#and it’s not even just Ian and Mickey this is relevant to

[mickeym4ndy]

I gotta be completely honest.

“This character would hate you for saying that” has just never had any effect on me. Because… well they’re fictional characters. They’re not real, they simply can’t feel any way about me or anyone else because they just don’t exist.

Idk I think basing how the general public should feel about a character entirely on how another fictional character views them is just really silly tbh.

Also in my opinion by doing that you’re just taking on the other character’s bias when really you should be able to form your own view regardless and know how not to take opinion as fact. If that makes sense.

[em-harlsnow]

how about that ancient "call your boyfriend/husband by his full name" trend?

since I'm started on the TikTok trends again, I'm going through my old asks. this one is cool.

Mickey doesn't see many tiktoks that are relevant. sometimes he sends tiktoks to Ian that are either insulting or cute, but that's about it.

This time, though, he sees one that's kind of funny.

So when Ian's minding his own business in the kitchen, Mickey interrupts it. "Ian Clayton Gallagher!" He shouts, trying not to sound too angry, mainly just going for the effect of saying his full name. But is voice only really has one tone, so it probably comes across that way anyway.

Ian turns around quickly, looking like a deer in headlights; scared and confused and very frozen. "What?" He asks, gaping, holding a box of cereal. "What did I do?"

Mickey just stares back, sort of lost from here on where to go.

Ian puts the box of cereal down, unfreezing himself after a disturbingly long time. "What's wrong? What've I done?"

Mickey raises his eyebrows, not knowing what he's doing. Ian seems to take something from his expression, though, because he comes over.

"What the fuck? What the fuck! What?" Ian asks, alarmed and perplexed. "I didn't touch his car!" He suddenly yells.

That gives Mickey pause. He scrunches his face in confusion. "What?"

Ian looks even more confused. "What?"

"You didn't touch whose car?" Mickey prompts, leaning forward on the sofa.

Mickey has never seen Ian look so guilty. "What're you talking about? What car? Who? You're crazy." Ian tells him, immediately backing up to the kitchen.

Mickey's husband is good at many things, but playing it cool is not one of them.

"Ian. Clayton. Gallagher. What did you do to whose fucking car?"

Ian glances at him quickly and then away. Mickey actually gets up and gets closer just to examine the guilt on Ian's face. It's usually Mickey in his situation, so he's relishing in Ian being the one doing something stupid.

Ian winces, looking away again. "You remember that guy at the dispensary last week? The one who hit on you then got all classist when you were uninterested?" Mickey nods with his eyebrows. "I was pissed off!" He reasons.

"What did you do to him?" Mickey questions.

"I just- I cut his tires okay!" Ian throws his arms up in the air in exasperation. "He was a fucking dick. So I cut his fucking tires and I pissed in his gas tank. And I maybe keyed the stupid wrap on his car." Ian tells him, eyes darting everywhere.

Mickey cackles, finding this whole thing hilarious. Ian always tells him about how they have to do legal things now, but he can be just as bad as Mickey.

"It's not funny!" Ian argues. "I was rightfully mad!"

"You're such an idiot." He laughs. "What is it with you and pissing in gas tanks?"

"You piss in pools!" Ian rebukes.

"Everyone pisses in pools! I've never met anyone else who pisses in a gas tank."

Ian raises a disbelieving eyebrow, as if convinced that Mickey has done that. A bold move, since Mickey just caught him red handed.

-> send me TikTok prompts, even if takes me ages to do them I will try my best

-> I hope you enjoyed!

[keldjinfae]

I was tagged by the lovely @greyhavenisback, and I cannot for the life of me remember if I've already responded to this post or not, so...

In no particular order, my Top 10 Movies:

Inception - it has Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tom Hardy, and Ken Watanabe. That would be enough if it didn't also have one of the most goosebump-inducing soundtracks of all... Time. It also set sail one of my all-time favorite ships with the creation of Arthur and Eames.

The Dark Knight - while this list won't be entirely comprised of Nolan movies, I can't not put this one on this list, considering how many times I saw it in theaters. Both Heath Ledger and Aaron Eckhart were mesmerizing as the Joker and Two-Face, and again, that soundtrack is fire (I'm sorry).

Saw (the entire series) - I went to see all of these so many damn times in theaters that it's a good thing I got to see them for free. Every weekend, provided something new hadn't been released, my friend and I went to see whichever Saw movie was still showing. And again, isn't it iconic?

Tombstone - yes, obviously there's Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday, but there's also Kurt Russell, Sam Elliott, Bill Paxton, Powers Boothe, Michael Biehn, Stephen Lang, Billy Zane, Thomas Hayden Church, and nobody's leaving it up to one man to carry the movie. It's also one that I used to watch with my father at least once a year, usually around the anniversary of his separation from my mother, and we'd pass a bottle of bourbon back and forth and rant about how insane it is that Kilmer wasn't even nominated for an Oscar.

John Wick (the entire series) - it's a thing of beauty to me that what should just be a bunch of "shoot 'em up" movies have such an insane amount of worldbuilding to them (and if anyone bothering to read this post knows anything about my writing, it's how much I build a world before I start writing the story in the first place). The action is gorgeous, the actors themselves are gorgeous, the development and usage of things as simple as slang is gorgeous, the soundtrack is gorgeous. You can also never go wrong with Ian McShane.

The Warriors - this was legit one of our family movie night features while my sister and I were growing up. Yes, there were animated movies and whatnot, but our parents were very lax about rating restrictions. We still regularly quote "CAN YOU DIG IT?!" and "Warriooooooooors! Come out to plaaaaaaaay!" Also, James Remar as Ajax was 🔥.

Interview with the Vampire - Tom Cruise may be an... interesting individual in real life, but the effort he put into portraying Lestat was sheer perfection. I used to watch this one all the time with my dad and my sister, and again, killer soundtrack.

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World - a movie that decided to bring together every single comedian of the time that they possibly could, as well as come up with relevant things for them to do. Sounds impossible "on paper," and yet this movie exists. I've been watching it since I was a child and I still laugh through the whole thing. Buddy Hackett is also basically my father in this movie, which makes Mickey Rooney both myself and my sister. "NO ONE'S FLYING THE PLANE!"

21 Jump Street and 22 Jump Street - I laughed so hard watching the first one that my vision literally whited out at one point. Everyone is fantastic in both movies, but 21JS is also the first time I got to see Channing Tatum's understated sense of humor.

Kill Bill (both volumes) - I could have just filled up most of these slots with Tarantino movies, honestly, because I do love just about all of them (and my dad had a particular fondness for Django Unchained), but my sister and I rewatch I and II at least once a year. They make up one masterpiece, and I may be in the minority but I hope III is never actually a serious prospect.

No pressure whatsoever tags: @dear-massacre @nerdherderette @vmures @renmackree @ephemeronidwrites

[mandy4ever69420]

in seasons 1-10 the only times mickey shows interest in topping (incomplete language - referring also to having sex with women) it's been an expression of psychological distress or being unsafe. this pattern emerged by coincidence mostly but fits pretty well also into mickey's casual tone leading people to not take him entirely seriously.

see: "my dad will kill me" - it sounds like hyperbole, because people say things like this as hyperbole, so ian assumes he must be at least slightly overreacting

especially when he refers to incarceration his casual tone laughs off "being somebody's bitch" and people don't tend to take prison, even child prison, as seriously as i think they should. mickey generally builds a pretty impressive defense mechanism against facing how scary things are by saying them straight up so people don't follow up. a lot of his plot involves the story asking you to take something seriously that he says as though it's a joke. this also has to do with the complicated maneuvers he has to do around the closet. when mandy says he only asks for "girl-on-girl porn" it did immediately occur to me that he'd found a non-gay way to ask for gay porn.

mickey's sleeping with women is another topic where he can mostly find it easy to look away from the hard parts of how it feels. technically speaking, none of the women he slept with did anything wrong. though it does feel relevant to note: we are introduced to the fact that mickey covers for himself by actually having sex with women (rather than implying it, or just bearding like ian and mandy) a literal single scene after he confronts a manipulative pedophile. in a similar piece of framing, we don't learn mickey is gay until after we've learned that his dad is a nazi

his deal with byron is kind of an outlier as the least outright sad occurrence of this, because he's not actively having THAT much of a meltdown. he is, however, making a very direct point, basically to ian's face. both ian and the viewer are made excruciatingly aware that this guy is not somebody mickey would ever seriously pursue. he does it to hammer home the point that he's never going to seriously want to pursue anybody BUT ian. mickey is immediately cognizant of the exact kind of self worth meltdown ian is having (because he's seen it before) and this time he's figured out the retrospectively obvious fact that the best way to get ian out of his own way is to just piss him off. when he tried making his devotion more obvious to reassure ian in s6 it just fed into ian's guilt complex about making mickey act like he loved him. byron is given the unfortunate hand of being picked out as a sort of a parody of everything mickey doesn't want in life. sorry dude.

i've said it before but to reiterate: the fact that mickey is making a strategic choice here doesn't negate that he's feeling vulnerable and hurt. he's just not one to linger on that sort of thing and prefers to move forward with gritted teeth. pragmatism in the most ridiculous dramatic way

i think there was a pretty good opportunity to tie all of this up^ with like a nice bow in 11.03 by either working with a "maybe the discomfort gained from a lifetime of being pressured into something i wasn't that into doesn't have to have power over me anymore even just once to prove my point with someone i do trust" angle OR by taking this from an potentially miss-able subtext into something more overt - if mickey's worrying about being the "man" is it an indication that something else is going on in his head that we need to worry about?

so it's just. infuriating to me that instead this episode is written like an intro to gay relationships. because we couldve been making points here people. nevermind that it barely sidestepped the slightly interesting "bottoming isn't womanly, and womanly isn't bad" there was much more potential there! well let's simply hope that framing mickey as making some sort of concession by regularly bottoming, whoever decided to write that isn't fucking anyone. because jesus christ

[gallavichfanficlibrary]

im trying to find this really funny fic where ian and mickey were already married and living in their west side apartment and lip goes to stay with them for a while. lip sees mickey naked in the middle of the night and develops a crush on him, so every time he'd see mickey after the incident he'd just stare at him all weird and even attempt to flirt with him. ian notices and gets really mad at lip and eventually kicks him out of their place. after a while ian and mickey goes to the gallagher house where lip introduces his new boyfriend and only ian and mickey were not surprised and mickey says something like "finally." ian confronts him and asks him how he knows and mickey admits that he's notices lip always staring at his ass

Okay, I was sure I saw it before. We spent some time looking for it, but nothing. Nothing in any relevant tags we could think of :(

Anyone recognizes it?

[smnthwrd]

one thing about me is that i stand FIRMLY and SOLDILY in the opinion that the gay jesus storyline was stupid and outlandish even for shameless. the subject matter of religion and the lgbt community and how they interact with eachother especially in rural areas? an important message. the execution? insanely cringe in my PERSONAL opinion

[jeanmoreaux]

is debbie trying to get at carl’s gf bc lmao me too girl, kelly is smoking hot

[arrowflier]

Hi Arrow I love your fics so much. If you’re still taking prompts, I would love your take on the first time Ian called Mickey “baby” and the first time Mickey reciprocated. Speed write or long form - your choice. mucho mucho gracias! 🥰

Relevant to your interests: Baby

Being His Baby Don't Make Me A Bitch (on AO3 or continue below)

Ian had never been that big on nicknames.  Maybe it was because he had too many of his own growing up, and not all of them good.

He  was Fiona’s “sweetface”, sure, and Lip’s “little brother”; he was “kid”, and he was “red”, and he was on occasion, from Liam, just “E”.

But he was also “that fucking Gallagher boy”.  He was “the coked-out lap-dancing whore”.  He was “carrot-boy”, he was Frank’s “redheaded cocksucking bastard”, he was “the crazy one”, and “the gay one”, and “the one with all the problems”.

Fuck; he was “Gay Jesus”.  Like he wasn’t even worth his own name.

With Mickey, it had always been different.  

Mickey’s “tough guy” sounded more like admiration than a challenge; “Gallagher” sounded like a prayer.  “Army” was for teasing, not for judging, and even “you fucking moron” was lighter than air.

He had missed that, while Mickey was gone.  Missed the easy way they spoke; missed the names, and the way they sounded in Mickey’s mouth.  With Mickey, he didn’t care that it wasn’t his real name—his name was carved into Mickey’s very chest, after all, never to be forgotten.  He just cared that Mickey was with him, and that each nickname sounded like love.

He basked in Mickey’s “move over, princess,” in the rec room, when he forced himself onto the sofa at Ian’s side.  He reveled in the quiet “you good, doc?” when he returned from working the infirmary and climbed into his bunk with a sigh.  He breathed in “that’s it, beautiful” in the middle of the night, too quiet for anyone else to hear, and he bit his lip at “nice try, asshole,” in the cafeteria the next morning when he reached for Mickey’s dessert.

Still, he never offered his own monikers.  Never whispered “lover” in Mickey’s ear, or called him “sweetheart”, or called him “dear”.  He wanted to, wanted to offer his own comforts, his own affection, but years of suppression were hard to overcome.

Once a man told you that calling him sugar would result in your bones being ground down to dust and sprinkled on pastries like so much of the same, you tended to stick to his name.

But more and more, Mickey’s name didn’t feel like enough.  And in his head, Ian started calling him other things, better things: things like “darling”, and “beloved”.  Things like “mine”.

Only in his head, though.  Only where it was safe.  Where Mickey couldn’t hear it, and where no one else could care.

Until he slipped.

They were in the cafeteria when it happened.  Side by side, as always, feet touching beneath the table by excuse of overcrowding.  The yellow of their prison uniforms wrinkled with the closeness of their arms, their hips, and their forearms brushed with every bite of nutritional slop.

“So I was tellin’ ‘im,” Mickey was saying, gesturing with his spoon—the unsharpened one in his hand, not the one in his shoe, “that if he really thought he could take me, he was welcome to find me at rec time.”

The man across from them laughed.

“No way,” he said, disbelieving.  “I know you got balls, Milkovich, but taking on Crazy Cal?  You’d be lucky if that fucker left enough of you to patch up.”

“Please,” Mickey snorted, dropping his spoon to push the mush around on his tray.  “That guy’s all talk.  I could take ‘im.”

“Take him where?” another guy asked.  “Out to dinner?  Cause you’d be on the menu.”

Ian could feel Mickey bristling beside him.  It had started in good fun, perhaps, but he was going to take it personally.  His hand was tensing on his spoon, holding it more like the knife it wasn’t, and his thigh tensed as he half-rose.

Ian stopped him with a hand on his arm.  No pressure, just a solid weight.

“Calm down,” he said, his tone joking, the thread of warning something only Mickey would hear.  “They’re just kidding, baby.”

And Mickey froze, and quieted.

But so did everything else.

“Did you just call Milkovich a baby?” someone asked down the line of the table, choking on laughter.

“Nah, he didn’t say a baby,” someone else corrected, even as Ian closed his eyes in horror.  “He just called him baby.  Like, his baby.”

Laughs went around the table.  Mickey was tenser than ever under his hand, and then he wasn’t—not because he had relaxed, but because he had pulled away.

“That right Milkovich?” came the first taunt, the first of many.  “You such a girl you need pretty names to make you feel better?”

“Knew you took it Milkovich, you scream like a goddamn banshee about it,” came the next, “but you really that much of a bitch?”

“Hey now, Murphy,” someone called out, “he said baby, not bitch.  Milkovich just needs a good daddy to—”

His head crashed into the table before he could finish.

“What was that, Jackson?” Mickey asked pleasantly, as if he hadn’t nearly knocked Ian on his ass and sent three other inmates face-first into their slop just to interrupt.  “Afraid I didn’t catch that last bit.”

“Yo, Milkovich,” another man said, “what the fuck?”

“Oh, you confused, Jefferson?” Mickey asked.  He lifted his gaze to the man across the table, still holding the first one down.  The head in his hand slid a bit against the plastic table, wet with blood from his split lip, but Mickey tugged harshly back into place.

“See, Jackson here,” Mickey shook the hair in his fist for effect, “thought it would be appropriate to comment on what my friend Gallagher just called me.  But I,” he raised his eyebrows, not a challenge, just a statement, “I think that’s none of his fucking business.”

He released his captive suddenly, letting him slide half-conscious out of his seat.

“Who do you agree with?” Mickey asked, addressing the room at large.  “Me, or the fucker I just put on the floor?”

“You,” came the quick reassurance.

“Good,” Mickey said, backing away.  “That’s good.”  He walked all the way down the table, past Ian even, eying each and every one of them.  “Now don’t fucking forget it,” he ordered.  “Cause he might have called me baby, but I ain’t nobody’s bitch.”

Then he was turning, and leaving, and Ian was still sitting there, and fuck—he had just done the one thing Mickey hadn’t wanted, and he had ruined his cred in front of everyone, and he was going to be so mad—

Ian didn’t even look as he jumped up from the long table, sending his own tray and someone else’s clattering.  He didn’t look at the eyes on him, didn’t care except for what it might mean to Mickey, who was already almost out of the room.

“Mickey,” Ian gasped out, chasing after him through the cafeteria.  A few guards looked askance at them, but if they hadn’t responded to the fight, they weren’t going to stop them now.

“Mickey wait,” Ian tried, his long legs allowing him to catch up easily.  He reached out, snagged Mickey’s elbow.  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—”

Mickey turned around.  And there was no anger on his face.

“Sorry for what?” he asked nonchalantly, still backing toward the doors.  “Come on, let’s head back to our bunk.”

Ian gaped at him, then shut his mouth with a click of teeth when Mickey’s lips spread in a slow, wicked smile.

“Come on,” he said again, then, “baby.”

And laughed when Ian passed him to take the lead.

[sluttymickey]

*holy fuck, it’s GALLAVICH time* 💖🧑🏻‍🦰🧑🏻💖 - if you had an infinite amount of inspiration and time, what would be the Gallavich fic or art you would create? 💖 (& feel free to send this to anyone you like!)

Okay so i have a couple!!

1. I saw this post MONTHS ago (ss because i had to Google "did you get stuck roof Tumblr" to find it and I'm too lazy to actually locate it on Tumblr

SO. EMT Ian (him being an EMT is not relevant to the story, I just like EMT Ian lol) moves into his own apartment for the very first time. He's a bit overwhelmed w all the moving and the sudden change so he goes to the roof to clear his head and just look at the city for a bit.

And then he gets stuck. And he's like wow fuck. So he somehow manages to call the Building Handyman (Mickey) and get rescued. Mickey immediately laughs and makes fun of him (in his usual Mickey way) and Ian's just ENDEARED for some reason. Who is this (extremely hot) guy, w intriguing tattoos and an ass to die for (because obviously he checks out Mickey's ass while they're getting downstairs)?? And why does Ian want to listen to him bitch and snark for hours immediately??

So he starts needing to get a lot of shit fixed in his apartment. Some stuff 'accidently' starts malfunctioning. He somehow 'mistakenly' orders extra pizza that he's got no one to share with. He 'forgets' his keys multiple times and Mickey has to come help him open the door.

And he thinks he's being SO SLICK but he absolutely has not played it cool. Not even a bit. Mickey's figured it out from Day 1.

But even Mickey is ABSOLUTELY ENDEARED by this dork who makes the worst jokes and comes up with the most dumbass excuses just to hang out w him. Nobody's ever wanted to hang out w him before.

So basically. A lot of dumbass-ery. A lot of pining. A whole lotta bad jokes and Mickey rolling his eyes and laughing at them. Idiots becoming best friends

But then one day. One day Ian has a horrible day at work. And he NEEDS to talk to someone. To Mickey. So he goes to him. No excuse this time. Just a “I need to see you, I don't know where else to go”

And Mickey goes. And he listens. And they talk all night. And Ian falls so hard in love w Mickey. And Mickey feels like he's found someone he wants to talk to forever

This followed by failed/aborted attempts at asking Mickey out, followed by Mickey saying, “Ohmygod GALLAGHER, you're so fucking dumb” and kissing him, followed by “Will you fuckin' go on a date w me?”, followed by happily ever after 😌

Haha haven't thought much about this why do you ask

[gardenerian]

Hi beloved, it has been 8,000 years since I’ve come to your askbox and that is 8,000 years too long

Ian decides he wants to go to Ireland, what’s the plan? Is it the whole fam? Is it just him and Mickey? Where they going? What do they have to see? Is Mickey gonna be impressed by the Cliffs of Moher? Does it rain too much for them to enjoy it? Are they renting a car and if so who’s driving and/or can drive stick shift? I’ve got a hundred more questions but I’ll stop here ❤️

my angel love, it has been 8,000 years since you sent this message and i am sorry 😭 but i am here and ready to think about what are about to become my favorite thoughts:

i am thinking ian and mickey go by themselves first. anniversary trip? or maybe a birthday? but they rent a little car and drive around. the comedic potential of them driving along those twisty winding roads is too good - mickey makes ian get out and try to shoo the cows away. but ya just gotta wait for them to meander on, ian! the mental image of them white knuckling it through conor pass is sending me into ORBIT 🚀

they hit all the usual spots, ian definitely gets himself an aran sweater and a flat cap. mickey pouts in all the rain, but he digs all the pubs. lotta whiskey, lotta guinness. maybe they try a little irish dancing? bouncy husbands 2.0! they see so many cliffs and ramble up so many hills - mickey might not love that, my mans probably prefers the cities or the coast. i firmly believe he will insist on murder hole beach just for the name alone. but it winds up being a very romantic spot!

but then i think later on ian will insist on a family trip to the northwest - he'll hunt through their family history and find relevant places to visit. and he will drag them through the countryside 😇 maybe they even stop by an gaeltacht so ian can practice butchering some irish? taking bets on which gallaghers love it and which ones sneak off to dublin sdkfjh

[gallavictorious]

Fucked to Better: Mickey Milkovich, Fatalism, and the Power of Agency

I keep returning to how Mickey’s ”I wanna be better than that” not only signifies a conscious and determined break with Terry’s hateful legacy but also demonstrates an emergent belief in the possibility of choice. That's relevant not just when it comes to Terry – because fuck him, honestly – but to Mickey’s general understanding of the options available to him in life.

Mickey's never been a passive person; by and large he is a highly proactive and often resourceful problem solver, ready to jump into action and beat whatever bothers him into submission, metaphorically and literally. However, when confronted with a situation he perceives himself unable to affect, he prefers not to engage with it at all; he doesn't want to talk about it; won't let himself (admit to) worry(ing) about it; pointedly refuses to dwell or rage against the unfairness of the world. He rolls with the punches; he perseveres. (Though sometimes he needs a little bit of artificial numbing to manage it.) In that regard Mickey's pretty much an embodiment of the first two parts of Reinhold Neibuhr's serenity prayer: accept the things you cannot change, change the things you can. This is often a strenght – for instance, it's very helpful in dealing with Ian's illness – but it can also be a weakness, because at times Mickey (completely unsurprisingly, given his youth and deprived childhood) lacks the wisdom to know the difference between what can and cannot be changed, and accepts as given things he actually do possess the ability to affect. Most especially, there's the deep-seated and long-held conviction that he's “fucked for life”. His destiny, as a Milkovich, is to lead a life of crime and spend long stretches of time in prison, and any attempt to move away from that is doomed to fail, so he won't even entertain the idea, as evident when Ian tries to gently nudge him in 2x02. Read? Community college? Something better? Nah. What's the fucking point?

I wonder if this might not play a part in his stubborn refusal to worry about going back to prison in the current season, or to adjust his behavior to avoid it? Part of it might be explaind by a (fairly reasonable) belief in his ability to avoid arrest, but I'd argue that there's also a fair bit of selective fatalism involved. He'll get sent back to prison or he won't; nothing he can do about it except be clever with his crimes; why waste time and energy worrying over it?

One might think that, given how eager Mickey was to escape prison the second Ian was released, that he'd be a bit more careful about being seperated from his man again, but long-term planning isn't necessarily one of Mickey's strong suits; he's very much about the now. Additionally, his anxiety then was probably at least partly motivated by a fear of Ian not waiting for him, no matter what agreement they came to prior to Ian's release, and I think their marriage has soothed that anxiety to some degree. And finally and most importantly and as already mentioned: this is not something Mickey believes he can effectively control. He's Mickey Milkovich, fucked for life.

It's also important to remember that Mickey's life now is already so much better than anything he ever expected for himself. This, I think, is something that Ian doesn't quite grasp, and that fuels his (earlier) frustration with Mickey's recklessness when it comes to breaking the law. To Ian, it doesn't make sense that that Mickey wouldn't be concerned about going back to prison – why doesn't he care about being seperated from Ian? Why isn't he interested in building something better together? But to Mickey being in and out of incarceration is just a fact of life, not something he can just opt out of, and since it can't be avoided he's not going to let the fear of it ruin even the joy of what he has right now. Leave tomorrow for tomorrow, right? Mickey's in a good place right now; by marrying Ian he has, as far as he is concerned, hit the jackpot because getting to have a loving and stable and lasting relationship with this man is really the best thing he could imagine and more than he thought he'd ever have. No wonder he's so damned smiley in season 11!

But we know, as Ian does, that Mickey is mistaken about the life he's led so far being his only option going forward. Without denying that our circumstances do introduce limits to the choices we can make and without buying into the worn old American dream of anyone being able achieve anything as long as they work hard enough, it's still fairly easy to see that there are likely things Mickey – practical, inventive, streetsmart Mickey – can do other than commit crimes and being in and out of prison. I'd like to think that that's something that finally got through to him too, in the last episode. It's not the result of just one thing, but a culmination of him getting to have this life with Ian, finding a (semi)legal job he doesn't hate, and realizing that he doesn't want and doesn't need to be like his father – it all comes together to allow him to say that “I wanna be better than that” and believe that it matters; that this is a possible decision for him.

In that sense, it's a reclamation of agency and a refutation, years in the making, of his own claim that he's “fucked for life”.

In closing, I'd also like to note that I don't think that a sense of inevitability is the only reason Mickey embraces a criminal lifestyle; in general, I think he's highly skeptical of the straight and narrow being worth the trouble, because why work hard for cash when you can just take it? Why play by someone else's rules instead of doing whatever the hell you want? Why have a boring job when you can have fun with guns and robberies? So I don't expectp to see him give that all up just like that – but now, and slowly, I think he's starting to see that this is a choice he makes, and which may not always be worth the cost.

[eg515]

part two of this ask by @just-a-glittery-fan

part one: RNM | part three: GG reboot

I wanted to add a normal gif. something cute and simple. but then I saw this and I had to.

What I love about them: what's not to like?? I love his sass, as shown above. I love his loyalty. I love his brain. I love his epic love story with Mickey. I love his relationship with his siblings. I love how protective he is of the people he loves.

What I hate about them: not a hate, but I'm not a fan of all the violence between him and Mickey. I know, that's how they roll, southside and all, but still.

Favorite Moment/Quote: there were many iconic moments, but the first one I thought about was "Is Mickey adopted?" to T*rry because KING SHIT. also early seasons, the hearteyes look he gives Mickey when M first kisses him. you know, when he's the getaway driver while the Milkoviches are robbing a house and Mickey gets shot in the ass and Ian's old ass boyfriend has to operate on him on the Gallagher's kitchen counter. god I miss this show.

What I would like to see more focus on: is this still relevant? anyway, I want more domestic fluff. also, dad!Ian. also, better communication between him and Mickey.

What I would like to see less focus on: ugh, idk... it was pretty okay, considering it was Shameless.

Favorite pairing with: gallavich for the win, obvi. I started the entire fucking show because of them and a highly misleading promo that showed the s7 goodbye completely differently, but I'm not going on that rant again 🙃

Favorite friendship: Mandy! ❤ and Lip! 💙 imagine if Lip got his shit together and he stayed with Mandy. the power the Mandy-Lip-Ian-Mickey quartet would have.

NOTP: I think the only other serious relationship he had was Trevor? Travis? something like that, and I liked him a lot, so it's not a notp. maybe a notp bc he deserved better than Ian, who was still in love with his ex. but again, it's Shameless.

Favorite headcanon: Ian and Mickey tease each other over their horrible tattoos all the time. 😌

What I love about them: everything 🥰

What I hate about them: that she's gone 🥺

Favorite Moment/Quote: SHE RAN OVER KAREN!! it truly doesn't get more iconic than that 😌 but also when she offered to be Ian's fake gf at school 🥰 and "I'm not a tool so you don't get to treat my like one" and "Men are never right. That's why women were invented, to think for you assholes." absolute queen.

What I would like to see more focus on: her happiness 💛 she deserves nothing but good things 💛

What I would like to see less focus on: her getting traumatised over and over again 🙃

Favorite pairing with: Lip! if the idiot had half a working braincell he wouldn't have let her go. we could have had TWO iconic Milkovich-Gallagher duos, but he went and fucked it up 🙃

Favorite friendship: Ian 🥰

NOTP: ugh I don't even remember the dude's name, I just remember that he hurt her. something starting with a T? idk, doesn't matter. she deserves nothing but the best, anything less is not good enough for her 💛

Favorite headcanon: she was actually there at the gallavich wedding. you can't tell me she wasn't invited and didn't move heaven and earth to be there.

well look at me, finally answering age old asks, getting my shit together 😌 maybe I'll even clean my room 😌 (unlikely, but one can dream.)

thank you, bestie! 💕 part three will arrive...at a certain point in the future that is a surprise for you, but I definitely for sure know when. absolutely. it's all planned for sure. and until then, it's been a blast, as always 😌💕

[mandy4ever69420]

do you read fanfiction? if so, do you have any recs?

ok obviously you mean shameless fanfiction with this but how funny would it be if i started dropping links to the weirdly stellar fanfiction i've read for the world's most dogshit television w/ absolutely no relevance to shameless. anyway the answer is "yeah a little"

i have 2! for you. both pretty short, which is sad, because i love longfics and really admire the people who make them. but i wanted to reread both of these because giving recs makes me nervous & i'm extremely specific about characterization for things i recommend

this take on the 'gay friends' plot (5k words) is by far my favorite - very much this is to my taste as fanfiction as a ruse to do some character work +matching source material tone. i want to note a very shameless-esque behavior in the setup here where it has a perspective that initially makes me a little upset (wrt: mickey's response to "who dies first?") and then upon thinking about it i actually decide it's actually fucking phenomenal. couple very sweet moments dotted in. :)

The Second-Time Commitment (14k words) this one does draw a conclusion from canon facts that isn't part of my read, but i don't think it's unfounded or poorly supported. i read it first because i appreciated it going into the nitty gritty sucky bits of bipolar beyond being depressed which is more familiar to more people. didn't expect it to take a dive into mickey's character which was also carefully done and lovely. i urge you to mind the tags but nothing is explicitly detailed in there. the sequel (16k) is also good but sadly unfinished. probably the only story i've encountered for which i enjoy the characterization on mickey, ian, AND mandy AND debbie (though she's barely there. sad!). i'm gonna compare about the conclusions this one draws to mine also but under a readmore in case you want to read the fic first

none of this is a critique of the story!!! it is very well done this is just my thoughts, as prompted by this story. also, some of this is kind of sad. Sorry

the author in this concludes from a handful of traits in the story that mickey was sexually abused prior to the series. when they draw their conclusion i think IMO it's a perfectly reasonable read, but my read was just that he was likely witness to sexual abuse. i mean, more or less exact canon, given where and how he grew up. probably sandy.

this is something that could not have possibly been written in intentionally, and a good place to point out that authorial intent is an interesting addition to a narrative, not the law you have to follow!

WRT: mickey alluding to resenting foster care, i absolutely see concluding that something worse must have been happening than at terry's house, but to me what comes to mind is a sense of abandonment. my read on mickey will always be that he really did love terry, even still in s11 when he didn't want to anymore. so feeling ditched by him would feel worse than being stuck with him.

[gallavichfanficlibrary]

Hello! I have a vivid memory of part of fic that I read within the last few days but now I can’t find it and it’s driving me nuts! I looked through my ao3 history, tags I thought were relevant, and my Tumblr likes and have yet to find it. I was hoping you or even one of your followers might be able to help me!

The specific part that I remember is Ian singing “I Want to Hold Your Hand” by the Beatles to his and Mickey’s baby. I *think* it’s part of a longer, multi chapter fic, but I’m not 100% confident about that.

I know that’s not really a lot to go off, but I’d thought I’d go out on a limb and ask for help just in case anyone recognizes it. Thank you for your help!

Hi! We’ve looked through the fics we could think of, but no luck. It also doesn’t ring any bells, sadly :(

Do you remember if it was Yevgeny or an OC kid they have?

Anyone recognizes it?

Edit: It’s Season 10: The Mickey and Ian Story by J_Q, Ian sings to Freddie in chapter 20 :)

[dramaticviolincrescendo]

Being a spouse and being a brother are not mutually exclusive.

This cannot be emphasized enough.

Ian being married to Mickey doesn’t suddenly elevate that relationship to being of greater importance than what he has with his family. Lip being committed to Tami doesn’t suddenly elevate that relationship to being of greater importance than what he has with his family. I feel that the show has been exceedingly clear about what happens when we ignore the other relationships in our lives to focus on a romantic one, and it never turns out well. It was a huge part of Fiona’s story at times; she isn’t the only one.

The scene on the steps is so important for this very reason. The entire season, Lip has been in a very selfish position. He wants to have his cake and eat it too, to feel like he’s got control over things while taking care of his new and original families. He hasn’t forsaken his family for Tami and Fred, though it appears as such earlier in the season. It’s for his pride. It’s for his own sense of self. It’s to preserve the bit of power over his life that all the Gallaghers, Kev, and V are clearly feeling the loss of as the area gentrifies. He’s been a bad partner, a bad father, and a bad sibling for much of the last few episodes since things turned sour and he realized that he’s not as in control as he thinks—that he can’t be in a neighborhood where they have the Mercedes Rule these days. (It’s always been there, but it was never relevant to the South Side until now.)

This has put a strain on his relationship with Ian in particular, one that we have only seen hints of because Ian tends to minimize his feelings by nature if there are other priorities to focus on. He knew Lip was having a hard time, so he went along with selling while visibly not enthused. He was accused of living in Lip’s shadow again, so he didn’t go along anymore to prove a point. He found the healthy medium where he can have an opinion without tying it to what Lip wants despite it having the same outcome, so he could mostly look the other way on the sledgehammer and the inconvenience of renovations.

The conversation on the stairs wasn’t about Mickey. That was addressed, but it wasn’t the purpose. It wasn’t even Ian’s first priority, nor do I think it should have been at that time. Mickey is a grown man who can take care of himself, and he wasn’t guiltless in the escalation of that fight, whether due to the frustrations he definitely has with Lip or the ones that Ian sparked by even wanting to move into that apartment let alone signing the lease.

That conversation was about being a brother first and foremost and a husband second, because getting married doesn’t erase his status in his family. It adds another position in his family and another set of roles for him to perform. But Lip, for as awful as he’s been this season, has also been going it alone. Yes, that’s been his choice. Yes, he’s brought a large part of this on himself. But no matter what I do, no matter how much difficulty I land myself in or how much hardship I cause my older sister in the process, I know for a fact that she will be there when I need her like Ian was for Lip in that moment.

It doesn’t matter that he was pissed off about the fight, which was very obvious in how he approached Lip with the pliers and frozen vegetables and his body language and tone for most of the scene. It doesn’t matter that he probably already got another bag for his husband and isn’t pleased with him for hitting Lip either. None of that matters, because getting married doesn’t negate the relationship he has with his family and that they’ll need him too. It doesn’t make him suddenly have to choose between the two and have competing notions of where his loyalties need to lie.

The conversation on the steps was so very important because Ian went there to be Lip’s brother, first and foremost. He listened when Lip needed to get out what’s been stewing inside him and, if past events have been any indication, what he rarely ever talks about as openly with anyone but Ian. He offered comfort in the form of pointing out where he’s got a problem and where he needs to realize that he’s in a dark place in a remarkable parallel to their conversation outside the courthouse about Ian going to the clinic and getting better. And, most importantly, he encouraged Lip to get help from someone better equipped to do that than Ian, who has been where Liam is now with Frank to a lesser extent at the height of Lip’s alcoholism and who has the impact on his own mental health to consider before helping anyone else with theirs. Once that was accomplished—once all of that had been communicated—he switched hats and told Lip where Lip needed to stand with his husband. It wasn’t much, just an acknowledgement of what happened and a warning to never let it happen again. But it wasn’t his focus. It wasn’t his priority.

Because being a spouse and being a brother are not mutually exclusive, and thank goodness for that.

[thevioletjones]

31, because I can’t see it fitting Ian/Mickey easily and know you’re a good enough writer to prove me wrong ☺️

Thanks! I tried. 🙂

Prompt 6: “I can’t keep kissing strangers and pretending that they’re you.”

Ian’s Box of Crap

Being currently unemployed, Mickey didn’t have much of a leg to stand on when attempting to deflect Ian’s demands that he get chores and household tasks done while his husband was out earning an honest paycheck. He wasn’t even allowed to shake people down anymore, let alone pull robberies, or get back into the drug trade. Ian had made it clear that divorce wasn't off the table if Mickey deliberately did something stupid that got him thrown back in prison for a long stretch.

He didn’t much like being told what to do, but what he liked even less was not having Ian in his life. He’d had to go too many years without him in the past, and nothing good ever came during those times. Unfortunately, Ian Gallagher was it for Mickey Milkovich. That meant that he actually had to stay in line and put in the work if he didn’t want to lose him again. Ian wasn’t as soft as he used to be. Never really had been at his core, but the maturity of age had cemented his backbone rather rigidly, and Mickey was actually loathe to piss him off too badly these days.

So he did the bullshit grunt work requested of him, just to keep the peace. He was tired of fighting every day of his life, and what was the point of marrying Ian if they weren’t going to try and make each other happy?

In the past couple weeks, Mickey had done everything from laundry and dishes, to vacuuming and mopping. He’d patched up a couple of big holes in the wall that Frank had made, and fixed the loose parts of the wooden outdoor steps and banisters, both front and back. He’d even gone so far as to babysit the tiny, helpless Gallagher spawn a few times, which had been interesting and somewhat terrifying. Then Ian had given him this look when he caught the scene one afternoon, eyes shining, smile beaming. It reminded him of that brief time they’d helped take care of Yevgeny, which made Mickey’s head spin. He didn’t need Gallagher getting the whole ‘having kids’ thing back in his head right now. Mickey was in no way ready for all that. Hadn’t been the first time, and they’d all seen how that turned out.

Today, he was supposed to clean out the attic. He told Ian that asking someone outside the family to do it sounded like a bad idea. How was he supposed to know what shit the Gallaghers wanted to keep, and what they wanted to get rid of? What if he made a mistake? If anyone had asked him what to keep from the hoarded piles of shit in the Milkovich house, he would’ve laughed in their face, then set everything on fire. Mickey wasn’t the sentimental type. So did Ian want him to just toss everything?

Ian had rolled his eyes, clarified that Mickey was a Gallagher now, and given him a run-down. Anything that had obviously been made or cherished by a Gallagher kid, any family photos and albums, or small boxes of keepsakes, those stayed. Anything that wasn’t being used by anyone, but could be of use and handed down to the youngest or recently shacked up of them, set them aside to be put in rotation. Anything that worked, but they already had one of or didn’t need, donation box (because apparently they actually sometimes donated shit to the local shelter). And anything that looked completely unnecessary for anyone, throw it in a Best Choice trash bag, but don't take them to the curb yet. Ian would go over everything when he got home to make sure it was sorted correctly.

“So you’re gettin' me to do all this boring-ass grunt work, then you’re gonna have to go through it anyway? What the fuck, man?” he’d asked.

“It'll make the whole thing way easier on me, so can you just shut the fuck up and do me the favor? I’ll blow you later for your trouble.”

“Like you wouldn’t be doin’ that anyway.”

Ian had shrugged. “If you don’t, I won’t.”

“Threatening to withhold sex? That’s a bitch move if I ever heard one.”

“Whatever, deadbeat. You want me to support you, gotta help out when I ask. A blowjob would just be a bonus, because I’m generous of spirit.”

“I’m not gonna forget this hardcore manipulation, Firecrotch. I’ll get my revenge eventually.”

Ian merely kissed him on the nose. “Sounds like a plan. See ya.”

And he was out the door.

“Asshole,” Mickey’d muttered under his breath.

And now, a few hours later, here he was; sitting on the dusty, hard planks of the weird-smelling Gallagher attic, sorting through the memories and forgotten things of the family he’d married into less than six months ago. He’d dawdled as long as he could on the couch, eating junk food and watching his favorite daytime game shows, judge shows, and salacious ‘who’s the baby daddy?’ shows. The only hint of fun left in the remainder of his day was in the bong and the beer he’d brought with him up the rickety ladder. After every box sorted, he’d take a rip or two and chase the smoke with a long swig of cheap alcohol.

The most interesting things he’d found so far were some old pictures of Ian when he was little, his hair a curly mess, and his pale skin covered in dark freckles. His smile was too big for his face, and he looked goofy as all hell. Nothing like the hot hunk of man he was today. It was the Ian Mickey remembered from Little League a million years ago. And maybe he’d set one of the photos aside to keep for himself and taken some pics of others with his phone, so what?

Mostly he’d had to sift through little Debbie’s ridiculous girly shit, and Frank’s completely random assortment of insignificant trinkets with a side of what looked like bondage gear. He’d since moved on to a group of boxes obviously labeled by Carl when he was younger. He recognized the scrawl, occasional backwards lettering, and lack of possessive apostrophes. The words were short enough not to be atrociously misspelled, and consisted of a Gallagher first name in plural, followed by: ‘box of crap.’

Everybody had one, including Fiona, who hadn’t taken it with her when she’d left Chicago, and the kids she’d raised as her own, behind. The most scandalous item in there was a dildo of decent size that Mickey definitely would’ve packed in his suitcase if he’d been the one moving away as a single chick. The thought crossed his mind to pilfer it for his own collection, but he figured that Ian would be weirded out by the association. Sex toys were probably the only thing Gallaghers never shared between them.

Carl had a box of his own, semi-well-hidden compared to the others, and Mickey discovered why when he’d managed to get the copious amount of packing tape off. It was full of straight porn mags with big-tittied women and shaved pussies, underneath an array of dangerous weapons the family had forbidden him to have when he was underaged. He found everything from nunchucks, to throwing stars, to switchblades, to brass knuckles. No guns or attempted homemade bombs, thank fuck. He chucked the porn in the trash pile, cuz nobody needed to see that shit, and set the switchblade aside for himself, deciding to give the rest to Ian to sort out.

He saved Ian’s box for last, opening it up to find a grab bag of old army decorations, tattered paperbacks, comics, a bunch of loose paper covered in scribbles, and a stack of notebooks.

Mickey didn’t realize Ian was such a huge nerd that he’d kept his high school notebooks, but giving a quick flip through the first two revealed they weren’t school-related at all. He remembered Ian going through a phase when he was always writing shit down, ranting about having great ideas he needed to save for posterity. Before he went to the hospital. A manic phase. Probably one of many he’d cycled through, yet Mickey had missed some of those extremes.

Everything had been so chaotic then. He’d pushed Ian away, then gotten the same treatment in return. Their typical messiness pervaded everything back then. And now, he had in his hands Ian’s unfiltered thoughts about what happened back then.

“Fuck,” he said to himself, setting the notebooks down and going for the beer/weed combo again.

There were exactly two ways to go about this: he could put the notebooks back into the Ian box and not invade his privacy, or he could skim through them and hone in on the interesting relevant bits and maybe get a few long-pondered answers. On the one hand, Ian would probably get pissed if Mickey read them. On the other hand, Ian never had to know about it, did he?

It really wasn’t much of a choice… he’d always been curious as to what the hell was going through Ian’s head back in the day. They’d never exactly been great at talking things out, and he didn’t have it in him to try and make Ian relive some of the lowest moments of his life just to give Mickey some peace of mind. Plus, they were always facing some new bullshit obstacle head-on, so the past always just kind of got lost in the shuffle of their present difficulties.

Mickey took a deep breath and opened one of the notebooks again. The pages weren’t dated, and a lot of it didn’t make much sense. There were many lists with lines crossed out, but they didn’t describe things ‘to do,’ more like an endless inventory of concepts and feelings. The thought patterns were totally abstract, and Mickey couldn’t really make heads or tails of them. It hit him sharply in the chest when he realized that when Ian had been out of it, he’d really and truly been fucking out of it. These seemed like the crazed rantings of an unmedicated schizophrenic babbling on public transportation. It pained Mickey to the core, and it scared the shit out of him too.

He flipped through it fairly quickly, then opened the next one. It seemed to be calmer, more legible, and less unintelligible. It was more like a diary with bad poetry sprinkled in, and it only took a few pages for Mickey’s own name to jump out at him among the wall of words. It must have been written during Ian’s lost months, after going AWOL from the Army when he was 17.

He described running away from Chicago, scamming his early enlistment, crashing and burning his way out of bootcamp, shaking and selling his ass as a club boy, snorting, smoking, and swallowing all manner of substances, and crashing anywhere from penthouses to flophouses with sexual favors sprinkled in liberally. It was like the chronicle of a person going mad and coping in all the wrong ways. It surprised Mickey how emotional it made him to read these things in vivid detail. He’d completely forgotten how worried he used to be about Ian. When he was gone, when he went missing again, and when he started doing irrational things that could’ve ended so much worse than they did.

Ian was the one that had to live out all the drama and trauma of his disorder, but Mickey was the one caught on the sidelines, not having a single clue what to do or how to fix it. He’d never felt so useless or helpless in his entire life, even through all the bullshit he’d suffered growing up with Terry as a father. Maybe it was because of his age, or how Ian made him feel a certain way he’d never felt before. He just remembered hating it, and being so fucking sad.

These pages reminded him that through the mania, Ian was a bottomless well of sadness himself.

It was tough text to get through, and more than once, he felt like maybe he shouldn’t be reading it at all. Ian had never intended for other people to see his innermost thoughts, even Mickey. But it was impossible to stop now that he’d opened that floodgate. It was like reliving a part of their shared history through the eyes of his partner in crime. It was too fascinating.

After countless pages of dark tales from the void, Mickey came upon a page that was actually addressed to him. Surely, Ian had never intended to hand it over, but it was his nonetheless.

Mickey— I never had the balls to tell you this, But you’re the only boy I’ve ever loved. I thought you loved me too, But now I’m not so sure. I’m so confused and I go back and forth, Never really knowing what to actually think, Or what the truth is. All I really realize now is that I can’t keep kissing strangers and pretending that they’re you. It took you forever to let me, And now I just do it with anyone, Cuz I don’t fucking care. I just miss you, And I wish you were here. But also, I don’t, Cuz I don’t want you to see me like this. I’m having a great time on my own adventure, But also not. You shouldn’t be a part of it right now. You’re on your own strange journey, I guess. Maybe one day we’ll be on the same road together again, And also for the first time, since we never really were.

Mickey barely had enough time to sniff and wipe away the stray tear that had fallen, when his husband’s voice startled him out of his reverie.

“You’re still up here?”

“Jesus Christ!” he cried out with a visible jolt of his body.

His head snapped toward the attic hatch, where Ian’s dumb red head was surveying the musty space. Mickey let the notebook fall from his grasp, but Ian was already climbing the rest of the way in before it occurred to him that he was about to be caught red-handed with journals that were supposed to be deeply private. He could only flip it closed and grab his beer to polish it off, before Ian was crouching in front of him and taking a seat.

“Can’t believe you actually did this for me, to be honest,” Ian said with a chuckle, glancing at the bong. “Anything left?”

“Baggie’s right there,” Mickey replied nodding his head to the left.

“Nice.”

Ian got distracted with loading a bowl, so Mickey very subtly tried to nudge Ian's notebooks aside with his foot, like maybe if they were slightly farther away, he could claim complete innocence as to knowing what they were.

He watched Ian take a couple hits before passing it to him, and Mickey welcomed the opportunity to temper his suddenly sullen mood.

“How was work?” he asked between hits, before passing back to Ian.

Ian snickered and furrowed his brow. “You never ask me about work.”

Mickey shrugged. “Don’t mean I don’t care.”

“Uh huh.” Ian looked even more skeptical, and finally glanced around at what Mickey had in his vicinity. That sent his brow up high, in a decent imitation of Mickey’s usual expressiveness. “Oh. That my box?”

Mickey gulped and nodded. “Yeah. Just sorting it out. Should’ve just left the whole thing for ya. Sorry.”

Ian’s gaze snapped to his face. “You read stuff.”

It was a statement rather than a question.

“Just a little,” Mickey admitted. “I shouldn’t have. Fuck, I’m an asshole.”

But Ian only shook his head. “Nah, it’s okay.”

“You don’t have to say that. I’d be pissed.”

“I’m not. I promise.”

“Really? You’re not mad?”

Ian shook his head again. “No. Actually, I’m kinda relieved.”

“How the fuck so?”

“It's all stuff I wanted you to know. I mean, part of me used to be really ashamed, maybe still is, but… another part of me always just wanted to be totally honest with you. In a way I haven’t ever been with anyone. Even Lip. But I didn’t have the words to say it, you know? And I know a lot of it is just scary rambling. I don’t even understand what some of it means, but the stuff that’s real… the lucid stuff… it’s depressing as fuck, but it’s the truth. We didn’t always tell each other the truth, but we showed each other. And this was something I couldn’t really show you. So maybe you were meant to find these. Do my dirty work for me.”

“Damn, Gallagher, that’s kinda heavy. These were… kinda heavy. Made me feel shit I’d forgotten about, you know?”

Ian nodded. “Yeah. I haven’t read ‘em in years, but I remember. It’s why I wanted to put ‘em away, I guess. Plus, I didn’t want someone else snooping around and finding out too much. I mean, you never know in this house. It’s possible every fucking Gallagher already read them, but I hope not.”

“Ian…” Mickey started, but didn’t know exactly what he wanted to say. Words of reassurance? It was all in the past, and Ian was doing so well now. He was diligent about his medication, and he hadn’t spun out of control since before prison. Anything Mickey said now would just be cold comfort, since that notebook version of Ian barely existed anymore. Ian was always afraid that it would recur, but Mickey wasn’t. They were truly in it together now, and he’d never let Ian cross the threshold into the uncontrollable. “I wish I coulda been what you needed me to be back then. However impossible it was. Some of it was my fault.”

“It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t even my fault, really. It was some shitty shit that happened to me. I reacted the only way I thought I could. There’s no use in either of us wishing we’d done things differently now. At least we got the right outcome, right? We’re together.” He clasped their left hands so that their wedding rings touched. “Forever.”

Mickey couldn’t help but snort. “Okay, you didn’t have to get that gay about it. I already had to suffer through a buncha your faggy teen poetry. I deserve a break from the high drama of it all.”

Ian laughed, kissed his hand, dropped it, then smacked him on the cheek. “Fuck you.”

“Just say when,” Mickey responded with a smile.

“After we go through all this shit, Romeo. Explain the piles.”

“Well,” said Mickey, pointing to the nearby corner, “Carl has a shitload of contraband in there. Weapons, not drugs. Frank has some shit that might be S&M gear, not sure, then aside from your lunatic journal ramblings, everything else is boring as shit. Oh, and Fiona left a big blue dildo.”