Alone Together (Gallavich)

four

mickey

I couldn't sleep at all that night. Dad was in jail, and Iggy never came back home that day, meaning he was probably somewhere similar to dad's situation right now. When Mandy got home that night, she came into my room with only a few words and then left, slamming her door shut behind her once she was gone.

"Hey Mick, uh maybe don't kill Ian Gallagher. He's a good guy."

And just like that, Mandy broke me for the night.

That fucking Gallagher menace. His fucking red hair. His green eyes. Where they looked. What they made me feel when they weren't hiding.

What the fuck is that shit anyway?

And now on top of it, I don't have an excuse to bash his face in next time I see him. It'll be pure voluntary homicide against an innocent gay kid. Fuck, I sound like my dad.

I mean, I'm assuming he's gay. After that shit he pulled, I have no doubt in my mind that the little Irish kid's a fag. You don't have that kind of effect on someone if you're not gay.

The kind of effect he had on me. That I think I had on him.

Which would make me.... What?

I snap out of it quickly, reminding myself that it's impossible. Not with a dad like mine or in the slums like these. Ian or not, I am not fucking gay.

~

Eventually the sun was coming up again and I decided that laying in bed trying to sleep, especially when clearly that's not an option right now, isn't the best idea. I got up, putting on about three and a half layers of clothing before leaving the house.

It took about 10 minutes to walk down to the baseball field from my house; god knows why I chose to come here today considering it was the middle of November in Chicago but here I am. I pulled out a cigarette from my jacket pocket and lit it with a lighter from the other pocket as I walked across the field into the dugout where I used to sit as a kid playing little league. Luckily, it was around 6am on a Saturday, the sun barely up yet, so I was left alone by any crazy fucker who decided that baseball would still be important enough to practice when it'll give your dick frostbite. I say when the Sox are done for the year, you should be done too. Sitting down on the bench, I hoped, would give a change of scenery from my bedroom last night, but it did me no good. I still could not stop thinking about yesterday. About Ian.

Fucking Iggy. This was all his fault. If he got his head out of his ass for two seconds we wouldn't have been chased by the cops in the first place and I never would have ended up in the Gallagher house.

"Shit," I sighed out in distress. Why did I even care so much?

I don't, I tried to convince myself. I fuck chicks like Angie Zago all the time with no problem and no hesitation whatsoever. Dudes do not do it for me in any way. I'm not some little bitch who's gonna slave around and take it up the ass all day. No way. Especially not with some bastard ginger whose family is nuts and whose dad is probably on my dads never ending hit list.

I took a drag from my cigarette and let it out with a long exhale, trying my best to relax and get the things off my mind that don't belong there anymore. Leaning my head against the wall behind me and taking one last smoke of the cigarette before throwing it to the floor and putting it out, I closed my eyes and started to drift off. 

~

"Mickey?"

I rubbed my eyes open and looked around, really confused as to what was going on. In front of me I could see the fence of the dugout and the field in front of me, more snow on it than when I fell asleep. The sun was much higher in the sky and my body was struggling to keep me warm. I was laying down now on the bench with my knees pulled up to my stomach and my face pretty much buried in my big winter coat,.

"Mickey, what the hell?"

I sat up immediately at the voice calling my name, looking over to the right where I saw Ian coming down into the dugout. Quickly, I pulled a cigarette out for myself and lit it, both trying to gain some warmth but also to have a distraction.

"Did you sleep here?" He added when I gave him no response as he came down in front of me, leaning against the concrete ledge.

"The fuck are you doing here? Didn't I tell you to stay away?" I replied, not super aggressively but definitely agitated with his presence, as I smoked my cigarette and looked around trying to avoid his eyes.

"Yeah, um, I just," he stammered before stopping abruptly. I looked up at him waiting for what he was gonna say next. "Did uh, did Mandy talk to you at all, about yesterday?"

"The fuck should I tell you about what my sister and I talk about? Last time I checked you wanted nothing to do with her?"

"I just, I guess I figured it's my life possibly on the line with you. Figured I should know if I should still be hiding or not?" he answered, looking down at the floor, a little more anxious than when he first got here.

"Well, you're here now aren't ya? Seems like even if you should still be hiding, you'd be doing a shit job at it."

He looked back up at me, keeping his head bowed but his eyes up, with a small smile on his face. I tried to cover a smirk myself so I let out a little cough and rubbed the tip of my nose with my knuckle, cigarette still in hand. Finally, he lifted his head back up, putting his full attention towards me.

"I'm sorry, Mickey. About Mandy," he paused, "and yesterday."

Why did he insist on trying to cross the line every single time. I could be blowing the idiot's head in right now and all he wants to do is fucking talk about yesterday. My face hardened, not happy at the forced recollection of yesterday, and I kept my eyes on his. He didn't seem to care too much.

"Why were you in my house anyway? I get some crazy shit goes down around here but what the hell? You're lucky it was just me home."

I was definitely annoyed now. Annoyed that he came here, annoyed that I was easy on him a few seconds ago, annoyed that I wanted him to stay but also wanted to slam my fist into his face until he couldn't open his eyes.

"Oh yeah Gallagher? And why the fuck was that," I responded, raising my voice and standing up now. His body stiffened a little as he straightened up against the wall and fence behind him, trying to become less vulnerable to my next move. I threw the cigarette I was holding down next to me.

"No really, I wanna know," I continued mockingly, stepping closer to him slowly. "Tell me why I was lucky that it was just your weak redheaded ass that was home and not the rest of you little mice."

The insult to his family was definitely pushing some type of buttons inside of him, as his fear was slowly turning to anger as well, his eyes becoming more stern.

"To answer your question, Ian, you should still be hiding. If anyone was lucky yesterday, it was you. You're lucky I didn't kill you when I had the perfect opportunity to." I was only a foot away from him now, him towering over me in height but me clearly having the upper hand in the argument. Or at least I thought I did. His eyes narrowed in on mine as he stood up to full length, closing the gap between us to only a few inches. My fists clenched, ready to move if I needed to.

"So then why didn't you, Mickey?"

And with that, every last bit of self-control I had possessed in that conversation was thrown right out the window.