It only happens because one of the whores Svetlana works with gave her a box of crayons for the kid but he's too young to use them so the box ends up just sitting on the table.

And maybe Mickey likes to draw occasionally, when he's bored and is too high or too fucked up to sleep and the couch is cold and smells of meth and he doesn't want to sleep besides anyone that night and can't curl up like his mother's dead body (on the same fucking cushions, how fucked up is that? Terry had preferred to get drunk instead of getting a new couch, 5 year old Mickey had seen him passed out and hated himself when he wished that it had been Terry he had found cold and pale.)

But drawing doesn't make him a faggot. Just like being bottom doesn't make him a bitch and Ian being ginger make him soulless. Or whatever crap they were spouting about gingers now, Mickey had no idea because growing up on the Southside didn't make you all that bothered about that shit. People were more bothered about where they were getting their next meal from.

So maybe, one night when he can't sleep next to Ian's still form any longer without going fucking nuts, he just grabs the box of crayons and flicks to the cleanest page in the notebook he hides under his bed, behind the porn mags of naked women. He doesn't mean to, he was aiming for the pack of cigarettes but they were empty so he chose the next best thing to stop his shaking hands.

It doesn't make him a faggot.

Neither does the pictures of Ian that grow in frequency towards the back of the used pages. He's drawn Mandy, and Iggy and Joey and Jamie and Tony lots of times, once he even drew his Mom. It doesn't make him a faggot or any of the other things his Dad would yell at him if he was around.

Mickey only draws at night, when he wants to forget the hell that is his life and he can't sleep. What he draws depends whether things have been good or bad.

If things have been bad- meaning Terry is even more of an abusive asshole than normal and Mandy is looking more and more like their Mom towards the end of her life, with bruises and pale skin and fragile wrists and Iggy has been almost constantly high or drunk, slumped on the ratty old couch looking so much like their Mom that Mickey sometimes has to run to the bathroom to puke his guts up- then he scribbles and Ian is pissed off with him again because he's in love with a right fucktwat. He makes harsh black lines on the white page, thick and ink running like the lines of red on paper skin and dribbles of puke over once beautiful lips. He draws bruised eyes and shadows with long sharp claws tearing at small, tearful figures and the safe his Dad used to keep his guns in; he draws it locked and looming, hides his deepest feelings and fears inside it so his Dad can't get to them.

If things have been good- meaning Terry is locked up (and yes, Mickey is aware of how fucked up it is to be happy your Dad is in prison) and Mandy is taking a break from shagging half the fucking neighbourhood and her skin has had time to heal and she looks happier than their Mom ever did and Iggy is spending his time (relatively) sober and maybe even some of his other brothers are crashing at the place for a while and he's having something alright with Ian. He draws carefully and meticulously, lines precise and occasionally, not often, he's a bit proud of what the end result is. He makes pictures of smiles and hands covered by hands wrapped round one of the shelves at the Kash'n'Grab and lines showing a tangle of limbs belonging to mellow high brothers surrounded by a soundtrack of laughter and murmurs and happy, unbruised eyes framed by a black fringe.

Lately, he's been drawing Ian a lot more. Not him, because he can't risk anyone finding out if they somehow wade through the junk underneath his bed, but him. Sort of. Mickey once filled a page with red and orange and yellow layered on top of each other, literally made sure there was no white showing at all so that it looked exactly like Ian's hair when they once fucked on a roof as the sun set. He draws eyes the exact same colour green as Ian's eyes look when he smiles and the way his lashes fan out over freckles as he sleeps.

One time, he drew a small, bony hand with 'FUCK' on the knuckles linking fingers with longer, soft digits and another night he drew 'FUCK U-UP' surrounded by careful sketches of things he sees when he thinks of family. Mickey doesn't even try to pretend that the first thing he drew wasn't related to Ian.

One very late night- after his marriage to Svetlana and Ian had left and Mickey had spent the previous hours smoking on the bathroom floor in an effort to stay awake and avoid the memories of the day it all fucked up- he drew something he was immediately ashamed of.

He drew family, properly this time, with faces and bodies and it even included his Mom and no Terry. He coloured it in too, like a Goddamn fucking fairy, though God fucking knows where the pencils he found had actually come from. They had been the cheap, not even a dollar, try to sharpen them and they break every fucking time sort in a flimsy plastic wallet and cardboard label simply saying 'Coloured Pencils'. But they had been enough.

And when Mandy had rapped on the bathroom door in the morning, shouting at him to 'stop being a fucking douchebag, Mickey!', he had realised just what the fuck it was he had drawn on the page and felt even shittier than he had since his Dad had caught him and Ian.

Mickey had stormed out of the bathroom, ignoring the ache that came from sitting on the tiles all fucking night and hadn't listened to Mandy yelling obscenities after him. He'd gone straight past where Svetlana was in the kitchen and out of the house to under the El, picture ripped from his notebook and crumpled in his hand and lighter in his pocket and eventually he had broken into a run, chest tight and breathing slow and he hadn't calmed down until the picture was burned to ashes and he had smoked through half the cigarettes in his pocket.

And he told himself that he wasn't a faggot. He had burned the stupid fucking picture; no one knew it had ever existed apart from him. No one even knew that occasionally he drew but him. He wasn't a faggot.

This night, he draws things again, draws family with 'FUCK U-UP' in the middle surrounded by the things that he thinks of when he thinks of family and he even includes his Mom and Svetlana and even the kid who he wants to be a good dad to- he isn't Terry, he might not be able to change the fact that the Southside is fucked up and the people who live there even more so, but he can change the cycle of abuse the Milkoviches have been living in for generations.

Mickey tells himself that, so long as he never draws anything like he did that night, then its fine. He isn't a faggot.

He shoves the notebook underneath the couch as soon as he's finished and then curls up into a tiny ball, back pressed into the cushions and if he screws his eyes up tight enough and ignores the snores and noises of people sleeping who are not his brothers and Terry and tries to forget of the tiny little bundle of pure in the crib upstairs, he can almost pretend that he's five years old again, and it's months until 2 months before his 6th birthday and his Mom is still alive and still singing that stupid fucking 'Savage Garden' song about the sky falling down in a voice broken from years of abuse and drug use.

~0~

Ian is now on a 'high' again and it's so different from the past 2 months of 'low' that Mickey is struggling to adjust, because it's slightly scary how different he is and how in just 3 or 4 days he can be just like he was before. But, hey, Mickey can deal, he's Mickey fucking Milkovich, he has dealt with his whole life being fucked up and him being even more fucked up. He's dealt with Terry Milkovich his whole life, he can sure as fuck deal with this.

Just maybe he can't deal with it all right now because he's currently going through something that feels like a real bad trip but he hasn't even had any beer in over a week which is a miracle in itself.

He fell asleep on the sofa (and what a relief it was to wake up in a position nowhere near resembling his Mom) and when he woke up he made sure his notebook was safely hidden and Ian had been making breakfast and Iggy was stumbling down the stairs, hung-over from the previous night of drugs and booze and Mandy had been out someplace and Svetlana had gone to work and taken the kid with her.

"Breakfast's in the kitchen!" Ian tells Mickey with a grin, red hair all spiked up and he presses a quick kiss to the thug's lips before hurrying up the stairs and giving Iggy the finger as he pretends to puke.

Iggy goes straight for the food but Mickey for once can't be fucking bothered with food- and ok, so maybe he hasn't felt all that good enough to be eating 3 meals a day for a while (ok, so he doesn't eat 3 meals a day as it is, usually just eating whenever he gets hungry. But so what? He'd grown up on less, most of the money going on booze or drugs or commisionary) but that doesn't mean anything. Ian's the one who needs looking after, with moods that are 2 extremes and nothing in-between and Mickey has no fucking idea whether he's coming or going and every time Fiona goes on a morning run with him she tries to talk to him about what the fuck is going on with his head.

Ian needs looking after, whether he want to admit it or not, and Mickey refuses to take anyone away from that task.

So when Mickey finally drags his ass into the kitchen, Ian is just coming back down the stairs with his hair still wet and dripping onto his shirt and the youngest Milkovich brother enters the kitchen to the smell of toast and pancakes and the sight of Iggy eating like food is going out of fashion, and Ian is humming a song that sounds too familiar to the stupid song his Mom used to sing and his head hurts and Mickey just really can't deal with this right now.

The world- from Mickey's perspective at least- is spinning like on one of the fair rides no one in their neighbourhood has ever been on and his head hurts like Terry's been pistol whipping him again and he feels vaguely sick. And Ian is walking round looking like he hasn't done in weeks and it's all just too much and at some point in this whirlwind Mickey realises that the feeling in his stomach isn't as vague as he first thought. Ok, so maybe he shouldn't have skipped as many meals.

And…ok, thinking of food isn't a good idea, Mickey decides as he stumbles towards the sink and retches.

His knuckles grip the grubby metal so tight the skin goes white with tension and the 'FUCK U-UP' is stark against the pale flesh and Christ, Iggy and Ian are right there, seeing all of this and it just makes it so much fucking worse than it already is and Mickey feels like crying which he hasn't done since he was fucking five because everything is fucked up.

Even more fucked up, he mentally corrects himself, because he's fucked up for life and it reminds him of all the times he's fucked up things with Ian; probably caused this damn bi-bi whatever with his fucked-up-ness, he causes a lot of shit in the neighbourhood. Doesn't end a lot else other than drug deals and beatings and maybe Ian was right, maybe he is a pussy. Mickey doesn't know. He knows that it hurts to do whatever he's doing now because he hasn't eaten properly in….a while.

"Christ, Mickey," Ian says from behind him, hands securing themselves round thin shoulders and holding him up- Mickey is kind of glad because he isn't sure his knees can hold himself up right now. The retching finally stops and the youngest Milkovich brother stumbles back slightly, the world still spinning and the redhead carefully manoeuvres him back towards the couch.

"Ain't you got something better to do than just fucking stand there?" Ian snaps at Iggy but Mickey knows what his brother looks like, even though he can't see it because everything is still whirling round like a fucking washing machine (their one leaks, and sometimes it doesn't work at all and most of the time it doesn't get used at all until Mandy has one of those days where she doesn't want to live in a shithole anymore and wants to pretend). He knows he looks almost exactly like Mom used to after waking up hung over and with bruises from where Dad had smacked her when he was drunk. He can't blame Iggy for not wanting to get involved.

"Leave him 'lone," Mickey slurs tiredly. "Need someone to go buy some more fuckin' beer and shit."

Iggy seems to take this as his cue to get the fuck outta dodge and takes his ass out the door and Mickey is kind of pleased, because he knows what it's like to watch a family member be like that and he never wants to see anything like it again.

"Fucking hell you look like shit," Ian tells him as he settles the elder onto the couch and he puts a cool, gentle hand on Mickey's forehead and Mickey is so fucking glad that whatever the fuck this 'high' of the bi-bi whatever Ian apparently has isn't making him not give a shit about him, because he doesn't think he could actually deal with this shit by himself. Ian runs off upstairs to get a blanket and pills and who knew what the fuck else he was talking about getting. The couch currently felt like heaven on fucking earth, soft and welcoming and Mickey wants to just fucking sleep.

"Here we are," Ian says- and shit, when did he come back?!- and carefully pulls a blanket over him and insistently taps pills against his lips until he eventually swallows them. The blanket is big, pooling a bit under the sofa and if Mickey was a bit more with it he might be worried about Firecrotch finding his notebook but he isn't a bit more with it so he isn't worried. "Why didn't you tell me you were feeling bad?" Ian demands and the thug can't open his eyes because then he'll see the sad disappointedin those beautiful green eyes and he's been too much of a disappointment in his life already. He's fucked for life, but that doesn't mean he has to be happy about it.

"'M fine," Mickey attempts to mumble instead and pretends his heart doesn't crack a little when he hears Ian sigh softly. Ian shouldn't be worrying about him, he's the one who needs to be looking after Ian, he's the one whose head is all fucked up and won't go to the clinic.

He expects Ian to scold him, but instead the redhead just climbs carefully onto the couch and attempts to lie down next to him; the couch might be big enough to have sex on but two fully grown men- especially one as tall as Ian- have a bit of trouble fitting in. Mickey would laugh if he had the energy- seems he's destined not to fit in anywhere in this fucking world.

The movement dislodges the bit of blanket under the couch and the notebook falls into Ian's view and Mickey hears the paper rustle and mumbles a tired 'fuck' into the grotty cushion, "Mick? What's that?"

"Fuck off, Gallagher," he replies wearily. As an afterthought, he adds: "Don't you dare fucking look inside of it."

Ian just snorts and retorts with a mutter that sounds suspiciously like 'Yeah, right' and snatches the little book without hesitation. "Did you draw these?" he asks, awed as he flicks through the pages. Because Mickey knows a lot of shit about Ian, but Ian still doesn't know all that many personal things about Mickey and he can't deny that he's curious about the man he's in (secretly) love with.

"Don't make me a fuckin' faggot," and if Mickey wasn't so obviously tired and sick he would be scary but right now he's adorable- the kind where Ian just wants to wrap him in a blanket and coddle the fuck out of him.

"Why would it?" the redhead agrees instead. He stops at the last drawing and Mickey swears again. It's the one he did the other night Ian was still low and silent and he didn't want to spend the night lying next to the still form and the little fucker's crayons had to make do instead of a 20 pack of Marlborough's. The thug shifts a bit, mentally preparing himself for a conversation full of fucking feelings but instead Ian just sets the notebook back down and whispers in his ear, "You're really good at drawing," before he manages to curl his ass around Mickey.

It's…nice, Mickey can't really remember anything tender in his life since his Mom died. She used to wrap him in blankets and sing that stupid fucking Savage Garden song about the sky falling down in a voice broken from years of abuse and drug use. "This doesn't make me a faggot," he tells Ian firmly as the younger flicks the telly on and he tries to discreetly snuggle closer to the source of warmth.

"Course it doesn't," Ian confirms with that stupid little fucking smirk on his face.

The TV is actually playing that same stupid fucking song as the credits of some fucking show roll and it doesn't sound a bit like his Mom's voice did but still.

It's nice.

"I'll be your hope I'll be your love
Be everything that you need
I'll love you more with every breath"

Goes the dude who sounds like a fucking woman and it isn't a thing like his Mom used to be, but as Mickey is drifting off to sleep, he thinks to himself that maybe that's not so bad after all.