve of her cardigan had ridden up as she fought to free herself from the door, revealing a faint shadow of purple and yellow stretching from her wrist nearly to her elbow.

Bile rose in her throat, but she swallowed it down and shook her arm to make the sleeve drop again.  She needed to get a tighter sweater for days like this one.

“It’s nothing,” she said, forcing a little giggle, the kind that made men forget what they were saying.  She had learned it from watching her mom when she was five years old. 

“I’m just so clumsy, I must have whacked it on something without noticing.”

But Mickey eyed her knowingly, and she flushed.

“Sure,” he responded.  “You got a lot of statues in your place to run into?” he asked, eyebrows raised. “’Cause that sure looks like a handprint to me.”

Karen blinked.  And again.  She wasn’t used to people pushing once she said she was alright.  She readied herself for a lie, but then again…

“What about yours?” she asked instead, gesturing with her chin to the red marks around his neck.  “Look like you might collect statues, too.”

His nostrils flared. 

She probably shouldn’t have said that.  She knew better than to be that combative.  If she had said something like that to Max…but she hadn’t, and there was something different about Mickey.  Something that had her lowering her guard a little even though she didn’t want to.

“No,” he said shortly in response to her question.  “But I asked for mine.”  He rubbed his throat absently, bringing more attention to what looked like a thumbprint just under his jaw.  “Loudly, and often.”

He dropped his hand then, and looked her in the eye.  His own held something she couldn’t describe.

“Did you?”

And she was lost for words again.  Amazing that her neighbors kept doing that to her.  Amazing in the worst possible way.

“No,” she answered slowly, giving herself time to think.  “Not really.”  She pursed her lips, dropped her gaze.  “But it’s just—”

“Uncle Mickey, I’m ready!” came a new voice from inside the couple’s apartment, young and high and eager, cutting Karen off before she could decide what to say.

Karen watched as Mickey’s face changed, from hard and searching to soft and sweetly gentle.

“Be there in a sec, Fran,” he called back over his shoulder, setting the inflatable tube down against the wall.  Without it, he looked smaller, almost harmless in the loose tank top that dwarfed his muscled build and brushed his thighs, drawing attention to his bare legs under baggy blue swim trunks.

Karen wondered why she had been so concerned the other day, when he stepped up to Max.  Now, with a reminder of Max’s true strength under her clothes, she knew that her boyfriend could hold his own against the man in front of her.

The man who was rubbing at the back of his head, almost like he was embarrassed, and darting quick glances to the open door behind him.

“She, uh,” he started, then coughed.  Started again.  “Kid needs me to braid her hair before we head down to the pool, so…”

“And I should get to work!” Karen interjected brightly, ready to make her escape.  This had already been awkward enough.

She almost managed it, too.  Would have managed it, if not for the door to her own apartment opening again, Max stepping out into the hall.

Karen fought not to look.  At Max, or at Mickey.

“Asked you a question,” Max said behind her in lieu of greeting their neighbor.  “When are you plannin’ on comin’ back this time?”

Karen suppressed a sigh, staring determinedly down the otherwise empty hallway, to where she needed to go.

“I get off at four, Max,” she said tightly.  “You know that.”

“I know that last week you didn’t come back ‘til seven,” he responded harshly.  “You gonna skip out on me again?”

He tugged at the back of her sweater, just hard enough to make her lean back into him.

“Max, I didn’t—”

“Hey,” Mickey cut in roughly.  “Why don’t you let her get to work.”

Like he hadn’t been the one holding her up, before.  Like it was imperative that she be on her way.

Another time, Karen might have appreciated the gesture.  When she was younger, maybe.  When it was her father, instead of Max. 

But right now, it was just irritating.  And worse, it would irritate Max, too.

“The fuck you say?” Max snarled, and Karen closed her eyes.  There it was.  She would never make it to work, now.

Mickey wasn’t phased by Max’s challenge, though.

“Said you should leave her the fuck alone, ham hands,” he goaded right back.  The tension in the hallway ratcheted up a notch, and Karen braced herself for the inevitable.  She wasn’t sure whose side she should be on, right then, but she knew she would go to Max when it was over.

“Uncle Mickey, come on!” that little girl’s voice whined from inside.  “I wanna go swim!”

And just like that, the fight went out of him.

“Fuck,” Mickey muttered, running a hand down his face and glancing back again.  “Look, I gotta go.  Lady—”

“Karen,” she reminded him.

“Yeah, whatever.”  He bit his lip, eyes searching her face.  “Take care of yourself.”  His lips quirked in a half-hearted grin.  “And maybe get rid of some statuary.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Max cried out after him, but Mickey just flipped him off over his shoulder and disappeared inside, not even bothering to close the door all the way.  He left that childish inner tube in the hallway, it’s beady eyes watching Karen from against the wall, and Karen couldn’t shake the thought that it was meant to be a chaperone.

“I asked you another fuckin’ question, Karen, you even listening?”

Max sounded angry.  That was no good.  But Karen knew how to work with it.

“Of course I am,” she reassured him, turning to rest her arms over his shoulders.  The sleeve of her cardigan slid toward her elbow again, but this time she didn’t look at the skin it revealed.

“You sure?” Max asked, suspicious.  “Cause according to that douchebag, you’re pretty eager to get away from me.”

I am, she wanted to say.  Not always, but right now, today.  I have other things to do, Max, other things in my life, and you can’t be at the center of all of it, all the time.

“Hey, no,” she said instead.  “I’ll call in, Max, okay?”  She let her purse slide down her arm, a clear sign that she wasn’t going anywhere.  “I’ll stay, just like you wanted.”

And if she looked back as Max led her back into the apartment, and saw Mickey’s eyes watching her from his cracked-open door, she pretended she didn’t.

There was no reason for him to be looking.

***

They were shouting when the knock came at the door.  They had been shouting for what felt like hours, now.  She had thrown a book at Max’s head—Max had knocked hers into the wall.  She had scratched a little line on his arm—he had almost broken her hand.

She slapped—he punched.  She clawed—he cut.  She had lost track of time, lost track of everything, except for the hoarseness of her voice and the scratchiness of her throat as they fought.

He had her against the wall, hands pinned, hair pulled back.  Then there was a knock knock knock at the door, an “open this door right the fuck now, or I’ll kick it in,” a slam as someone attempted to follow through on that threat and failed.

“Shit,” Max muttered, releasing her.  Karen knelt on the floor, gasping, as he backed away.  “Who did you tell to come over?” he hissed at her, going to the door to peer through the peephole.

Karen didn’t answer.  He wouldn’t believe her anyway.

“It’s those assholes from across the hall,” he told her, then snorted inelegantly.  “Don’t know why they seem to think you need rescuing, but come on.”  He lifted an eyebrow at her, waited for her to find her feet.

“Get over here,” he hurried her, as if nothing from the previous half an hour had happened at all.  “Let’s show ‘em you don’t need their help.”

Didn’t she, though?  Karen wasn’t sure, anymore.  If not for the streak of blood down Max’s left arm and the feeling of skin under her nails, she wouldn’t be sure anything had happened at all.  That was how fast Max recovered himself.

“I’m coming,” she whispered, wiping her hair back from a sticky, sweaty face.  “Just a second, babe, I’m coming.”

Her hand came away red, but it was nothing.  She’d had worse from falls when she was clumsy.  So she stumbled across the room to Max, straightened the torn hem of her shirt, and pasted a smile on her face.

Max nodded, satisfied, and opened the door.

Everything after that was a blur, just like everything before.  There was yelling, and pointed fingers.  Someone hit Max in the face, and someone else held her back when she tried to help him.

“Let Mick take care of this,” someone said soothingly.  “He’s good at it, and it will make him feel better.”

Then Max was being dragged by his long hair into the hallway, thrown against the wall by the door.  Mickey from across the hall, the one that had carried a child’s water toy on his shoulder and braided hair for little girls, was laying into Karen’s boyfriend like it was his sacred duty, and his husband was ushering Karen back into her apartment just by approaching and letting her back away.

And she was inside, and Max was outside.  Outside fighting someone else, someone who could fight back.  She wondered if he would lose.

Ian came in too and closed the door behind himself, cutting off the sound of Mickey's ranting and Max's angry responses between thumps of knuckles on flesh.

Karen stared at the painted wood, clean and white.  If she looked closely, she could still see where they patched it the day after she moved in, when Max knocked her head against it a little too hard.

Then Ian was there, blocking her view with his broad chest and forcing her further inside.

"Come on," he said softly, leading her to the living room sofa without touching her, hand hovering a few careful inches from her back. 

"Come sit down," he urged as her legs hit the edge. "Let me take a look."

And then her knees were buckling under her, and he caught her in long, muscled arms to help her land safely on worn cushions.

"Do you have a first aid kit?" Ian asked once she was settled.  She nodded absently, then had the presence of mind to point him toward the cabinets across the room.

Karen watched as Ian crossed in front of her to search through them, pushing aside papers and pictures and little broken things until he emerged triumphantly with the tiny metal tin Karen had stolen from her mother's kitchen when she moved out.

She liked that tin.  It had little cats on it, all caught up in ribbons and neatly tied bows.  She had always wondered whether they'd done it on purpose, or just gotten in over their heads and didn't know how to get out again.

Ian was kneeling now, just a foot away on the hard wooden floor, reaching slowly for her hand.  She let him lift it, let him wipe it clean with a wet towel she hadn't noticed him fetching.

His hands were calm, and gentle.  But there was a storm brewing in his eyes, green and dark like the sky before a tornado whips up the wind.  It reminded her of his husband, outside, who had looked murderous the second he knocked on their door. 

She couldn’t hear him anymore, she realized.  The screaming and curses had stopped.  She wondered what had made them start in the first place.

"Why was he so mad?" She asked Ian in a whisper, her voice still raspy from trying to hold her own against Max's yelling and accusations.

"Who, your boyfriend?" Ian asked.

She shook her head.  She knew why Max was angry.  He'd been upset since last night, when she had left him in the bedroom to go have a smoke on the balcony.

She had been ready to head back in to him, her cigarette burned to embers against the filter and hot against her fingers, when she spotted them pulling into the parking lot in that obnoxious ambulance of theirs.

Mickey had almost fallen out of the passenger side, Ian barely making it around in time to catch him, slinging Mickey's arm around his neck to keep him upright.  She had heard them giggling all the way from the apartment.

They had stopped almost directly beneath her on their way into the building, when Mickey stumbled again.  This time, when his husband caught him, they started to sway together, chest to chest, as Mickey hummed some mindless tune that echoed up the wall to Karen's ears.

Max had called her in, then, and she hadn't wanted to go.  She had wondered why they never got that way when they were drunk; they only got handsy with each other when they were angry.

Karen had made the mistake of asking Max that, when she returned to bed.  And he had let the comment simmer all night, and all day, until he finally reached his breaking point in time for their neighbors to intervene.

"Who then?" Ian prompted, bringing her thoughts back to the present.  He had finished cleaning and bandaging her hand, and moved up to the scrape along her cheek while she was distracted.

"Mickey," she answered. "He looked like he wanted to kill Max, but he barely even knows him."

Ian made a sound in his throat, like an aborted cough.

"Oh," he said simply, then paused. "Well, we don't really have to know him to see that he's an asshole."  He shrugged, careful not to let the movement jar the hand pressing gauze to her face. "Mickey doesn't like assholes," he added, as if that explained everything.

Karen didn't argue with his assessment of Max.  Wasn't sure she wanted to, not right then.  Not when she could still feel his hands and see their imprint on her skin.

Ian finished fixing her up, but he didn't move away.  He sat back on his heels, and looked at her.

She looked back.

"Think you remind him of his sister," Ian revealed abruptly.

"Mickey has a sister?" Karen asked.  She was starting to feel more herself, but she still struggled to make the connection between the man that just pulled Max away from her and a devoted sibling.

“Yeah,” Ian answered, with an odd half-twist to his lips.  “Mandy.  She was our best friend.”

He looked down at his hands, then back up. 

“But she left Chicago,” he said, “with a guy that wasn't good for her.”  He stopped, and shrugged. “He hasn’t seen her since.”

Oh.

“A guy like Max?” Karen asked softly.  Like drunken fights and angry passion, like harsh words and harsher hands.  Like something she wasn’t sure she wanted anymore, but didn’t not want, either.

Ian nodded. 

"Why did you let her leave?” Karen questioned.  Feeling worried for this girl she didn’t know, this Mandy.  Mandy who had friends, had family, that knew.  That knew and did nothing, that knew and let her go anyway.  It sounded like she hadn’t even needed to lie, not like Karen did to her parents when she left.  She wasn’t sure if that was better or worse, in the long run.

“Didn't want to,” Ian admitted.  “Didn’t want to let him take her.”  He huffed out a short, humor-free laugh, scratched the top of his leg with one hand.

“Tried to cut his throat once, actually.”

“Why didn't you?”

She wondered if he could have done it.  Between the two of them, Ian seemed softer than his husband, but there was something underneath it, too.  Something that had her and Max quaking the first time he confronted them, something that had made her question about Mickey’s bruises the other day an honest one.

But it didn’t really matter, she supposed.  It didn’t matter, because he hadn’t done it.  He had let them get away.

Ian shrugged in response to her question, but his eyes were bleak, and sad. 

“Mandy loved him,” he said, like that was all there was to it.  “And I could save her from him, but I couldn't save her from herself.”  He shook his head.  “Not the way I was back then.”

Part of her wanted to ask the obvious question.  Why were you different then? She wondered.  Why couldn't you help her?

And deeper, hidden behind thoughts of her past and their future and what she deserved:

Are you up to it now?  Can you save me?

She didn't utter a word.

“Do you want to stay with us, tonight?” Ian offered, to counter her silence.  “Just until you feel better?”

She might never feel better.  She shook her head.

He hesitated, but nodded. 

“Alright,” he murmured, getting to his feet.  “Let us know if you change your mind.”

The door to the apartment opened.  Karen looked up, expecting Max to be there, expecting him to throw Ian out and pick up where they had left off.  Or even apologize, like he did sometimes, after things got out of hand.

But it was just Mickey, standing in the doorway with the bright lights of the hallway behind him, looking them both over with cautious eyes.

“Hey, how's it goin’ in here?” he asked, overly casual.  He rubbed his eyebrow with a thumb, tongued the corner of his mouth. 

“Took the trash out to the dumpster for ya,” he said, aimed at Karen.  “Sure it'll be gone by morning.”

She didn’t respond, and Mickey gave up and transferred his attention to Ian, who was carefully re-rolling an unused strand of gauze to tuck away in the first aid kit again.

“Yo, she stayin’ with us?” Mickey asked his husband.  Like he knew that the offer had been made.

“No,” Ian replied.  “I think she’d rather stay here.”

Mickey bit his lip, and looked at Karen. 

“You sure?” he asked.  Giving her a choice.  Giving her an out.

“I'm sure,” she said instead.  She was still capable of that one decision.

She sat still as they cleaned up, didn’t bother to rise when they left.  Ignored the quiet click of the door as it closed behind them.

But once they were gone, she let herself fall sideways until she lay along the length of the sofa.  The cushions still smelled like Max.  She pressed her face into them, kept it there as it grew damp.  Pretended they hadn't fought.  Pretended he was here.  Pretended there weren't probably two grown men sitting right outside her door to keep him from coming back.

Pretended she didn't know why.

And finally...thinking of nurses with red hair and knights with tattooed knuckles, of fighting dragons with blond scales and bleeding out under the cold gaze of familiar eyes...finally, she slept.

Chapter Text

Gina held her pose while she looked out across the pool, one leg raised and hands clasped above her head.  The water rippled in the light breeze, the same air pushing at her through her thin, racer-back shirt, and she breathed it in for a count of ten before sighing it back out again.

“Warming up?” a voice came from behind her, and she almost stumbled as she fell out of her pose.

“Jeez, Jill,” she complained, shaking out her arms as she turned around, “You know I hate it when you sneak up on me.”

Her friend just offered a tiny shrug, shoulders moving under a shirt two sizes too big.  She reached up to adjust the thick strap of her sports bra, lips twitching up in a smile.

“Sorry,” Jill offered, completely insincere.  Her eyes twinkled, catching the sun, as she said, “Figured you’d expect it since you’re, you know…holding a class and all.”

Gina huffed, smiling back despite herself.  She smoothed back her hair, flattening the fly-aways caused by the wind, ignoring that they popped right back up again on the other side of her hand.

“Well, I guess that’s fair,” she admitted, tightening her ponytail before letting both hands fall back to her sides.  “You’re early, though.”

“Of course I am!” Jill said, holding her arms out to the side.  “Gotta support my friend, right?”  She nudged Gina’s shoulder with the hand not holding her rolled yoga mat, a light push that had Gina stepping off her own mat and onto the hot pavement.  Jill laughed as Gina hopped back onto the cooler, flower-patterned cotton with a mild glare.

“This is a big deal, Gi,” Jill said, ignoring her friend’s annoyed looks.  “I’m so proud of you.”

Gina’s gaze softened immediately, her eyes dipping down toward the ground as she shifted back and forth.

“It’s just one class,” she said, but Jill was already shaking her head.

“No, nuh-uh,” Jill argued, tone brooking no nonsense.  “It’s your first class, your first time getting out there since you got certified!”

“Not to mention,” Jill added, voice lowered, eyes casting around the area, “I know it wasn’t easy to get Melanie to agree to this.”

Gina bit her lip, one hand coming up to clutch at the opposite arm.

“It, uh, actually wasn’t that hard,” she admitted.  “I barely even talked to her, actually.  Sarah helped me out, and Chris put in a word…”

Jill snorted.  

“So your husband finally decided to step it up and support you,” she said, “but this is still all you, babe.  Embrace the power!”

She held up her arms to flex, and accidentally dropped her yoga mat on Gina’s feet.

“Whoops,” she said sheepishly as Gina bent to pick it up.  “Sorry.”

“No worries,” Gina giggled, “but you might wanna get set up, it looks like we’re about to have company.”

Sure enough, people were starting to show up.  A lot of people, actually, and Gina could feel her nerves start to tingle.  She clenched and unclenched her hands, rhythmic, soothing, with evenly counted breaths.

This was what she wanted.  She could do this.

“Good crowd,” Jill echoed her thoughts unwittingly.  She bent down to lay out her mat just behind Gina’s, claiming her spot in the front row, and smoothed it out as Gina tried not to panic.

“It is,” Gina agreed, a little breathily, and Jill eyed her but didn’t comment.  Instead she stood again, moving until she could plant her feet right next to Gina’s on the same piece of fabric, and looked with her at the group that was slowly gathering at the edge of the pool for the advertised yoga class.

It was the first time anything like this had been offered there at the complex, and Jill was right—it hadn’t been easy to convince management it was worth it.  It was a volunteer event, so it’s not like it would bring in any money, and Gina was an untried, unproven entity.

Not to mention the fit Melanie had apparently thrown when Sarah suggested it be open to non residents.  That idea hadn’t gotten very far.

Still, it was a surprising turnout.  And as they watched people begin to set up, laying out mats and stretching there on the pavement, one person in particular caught Gina’s attention.  A younger girl, hunched in on herself, looking around at everyone else as if she feared they might approach her.

“Is that…?” Jill asked, voice hushed, eyes on the same person.

“The new tenant,” Gina finished for her.  “Yeah, she’s across the hall from us.  Well, from Ian and Mickey, really.”

“Doesn’t she live with her boyfriend?” Jill grimaced as she said it.  “That awful looking guy with the temper?”

Gina nodded, lips twisted.  

“Got it in one,” she answered.  “His name is Max, and he’s a real asshole.”  

She turned her back on the people trickling in, encouraging Jill to do the same.  Once their faces were hidden from the growing crowd, she leaned in closer, conspiratorial.

“He ran into Chris in the hallway, once,” Gina confided lowly, “and told him he needed to get a better handle on me.”  She scoffed.  “Said he saw me coming back at all hours, while I was out doing volunteer classes, and told him a real man would keep me closer than that.”

Jill looked at her, eyes wide. 

“For real?” she asked, and at Gina’s nod, “Well, how did that go?  What did Chris say?”

Gina, thankfully, was able to smile.  

“Told him to fuck right off,” she said proudly.  “That he wasn’t that insecure, and he trusted me.”

“No way,” Jill breathed, then grinned right back.  “Gina, that’s awesome.  He’s really working on stuff, huh?”

“He really is,” Gina agreed happily.  “Think hanging out with Ian and Mickey is doing real good things for us.”

She and Chris had been pretending nothing was wrong for so long, she had almost believed it was true.  But seeing the two of them, hearing about everything they’d been through, had gotten through to both of them in a way that she hadn’t expected.  A way that had her asking for things she had given up on a long time ago, had Chris trying harder than he had in years.

It was amazing what seeing people be really, genuinely happy with each other could do.

“Seems to be that way for everybody around here,” Jill said, glancing around at the gathering forming behind them.  “When they came over to ours last week, Alan tried to go on a rant about some local kids breaking street ordinances, and Mickey tore him a new one.”

“Oh yeah?” Gina laughed.  “And that was a good thing?”

“It was!” Jill emphasized.  “He actually caved, said he understood some of it.”  Her grin turned a hint wicked, and she snickered before adding, “Of course, it helped that we had just had some laced brownies for dessert, courtesy of their clients.”

“Oh my gosh,” Gina gasped, “I would have paid to be in that room.”

Jill giggled with her.  

“It was pretty great, I won’t lie,” she said, then shook her head.  “Those two get awfully handsy when they’re high, though, it was like watching softcore porn.”

“Aw, Alan’s favorite,” Gina simpered, and Jill smacked her with the back of one hand.

“I don’t think watching our neighbors make out on the love seat quite falls into that category,” she said dryly, “but you’d have the judge that for yourself.”

“Not a problem,” Gina said with an exaggerated sigh.  “I think they’re adorable.”

Jill agreed with a silent nod.  Then, as they turned back around to face the crowd, she said, “I think the new girl agrees with you.”

Gina looked.  Sure enough, Ian and Mickey had just exited the building, and were walking up to join the small throng.  The new girl’s eyes were on them, her back straightening as they approached, and she offered a hesitant wave that the two men returned easily.

“Hmm,” Gina hummed.  “Hope her boyfriend doesn’t see that,” she said, “he seems like the possessive type.”

“More than possessive,” Jill added darkly.  “He seems like the violent type.”

The surety with which she said it gave Gina pause.  They had both had bad experiences in the past, most women had, but to come to that conclusion so quickly, without even an introduction…

Well.  It warranted another look.

So look Gina did.  At a girl at least ten years her junior, clearly fit, athletic even.  Beautiful in a way society liked, these days, in a way most would flaunt—more power to them, Gina figured—but so completely covered that her face and hands were the only skin Gina could see.  The sleeves of her sweatshirt were pulled down half over her palms, the hint of another shirt beneath it where the hems overlapped at her hips.

Her smile was there, but faint, as she greeted the two men that everyone seemed to have grown to love around the complex.  Ian’s met it easily, bright and open as always…but Mickey’s did too, a shock of upturned lips and soft eyes that Gina had only ever seen directed at his husband.

She saw the way Ian, one of the most physically affectionate people she knew, held out a hand and waited before pulling the girl into the briefest of hugs.  The way Mickey, one of the most standoffish, rested a gentle hand on her shoulder when they parted.

The way the girl wiped discreetly at her eyes as they bent to lay out their mats next to hers.

“Come on,” Gina said abruptly, grabbing Jill by the arm.  “Let’s go say hi.”

“Wait, what?” Jill asked, surprised.  “Now?  We’re almost ready to start!”

“Can’t start class without the teacher,” Gina replied with a sudden burst of confidence, “and I think introductions might be overdue.”

Jill tripped over herself following, tugging at the arm in Gina’s grip, but caught up by the time they reached their three neighbors. 

“Don’t know why you think I need yoga, man,” Mickey was complaining, watching Ian flatten out two fancy yoga mats.  Gina assumed the one covered with little pictures of vegetables was Ian’s, the one next to it looking stark in comparison despite it’s black-and-red geometric pattern.

“It helps with flexibility,” Ian pointed out like he had said it a million times.

“I already get my legs over my head for you every day, what more flexibility d’you think I need?”

Gina coughed.

Mickey and the girl looked up first, with matching wary expressions.  Mickey’s eased quickly, at least, and he nodded to them as he prodded his husband’s side with a sandaled foot.  Ian glanced up at him, clearly annoyed, then caught sight of them.

“Gina, Jill!” he said happily, getting to his feet.  He embraced them, one arm around each, and pulled back with his usual broad smile.  

“This was a great idea, Gina,” he gushed, shaking her just a little with the hand still on her shoulder.  “I’ve been wanting to do a class, but Mickey here never wants to go with me.”

“Cause I don’t fuckin’ need it,” Mickey grumbled, flicking the back of Ian’s head.  “Congrats though,” he directed at Gina.  “Heard you got certified or whatever, I guess that’s pretty cool.”

From Mickey, it was the highest compliment she could imagine.

“Thanks,” Gina accepted with a smile, before turning her attention to their newest tenant.

“I don’t think we’ve been formally introduced,” she said, extending a hand.  “I’m Gina, and this is Jill; we’re friends of Mickey and Ian.”

She got an odd stare in return, but after a quick nudge from Mickey, the girl took her hand.

“Karen,” she said shortly, shaking it once and letting go.  “And I know who you are.  Max told me about you.”

Gina let her hand fall slowly.

“Max?  Who’s that?” she asked, dreading the answer.  Jill poked her in the back, doubtless hoping she would shut up, but Gina ignored her.

Karen’s lips twisted, and for some reason she turned to look at Mickey, who nodded.

“Uh, he was my boyfriend,” Karen said.  “I think your husband met him.”

“Everybody met him,” Jill said plainly.  “He was kind of hard to miss.”

That earned her a not-so-subtle glare from Mickey.  Judging from the way Karen shrank at the words, tugging her sleeves down further, she wasn’t sure she blamed him.

Ian cut in before anything else could be said.

“Well, he isn’t around anymore,” he revealed, an edge in his voice Gina hadn’t heard before.  “So if you see him again, let us know.”

“Let me know,” Mickey corrected, and rolled his eyes when Ian kicked at him.  “What?” he asked plaintively.  “I just want to know if we need to have another chat.”

“You broke his hand, Mickey,” Ian sighed.  Jill gasped, her hand twisting into the back of Gina’s shirt, but Mickey just shrugged.

“Yeah well, he wasn’t usin’ it right.”

Ian seemed ready to continue the conversation, but Gina caught sight of Karen’s face.  Pale, and waxy, her lip bitten red between her teeth.

“I’m glad to hear it!” she decided to interrupt.  “That he’s gone, I mean, not that he’s hurt,” she added hastily.  “I just…he didn’t seem like a nice guy, is all.”

She winced when she realized that she had inadvertently made it worse all on her own, but amazingly, Karen actually smiled.

A tiny thing, there one second and gone the next, but a smile all the same.

“He wasn’t,” Karen agreed.  “A nice guy, I mean.”

She folded her arms over her chest.  Mickey rubbed her shoulder, then dropped his hand awkwardly when he saw Gina looking.

And Ian, standing between them, smiled fondly at them all.

“Gina!” someone called from closer to the pool, and she turned around to see Sarah standing there, waving at her.  “Are we ready to start?” the other woman asked, and Gina nodded.

“I guess that’s my cue,” she said, backing away from the little group.  She wiped sweaty hands on her leggings, and laughed.  “Guess I’m really doing this.”

“You’ll be great,” Ian promised her, and she had an idea.

“Why don’t you come up front with me?” she asked him.  He hesitated, looked back at Mickey, and she let her eyes go wide.

“Please, Ian?” she begged.  “Be my emotional support?”

“Hey!” Jill complained next to her, but she swatted her on the arm.

“Besides,” Gina continued, “the guys here will get more into it if they have a male role model.”

Ian laughed at that.

“Not sure that’s what they want to see,” he quipped, “but sure, why not?”

“Why not?” Mickey squawked.  “You’re just gonna drag me here then run off?”

“You could come up too,” Gina offered.  “I’m sure we can make room.”

He scowled.  

“Not fucking likely,” he muttered.  

“Fine, go on then,” to Ian.  “I’ll just hang with Karen back here, makin’ fun of your ass.”

“In these shorts?” Ian asked, turning and looking down at his own rear, encased in stretchy black bike shorts that left next to nothing to the imagination.  “Nah, I don’t think you’ll be laughing.”

“Get the fuck out of here, you moron,” his husband huffed out with a toothy grin and a kick at that toned backside.  “Sooner we start this shit the sooner I go back to drinkin’ beer on the couch watchin’ stupid-ass housewives of where-the-fuck-ever.”

Jill snorted, and Mickey turned on her.

“I’m sorry, got somethin’ to say miss “my husband gets off on rulebooks?”

Jill backed away, arms raised, teeth showing in a wide grin.  

“Not at all, mister “my husband loves his plants more than me,” she retorted.  

Mickey feigned a kick at her, too, and Jill and Ian both took off toward the front of the crowd, laughing together.

Gina lingered.

“It was nice to meet you, Karen,” she said, sincerely.  “And I’m glad you met Ian and Mickey already; they’ll take good care of you.”

Mickey flushed, but Karen nodded.

“I know,” she said.  “But thanks.”

“Gina, come on!” Sarah called again from the edge of the pool.  “If we don’t get started soon, Melanie is gonna throw a fit!”

Gina grinned.  “Can’t have that, can we?” she asked rhetorically, backing away.  “Still on for dinner tomorrow, Mickey?” she asked before she got to far, and he waved her away.

“Like Ian would let me cancel,” he yelled back.  “Just make sure your husband’s there on time, we ain’t waitin’ on him.”

“Oh, he knows,” Gina replied, and finally turned to make her way to the front.

A few people stopped her on her way.  A pat on the back from the elderly woman that lived downstairs, and had helped Gina with her groceries once when Chris wasn’t around.  A high-five from the goth teenager that lived her dad a few doors down, and had started hanging out around the pool while Gina did her morning poses.

People she knew.  People she liked.  All together, right here, waiting for her.

She finally reached the front, and looked back at the crowd behind her.  Jill was there next to Ian in the front row, both of them watching her with huge smiles.  Jill gave her a discreet thumbs up, and Ian gave her two, not discreet at all, wriggling his ass.  She laughed at his enthusiasm, and cast her eyes back further to his husband.

Sure enough, Mickey’s eyes were glued to Ian, mouth slightly open.  Those two were honestly disgusting with how openly into each other they were sometimes.

Well, all the time.

A moment later, though, Mickey turned, and Gina saw Lyla rolling up to him in her chair, Charlie trailing behind her.  Mickey greeted her by leaning down for a hug, one of the only times Gina had ever seen him initiate physical affection, and clapped Charlie on the shoulder before motioning to Karen.  

Gina hadn’t expected them to come, but she was glad.  Lyla didn’t get out nearly enough, these days.

Sarah had taken up position nearest the office doors, probably to run interference if Melanie came to cause any trouble.  She had been coming out of her shell too, lately.  Taking part in more neighborly activities, hassling everyone less when it was her turn to man the office.  Sarah leaned over to help the person next to her adjust their mat, smiling and laughing with them, and Gina wondered what had made her change.

Karen tapped Mickey on the back, gesturing somewhere off to the side, and then Gina watched as Mickey marched over to a man in front of him and whacked him on the back of the head.  It was Jake, obviously staring at Ian up front, and Gina suppressed the need to roll her eyes.  

Some things would never change.

Gina turned back around, and took a deep breath.  Looked out over the water again, steady, serene.  She could do this.

“Okay everybody,” she called out, back to the crowd.  Her voice shook, but she pushed down the fresh tingle of nerves.  “We’re going to start with—

“Wait!  Sorry I’m late!”

Everyone looked to the side.  Chris was jogging up the path toward the pool, panting, his tie undone and waving in the breeze.

“Sorry, sorry,” he huffed as he wove between the people waiting, making his way up to the front.  “Sorry, first row privileges, make some room for me please.”

There were a few grumbles, but Ian and Jill exchanged a look and immediately shifted, making room between them.

“Thanks,” Chris managed on a heavy breath, halting there.  Jill nodded at him, and Ian slapped him on the back, a touch too hard.  Chris looked ridiculous in his suit as he leaned forward at the touch, jacket tied around his waist and button-up shirt already covered in sweat.

Gina had never been more attracted to him.

“Okay,” she repeated, sounding much firmer, her nerves melting away as her friends—and her husband—watched her.  “Follow after me everybody, let’s start with some sun salutes…”

Chapter Text

Karen’s bed was comfortable.  Three blankets, two pillows, just the right level of soft but firm.  Warm and cozy and just for her, now, with no one there to push her to the edge and steal the covers or send her for water in the middle of the night.  

It had taken a while after Max left, nights of listening in the darkness with tense muscles and tenser mind, but she enjoyed sleeping now.  Understood a little why other people put such stock in it, and partook at every opportunity.  Without Max in the apartment, without having to be aware every moment of how he might react to every word, every movement, Karen was finally able to rest.  Could go to bed early and sleep through the night and wake whenever she, and only she, decided.

So when she woke up late on a Friday night, nestled between fleece and flannel with a plush pillow beneath her head and another in her arms, it took her a moment to realize why.

At first, she thought it might be morning already.  The moon was so bright through the thin white curtains that it may as well be, but sure enough, it was just the moon.

She thought next it might be her soreness that woke her, the stiffness of muscles worked well from one of Gina’s poolside classes.  The weather was almost too cool for it now, countering the looseness it usually gave her, and perhaps the twinge of her back had brought her back to waking.

But the heat was on high in the apartment, a wonderful warmth that had her sinking back into her blankets with a sigh, eyelids drooping closed again as if they had never opened, her aches nothing against the comfort of her bed.

Then a knock came at her door, sloppy and loud, and she remembered why she had opened her eyes in the first place.

“Damn it,” she groaned, and smashed her face into the pillow before turning to look at the clock by her bedside.

12:17 AM it read in bright red lights, as the banging on her door continued.

There was a time she would have felt odd for having been asleep at all so soon, and not taking advantage of a Friday night.  Or when she would have been fighting sleep on the living room sofa, waiting for Max to come home so she could make him comfortable.

She was glad she wasn’t that young anymore.  Or that lost.

The knock came again as she reached for her robe, a thick plush thing that felt like armor over her thin nightclothes.  She had felt more herself as soon as she dug it from the depths of her closet upon Max’s departure, buried her nose in the worn, smoke-scented terrycloth that Max had called unfeminine.

She felt herself now, as she tied it around her waist.  A whole woman, her own woman.  Ready to deal with whatever nonsense was knocking at her door.

Until she reached it, and looked through the peephole.

Max.

She pulled back so quickly she nearly fell over her own bare feet, cold on the wooden floor.  Stared at the door, arms tight across her stomach, the fluff of her robe suddenly scratchy and stiff against her skin.

Maybe she was wrong.  Maybe it wasn’t him.  He had no reason to be there, not after her new neighbors had…escorted him out, weeks ago now.  They had taken his key, she had blocked his number.  He hadn’t shown his face since.

He knocked again, a familiar rap-rap-rapap that she could never mistake.

“Come on, open up!” he slurred, and the sound of his voice made her skin prickle.

It was him.  He was there.  

And he was drunk.

Karen took another step away, as if the physical distance was somehow more protection than the solid door between them.  Her fingers clutched at her arms, too tight, tight enough to bruise where he had bruised her not long ago.

He kept knocking, and she kept staring, until another voice came through.

“Thought you said this was your place.”

A woman’s voice.  Low, and with no small amount of annoyance.  

“You don’t have a key?” she asked pointedly, voice carrying as easily through the door as Max’s had despite it’s more reasonable volume.  Like she was used to making herself heard.

“Sure I got one,” Max grumbled, and Karen’s heart leapt into her throat before she remembered that it was impossible.  That Mickey had handed Max’s key back to her the very night he got rid of him.

The reminder was enough to free her thoughts from the fear that had frozen her, and she took one more step back, two, before she was running back to her bedroom to grab her phone from the bedside table.  She dialed with still shaky fingers, and tried to ignore the way the back of her neck tickled, the way the room seemed to shrink until Max may as well be right behind her.

She was used to feeling like she had turned her back on a predator.  Had lived like that for over a year, even before they lived together.  She had always figured there was nothing for it—no one to save her anyway if he struck.  Maybe that was why she had stayed for so long.

The phone rang.  She waited.  And it connected with a click to a lifeline she had never had before.

“Mickey?” she asked immediately, voice thin without the air stuck in her tight chest, waiting for the familiar irritated tone of her new friend to reach her ears.

“Uh, no,” came the amused answer, in a different but still familiar voice.  “Afraid it’s just Ian, Mickey went out for a smoke.”

Well.  Ian would do.

She paced the length of her bedroom, phone tight to her ear, feet rasping over smooth floorboards.

“It’s Max,” she whispered, the very name hot on her lips, her eyes darting to the narrow hall of her apartment like he might hear her somehow from two rooms and a door away.  

“It’s Max,” she said again before Ian could answer,  “and he’s trying to get in, and he brought a girl, and—”

The words just kept coming, like a dam had been broken.  Fast, and weak, and barely comprehensible.

“Whoa, whoa, slow down,” Ian said over the phone, voice faint over the line but still firm, grounding.  “Something about Max?”

Karen swallowed.

“He’s here,” she said, each word formed slow and careful, forcing herself to stand still and breathe deep.  “And I need you.”

Quiet, for a moment, just Ian’s breath in her ear.  Then,

“Okay,” he said, and she could hear his furniture creak as he stood.  “It’s okay, I’m coming.  Do you want me to—”

The knocking started again, and Karen hung up on instinct, instinct to hold her breath and stay silent and wait for it to pass.  But as much as she wanted to barricade herself in her bedroom, as much as she wanted to pretend she had never woken in the first place, she couldn’t do either knowing Max was outside.

So she tiptoed back to the entryway, where at least she could know what was coming, and hoped that Ian would hurry.

“I told you, I lost it,” Max was saying once she was close enough to hear, apparently still arguing with his friend.

“Uh huh,” the woman said back, flat and disbelieving.  “Maybe it’s with your wallet, cause you still haven’t paid.”

Max paused in trying to bang down her door.

“I don’t owe you nothin’,” he growled, low but still loud.  “You ain’t even done what I hired you for yet.”

“You owe me just for getting in that cab, asshole,” the woman claimed, “and it’s not like you’ve kept your end of the bargain, this isn’t exactly the Four fucking Seasons.”

She could perfectly picture the expression on Max’s face when he laughed, a vicious thing.  The same expression he had worn any time she dared to call him out.

“You’re picky for a whore,” he said darkly, and oh.

Not a friend, then.

“And you’re stupid if you think that word will make me back down,” the whore challenged, and Karen bit her lip.

Not a friend at all, and not aware of what was coming.

Not like Karen was.

She made it to the peephole just in time to see Max turn his back on it, shoulders tight.  He faced a girl that looked no older than herself, layered blonde hair and thick brows drawn low over eyes that looked oddly familiar, red lips pursed in a frown that begged for a backhand.

“Don’t need words for that, bitch,” Max said, sure enough, his voice suddenly quiet and menacing.  “I got two hands.”

Four things happened then.

Max lifted a fisted hand.  

Karen reached for the doorknob.

The whore whipped a baton out of somewhere inside her tight black dress.

And Mickey Milkovich rounded the corner just in time to see her use it.

“You should never lift your hand to a lady,” the whore hissed as Max went down with a pained groan, standing over him with her weapon clenched in one strong hand.  She had gotten him once in the stomach, again in the head, and a knee in his groin for good measure.  From the look on her face, she was considering going for more.

Until Mickey spoke up.

“The fuck are you doin’ here, bitch?” he asked, and Karen thought he was talking to Max.  Figured it was rhetorical, and that he’d take care of things from there.  She even let her hand fall from the doorknob, though her eye stayed glued to the peephole, sure that the danger was past.

But the whore turned to look at him, a slow up and down as she measured him up.  And apparently found him wanting, as she answered his question with:

“Could ask you the same question, dickbreath.”

Shit.

Mickey’s face clouded over, his jaw set, and Karen hoped he wouldn’t take it personally.  That he’d see the situation for what it was: a scared woman protecting herself.

But from the look on his face, that realization hadn’t landed.

“Who you callin’ dickbreath?” he demanded with a sneer Karen hadn’t seen on his face in a long time.  The one he had worn whenever he passed Max in the hallway, before…

Before.

“You’re the one gets paid to suck ‘em,” he continued, making a rude gesture with one hand.

Karen couldn’t see the whore’s face, but she could see the way the woman’s hands clenched and released on her baton.

“Yeah,” she returned, voice dripping with condescension.  “Cause I’m smarter than you, assface.  You suck ‘em for free.”

“Just the one,” Mickey admitted, stepping closer, and closer, until there was only a foot of space between them.  “And you’re just bitter cause you know you can’t have it.”

To Karen’s shock, Mickey lifted a hand and shoved at the whore’s shoulder.  The only time she had ever seen him lift a hand to a woman, and she felt it like he had done it to her.  Her own shoulder ached, down and in to her chest, where heart and lungs froze in place.

Because Mickey was supposed to be safe.  

Her hand was stuck on the doorknob, still, but she couldn’t turn it.  She could only watch.  Watch as the woman outside threw her baton to the ground, and shoved Mickey back.  Watch as he went for her waist, only to be foiled by hands gripping his short hair, forcing his head back.  He bit at the arm that put in front of his face—bit—and got an elbow to his neck in the process.

Karen forced her hand to move.  She had to do something.  Had to help one of them.  She turned the knob, pushed—

And failed, Max’s prone body blocking the door.  Keeping her helpless without even trying.

Then the door across the hall opened.  Ian, finally, stepping out with mussed hair and a shirt two sizes too small, ankles bared by too-short sweatpants.  He took in the scene with a frown, from Max collapsed at Karen’s door to his husband fighting the woman that had done it.

“Mickey, what are you—” he started, moving toward the tussle.  The two were clinging to each other now, exchanging small blows without separating, and both of them turned at his voice.

Ian’s eyes went wide.  His shoulders dropped.  And the next word from his mouth was a complete surprise.

“Mandy?”

He sounded shocked.  But not unhappy.

“Hey Ian,” the whore said with a smile, the turn of her lips at odds with the way she pinched Mickey’s ear between long fingernails.  “Long time no see.”

Mickey kicked at her shins, and slapped her hand until she released him.

“Don’t you ‘hey Ian’ him, you little—”

“Come here,” Ian interrupted, and Mickey was released completely as the whore—as Mandy—obeyed.

She went to him, stalked to him, threw herself forward, and Karen held her breath—

And Ian caught her in long arms and pulled her closer, tucked his head into her shoulder and stroked a hand down long blonde hair.  Karen couldn’t hear what he said through the door, but Mandy’s response was a high laugh that rang through the hallway.

“Missed you too, you moron,” she said, affection clear.  “Even missed my asshole brother, if you believe it.”

Wait.  Brother?

“Got that from your traditional Milkovich greeting,” Ian answered.  “I swear neither of you know how to be normal.”

Milkovich.  Mickey.  Mandy.  No wonder she had recognized the eyes.

“Normal’s boring,” Mickey chimed in, still scowling, but with the edges gone playful.  “If we were normal, you’d be beatin’ her ass right now for wailin’ on your husband.”

“Please,” Mandy tossed back to him, “he’d be kicking your ass for assaulting his best friend.”

“I plead the fifth,” Ian said when they looked to him for an answer, his eyes sparkling.  “How about you just stop trying to kill each other for a minute?”

The three of them exchanged a look, one that Karen felt part of despite the door between them.  Then Max groaned, and attention was diverted to the weight in front of Karen’s door.

“What happened out here, anyway?” Ian asked, coming forward and bending down to check on Max, out of view of the peephole.  “It was loud as shit, and then Karen called, and—”

He paused. 

“Oh shit,” he muttered, voice still clear with his head only inches from the door.  “Karen.”

Karen indeed.  Karen, who still stood there like an eavesdropper in her own home, trying to catch up with the progress of the night.

“What about her?” Mickey asked, and she was warmed by the thread of concern in his voice.  “She got somethin’ to do with all this?”

Ian stood again, the back of his head filling Karen’s view.

“You didn’t recognize the guy your sister took down?” he asked Mickey, and moved away from the door to look down at Max with a scowl.  “Somebody decided to pay our neighbor a little visit.”

Mickey’s brow pinched as he squinted down at Max, then smoothed with realization.

“Aw, shit,” he groaned.  “Thought I got rid of this fucker last time.”

Mandy came up next to him, threw an arm over his shoulders.  He accepted it easily, a stark contrast to their earlier fighting.

“He does live here, then?” she asked, tilting her head.  “Kinda got the vibe he was trying his luck.”

Mickey shook his head.

“He doesn’t live here,” he said flatly.  “Not anymore.” 

“His ex does,” Ian said, turning toward them.  Karen was kind of glad she couldn’t see his face when he added,  “His ex that he liked to kick around.”

Mandy’s face showed exactly what she thought of that.

“Oh,” she said, and kicked a foot forward.  There was a responding thud as she connected, most likely with Max’s clunky boots.  “Well, now I’m extra glad I took him out.”

“Why were you even with him?” Mickey questioned.  “Thought you were all high brow now, didn’t lower yourself to the scum of the earth anymore.”

“First time client,” she revealed, and immediately frowned at whatever face Ian was giving her.  “Don’t look at me like that, Ian, I wouldn’t have agreed if I had known.”

“You know now,” he said, and she nodded.

“Yeah, I know now,” she agreed.  “And now he’s gonna be blacklisted from every fucking service in the city, so get off my ass.”

“Sorry,” Ian said, and sounded it.  “Just want you to be safe.”

“I am safe,” Mandy assured, voice softening.  She pointed down at Max’s prone body with the hand hooked over Mickey’s shoulder.  “Took care of him, didn’t I?”

Mickey snorted, and ducked out of her hold.

“Fuck yeah you did,” he said, and leaned down for a better look.  “Knocked him right the fuck out with that damn stick of yours.”

“That’s what you gave it to me for,” Mandy said, and he got a hand on the back of her head to push it forward.

“Damn right,” he said with a grin, and laughed when she took a wild swing at him.

“Too bad you didn’t get me a chainsaw or somethin’,” she mused once they settled again.  “Can’t exactly carry him out myself.”

“He’s not dead, Mandy, and you’re not killing him,” Ian said with a sigh, like it was an argument they had had before.  “Mickey and I will get him out of here.”

“Passed a dumpster on the way in,” Mandy shared.  “As good a spot as any.”

“We know,” Mickey told her, “we live here, dumbass.”

“Well excuse me,” Mandy snorted.  “Forgot you were ritzy West Side fuckers now.”

“You’d have known if you ever picked up a phone, bitch.”

They scuffled again at that.  Half-heartedly, Karen could see now, though Mandy still managed to scratch a line down Mickey’s bare arm.

“Come on, you guys, lay off,” Ian insisted, pushing himself between them.  “Mickey, come help me, and Mandy,” he turned to face her, “go sit down at our place.  We’ll be right bacl, and you catch us up on all the shit you’ve been up to.”

Mandy let her brother go with one final tug of his short hair, and backed away out toward the open door of Ian and Mickey’s apartment.

“Well, there haven’t been any more dead bodies,” she said casually, and Karen blanched, “but sure.”  She shrugged.  “I guess I’ve got the night off now, anyway.”

She turned to go through the doorway, and Mickey bent down out of view, presumably to hoist an unconscious Max.  But Ian stayed standing, looking toward Karen’s door to intently that she wondered if he could see her on the other side.

“Wait,” Ian said before Mandy could close his door.  “Since you’re here…”

Mandy sighed, and leaned against the door jamb.

“What?” she asked, and rolled her eyes when the answer wasn’t fast enough.  “Spit it out, Ian, if I’m not gettin’ paid I wanna go get these heels off.”

Ian grimaced, then turned, so that all Karen could see was the back of his head.

“I just thought…,” he started, then shook his head and tried again.  “Maybe you could talk to her?” he said.  “To Karen, I mean.”

Karen swallowed, and made a face.  She couldn’t see past Ian, but she imagined Mandy wore a similar expression.

“You really think I’m the kind of role model she needs?” Mandy asked disbelievingly, echoing Karen’s own thoughts.  “You’re dragging one of my clients out to the dumpster right now.”

Ian nodded.

“After you stood your ground and took care of him,” he reminded her, and well, that was true.  And more than Karen had ever managed.“Besides,” Ian continued, “you know what it’s like.”

Mandy snorted.

“Sure, I know what it’s like,” she repeated.  “And I still let some asshole do it to me way too many times.”

Ian’s head tilted, enough that Karen could see Mandy over his shoulder.  See the way her frown filled her face, the self-loathing there that Karen was all too familiar with.

“You did,” Ian recognized, not bothering to sugarcoat the truth.  “But you got away, Mandy.”

He stepped away from the door, closer to his friend.

“Away from Terry, away from Kenyatta,” he said.  “Hell, away from Lip.”

He stopped in front of Mandy, reached out to touch her before letting his hand drop instead.

“You’re doing good for yourself, Mands, you said it yourself.”  He shrugged.  “Just think it’d be good for to see, that’s all.”

Mandy looked uncomfortable, and Karen didn’t blame her.  Her shoulders hunched in, making her look frailer than the a woman who took down Max had any right to.

“I’m not some kind of walking PSA, Ian,” she muttered.  “You can’t just—“

“Just think about it,” Ian begged her.  “Please?  I really think you could help her.”

Mandy sagged.

“Whatever,” she said, but it sounded like a yes.  “Just get that asshole out of my sight, already.”

“Sure,” Ian said softly, and came back.  Bent down out of view, only to reappear with Max’s torso held in his arms, Mickey carrying the feet.

“We’ll be back in a minute, yeah?” he called back as they made for the elevator.

“Whatever,” Mandy said again.

And then they were gone.

Karen stayed at the peephole.  Watched Mandy fidget on the other side of the door, watched her cast glances that she thought Karen wouldn’t see.  Waited for a knock that never came, and wondered if she should answer it.

Her phone rang before Mandy made a move, and she answered it on autopilot.

“Hello?” she said, still looking through the peephole.

“Hey, Karen,” Ian greeted, sounding breathless.  She heard a thud in the background, like a body hitting pavement, and a muffled curse from Mickey.

“Max is gone, okay?” Ian said over the line, and she focused on that.  “Everything’s alright.”

“Thank you,” she whispered.  Half with relief, half because she didn’t want the woman on the other side of the door to hear her.  The woman who had finally taken a step forward, whose face now filled her view.

“But listen,” Ian continued, “my friend is over, and I told her she should talk to you.  She gets this stuff, I think it’d be good.”

Karen was silent, watching Mandy bite her lip on the other side of the door.  Ian took it for discomfort.

“Shit, sorry,” he muttered, “probably should have asked first.  You don’t have to talk to her, forget I said anything, I—”

“No,” Karen managed, backing up a step as Mandy raised a hand.  “It’s okay.”

“Are you sure?” Ian asked, sounding anxious now.  “I can tell her not to, really, I—”

“Thank you, Ian,” Karen said, and hung up the phone.  And when the next knock came at her door, Karen answered.

Chapter Text

It’s dark outside.  Just dark enough for the street lamps to kick on, a faint orange against the grey, cloudy sky.  Just dark enough to make the shadow of trees indistinct across the street, smears of black and brown against the brick of old houses.  Each house has its own light on, hidden under eaves and washing porches a pale yellow around the shapes of moving bodies.

From a window on the third floor of an apartment building, Timothy Newman watches a short, stout skeleton turn away from a door with hands full of treats.  He wishes he were out there with it.

Instead, he’s stuck in a well-lit living room filled with the buzz of static from a TV with the volume too low.  His mother sleeps on the couch in front of it, one arm over her eyes and the other hanging down, the TV remote laying on the floor under her limp hand.  There’s a small bowl of candy abandoned on the coffee table, filled mostly with torn wrappers and crumbs, a sheet of paper next to it covered in half-colored pumpkins.

A muted scream comes from the television as a child runs from a woman’s ghost, and Timothy thinks he knows how they feel.

He misses going out on Halloween.  They’d gone every year since he was small, all three of them, dressed up in matching costumes.  Mom had helped him carve pumpkins and dad had cooked the seeds, and they’d set the jack-o-lanterns out on the balcony and ate candy next to them all night long.

The candy had only lasted a couple of hours this year, and the only pumpkin they have is the plastic one it all came in.  The costumes they’d bought are still hanging on two hangers in the closet, an empty space where the third should be.  Mom had promised they’d go trick-or-treating once it got dark, but she hadn’t stayed awake long enough to see it.

She snores from the sofa, drowning out the screams on TV.  Her sleep-slackened face is dark around the eyes, and a little bit red, and he knows she won’t wake up until morning.  So he jumps down from the window seat with a thump, sliding on socked feet until he catches himself on the wall, and decides to go without her.

It’s easy to get his costume down from the closet—the smooth fabric slides right off the hanger.  It’s harder to get it on by himself, but he mostly manages.  By the time he goes back into the living room only a few straps are hanging loose, and there’s nothing to connect them to anymore anyway.

His mom mumbles when he walks past the sofa, but doesn’t wake up.  Nor does she move when he dumps what’s left of their candy onto the table, or when he carries the now empty plastic pumpkin to the door.  He’s tall enough now to reach the knob himself, to turn it until the door creaks open, and the sounds inside cut off as it clicks shut behind him.

The hallway is dim, and a little bit longer than it seems during the day.  Only a few lights shine next to the row of doors on either side, and the ones in the ceiling are too high to make much difference.  

Timothy isn’t afraid, though.  Dark hallways aren’t scary at all—it’s the bright ones you have to watch out for.  Those are the ones that bring people with bad news.

So he isn’t worried when the light in the stairwell winks out as he slips through the heavy door at the top, except to make sure he doesn’t trip on the straps of his own costume.  Someone else is though, because echoing up from the bottom of the staircase comes a loud and frightened “Fuck!”

Timothy stops, right there on the top step.  Not because he’s scared, but because he recognizes the voice of the angry man that lives right below them.

And okay, maybe that does scare him a little.  More than the darkness, at least.  Because he’s been hearing that voice for months now, coming up through the floor, and it never sounds happy.

“Some people just get angry,” his dad had said the first time Timothy ran into his parents’ room in the middle of the night.  “It’s okay, it’s not about you.”

“But he’s screaming,” Timothy had cried.  “And he’s saying bad words, and I think he’s making someone cry.”

His dad had walked him back to bed, tucked him in.  Made a funny face at the voices from below, and shaken his head.

“I think they’re just fine down there,” he’d said.  “But tell you what, I’ll make you a promise.”  He held out his hand, pinkie finger up, and waited for Timothy to wrap his own around it.  “I promise that if the loud man ever scares you again, I’ll take care of it myself.”

And he had.  Timothy’s dad had come up to their apartment the next day with pink on his cheeks and red on his knuckled from knocking at the door, and the angry man hadn’t been as loud after that.  

But Timothy’s dad wasn’t here now, and now the voice is louder than ever.

“Goddamn creepy ass building,” it grumbles.  “For the shit we pay for this place, think they could replace a fucking light bulb.”

Timothy reaches out for the railing, fingers tightening around the metal.  It sounds really angry now.

“What’s wrong?” comes a second voice.  “Are you afraid of the dark?”

Timothy’s hand relaxes its grip on the railing.  He recognizes this voice too, and it makes the first one a lot less scary.  This voice belongs to the nice man that brought them a casserole last week, the first one they’d got that didn’t taste only of vegetables.  

“Not fucking scared,” the angry voice claims, but Timothy thinks it’s a lie.  It sounds the way his mom sounded when she told the nice one she was okay that day.  

“You sure?” the nice voice asks, clearly thinking the same.  “You seem kinda jumpy.”

Timothy takes one step down, then two, as the voices below continue.  He thinks he understands why the angry voice gets so mean, now—he gets mean sometimes too when he’s scared.  Dad said being mad was easier than being scared sometimes, and that’s why he forgave Timothy for yelling and running away when they told him.  That, and because he loved him.

“Yeah I’m jumpy, dickhead,” the mean scared voice says.  “That’s what happens when you grab my ass in the dark with no warning.”

“You’ve didn’t complain about me grabbing your ass in the dark this morning.”

The other man’s voice sounds weird, almost like he’s laughing, and Timothy frowns.  It’s not nice to make fun of people when they’re afraid.  They need hugs, not hate—that’s what dad had said.

“This morning we were in bed,” the scared voice is saying when Timothy makes it to the step above them.  “Not in the middle of a dark stair—Fuck!”

The waist Timothy’s arms are now wrapped around twists in his grip.

“Where the fuck did you come from?”

He doesn’t sound afraid anymore.  Timothy thinks that’s good, and hugs tighter.  His face is pressed into a rough shirt, but he doesn’t really mind—it feels like the kind his dad wore to work, the kind that used to hold him in the mornings.

“Upstairs,” he answers without moving away, rubbing his face into the fabric to see if it smells the same, too.

Then there’s a hand on his head, and another on his shoulder, and he’s being pulled away and turned.

“Kid, what are you doing out here?”  The man that made them a casserole is kneeling, pale face pinched under red hair.  “Where’s your mom?”

Timothy blinks at him, not sure why that’s important.  

“She’s sleeping.”

A huff comes from above him, the hand in his hair ruffling it before lifting.  

“And your dad is what?” the scared man asks.  “Out drinking with his buddies?”

Timothy frowns, and looks at the floor.

“My dad is at St. Francis.”

Another sound from above him, and a word he doesn’t know.  From the way casserole man whacks the other one’s knee, Timothy thinks it must be a bad one.

“Your the Newman boy, right?” casserole man asks, trying to catch his eyes.  “Timmy?”

That gets Timothy to look up, with eyes that feel a little hot.

“It’s Timothy,” he corrects, then swallows before telling him, “Timmy is for little boys, and Auntie Lucy says I’m the man of the house now.”

Casserole man bites his lip, looking sad.  Timothy thinks maybe he needs a hug too, but the hand on his shoulder keeps him back as green eyes flick up above Timothy’s head.

They’re all quiet for a minute, then a hand returns to Timothy’s hair.

“Bet you take care of your mom real good, huh?”  There’s no fear left at all in the voice.  “She’s lucky to have you.”

“She’ll be scared if you’re not there when she wakes up though,” casserole man points out.  His face has smoothed out, even if his eyes are still too big.

“She won’t wake up ‘til morning,” Timothy tells them.  “She fell asleep before the lady on TV got her head cut off, and she didn’t even wake up for that.”

“What kinda shit are you watch—"

“Still,” casserole man interrupts the other one.  “I really think you should go home.”

He stands, hand slipping from Timothy’s shoulder to grab up his hand.  He starts for the stairs, but Timothy pulls back.  Hard.

“But I have to go trick or treating!” he cries as he tugs his arm free.  He trips backwards with the momentum, falling into the other man.  He’s caught by sturdy legs and an arm at his back, but he shoves away before he can be grabbed again.  Backing away from the two men, he finds himself in the corner and presses himself to the wall.

Casserole man reaches for him again, but his friend stops him, shaking.

“Mickey,” casserole man says softly, but only gets a shake of the head in return.  He steps back.

“Trick or treating, huh?” the not-scared-anymore man—Mickey—asks.  “I never got to do much of that as a kid, you know.  It worth all this?”

Timothy thinks about walking on the sidewalk with his dad behind him, a big hand soft between his shoulders.  Of his mom skipping ahead and turning around with a big grin, saying she’d get there first and take all the candy before they could.  He thinks about sorting through his pillowcase full of treats at the end of the night, making a pile of all the fruity stuff for his parents and keeping the chocolate for himself, except for a single Reese’s cup that his dad would eat for breakfast the next day.

“It’s peanut butter, peanut butter is healthy!” he’d claim when Timothy’s mom frowned at him.  And then he’d steal one of her Jolly Ranchers, and say, “and this is just fruit!”  And she would shake her head and laugh, and Timothy would giggle, and his dad would smile and smile and smile and then kiss them goodbye before work.

“Yes,” he answers finally.

It’s quiet, Timothy’s voice eaten up by the walls around him, but Mickey hears it.  And he nods.

“Yeah, alright then,” he says, like it’s the most reasonable thing in the world.  He holds out a hand, beckoning Timothy forward.  “Come on then, why don’t you show me how it’s done?”

And Timothy, stepping out of his corner, smiles.

—

Casserole man (it’s Ian, kid, he has a name) doesn’t come with them, but that’s okay.  He heads upstairs while Mickey leads Timothy to the first floor of the building, telling him they’ll start there and work their way up.

(“We’re staying here,” he’d said when Timothy tried to go outside.

“But no one trick or treats inside,” Timothy complained.

Mickey winked.  “That’s why it’s a good idea.  No one’s cleaned these fuckers out yet.”)

And it’s probably good that Ian hadn’t come with them, Timothy thinks.  Someone who bakes casseroles probably wouldn’t have been happy with Mickey using that word, and he definitely wouldn’t have let them do this.

“Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat!” he yells as Mickey pounds his fist on the door, bang-bang-bang-bang.

“I know you’re in there Alan,” Mickey shouts when Timothy pauses for breath.  “And I know you have the good shit!”

“Saw him coming home with a bag of snickers yesterday,” he whispers to Timothy under his breath.  “Full size.”

“Trick or treat!” Timothy screams louder, eyes wide, and Mickey redoubles his knocking efforts.

“For Christ’s sake!”

The door opens mid-knock, Mickey’s hand stopping perfectly where it used to be.

“What are you doing?” the man behind it hisses.  “We don’t do door-to-door trick or treating here, that’s what the trunk-or-treat was for last week!”

“Wasn’t here last week,” Mickey says.  “But if you really want me to stuff you in a trunk Alan, all you have to do is ask.”

“Oh, for…”

The door starts to close, but Mickey jams a foot inside.  He doesn’t even flinch when the door squeezes it.

“I got a kid here, Alan,” he says, voice lower than before.  “A kid that deserves some fucking candy.  You really gonna turn him away?”

Alan sighs, but the door opens again.  He stares down at Timothy, not making eye contact, before looking at Mickey again.

“What’s he even supposed to be?” he asks, reaching for something on the other side of the door.

“I’m a marionette!” Timothy tells him, twisting around so the man can see the handle that Mickey had taped to his back after he tripped over it the third time.

Alan frowns, squinting at him, before saying, “But you don’t have any strings.”

“He did,” Mickey says shortly.  “I cut ‘em off.  Ain’t nobody gonna pull this kid’s strings.”

He nudges Timothy forward, hand warm between his shoulders, and Timothy holds out his little plastic pumpkin.

“Trick or treat?” he asks again.

And under Mickey’s glare, a full-sized Snickers falls into the pumpkin with a thunk.

Then another one follows it when Mickey coughs.

“Good man,” Mickey says, sounding like he thinks the opposite.  “We’re done.”

With a scoff, Alan shuts his door, leaving Timothy staring down at his prize.

“Wow,” he says, shaking the pumpkin.  One hallway in and it’s already half full.  Even his mom never got that much.  “That hug really worked,” he muses.

“Huh?”  Mickey frowns a little, already walking to the next door.  “What are you talking about, kid?”

“You were scared before,” Timothy says, hastening to follow.  Mickey’s legs are longer than his, but Timothy is used to keeping up with longer.  “You were scared, but then I hugged you like daddy said, and now they’re all scared of you!”

Mickey slows down, and Timothy nearly runs into his back before he speeds up again.

“Yeah,” he says softly, leading Timothy around a corner.  “Your hugs are a fucking superpower, buddy.  Now let’s go hit up Mrs.—”

“Timmy!”

Timothy spins around, plastic pumpkin flying wide.  He barely notices Mickey picking up the pieces of candy that flew out, because his mom is awake and running down the hallway toward them.

“What were you thinking!” she cries as she gets closer.  Her bare feet thump against the floor, leaving sweaty prints behind.  “You can’t just leave like that, I was so scared!”

Ian follows more slowly behind her, but Timothy barely has a chance to see him before he’s scooped up into a hug.

“Never do that again,” his mom says into his hair.  “Just wake me up next time!”

“But I’m a man now, mama,” he tries to tell her.  His arms don’t quite reach around her back, but he tries anyway.  Pats her a bit while she breathes, his pumpkin full of candy knocking against her side.  “Auntie Lucy said men do things for themselves.”

“Your Aunt Lucy wouldn’t know a man if he bought her a five-course dinner and said goodbye at the door,” she mumbles, face in his beck now as she crouches to hold him tighter.  Then she sighs, and looks up.

“Thank you, both of you,” she says to someone behind him.  “I’m so sorry about this.”

“Nothing to be sorry about.”  Mickey pats the free space on Timothy’s back between his mom’s arms.  “Your son was just teaching me how to trick or treat.”

“Is that right?”

She laughs a little.  It’s not like she used to laugh, but it’s something.

“He’s really good at it!” Timothy tells her.  “Not as good as you, though.”

“Hey!” Mickey says, then cuts off.

“We’ll let you two get back home.” Ian pulls Mickey away.  “Just let us know if you need anything, Margie; we’re always close.”

Timothy can feel his mom nod.  She starts to straighten, reaching for his hand, but he pulls away.

“Wait!”  

He shoves his pumpkin into his mom’s hands, rifling through it with both of his own as she holds it steady.  Then he runs to Mickey, who’s already halfway to the stairs.  

“Here,” he says, shoving one of the big Snickers into Mickey’s hand.  Then he hugs him.

“This one is for next time you’re scared,” he says into that rough shirt.  

A hand lands heavy on his shoulder, squeezing once.  

“Thanks, Timothy,” Mickey says quietly.  “Go on back to your mom now, she needs you.”

“I think it’s Timmy, actually,” he tells him, then lets go and obeys.

“Bye Mickey!” he calls over his shoulder as he goes to her.  “Bye Mr. Casserole Man!”

“Mr. Casserole Man?” he can hear muttered behind him.  “What’s that about?”

Timmy doesn’t go back to explain.  Because it’s Halloween, and he has his candy, and his mom is holding his hand.

And it’s time to go home.