Twenty Four

The day Lilly brought home a boy for the first time, she was sixteen and neither Ian or Mickey had been expecting it. They had actually been taking advantage of the fact that Lilly had said that she would be out all day to fit in some unashamed alone time, where they didn't have to keep quiet.

Unfortunately, they never really reached that part.

Mickey had Ian pinned to the sofa, thumbing the bumps of Ian's spine and making the redhead arch up into him. They were joined at the mouth and at the hips, grinding against each other in that lazy sort of way they'd developed, when they knew there wasn't really any real rush because they had forever to do this. Not they either of them had admitted to knowing that this would be forever.

The redhead moaned as Mickey sucked on his tongue and bit his lower lip and they heard someone splutter out a cough at the same time as someone else snorted and Lilly said, "Yeah, they didn't really get the memo that having kids meant you're supposed to calm the fuck down."

Mickey propped himself up onto his elbows and looked sideways at their daughter, slightly distracted by the way Ian was still tracing patterns on his ribs with his fingertips. "Who the fuck's that?" he asked, glaring at the boy standing beside Lilly that he'd never seen before.

"Don't be rude," Lilly snapped back, forever a Milkovich, "This is Josh, he's like my boyfriend now or some shit."

Ian had to grab Mickey as he launched himself at the newcomer. He slammed him into the floor, scrabbling for control and wincing when Mickey's fist caught him in the gut. The rolled and Ian punched Mickey in the face when pinning him down wasn't really working out.

"So we're just going to go back out," Lilly said, jerking her thumb over her shoulder and grabbing Josh's hand. Her boyfriend – or some shit – was standing stunned, watching the fight on the floor and Mickey knew the fucker was thinking that it was weird how they weren't holding back at all.

Especially since they'd been making out not two minutes ago.

As soon as the teenagers left, Mickey forgot he was supposed to be fighting, turned on by the slither of pain in his cheek and in the knowledge that this was how it all started. The bruising fists turned into rough gropes as he pulled Gallagher back down so that he could kiss him again.

Four months later when Mickey came home to find Lilly crying in her room, Ian had to tackle him from behind when the ex-con turned up to the school with a baseball bat, fully intending to bash the fucker Josh's brains in.

People watched and stared as Ian tried to pin Mickey down against the concrete floor and the guy Josh looked like he was about to piss himself. Mickey stopped fighting when Lilly's best friend Toby punched the guy Mickey wanted to kill in the face. Toby was scrawny, a little too tall, with jet black hair and too green eyes. He kind of looked like Harry Potter, just minus the glasses and the scar. He wasn't a bad kid, he was a little dorky though.

He kind of reminded Mickey of Ian at that age.

Two weeks after that, Toby and Lilly were dating and Mickey didn't really mind it as much as everybody had expected him to. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that he knew Toby better, or maybe it was just because he knew where Toby lived.

-000-

"So are you ever going to marry Dad?" Lilly asked, dropping down beside Mickey on the couch and sticking her feet in his lap.

Mickey just stared at her, wondering whether or not he was hearing things. He wanted to pretend he was, but that wasn't really possible. "Why the fuck you asking me that?" he asked instead, because he didn't know how to answer that.

She shrugged, "Was just wondering."

"Marriage is really fucking gay," he muttered, like that explained it all. And in Mickey's brain, it did.

Lilly snorted, "News flash, Dad, you are gay."

He pulled a face at her, "No shit, I hadn't worked that one out."

"Do you always have to be a dick?" she asked, like they weren't father and daughter and were instead best friends. Maybe they were as well. Or maybe they were just too similar and knew that to them, swear words were about the same as saying 'I love you'.

"Yeah actually, I do."

She rolled her eyes in the way that made her look ridiculously like Mandy.

"So are you?" she asked, twisting around in a way that had to be painful so she could keep her feet in his lap at the same time as she rested her head on his shoulder. She could be weird like that.

He didn't fight her as she took his cigarette out of his hand and grimaced at her when she blew smoke in his face. "Probably not," he admitted, because he wasn't sure whether or not that was the right answer, "Do you want us to?"

Lilly smirked. "Dad, I really don't give a shit," she said, pushing her tongue into the corner of her mouth and giving him his cigarette back, "I was just wondering, because you know, you've been together for like ages and it is legal and shit."

Mickey just shrugged. He'd never thought about it.

"It doesn't seem like that long actually," he admitted, not knowing why he was saying that. It sounded like something Ian would say, not him. Maybe it was because it was Lilly and he hadn't ever really drawn any lines when it came to her, even as a baby, she'd just crashed through all of his barricades.

"Don't you have a dog to walk?" he asked when she didn't say anything, pointing to the kind of elderly mongrel now who sat near the door. Sid's eyes were sleepy looking, but they brightened at the prospect of a walk.

Mickey knew it wasn't a good thing to think, but he knew the dog wasn't going to live for much longer. He didn't want to think about how much of a mess Lilly would be when he died. She actually adored the mangy thing.

"Yeah," she admitted, kissing his cheek at the same time as she ruffled his hair, "I'm staying at Toby's tonight by the way."

He pulled a face, but didn't argue. Ian had already given him a lecture about how it only made it worse when he argued. "Kay," he muttered, taking another drag from his cigarette, which by now was almost completely burnt out.

In the end, they didn't get married. Mickey never even brought up the subject. Because he knew it wasn't necessary. It wasn't because he was stupid or gay or because Mickey really wasn't the sort of person to want to get married. He would have said yes if Ian would have asked him. But Ian never did, because like Mickey he knew that they didn't need a piece of paper or some shitty vows to let them know that they were it.

The bruises on Mickey's hips that seemed to have become permanent and the bite shaped scar on Ian's shoulder that Mickey liked to kiss or lick sometimes, they were just as effective as wedding bands. And besides, Mickey's vows only would have come out like insults anyway and Mickey dished them out every single day.

They both knew that they were really supposed to be compliments. That they were really supposed to be love confessions. That was all that counted at the end of the day. Or in Mickey's mind at least.

Then again, Mickey's mind didn't really work like the rest of the world's did. But that was okay. Ian always knew what he meant.

The End