Epilogue One Year Later

It hadn't taken as much as Ian had thought it would to make Svetlana forgive him for leaving. Mickey had called her up one day and been exasperated with the way she was talking about the love of his life, and had said, "You know, we couldn't have caught Boyanov without Ian's help."

"Fine. You bring orange boy to dinner Sunday. I make nice," she said.

And surprisingly, she had.

Mandy had taken longer, but soon enough she, too, was in Ian's fanclub again. Even Mickey's former fuckbuddy Andy liked Ian, and Ian had reluctantly conceded that Andy was not a threat in any way to his and Mickey's happiness.

Because Mickey? He was making all of Ian's teenaged fantasies of the person Mickey could become come true daily. He treated Ian the way Ian had always wanted him to, but he hadn't lost that Mickey edge that Ian craved.

And they'd finally moved into the new house, with the studio and the pool, and room for both the kids to stay as long as they wanted to.

Mickey had been asked to go to police training and become a cop for real, but he couldn't bring himself to do it, so he remained at the police force in a civilian capacity. He couldn't join the union so he wasn't paid as much as he could have been, but he also didn't have to narc on anyone he didn't want to or call himself a cop. Stupid as that sounded, it was worth the disparity in pay to Mickey, and Ian didn't mind one way or the other.

Ian's internet career never made him rich, but he had a limited kind of fame and enough income to help out around the house. And he loved the house. Ian had never considered himself particularly materialistic, but having a house where his family could visit him, and Mickey's kids could have friends over without being ashamed, made him really proud.

He and Mickey even had a few dinner parties, although Mickey wouldn't let him call them that.

The Gallaghers were still fuckups. Lip had a few run-ins with the law and had to bow his head and ask Mickey to use his connections with the police to help out, and Mickey hadn't even been all that smug about helping.

Like Mickey had said all those years ago, they took care of each other: thick and thin, good times, bad, sickness, health, all that shit.