It's finally my turn to post my Big Bang! It's my first venture into this fandom, actually, and I'm pretty proud of what I've written. I thought it would be a bit longer, but I'm a really slow writer so it just wasnt happening.

The art (link in my profile) was done by the fantastic dooberlane - it looks great! Thank you so much for making it 3

I'd also like to personally thank milominderbinder, who set up the big bang, and magnetic dice. They've both been amazingly supportive throughout it, and I'm not sure if I would've been able to write my fic without our conversations and word wars. Thanks guys! You're the best! 3 (Also, go and read their big bang fics - they're pretty damn amazing too.)

Mickey doesn't count the days after Ian leaves. He doesn't know it's been three days when Lip comes knocking at their door, asking after his brother; a week when it's his younger sister; almost two when the eldest comes to ask questions he doesn't know how to answer.

"Ian went to enlist, didn't he?" Mandy asks him after he's closed the door in Fiona's face, and he can hear her stomping her feet down the porch. "You should've told her."

"I don't have to tell her anything," Mickey says, pushing past her. Mandy warily looks at him from the doorway. "It's not my problem if Gallagher wants to get shot full of lead." He doesn't see her shake her head, but he hears the front door open and close, not too quietly. The sound of her heels clicking on the sidewalk quickly fades, and Mickey lets himself fall backwards on the couch.

Everyone's on his case to do something, but fuck if he knows what. He's a married man now, right? Or whatever goes for married these days, when he doesn't even sleep in the same bed, has't slept with his wife since- He rubs a hand over his face, frowning when stubble scrapes over his palm. He should've shaved this morning, but Svetlana was occupying the bathroom and he'd forgotten when Iggy had approached him. The O'Donnell brothers owed them a couple of grand for one reason or another, and they'd said one time too often they'd really get the money this time, really, they would!

Of course that's what they'd say if they stood opposite the infamous Milkoviches. Scared shitless that they'd even smile the wrong way, they were, so Mickey and Iggy had ended up taking some of their guns off their hands. "They probably don't even know how to use them!" Iggy had joked, and Mickey had thought he finally had that again, family he could count on, no matter what.

Who was he kidding, though? Terry hadn't hesitated to go in for the kill, and neither would Iggy, or any of his other brothers, for that matter. It's a good thing they don't know, he thinks while lighting a smoke. He has a wife, a kid on the way that he doesn't want – isn't even sure of if it's his, but hey, life's grand. He's not dead. Terry reminds him his skinny ass should be grateful for that every day. And it's not as if firecrotch is around to pound some sense into him.

He smokes his cigarette till it nearly burns his fingers, and watches the smoke trail to the ceiling in the ashtray while he lights up a new one. Svetlana walks out of the bedroom and settles herself next to him on the couch, although not too close. Close enough to steal a cigarette out of his pack, though.

"Hey, buy your own," he snaps, irritably.

Her stare is leveled at him, calmer than he feels. "You take care of both of us. I and the baby."

"The baby needs no fucking smoke in its lungs," Mickey says. When do babies grow lungs anyway? It's not even a baby anyway. It probably still looks like a peanut.

Svetlana takes a few more drags, stands up and moves back into the bedroom with the cigarette still between her fingers. He can hear her mess around, and a few minutes after that she leaves, slamming the door behind her. Probably for that place posing as a spa. Not that he cares.

Later that night, when she has returned, she says, "We are married, but you are not happy," Mickey tries to roll over in his sleeping bag, away from her, but her hand on his arm stops him. "This boy, he worries you, no?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," he grits out, but she doesn't relent, not like she did at first, when he couldn't even look at her.

"He'll come back," she says, her voice quiet. "For you."

"Yeah, sure," Mickey mumbles. When has anyone ever done that for him?

"You want him to take you away, yes?" He doesn't reply, hope that if he ignores it, she'll go away. But she's in his bed every night, looking at him, staring at him, even when he snarls at her to keep her eyes to herself, if she wants them to stay in her head. "Far, far away," she continues. "So memories can no longer touch you." Her voice is getting softer behind him, like she is close to falling asleep.

Maybe he does want to forget. Maybe it'd be better. He sighs, and works up an arm underneath his head, the thought settling in his mind while he drifts to sleep.

When he wakes, Svetlana is gone, but he remembers what she said. That morning, he takes a walk, steps over empty beer cans and bottles, a stray gun someone probably forgot. They know not to let that shit all over the house, in case the cops come over, but they do it anyway. He drops it into his drawer, grabs the nearly empty bottle of milk out of the fridge and finishes it while he jogs off the porch, throwing it into the yard with the other junk when he's done.

He's heard about the clinic, obviously. Everyone's heard of it; it's no big secret that it's there, nestled between a bike store and empty house with boarded up windows. He might have walked past it once or twice, on the way to the Kash and Grab. Joey said he'd been there once, to forget his first girlfriend, but when he'd asked him about it later he hadn't even known what he was talking about – it must've worked. He sits across the street for a while, watches people walk in and out, always looking over their shoulder while he smokes a couple of cigarettes right to the filter before he crushes them underneath his heel. He looks left, then right, and crosses the street to the clinic with the flickering neon lights that advertise 100 percent success.

It kind of looks like a dentists office. Clean, sterile, and blindingly white to his eyes. He squints once or twice, and takes in the empty waiting room. None of the chairs look sturdy enough to sit down on, plastic breaking off at all sides. The few stray magazines lying around are all from last year, or earlier, and the table at the far end is a sad excuse for a desk, but as long as they get the job done, he doesn't really give a damn.

"Yeah?" the woman behind the desk asks him when he approaches.

"I, uh, want an appointment?" he starts, scratching at his cheek while he tries to look anywhere but her face caked with make-up, her eyelashes thick and the blush on her cheeks unnatural underneath the fluorescent lighting.

"With who?" she asks, decidedly unimpressed with his appearance, but this is the South side, she shouldn't be expecting better than this.

"Whoever's available in this shithole," he replies.

"Depends on what you want to have done," she says, her tone bored. "We offer relationships, family members, colleagues-"

"Relationship," he interrupts, "it's about a relationship." He's not going to go into details about this, doesn't want her to know why he's here. It's not anyone's business but his own.

"Isn't it always?" She sighs. "We have room for a normal appointment in about two months."

"I don't have two fucking months!" He doesn't want to sit on that couch, day after day, week after week, knowing what happened on it. He doesn't want to keep staring at the door Ian disappeared through, mouthing words he couldn't say – that he still wouldn't be able to, probably. He's a pussy, and he knows it.

"You've survived this long, haven't you?" she deadpans. "Do you want me to pencil you in or not?"

"Sure, fine, whatever." Any appointment is better than no appointment at all.

"Name?"

"Mickey."

"Last name?"

"None of your business."

"All right, Mickey none of my business, come back in two months on the 18th, around 9 in the morning. Will you be paying cash or check?"

"Cash," he gruffly says, pushing his hands into his pockets.

"That'll be 800 dollars paid in cash. Or do you have a problem with that as well?" She looks up at him in a way she thinks is probably sweet, but it's more condescending than anything else.

"I'll get it." He knows it doesn't look like he can, because every other person here is dirt poor. If he manages to scrounge up 800 dollars, no one's gonna question where he got it, as long as they get paid. He's actually surprised this place hasn't had a run in with the cops yet, with the way they're blatantly advertising. Who knows, maybe they're actually legal?

When he steps through the door, he thinks he just has to get through these two months. How bad is that going to be? He's in a foul mood when he gets home, kicks the refrigerator shut when he gets a beer, nearly runs into Mandy when he saunters back into the living room. "Move, asshole," she says, and he grunts some reply in return. She rolls her eyes at him and he flips her off, popping off the lid before he takes a sip. Can't forget just yet, but alcohol is a perfectly good replacement.

He thinks he spends the next two or three weeks perpetually drunk of his ass, smoking in his bed and throwing up in the toilet bowl when his stomach doesn't agree with him. At some point he doesn't even remember why he even started drinking, just mechanically unscrews tops, cracks open cans, until Mandy has seen enough and kicks him into the shower.

"You fucking stink," she tells him, turning on the cold shower while he's still wearing his clothes. She shuts the door behind her, hard, and Mickey shivers, wide awake now.

She throws a pair of jeans and a shirt he's sure is Iggy's into the bathroom, and reluctantly he gets dressed, a towel damply hanging from his shoulders. His wet clothes are thrown into a corner, and on bare feet he pads into the living room, where Mandy is watching the TV with a plate on her lap. "There's more eggs if you want them," she tells him without tearing her eyes from the screen, and slowly he makes his way into the kitchen, finding a plate of scrambled eggs waiting for him, already cooled down.

He pours a generous amount of ketchup over them and starts eating while walking back. Mandy's watching some dumb show about women in wedding dresses, and she makes a face at his plate covered in ketchup. When he's done, he puts his dirty plate in the sink and leaves the house. It's been at least six weeks since Ian left. As far as he knows, no one's heard of him. He takes his time strolling underneath the El, kicking up stones and pebbles, and almost bites down on his own tongue when someone calls out, "Hey! Milkovich!"

"What do you want?" he grunts out when Lip Gallagher comes jogging up from behind him, finally catching up.

"Still not dead, huh?" he says, and Mickey frowns. "Guess nothing can really kill a Milkovich."

"The fuck are you going on about?" Mickey asks.

"Oh, you know," Lips says, "you, Ian, my brother leaving, the two of you fucking-" He ducks just in time to avoid Mickey's fist, but is too late for him to avoid the knee digging into his stomach. He doubles over, and Mickey kicks him to the ground.

"Shut up!" he spits out. "Shut the fuck up. I'm not some- some fucking-"

"Faggot," Lip says, and this is the exact thing you should never say to Mickey Milkovich. Not on any other day, at least. He stumbles back and wipes his mouth, his eyes wide. "Hit too close to home, huh?" Lip continues, undeterred. "Ian still hasn't come home, hasn't sent anything but a lousy text message, telling us he's 'fine' and 'doing great'. Where did he go, Mickey?"

"Why do you think I'd know that?"

Lip scrambles up from the dirt, touching his nose and frowning when his fingers come back bloody. "If there's anyone he would have told... sad to say, it's probably you."

"He'll come back, eventually," Mickey said. "He's southside." He slipped a cigarette between his lips. "Once southside, always southside."

"How poetic," Lip drily said. "Now are you gonna help me out, or are you gonna be an ass forever?"

Mickey rolls his eyes. "The army, okay? He thought he could sign his underage ass up for the army. Said he had a way around it." He pauses to take a drag. "Haven't heard from him since. He probably doesn't want to see my face anyway."

"Shit." Lip runs a hand over his face. "He probably didn't mention how he was gonna pull that one off, did he?"

"Nope," Mickey says. "You got any more questions? I've got stuff to do." He watches Lip walk across the street, then disappear behind a few blocks of houses. Stuff to do, yeah. Probably getting drunk again, or high. He snorts, and crushes his cigarette beneath his boot. The only one who really cares about that crap is Mandy, anyway, and that's only because she wants her best friend back. Somehow she's convinced Mickey can do that – it's his fault Ian's gone, after all.

Eventually, he makes his way back to the Milkovich house. Mandy is no longer sitting on the couch, as his dad is once again passed out and occupying it, several empty beer bottles scattered around. Mickey kicks one of them aside, and slams the door to his room shut. He won't care about getting Ian back in a matter of weeks. Soon enough, he won't even care about Ian at all. It's just what he needs. To forget.

The weeks pass terribly slowly. The minutes crawl by, hours are like days. Mickey knows he's waiting. For some kind of end, or closure, or whatever the hell people call that shit about sharing your feelings and feeling better. Mickey doesn't need to talk, or visit some therapist sticking their nose where it doesn't belong.

He doesn't need them to tell him anything, because he already knows. It's like the pain has rooted itself so deeply inside of him, the only way to get rid of it is to weed out the entire plant. He can't look around his house without remembering stuff he'd rather not. He couldn't even look at the couch, at first, preferred staring straight past it, because he could recall all too well how it had felt underneath his bare skin. Now, he sits down at it like none of it ever happened, like it's already been erased from his memory.

He can't get rid of the other reminders, though. Svetlana still lives in this house, stares at him intensely when she thinks he doesn't notice, as if she can pull thoughts from his mind simply by looking at him. Not like he's ever gonna tell her anything. She already knows enough. Too much.

Mickey spends his time convincing himself it's better. Gallagher isn't gonna come back, he fucked off to the army for who knows how long, and he needs to look after himself. But no matter how often he keeps telling himself that, he doesn't really believe it. After all, if he'd done that in the first place, he wouldn't be where he is right now. He wouldn't even be considering erasing his fucking memories, he knows. Fuck it all. Fuck everything. If Gallagher hadn't left, he wouldn't even be thinking about this.

Subconsciously, he rubs at his wedding ring, twisting it over his ring finger. He knew this marriage was a sham, he'd fucking been there. It doesn't mean anything, not to Mickey at least, and still...

He needs to do this. It's not worth it to waste time being hung up over Gallagher's ass. He didn't love him, it wasn't anything more than a good fuck every once in a while. Besides, he'll always be stuck here. Like he told Lip, weeks ago. Once southside, always southside. And no one's gonna change that.

When the eighteenth rolls around, finally, he feels strangely apprehensive. He's about to get wiped. He can finally have a clean slate. Start over. Mostly, anyway. Sometimes he wonders what it'd be like, to live in some other place where no one knows him, where no one knows the Milkoviches. If he ever shared the fantasy with anyone, they'd laugh in his face.

That morning, he gets dressed. He wears a clean shirt, for once, pulls on the cleanest pair of pants he owns. He leaves the house before anyone else is even up. It's only seven, so it's way too early, but he hasn't been able to sleep, staring at the ceiling, waiting for morning to roll around. When the clock showed 6.30, he finally had had enough and got out of bed.

He nicks some baked bread from a supermarket, then slowly makes his way to the street where the clinic is. People hurry over the sidewalk to get to their morning shifts, occasionally bumping into him. His scarf swings from one side to the other, and he takes a bite out of the bread, tearing a piece off with his teeth.

"Hey, watch where you're going," he snaps at one person nearly running him over. Fucking pedestrians, he thinks when he gets the finger in return.

He takes position across the street from the clinic, staring at the door. Lights are still off, no one's there yet. He has no idea when they do open up, maybe only around nine. Or eight? Who knows. He doesn't have a watch, so he has no idea what time it is. But he can see the clock hanging in the office, so he knows it's still way too early. He's never nervous for anything, usually, but this? He almost wishes he was still home, in bed. But it's too late to turn back now.

A few minutes before nine, when the light has been on inside for a while, he pushes the door to the clinic open, money sitting in his pocket. The same woman is sitting behind the makeshift desk. "Do you have an appointment?" she asks, and he nods. "Name?"

"Mickey."

"Oh, yes. Mickey none of my business." She briefly smiles, for the first time. "I assume you have the money?" He nods once more, and digs into his pocket to get the wad of cash out. She finally gets up, counts the bills – all fifty dollar ones – and nods approvingly when it's the right amount. "Doctor Jenkins will be with you shortly. You can sit and wait for him here." She nods in the directing of the plastic chairs surrounding a small table with out-of-date magazines.

The chair protests when he sits down, and he fidgets with the hem of his shirt while he waits for the guy that's supposed to help him. He knows how it works. The guy will ask him to sign a form, they inject him with some stuff that'll apparently make him hallucinate, and when he wakes up, his memories will be gone. Sounds simple enough. As long as he has no hangover, or weird side-effects, or an allergic reaction, he should be fine.

A bald man with a large red beard enters the room through a door behind the desk, and smiles broadly because (Mickey assumes) a client is right on time, for once. "Follow me," he says.

The back room isn't brightly lit, doesn't look like a doctor's office at all. There are two lamps on either side of a couch, a comfortable chair next to it. A large cabinet sits against the wall beside the door. "Have a seat," the doctor points. When he sits down, he immediately sinks too far into the couch, the springs overused. One of them is poking him in the leg.

"My name is Dr. Jenkins, as you might know. We set this facility up here in order to help people, and to-"

"Cut the crap and get to the point," Mickey says, and crosses his arms. The doctor smiles again, and it's starting to annoy Mickey. Like he's having some kind of in-joke, privately making fun of him. He certainly doesn't look like he should be living here, with his nice smile and glasses and carefully folded hands.

"Since you're so eager to start," the doctor continues while he stands up, "I assume you know what we're doing here." He opens the cabinet next to the door, and, as Mickey had predicted earlier, takes out a wad of papers. When he's signed his name on them a dozen times ("Liability," the doctor explains, as if Mickey's never heard of that), they can finally get started with what he's here for.

"I do have to ask, once more: are you sure about this?"

"Yeah," is the only thing Mickey says. 's Not like firecrotch is gonna walk through that door anytime soon, he thinks.

The leather couch is cold and sticks to the bare skin of his arms. The doctor, or medical examiner or whatever the fuck he is reaches for the side-table, puts on some latex gloves, and ties off Mickey's arm while he warily watches him.

"I encourage you to lie down," the man says, the bristles of his moustache moving as he speaks. "The experience is disorienting for most people, and some become dizzy or nauseous while the medication does its work." The doctor raises an eyebrow at him when he doesn't move, and Mickey drags his legs up the couch, shoes included.

He knows it's dangerous, what he's about to do. Can't tell what's in the bottle the guy just drew the needle from, flicking the needle twice before he re-seats himself at Mickey's side. It's better than a back alley wipe, though. At least here he's fairly certain the needles are clean and they know what they're doing.

The needle sliding into his arm is only painful for a few seconds, before he finds himself getting used to the sensation. A wad of cotton balls is pressed to the inside of his elbow when the doctor finishes, tying it off with some medical tape. He stands up, Mickey sees him deposit the needle in a box.

The room tilts dangerously, the lamp hanging above the floor brightening, and Mickey squints his eyes, trying to get the room to stop spinning. He tries to pull himself into a sitting position, but finds himself pressed back down again into the pillow.

"You're a stubborn one, aren't ya?" he hears the doctor say, but he can't see him, only hears the smile in his voice. "Didn't I tell you you need to stay down?"

"Fuck off," Mickey says, but this time he stays low. Ian stands in the doorway, watching him, a scarf wrapped around his neck.

"Don't what?" he asks, and something in Mickey's chest tightens, curdles his insides while he tries to choke out the words he knows he should've said a long time ago. Instead, Ian shakes his head disappointedly, and disappears down the hall.

"No!" Mickey calls after him, hears the ticking of the clock, the squelch of the doctor's leather shoes on the tile. "Don't... don't go."

"I'm not going anywhere, Mick," Ian says from between his bare legs, and Mickey blinks, looks back up to the doorway where Ian just disappeared. Ian's still sitting there when he looks back to him, one of his hands touching Mickey's bare knee. He remembers this.

They're not supposed to be on a couch, but some kind of table, and Mickey can see the light reflecting in Gallagher's hair, turning it a bright orange. "The fuck are you doing?" His mouth moves on its own, and Ian smiles widely.

"Nothing."

Mickey finds himself shaking his head, because fuck if this is nothing, but he still gives in, his fingers curling against the table cold underneath his bare ass. It's kind of ridiculous, he finds himself thinking, how easy it is for Ian to just lift him up, to put him wherever he likes, to make him do whatever he wants.

"Hello, boys."

Mickey stops breathing. If he keeps his eyes closed, none of it is real. Not Frank's self-satisfied smile at their shocked expressions, the fear of being found out, the Gallagher patriarch running his mouth off to whoever is drunk enough to listen.

When he opens his eyes again, Ian is gone, along with the Kash and Grab and the drink cooler and the peeling wall behind his back. He yawns, feeling drowsy, and moves to lie down. Instead, he rolls onto his front on his own bed, in his own bedroom. Confused, he looks up. "Gallagher?"

"The gun, Mickey," Ian grits out, holding out his crowbar as a weapon.

"Yeah, yeah," he says, and crawls up, reaching for the nightstand until he turns and launches himself at the redhead in the bedroom.

Instead of being thrown against the wall, though, Ian laughs against his ear. "D'you really want me that much?"

What? Mickey thinks, but says, "Shut the fuck up. Get on the bed." Ian raises an eyebrow at him, makes a slow deliberate show of taking off his shirt, like it's something Mickey hasn't seen before.

"You wanna chit chat some more, or get on me?" Ian parrots him, putting his arms behind his head. Mickey finds himself grinning, turns to get the lube from the nightstand and the sunlight is so bright he closes his eyes for a second.

"Can you and sergeant slaughter over help me out with some cases of pop?" Lip Gallagher says, approaching the two of them standing by the register. Mickey listens to the two brothers talk, knows he's supposed to say something here, knows he did, he just can't remember what it was. It's warm inside the store, even next to the coolers, and he longs to just grab a beer and lean back, but he still has work for another few hours, and towelhead won't appreciate him taking anything – he knows she just said so.

The last few boxes and crates are lifted into the ice-cream van, and Ian rolls the back shut while Mickey walks back to the register, the two kids attempting to stuff candy into their pockets long gone. Stupid brats. Even he knew at that age you had to be stealthier than that to get anything. If you weren't, you just had to use your fists to get the point across. Case in point: Frank Gallagher, Ian's good for nothing dad. Mickey only has to raise an eyebrow at him before he hastily retreats, and Mickey rolls his eyes before leaning against the counter.

"So," Ian says, and Mickey continues to browse through his magazine. He knows something is off, like somebody is creeping up on him, just behind his back, but there's no one in the store beside him and Gallagher – and who in their right mind would sneak up on Mickey Milkovich, anyway?

"So what?" Mickey replies.

"You doing anything tonight?" Ian asks, flipping a page, his question so casual he might as well be asking what Mickey had for breakfast this morning.

"Why?" Mickey asks, suspicious. "You asking me out on a date?"

Ian finally looks up, looking far too amused. "Wouldn't dream of it."

"You better not," Mickey mutters.

"Just heard the new Expendables movie came out, and wondered if you wanted to sneak in the back to watch it?"

"So no one's buying anything? No boyfriend and girlfriend stuff?"

"Nope."

Still, Ian looks far too happy when Mickey agrees to go, with the excuse he really wants to see some stuff blown up.

But the door that opens isn't the door to the Kash and Grab, but the front door of the Milkovich house, just as Ian is bowed forward over him. They scramble away from each other, and fear scratches the inside of Mickey's throat. He's gonna kill him – he's gonna kill them both he knows it. He doesn't think twice when he jumps on Terry's back to get him off Ian, doesn't think at all – he should get away, and if there's such a thing as saving in the southside, this is the closest thing to saving somebody Mickey's ever been.

"Shit, are you okay?" Ian asks, leaning over him, the lighting fluorescent and painful to Mickey's eyes.

"Fuck, my leg," Mickey groans. Kash is still standing there, with the gun raised in his hand, his eyes wide and disbelieving. Mickey hadn't even noticed that the first time around, too focused on the pain and Ian, being in shock (Jesus Christ, who shoots someone over a Snickers bar?).

"You're gonna be fine," Ian is saying, his face hovering above Mickey's.

Mickey closes his eyes, and when he opens them, he's looking into Svetlana's eyes, the pain in his leg gone. Her hand is tightly grasping his own, and when he dares to look left, he can see Ian from the corner of his eye, hurt and angry. Svetlana is the complete opposite, excited and, shit, she's radiating happiness. It's just a piece of paper, he reminds himself. Nothing but words, their signatures. As if the bitch can even compare to-

"-he's not afraid to kiss me." Mickey fingers the gun in his hand, itching to pull the trigger again. He doesn't, however, not with Ian staring up expectantly, almost daring him to do it, right now. Mickey Milkovich is many things, but he ain't a pussy. He swings himself off the roof and tucks the gun into the back of his pants. Ian smirks, looking like he's proved himself right, once more. And yeah, maybe Mickey can't afford room service, but at least he's no old man with trouble getting it up. He doesn't even pretend to not check out Gallagher's ass when he bends over to tie his shoelaces. Yeah, he doesn't have any trouble with that at all.

When Gallagher looks back over his shoulder, he takes no time in striding over, blocking the sunlight with his large ginger head. Mickey squints, and in a second or two, Gallagher's hair gets longer and he actually shrinks until they're the same height again; they're in Mickey's room and he's actually leaning forward when Mickey says, "Kiss me and I'll cut your fucking tongue out."

Ian doesn't try again, simply walks out the door as if he belongs there. Mickey scowls, and drops back down on his bed. What the fuck did he get himself into now?

"Easy now," a voice says close to his ear. Mickey swats his hand around, but another hand wraps around his wrist and brings it back down, and instinct sets in before he can even think, throwing his weight off his bed (since when is he lying down on a couch?), grabbing the collar of a man with a moustache.

"Who the hell do you think you are?" he growls, and only then notices the strange surroundings. "Where the fuck am I? Did you bring me here?"

"You came here of your own accord, Mickey," the man calmly says. "You came to wipe your memory of someone you knew." Why would he do that? He doesn't know anyone worth wiping. And he still remembers his wife, his sister, and the rest of his shitty family.

"Don't think it worked," he says, slowly lifting himself off the man.

"You'll know soon enough," the man says, and hands over a bucket. Mickey looks at him suspiciously. "Trust me, you'll need it."

He makes to get up from the floor, and quickly has to sit down again when the contents off his stomach come up and he throws up everything he ate that morning into the bucket. Shakily, he wipes his mouth off when he's done, doing nothing but occasionally dry heave. "You got the time?" he asks when he's drank a glass of water to get rid of the foul taste in his mouth.

"Nearly eleven," the man says. Mickey doesn't like the way he's smiling, like he knows something Mickey doesn't. "If there are any other complications, don't hesitate to call me." Mickey stuffs the man's card into his pocket, and nearly throws himself out of the building. It's the smell, he thinks, it's the smell that must've made him queasy. Not the feeling that somehow, there is an itch he can't quite scratch, can't reach, far inside his head.