Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Mikhaila.”

Mickey stares out the car window, knees pulled up to his chest, arms wrapped around himself like a security blanket. His eyes are hazy, unfocused, and his head fucking hurts. The bruises littering his jaw, his eyebrows, his cheeks, his ribs, ache. “Stop fucking calling me that.”

The social worker, some bitch named Kathy McAsshole with bleached hair and long, pink acrylics, sighs deeply, tapping her stupid fucking fake nails against the car’s steering wheel. “It’s your name, Mikhaila,” she says, dismissively, eyes shifting to the rearview mirror as she merges lanes.

“My name is Mickey,” he growls, turning his head to glare at her. It’s a practiced look, one he’s used countless times on teachers, on his siblings, on social workers, and on nurses. To get them to leave him the fuck alone, to bend to his will, to let him do whatever the fuck he wanted. Not this bitch, though. She’s stubborn, and not in the good way, in the “I want what’s best for you” way like his last social worker had been. Joe was old as fucking dirt, but he had been dealing with the Milkovich’s for years - probably decades, with all the cousins who might actually be his siblings and siblings who might actually be his cousins running around. He knew how to deal with them, knew how to talk to them, what to call them. This bitch doesn’t know Mickey. She just knows a file, knows a family reputation, and thinks she’s better than all the shit Mickey carries with him. “Call me that shit again and I’ll fucking kill you.”

Kathy McAsshole rolls her eyes, and Mickey refocuses on the dreary world outside his window.

It’s pouring rain, the sounds of it beating on the car’s windshield loud, but not loud enough to block out the shit swirling through Mickey’s head. He’s still sort of wondering how he got here. He knows, objectively, what happened. Can feel the bruises, the broken ribs, the cuts on his face, the burnt skin hidden under gauze. But he can’t wrap his head around it. It feels like it happened to someone else, that the memories eating him alive are someone else’s and he’s just some asshole watching a movie, shoving popcorn in his mouth and laughing at a fictional character’s misfortune. This misfortune is his own, though, and he’s stuck facing the consequences of his own stupid actions.

He couldn’t take it anymore, couldn’t keep pretending to be something, someone, he’s not. He doesn’t even remember taking the scissors to his hair, just remembers the way Terry’s face contorted at the sight, the absolute disgust in the cruel curl of his lips as he spat hateful words at Mickey. He remembers the way Terry’s eyes flicked across him - the baggy clothes that he stole out of Iggy’s closet, his god-awful haircut, his shoulders held so high they could touch his ears, if he shimmied his head a little. The way those icy gray eyes burned at the sight of the fresh tattoos on Mickey’s knuckles, at the sight of the threat printed there in angry, black ink, stark against his pale skin. You trying to be a fucking man, Mikhaila? Is that what this is?

Mickey shivers against his will, tightening his arms around himself. He’s still wearing the same clothes as when he went into the hospital, blood and all, because he has nothing else. Nothing but a fucking bloodstained Radiohead T-shirt, ripped up jeans he stole from Iggy, and a pair of dirty ass Chuck’s that he’s had since he was thirteen.

One of the nurses in the ER offered him a different shirt, one of her own from her bag or something - probably because she felt bad for the dirty little kid sitting alone after one of his brother’s dropped him off and ran - but it was small and pink, had fucking flowers on it and everything, and too fucking girly for his dirty ass. He would rather wear his own blood than that shit. And Kathy McAsshole didn’t offer him anything when she picked him up, just eyed his dirty clothes and scowling face with distaste and told him that he was being placed in an emergency foster placement for a few days, so the state could figure out how to handle his situation, what to do with him now that he was the Milkovich pariah. They couldn’t just toss him back to Terry now, like they usually do. It would be like feeding raw steak to a pack of piranhas.

Shit, Mickey thinks, watching a man on the sidewalk, umbrella-less in all this rain, drop his briefcase, papers flying everywhere as he clutches the side of his head, frustrated. How fucked up do you have to be for Terry Milkovich to disown you?

These motherfuckers are weird, Mickey decides, watching the seven foot tall manchild nod enthusiastically at Kathy McAsshole’s words. His wife, an absolute goddess of a woman, sits sullenly beside him, arms crossed over her chest, scowling. Mickey would judge her, but he’s literally doing the exact same thing. He’s probably not as pretty about it as she is, though.

“We were expecting a kid,” she said, when her husband opened the door. She eyed Mickey suspiciously while her goofball husband grinned broadly, like he was happy some freaky little queer was literally getting dropped on his doorstep. Fucking weird, man.

Kathy McAsshole just ignored her, let the giant lead them into the house, and sat on these people’s couch like she owned the damn place. Seriously, where did this woman get her balls from?

“Mikhaila-”

“It’s Mickey, you fucking bitch!”

The goddess and her husband look surprised, maybe a bit apprehensive, but Kathy is undisturbed.

“- should only be here for a few days, a week at most. This is only temporary until we can find a more permanent placement for her.”

“Him,” Mickey seethes, cracking his knuckles. It burns, with the still-fresh tattoos and everything, but he needs her to know he’s serious. He will kick her ass if he has to - because he’s starting to get tired of this shit. He almost got killed for this, the least the bitch can do is call him what he asks. Show some basic fucking repsect, maybe? Even Colin - fucking Colin, in all of his idiotic glory - had asked Mickey if he was a guy or some shit now on their quick drive to the hospital.

“Oh, you’re trans?” the giant man asks, like he genuinely cares.

Mickey squints suspiciously at him.

The guy keeps talking. “We know a kid - Ian - he’ll be stoked, man! He’s was talking about how he wanted more trans friends, people who get him, yaknow?”

“Kev,” the goddess scolds.

“Ohhhhhh, shit,” the goofball, Kev, says, putting his head between his hands. “I’m not supposed to say that. Sorry, scratch that, wait for Ian to tell you himself.”

The goddess sighs, shaking her head a bit.

Mickey has no idea what the fuck is going on.

Kathy McAsshole goes back to her incessant droning like nothing happened.

These motherfuckers were weird, Mickey decides, but maybe they weren’t half bad. They don’t even question the whole trans thing - which, honestly Mickey was prepared to start an entire war over if he had to. The first time he told someone he was trans, approximately sixteen hours before now, before laying on a bed in an unfamiliar house, staring at an unfamiliar roof, he got thrown out of the house and stuck in a foster home. His entire life, he’d heard his father complain about fucking fags, about how unnatural it was to be gay, to be queer. It’s one of the many reasons he’d taken so long to accept something that, in retrospect, was glaringly obvious.

He had always been far less feminine and skanky than his sister, refused to wear skirts, always wore tight sports bras and his brothers’ clothes, and hung out with his brothers more than he did girls his own age. He was always a little brash, kinda violent, but all of that could be blamed on the Milkovich name, on his upbringing. Even Mandy was a bit of tomboy when they were kids, before she started hanging out with girls other than her “lesbian sister” in middle school. Mickey was just a really masculine girl, is what his brothers always said. And Mickey accepted that, ignored the way he felt every time he was referred to as “the older Skankovich Sister,” the way he felt when Iggy clapped him on the shoulder and claimed Mickey as his favorite sister. Like bile was climbing up his throat, like he just saw someone kick a puppy or something. It felt bad, and he had no idea why. It wasn’t until someone slipped up, until a buyer called him the grimy little Milkovich boy with the long hair, that Mickey realized.

He liked people thinking he was a guy. A lot.

He liked it so much that he let himself dream, think about what it would be like to be one of his brothers. To do the shit they do without someone turning their nose up at him, without Terry breathing down his neck and asking him why he’s not out with Mandy. He let himself think about it until he couldn’t take it anymore and-

And now he’s here.

Sitting at the table in someone else’s house, watching them make breakfast and acting like everything is just fucking peachy.

Kev and V really aren’t that bad. They’re just. A lot. They seem to actually care. They talk to him, deal with his attitude, laugh at his shitty attempts at pushing them away. The first day is awkward, filled with long silences and lots of staring. Mickey’s on edge the entire time, sitting in a corner and watching Kev and V with uncertain eyes until V sighs loudly and asks Mickey what he wants for dinner. There was stilted conversation over spaghetti, but everyone avoids dangerous areas of conversation like Mickey’s gender or why he’s suddenly here. That night, Mickey barely sleeps, still sort of wound up. When he comes downstairs the next morning looking like a zombie, V gives him coffee, doesn’t comment. Kev is already gone for the day. He and V sit around the house, playing video games on Kev’s Xbox, and Mickey kicks her ass at Call of Duty, the two of them yelling at each other, laughing. When Kev comes home, complaining about the local drunks who make themselves at home at his bar, Mickey and V are drinking beer and watching an episode of Jeopardy together.

It feels nice, a little domestic, and Mickey isn’t used to it. Isn’t used to the normalcy of it all. No one’s running in and out of the house, yelling at the top of their lungs while someone chases them. No one is doing coke on the kitchen table. No one is fighting in living room, drawing blood over stupid shit like the last Mountian Dew in the fridge or a drug deal gone bad or whose turn it is to watch porn on the laptop. It’s fucking weird, whiplash worthy, even, but Mickey doesn’t dare get comfortable. He’s not that stupid. It’s temporary. Soon, Kathy McAsshole will come back, will throw him in a group home so she can forget about him until he turns eighteen.

“I was thinking we could fix your haircut today,” V says on the third morning, sitting a plate of eggs in front of Mickey. “You gotta start going to school soon, and you ain’t leaving this house looking like that.”

“The fuck is that supposed to mean?” Mickey grumbles, stabbing his fork into his eggs. He ignores the bit about school because: fuck no. He hasn’t been to school since he was fourteen, since he and Iggy were both freshman - despite Iggy being seventeen - and decided to drop out together.

“You kinda look a little-” Kev motions at Mickey, his fork hanging out of his mouth. “-shaggy.”

Mickey snorts. “You’re one to talk, bitch.”

“Fuck you, kid,” Kev says, but he’s laughing, smiling with his fork still in his mouth. He leans across the table, reaching like he’s gonna ruffle Mickey’s hair, but Mickey flinches, muscles tensing and eyes widening without his consent. He leans back in his chair, away from Kev’s outstretched arm, his big hands, his wide shoulders, strong arms that he could use to hurt Mickey. Easily. He could throw Mickey like a goddamn ragdoll if he wanted. Like Terry would do if Mickey ever said that kinda disrespectful shit to him. Images, possibilities - fists to his face, knees on his chest, cigarettes burning holes into his arm, blood pouring out of his nose while Mandy yells at Terry to stop, Dad, you’re gonna fucking kill her for Christ’s sake! - flash behind his eyes, and Mickey shoots out of his chair, scrambling away, yelling, “Don’t fucking touch me!”

As soon as Mickey is far enough away for his fight or flight to calm down, standing in the middle of the living room, shame washes over him in a large, violent wave. His cheeks turn red in that splotchy way Mandy always made fun of, and he feels like an idiot, a fucking stupid little coward who flinches just because some big, harmless motherfucker tried to touch him. Normal people don’t do that shit.

“I- uh- I gotta go,” he mutters, looking at the floor, not at the people watching him wearily from the kitchen. He reaches for one of the hoodies they bought him at the Goodwill, laying across the back of the couch where he had left it the night before, willing his heart rate to slow the fuck down. God, he’s such a fucking pussy. He rubs a tattooed knuckle over the tip of his nose. “Got shit to do.”

“Mickey-” Kev starts, standing from his chair as Mickey pulls on his shoes, but V places a hand on his shoulder, gives her husband a look that has him stopping, chewing on his cheek like he wants to say something else. The two of them stand there, staring helplessly as Mickey practically runs out of the door.

“You know Ian was cagey when he first came out,” Fiona says, sipping on her cup of coffee. “It’s tough being trans around here. You just gotta give him time to come around to you guys.”

Kev shakes his head. “No, it’s not just that,” he says, a little bit of desperation in his voice. “He’s scared of me, Fi. I don’t know- what am I supposed to do?”

Veronica places a hand on her husband’s arm, rubbing her thumb across his skin, comforting him the best she can. She makes eye contact with Fiona, her best friend’s eyes softening in sympathy.

Kev’s always had a big heart, it’s one of the things she loves most about him. But it’s also one of the things that can cause him the most pain, like now, when Kev accidentally freaked out their foster kid so bad the kid went running. Veronica saw the moment Mickey’s eyes changed, when they shifted from his normal bored look to something downright terrified. When Kev reached across the table to mess with the boy’s god-awful haircut, a fond gesture Veronica has seen him do a thousand times to the Gallagher kids, to Lip when he’s being a smart ass, to Ian when he talks about his job or his ROTC training, to Carl when he does something weird yet endearing, to Debbie when she brings them cookies at the bar. Kev has always been very tactical with his affection, with bear hugs and forehead kisses and hands on your shoulders.

But Mickey doesn’t need that. One of the things the social worker had told them was that Mickey was extremely touch averse, that he likely had PTSD and would probably lash out. She said he could be violent if he got triggered. That’s why Veronica was skeptical of the kid at first, didn’t want him in her house. He was a Milkovich, for one, and he came with a cocktail of issues that he wouldn’t let any doctors or therapists unpack. Scanning over the file that blonde bitch of a social worker gave them honestly made Veronica’s head hurt. And her heart ache.

Her heart wasn’t the same as her husband’s, wasn’t as big and bleeding. She didn’t cry over cat videos or sad movies like he did, but even she felt bad for the grimy little kid who got thrown out of his father’s house and beaten half to death just because he didn’t identify with the body he was born into. Veronica wonders how anyone could hate their own child that way.

“I just wanna help him,” Kev says.

“He needs someone to care about him,” Fiona says, standing from the table to resume cooking breakfast for her own bunch of raggedy children. “You know Terry Milkovich never did. You just need to be patient with him.”

Shimmying through the window is harder than it should be. He gets stuck at his hips, has to brace his hands on the wall and push himself forward until he’s falling face first on his dirty bedroom floor into a pile of Mandy’s dirty clothes. He and Mandy had shared a room their entire lives, the small bedroom that Mickey’s pretty sure was supposed to be like an office or something split down the middle, with two twin beds on either side. Mickey’s side of the room is the messier one, with overlapping posters of bands he listened to with his brothers, of car movies and guns. His bedsheets are a mess, but all of his stuff is still laying around. Terry’s rampage didn’t make it this far.

The first thing he does is wiggle his way under his bed, peeling up a lose floorboard and digging out the wads of cash he keeps under there for a rainy day, for one such as this. It’s only about five hundred bucks, but it should be enough to buy a bus ticket and survive for a couple of days if he has to make a run for it. He also grabs a couple of his favorite shirts, stuffing them into the backpack he hasn’t used in years that he finds in the back of the closet. He also shoves his favorite boots and a pair of sweatpants into the bag, zipping it up and tossing it out the window. Grabbing his favorite chain, one that Iggy got him for his sixteenth birthday, off the dresser, he considers sticking his head out of the closed door, seeing if Mandy or Iggy or Colin or even one of the Idiot Twins is home, but he decides against it. Mandy will know he was here, but he doesn’t want to talk to her. Not yet.

He goes out the window one leg at a time so he doesn’t get stuck again.

The Kash-and-Grab is a shithole, but it’s close to Kev and V’s and Mickey doesn’t feel like walking any extra. The trek to his house, his father’s house - he has to remind himself that it’s not his anymore - in the cold with nothing but a hoodie was basically ice-cold hell and if he has to spend five more minutes in it he might lose his shit. Or his toes.

He shoves open the door to the shitty convenience store, the bell ringing annoyingly loud as stomps down one of the aisles with his eyes trained at the floor. He still feels the eyes of the person at the counter on him, though, feels them watching him as he shoves a king sized Snickers bar down the front of his jeans, as he grabs a Redbull from the cooler, as he stalks up to the counter and asks for a pack of Camels.

The cashier, a tall, goofy looking redhead, stares at him for a few long seconds, eyes shifting from the bruises on his face to the baggy hoodie covering his scrawny form then to his, admittedly god-awful, haircut.

“You’re Kev and V’s new foster kid, right?” the redhead asks, reaching behind him to grab Mickey’s cigarettes.

Mickey scratches at his nose, sniffling, absolutely fucking hating small talk. “Uh, yeah,” he mutters, eyes shifting across the redhead’s form, his broad shoulders and long limbs, then back to the counter.

“I’m Ian,” the redhead says, holding out his hand across the counter. He’s smiling, wide and lopsided. Mickey kind of wants to punch him in the face. He remembers what Kev said, on that first day, talking about his friend’s trans kid, about some guy named Ian.

“Who the fuck asked?” Mickey mutters, grabbing the cigarettes and quickly turning away. He’s not doing this shit. He can see by the look in the kid’s eye that he’s gonna want to talk, to get to know each other, to talk about their fucking feelings or whatever faggots do. Mickey doesn’t need friends, especially not one that looks like that.

The guy’s face shifts to something disappointed. He opens his mouth like he’s gonna say something, but Mickey is out the door before he can.

For the second time that day, Mickey leaves with someone staring at his back, willing him not to go.

Chapter Text

It’s nearly midnight when Mickey finally comes back.

Kev has been pacing between the couch and the TV for hours, running his hands through his hair and planning how he’s gonna fix this situation, how he’s gonna get the kid to forgive him, how he’s gonna talk V into keeping Mickey around for longer than the original week that the social worker promised. He’s fond of the kid, sue him. The instincts to protect those around him spread to Mickey within hours of him being dropped into their lives. He wants to keep the kid safe from all of the shit in that file the social worker gave them, from the man who gave him the bruises and scars littering his face and arms. He wants him to come back to the damn house so he can apologize.

He’s on his hundredth trek across the living room rug when he hears a thud upstairs, then the hiss of someone cursing under their breath. Kev runs up the spiral staircase quickly, taking the steps two at a time in his rush. It’s a wonder he doesn’t fall on his face.

The door to Mickey’s room, the room they had to spend hours cleaning junk out of when they decided to start fostering, is locked, and Kev manages to hold himself back from beating on it, knocks softly with two of his knuckles instead. “Mickey?” he calls, voice hesitant.

“Fuck off!” the kid yells. There’s two thuds right after, the sound of Mickey kicking off his shoes, his dirty converse hitting the wall.

“I just wanna apologize-”

“It’s fucking fine, Kev, just leave me the fuck alone!” He sounds agitated, even more than what is normal for Mickey, and Kev doesn't know if he wants to listen to the boy’s words or his tone.

“You sure?” he asks wearily, feeling V’s hand squeeze his shoulder. He didn’t even realize she was behind him in his worried haze.

Suddenly, the door is ripped open, and Mickey is staring at them, blue eyes rigid, face contorted into his typical scowl that Kev has started to think of as a little bit adorable. “We’re good, man,” he says, running his thumb across his nose. “Stop freaking out, it’s not a good look on you.” He slams the door closed again, the lock clicking before Kev has time to respond.

The next morning is awkward, to say the least.

Kev’s giant ass walks on eggshells all morning. He’s cautious, keeps his loud voice quiet, and makes sure Mickey can see every move he makes. It should probably annoy the shit out of Mickey, but it he finds it sort of funny, especially when Kev is trying so hard not to accidentally touch Mickey that he drops a carton of eggs when he walks past Mickey’s seat, eggs exploding everywhere. Kev stumbles, nearly falls face first into the mess of yolks and shells all over the floor.

Literally walking on fucking eggshells.

Breakfast gets made, with no more egg spills, and the three of them sit around the table, eyeing each other warily. Kev and V talk about the bar, ask about what Mickey did yesterday, but they don’t push him to talk, to answer. They’re patient with him, even more than they have been for the past three days. Mickey finds is suffocating. Eventually, he can’t take it anymore, can’t take the stilted conversations, the worried looks. He slams his palms down on the table, growling out, “Jesus Christ, I’m not gonna fucking break.”

Kev still looks like a six foot five puppy, with big, sad eyes that remind Mickey of the little pitbull he and Mandy tried to hide in their room when they were kids. The puppy didn’t last long before Terry found out about it - because Mandy and Mickey weren’t even in the double digits yet and were shit at keeping the thing quiet. Looking at Kev, Mickey sees that puppy all grown up and human and not buried in the Milkovich backyard behind the shed. He sees someone who’s too damn nice for his own good, who got attached too damn fast, who shouldn’t trust or care about Mickey Milkovich but seems to do it anyways.

“We’re cool, man,” Mickey says, reiterating his point from the night before, when he yelled at Kev through the door. “Seriously.”

Kev and V stare at him for a few long moments, then at each other, having a conversation with only their eyes. It’s fucking freaky, but they come to some kind of conclusion while they’re telepathically communicating, nodding and going back to munching on their eggs.

Mickey’s next order of business is tracking down Iggy.

His older brother has always been sort of flaky, high more often than not, in his own fucking world half the time. He moved out of the house a while back, a few weeks before Mickey’s sixteenth birthday, shacking up with a girl he got pregnant. He still dealt for Terry, though, went on runs and all that shit, so Mickey still got to see him. He wonders if he’s heard about what happened, if he’ll be cool about it like Mickey hopes. When Mickey was fourteen, Iggy sat him down on the couch Iggy and Colin’s bedroom, told him that he didn’t mind if Mickey is a lesbian or whatever.

Back then, Mickey had scoffed, turned his nose up in disgust like he knew he was supposed to do. But now Mickey just hopes that Iggy was serious about the whatever part.

So after breakfast, he slips out of his window, standing on small section of roof that curls around the house that Mickey had to climb on to get inside the night before after he had spent hours wandering, sitting up on the roof of an abandoned building smoking and throwing pieces of concrete at the ground. He takes the same path he did in the dark, going to the edge of the roof and lowering himself down onto the trash cans. It should be simple, easy, something Mickey has done a thousand times, using the dumpster in the alleyway by the Milkovich house to sneak out night after night, but the worn out soles of his boots slip on a lid, and Mickey goes tumbling down onto the snow-covered ground.

He groans loudly, rolling onto his back, staring up at the bleak sky, cursing his life, wonder how he got to this point, falling on his ass and probably re-breaking one of his ribs while snow seeps through his hoodie. “Fucking shit, that hurt,” he mutters, tossing his arm over his eyes, resisting the urge to scream. “Goddammit.”

He lays there for a few moments, contemplating just staying there until the snow buries him or some raccoon comes by to eat his flesh when he hears a voice above him. “You good, man?”

Mickey groans again, more annoyed than in pain this time. He drops his arm into the snow, squinting up at the person leaning over him.

It’s Ian fucking Gallagher, in all of his ginger glory, his hands in the pocket of his coat, leaning forward and raising his eyebrows, staring down at Mickey with an amused expression. “Hi,” he says, grinning, offering Mickey one of his hands.

“Fuck off, Gingerbread,” Mickey grumbles, slapping away Ian’s palm as he sits up, resting his arms on his bent knees, glaring at the ground.

“What happened?” Ian asks, apparently undeterred by Mickey’s grumpiness. He kicks lightly at the snow piled beside Mickey’s boots, staring at Mickey with an expression that Mickey can’t really decipher, his face all soft and smiley and shit. Mickey wants to punch the stupid look off of it.

“Nothing, man, leave me alone,” he says, pushing himself off the ground, slapping snow off of his legs as he mutters curses at the ache between his ribs. He stomps his way towards the fence encasing the back yard, clearing it easily, not looking back at the ginger behind him.

“Aren’t you cold?” Ian calls out. Mickey hears the fence clang, the sound of a gangly body climbing over it, his boots hitting the sidewalk. “It’s like twenty something degrees and you don’t have a coat-”

“Jesus! Do you not know what ‘go away’ means?”

There’s heavy footfalls behind him, and suddenly Ian is walking in step with him, standing too close for Mickey’s comfort, his elbow, bony as fuck even through his thick coat, pressing against Mickey’s. “I just want to have a conversation!” Ian says, tossing his hands in the air. “Just one!”

“What the fuck for?” Mickey retorts, digging in his pockets for his cigarettes and a lighter, taking a careful step away from the other boy as he balances his cigarette between his lips.

“I can’t want to talk to you?” Ian asks, following Mickey as he turns a corner.

Mickey snorts, blocking the wind with one hand and lighting his cigarette with the other. “What the fuck for?” he asks again, his voice somehow sarcistic and humorless at the same time. He glances at the houses around them, making sure he’s going the right way. It’s been a while since he’s crashed at Iggy’s, since the time he and Mandy slept off some really shitty coke on his couch while his girlfriend/baby momma/ghetto wife made them mac and cheese. That was months ago, and Mickey isn’t sure what any of his dumbass siblings might have told Iggy already. He watches the streets as they walk, looking for landmarks to make sure he can find his way back to Kev and V’s easily if he has to run. Because that’s how his brain worked, always looking for an escape, a way to get the fuck out if he had to.

He wishes he knew how to get the fuck out of this conversation.

“Seriously?” Ian asks, dumbfounded. “You’re really gonna act like you don’t know why? Kev told me that he spilled the beans. He’s the one that said I should talk to you!”

Mickey rolls his eyes, wishing he had on a coat so he could burrow inside of it, let it swallow him whole. Instead, he sucks on his cancer stick like it will get him out of this mess. “Don’t know what you’re talking about, Red.”

“Uh huh,” Ian says, eyeing Mickey. “Sure, Mickey. We’re totally not two people who have this really big thing in common. Just two random dudes with nothing connecting us at all.”

Mickey hums like he’s considering Ian’s words, shrugs after a few seconds. “Yep, sounds about right.”

Ian lets out an exasperated groan. “Are you always this fucking difficult?”

Mickey nods, turning onto another street, Ian hot on his heels, still fucking blabbering away. “Dude, come on,” Ian says, reaching out, wrapping one of his big hands - not that Mickey was looking, noticing, no way - around Mickey’s bicep. Mickey reacts instantly.

He shoves Ian away, tossing his cigarette onto the sidewalk to point his finger at Ian, snarling, breathing heavily. “Get the fuck away from me, Gallagher, or I swear to God I’m gonna cut your fucking tongue out.”

Ian holds up his hands in front of him, eyes wide. “Sorry. I’m sorry, that was stupid.” Hesitantly, he steps forward, flinching slightly when Mickey’s finger turns into a shaking fist.

Fucking pussy.

“Leave me alone, Gallagher. I don’t want anything to do with you or whatever the fuck you think we have in common.”

Mickey flares his nostrils, growling a little, before stomping away from the redhead, away from his idealistic friendship is magic bullshit. Mickey Milkovich doesn’t have friends, he doesn't fucking need them. He doesn’t need anyone but himself, no matter what that pussy ass voice in his head says.

“We’re gonna have to get along, you know!” Ian calls out as Mickey walks away from him, standing stagnant in the middle of the sidewalk. “We’re neighbors!”

Mickey doesn’t dignify him with a response, doesn't even turn around when he holds up his C finger.

Iggy is the one to answer the door, thank God.

He’s halfway asleep and probably high, rubbing at his eyes, squinting at the sun behind Mickey’s small form. “Mikhaila?” he says, voice the same groggy drawl that Mickey is used to, the one that used to read him and Mandy bedtime stories when their mom was too coked out to do it, the one that would always tell him it’ll be okay, I promise it’ll be okay when Terry would be screaming, barreling his way through the house, destroying everything, everyone, in sight.

Mickey can’t help it.

He surges forward, wrapping his arms around Iggy’s torso, burying his face in his brother’s stained t-shirt. Iggy stumbles slightly, but immediately drops his arms to encircle Mickey, holding the boy close. “Hey, kid,” he mutters, one of his hands moving up to run through Mickey’s tangled, greasy hair. He doesn’t comment on the length of it, just scratches at Mickey’s scalp like he used to when Mickey was a toddler. “What’s wrong, KayKay?”

Mickey shudders, holding back a sob, burrowing closer to Iggy. The affectionate nickname that he’s always associated with Iggy - with getting high, playing video games, eating shitty Chinese food, making fun of Colin and Mandy and all of their other idiotic siblings, watching reruns of game shows late at night, his big brother - stirs up something inside of him, makes him sad and disgusted and nostalgic all at the same time.

“Mickey,” the black haired Milkovich mutters into his brother’s t-shirt.

“Huh?”

Mickey looks up, finally, staring up at Iggy with scared eyes. “My name’s Mickey,” he says, forcing himself to sound confident about it.

Iggy stares at him, eyes that are the same shade as Mickey’s flicking across the bruises all over his face, at his short hair, at his new, baggy clothes. He nods, his arm tightening around Mickey. “Alright, Mickey,” he says. “Come on, get inside. It’s cold out here.”

Mickey sits on the couch while Iggy stumbles his way to the kitchen, eyes scanning the room. It’s sparsely decorated, just a couch, a TV, and a couple of pictures, but there aren’t any holes in the walls or beer cans stacked up on the floor. Mickey notes that there’s only one door to the outside, the other two leading to the kitchen and a hallway. Only one way out, unless he feels like jumping through a window and getting covered in glass.

He’s broken out of his thoughts, of his semi-frantic planning, by Iggy falling onto the couch beside him, passing him a beer. “What’s wrong, kid?” he asks.

Mickey fiddles with the sticker on the beer bottle, scratching at it. He shrugs. “Dad kicked me out,” he finally says, after a few long moments of silence. Vaguely, Mickey wonders if his girlfriend is around, if she’s had her baby yet, if it’s a boy or a girl, what they named it.

“Shit, Mikha- Mickey,” Iggy mutters, leaning forward to stare at Mickey, expression concerned, worried. “The fuck did you do?”

Mickey sits the unopened beer down on the couch, curling his hands into fists, pressing them together side-by-side. Iggy grabs his FUCK hand, rubbing at the ink. Mickey watches Iggy’s brows furrow, face morphing from confusion to realization after a few seconds.

Only Milkovich men got their knuckles tattooed.

Mickey had always wanted to do it, ever since he learned what they represented, when Terry had Colin and Iggy get their matching BEAT DOWN tattoos. They were signs of who they were, of their family, of their strength. They were warnings, made people shy away from them. Told strangers not to fuck with them or a Milkovich would fuck you up.

Mickey just wanted to be one of them.

“So what?” Iggy asks, dropping Mickey’s hand. Mickey lets it fall into his lap, grip tightly at the bottom of his hoodie. “You’re a dude?”

Mickey nods slowly.

“Okay,” Iggy says simply, shrugging.

“Okay?” Mickey echos. “That’s it?”

“What else do you want me to say, Mick? You’ve always been more like a little brother than a sister. It ain’t that big of a deal.”

For the second time in less than half an hour, Mickey attacks his brother with a hug.

A couple of hours later, Mickey leaves Iggy’s house with a couple of baggies of the good weed in his pocket, a coat that used to be Colin’s, and one of Iggy’s old prepaid phones. Iggy had offered to let Mickey stay with him, but Mickey didn’t want to deal with the consequences of running from a foster home, with Kathy McAsshole tracking him down and sending the cops after Iggy. “The people I’m with ain’t half bad,” Mickey said while Iggy searched through his room for Mickey some clothes. “They aren’t assholes, at least.”

Iggy kissed his forehead before he walked outside, made him promise he’d come visit. “My kid’s gonna want to meet his uncle,” he said, ruffling Mickey’s hair. “But maybe an uncle with a better haircut. You look like a wet rat, kid.”

Mickey shoved him, sticking out his tongue, but he’s still smiling when he got back to Kev and V’s.

“Hey, V,” he says when he sees the woman sitting on the couch, flipping through a magazine. “You think you could fix my haircut?”

Chapter Text

Somewhere along the way, Kev and V decide to keep him around. Mickey has already gotten comfortable, gotten used to being around the Balls like he told himself he wouldn’t do. It wasn’t voluntary, more like he didn’t know how to react to being around people who cared, who he, for some unknown reason, felt comfortable around. He doesn’t know what it is about them, about Kev’s giant, goofy heart and V’s commanding way of caring about people. They’re just nice, and Mickey can’t help but like them, even if he still grumbles at them and stays in his room most of the time.

V sets up a meeting with Kathy McAsshole exactly a week after he moves in, makes Kev and Mickey dress nice, look less like dingy hood rats, for once. Kev combs his hair, and Mickey puts on a ridiculously baggy button down, one that he stole from Kev’s closet that nearly reaches his knees, that he tucks into his jeans, wears two sports bras to make himself look flat. He spikes his hair up with some of the gel V bought him, running his fingers through the short strands with a small smile. It’s the shortest his hair has ever been, shaved on the sides and long enough to spike upwards or fall across his forehead when he’s lazy. He’s standing in front of the mirror fiddling with it when Kev knocks on the door, speaking softly - he never yells around Mickey, even his excitement is subdued into fast-talking and hand waving instead of how he normal cheers, yells at the top of his lungs.

“Hurry up, Mick. V’s starting to pace.”

That’s another thing. The nicknames. It started with kid and tough guy and teasing shit like that, but now V calls him sweetheart - she calls him that when she sets a plate of french toast, kissing his forehead, and Mickey almost cries over it like a fucking baby - and Kev has started calling him Mick more than Mickey.

It makes Mickey smile despite himself.

The only nicknames he’s ever had - good ones, at least, not the useless bitch or fucking faggot Terry usually called him - came from Iggy and Mandy and sometimes Colin, who called him KayKay or Kayla most of the time, nicknames that made his stomach churn and his vision turn green. But now, these new nicknames make him feel all giddy inside, like when he was a kid and his mom would bring home leftovers from her job at McDonald’s.

“Mickey!” It’s V this time, her voice loud even though she’s downstairs, probably standing on the bottom of the staircase with her hands on her hips, that impatient look on her face that usually has Kev scrambling to do whatever she asks. And Mickey, too.

The woman is fucking scary sometimes, okay? Cut him some slack.

“Coming!” Mickey calls, flattening out his shirt over his chest, turning in the mirror to glance at himself. Most of the time, his clothes are baggy enough that no one notices his chest, that it’s never flat enough, no matter how hard he tries to hide it, but he still can’t stop himself from checking, from smoothing out his clothes and seeing what others see. He tugs the shirt away from his chest before he can focus too hard on the self deprecating thoughts racing through his mind.

When he comes downstairs, his boots stomping loudly on each step, V is giving him one of those looks, eyeing his boots unhappily. “Go change your shoes,” she says. “You’ll track dirt everywhere.”

“But, V-”

“No,” she says, waving her hand, waving away any of Mickey’s arguments, the boy’s mouth snapping shut. “Go put on those sneakers we got you, the clean ones.”

Mickey rolls his eyes, but he turns around and goes back to his room to change his fucking shoes like V asked. God, when did he become such a pushover?

They all pile into Kev’s truck, Mickey anxiously tapping his fingers on his knees. There’s something foreboding settling in the middle of his chest, that heavy feeling he always gets before something big happens, usually something bad. It’s the same feeling that consumed him when he cut off all of his hair, when he got one of his cousins to tattoo his knuckles in Uncle Ronnie’s basement. Because something bad did happen after those things, those feelings, something that has left permanent scars on his arms and aching bruises on the rest of him. Breathing gets difficult the closer they get to the DCFS office, like his lungs are filling with water instead of air, like all of those years of smoking are finally catching up to him.

V squeezes his shoulder when they walk up the steps into the building, like she can sense his unease. That’s something he’s gotten used to recently, being touched, V placing her hands on his shoulders, wrapping him up in hugs, bumping her hip against his in the kitchen when he stands in her way. Her touches are casual, harmless, affectionate in ways that Mickey isn’t used to. Kev is different though, barely touching Mickey, keeping a safe distance, keep his voice low, always making sure Mickey can see his hands. It’s a kind gesture, but it kind of makes Mickey feel like he’s a piece of glass sitting on ledge with everyone watching him, waiting for him to fall and shatter into a million pieces.

Kev and V go into Kathy McAsshole’s office without him first, so Mickey sits alone in the waiting room, picking at the rip in his jeans, eyes darting around the sparsely decorated room - not even any fucking plants, just shitty chairs and a couple of tables with magazines and ads for parenting classes stacked on top of them. There’s a few other people sitting, all of them seemingly as anxious as Mickey. A young woman with wild hair, chewing on her fingernails while her legs bounce up and down rapidly. One man is pacing. There’s a couple of toddlers, sitting in their mother’s laps, crying. There’s one other teenager, sitting on the floor instead of in a chair, her small body squeezed between an end table and the wall, eyes wide and hair sticking up all over the place.

Mickey relates.

He chews on the inside of his cheek, resisting the sudden urge to move, to stand up and join that guy in his pacing, to maybe even make a run for it, burst out of the doors and disappear into the bustling Chicago streets. He’s small enough to disappear in the crowd, keep his head down and steal a few bucks from someone’s purse to get a bus ticket and go. Go anywhere, go away from here. But the thing is, he really doesn’t want to do it. To run. For the first time in his life, he’s sort of content where he’s at. Kev and V are good people, caring people. If he gets taken away from them, if Kathy McAsshole decides that it would just be easier to dump Mickey into a group home, Mickey doesn’t know what he would do. That would be when he ran.

After what seems like fucking forever, Kathy McAsshole’s door opens, and Kev sticks his head out, smiling widely. “Come in, Mick.”

Mickey stands on unsteady legs, stepping past the woman chewing on her nails, turning his shoulders to stay out of the way of the pacing man. Kev never stops grinning, standing with one of his shoulders on the doorframe, watching Mickey with bright eyes. Mickey sits in the chair between his foster parents, V lightly gripping his arm when he sits, careful to avoid the spots that are still tender.

“Mickey,” Kathy McAsshole says, looking like she’s talking around a pile of shit in her mouth, lips turned up in disgust, brows contorted in a way that not even Mickey could achieve. But she doesn’t call him Mikhaila, so Mickey keeps his mouth shut. “DCFS has decided that, due to your situation -” Mickey snorts, and V shoots him a look, her shut the fuck up before I make you do the dishes glare - “we should place you in a long-term foster placement instead of a group home.”

Mickey feels like he’s buzzing, the dread that has been steadily climbing up his throat for the past few hours slowly slipping away.

“The Balls are willing to be that long-term placement.”

Mickey can’t help it, he grins to himself, ducking his head and letting out a shuddering, laugh-like breath. Holy fuck, he thinks, almost disbelieving. It’s fucking official. They want to keep him around.

“V and Kev are bringing their foster kid over for dinner,” Fiona says, casually, pulling shit out of the cabinets like she’s not rocking Ian’s entire world. Mickey’s coming to dinner. At their house. He’s going to sit at their table. Ian’s not sure what it is about the Milkovich that’s been pulling him in ever since Kev came over babbling about his new foster kid - other than the fact that he’s like Ian - but Ian can’t get Mickey Milkovich off his mind. Even though the guy has threatened him more than once, Ian wants to know him, would even settle for one singular civil conversation - because a civil conversation could lead to more, to friendship, to a mutual understanding Ian would never be able to achieve with anyone else. “So put on clothes without stains on them.”

Lip snorts, not even looking up from his homework. “Isn’t she a Milkovich? I’m sure she won’t mind.”

“A Milkovich?” Carl asks, eyes lighting up in that sort of demented way that should probably be concerning. “Is it the skank or the lesbian?”

“He,” Ian corrects, ignoring Carl and shooting Lip an annoyed look. Lip’s been okay with all of the trans stuff ever since Ian came out, when he was thirteen and shaved his head in the middle of a dangerously long bout of dysphoria, but he’s still a fucking dick sometimes.

Sometimes, Ian thinks Lip still sees him as his tomboy little sister instead of his brother, that he doesn’t really believe that Ian will actually go through with it, whatever the fuck that means. He hopes Ian will change his mind or some shit, like he hasn’t busted his ass to pay for testosterone shots, dealing with Kash’s creepy staring and Linda’s attitude just for minimum wage.

“He’s a guy, Lip,” Ian says, glaring. He’s a guy just as much as I am. As you are, motherfucker.

“Whatever,” Lip mutters, going back to his homework.

Fiona smacks him on the back of the head. “You’re gonna be nice, Phillip,” she says, pointing a finger at him. “And you’re all gonna look nice, too, so go change. They’ll be over in a bit.”

Carl and Debbie both run upstairs, pushing each other and yelling as they go, Lip following a few moments later, grumbling under his breath about Skankovich sisters. Ian resists the urge to throw a shoe at the back of his head.

“Hey,” Fiona says, leaning across the counter to grab Ian’s hand, rubbing her thumb across his knuckles soothingly. His hand looks massive compared to hers, something that’s always sent a strange tingle of ecstasy down his spine. “How’d things go the other day, when you went to talk to Mickey?”

Ian shrugs, looking down at his hands. He regrets telling Fiona about his plans to befriend Mickey because now he has to tell her it didn’t work, that the guy seemed to hate him, wanted to avoid Ian Gallagher like the plague. “Fine, I guess,” he mutters. “He’s not super … sociable.”

Fiona pats his hand on final time, gives him that sympathetic look that makes him feel like a little kid again before she spins to face the fridge, digging out packs of hamburger meat for dinner. “He’ll come around, Ian.”

“Sure.”

Ian hears Veronica before he sees her, yelling Fiona’s name from the living room. “Fi!” she calls, the door slamming behind her. Ian hears footsteps come into the kitchen, Veronica followed by Kev and Mickey, hands shoved in his pockets, looking down at the floor. His hair is shorter than the last time Ian saw him, less messy, shaved on the sides, the top falling in front of those blue eyes that Ian’s been wanting to get a closer look at since he first saw the older boy, that day at the Kash and Grab. He looked tired, ragged, covered in bruises, those pretty blue eyes shifting around the store rapidly, seemingly terrified of something, someone, coming around a corner and attacking him.

The bruises are mostly faded, but he still has a haunted look in his eyes.

“You better be cooking a lot,” V says, moving around the people in the kitchen to stick her finger in the pot of spaghetti sauce and tasting it. She hums, then points towards the two men behind her. “Those two can eat that whole batch themselves.”

“I’ve got another pot keeping warm in the stove,” Fi says, smiling brightly. “Hey, Kev,” she greets. She looks towards the boy hiding behind the tall man, who Ian hasn’t stopped looking at it since he walked in. “Mickey.”

The boy’s head shoots up at the sound of his name. “Uh- hey,” he mutters, thumbing at his nose, eyes shifting around the room wearily.

Fiona smiles in that warm way she always does, the one that Ian associates with motherhood more than Monica’s. “Make yourself comfortable, Mickey, dinner will be ready soon.”

“I- okay,” he says, but he stays where he is, back against the wall, watching. Kev and V don’t seem phased, just hand him a beer from the fridge and continue to talk with Fiona. Mickey cracks open his beer, seeming to look everywhere but at Ian, who can’t stop staring, eyes focusing on different parts of the boy - his broad shoulders hidden under under the same baggy black hoodie he’s worn every time Ian’s seen him, his weary eyes, the black ink on his pale fingers, the strong curve of his jaw, the furrow of his eyebrows. Ian knows he’s got a budding crush. There’s just something about him, his pretty face, his whole vibe, the fact that he’s trans too.

Mickey’s only other trans person Ian’s ever met, and Ian would cut off his left foot to have a trans friend. Even if he’s kind of a dick.

Ian sees him lean over to say something to V, then he disappears out the back door, digging into his pockets, slamming the door behind him.

Ian stares at the door.

He stands, catching Fiona’s eye, her and V’s matching knowing smirks, and grabs his coat from where he left it on top of the washer.

He follows Mickey outside.