patheticvillain | fifty-five ➢ spam & voice

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fifty-five ➢ spam & voice

private } mickey

Hey. You busy?

private } beyond

Got something for you.

spam

[Recovering from being disemboweled physically took about forty-five seconds. Recovering psychologically is taking a little bit longer. Cassel takes comfort in simple tasks and routines in the meantime, trying not to think about what happened with Creed or what happened in the Enclosure or what's going to happen next. There's this feeling like the other shoe is going to drop - not uncommon on the Barge, but not something he wants to deal with, either.]

[During the day, when he's not in the gym, he spends time in his room or in the common rooms with yarn in his lap, curled up in an armchair, knitting and purling on autopilot. He has no idea what he's making, which is usually how he goes about things. Eventually he casts off and picks it up, examining it in the light. It appears to be a tiny sweater with at least three arms.]

[He never said he was good at this.]

[At night, a lithe black cat roams the halls. To Cassel's credit, this time he's wearing a little blue collar with a name tag. On the other hand, it took him this long to come up with that, so maybe he's not so smart after all. He curls up on the backs of couches, winds between people's legs, and wanders into cabins behind their occupants, purring loudly and very insistently.]

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[He watches Mickey, watches his face change, takes a sip of his beer. And he smiles. Not one of his shit-eating smirks, either, but the kind of smile you wear at a birth or a wedding, at the beginning of something, when change is coming and it's good.]

You can read, can't you?

[It's a jibe, but a soft one. Gentle.]

I don't...

[It's not that he's forgotten Iris' promise. It's been sitting in the back of his mind ever since she made it, carried quietly with him through the day-to-day drudgery of Barge life. All the same, for one wild, irrational second he can't think how the hell this got into his hands. Is it Cassel's? he wonders dizzily, though he's fairly sure he'd have noticed if he graduated.

Then he reads it for a fourth time and his eye takes in the ornate lettering, the heavy ink, the flourishes, and he knows. He hadn't known Ceres had graduated. He hadn't even been sure Iris would still give this to him when she did after the fight they'd had.

But here it is, and it's more than just a piece of paper or a petition to the Admiral. It's more than just Ian's sanity, even. This is Mickey's life back. This is--

He would have done it. He would have counted out the pills himself every morning if he'd had to. He would have memorized every side effect. He would have talked him down from every stray burst of paranoia, sat with him through every fit of depression, dutifully tucked all the knives and guns away under lock and key if none of it worked and things started getting really bad again. He would have put himself between Ian and Svetlana, between Ian and his son if need be, for both their sakes. He would have tried to handle the lying. He would have played mediator and father and caretaker and lover all in one. He would have done it every day for the rest of his life if he'd had to.

But he doesn't.

He leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees, the paper suddenly trembling a little in his hand. He presses the other to his mouth, staring down at the scroll for another long moment. And then he just fucking buckles completely, face crumpling into a sob.]

[With Needy, Cassel is coming more and more to realize, he had an advantage. He understood how she felt. He knows what it's like to have the world betray you, to feel like everything and everyone is out to get you. He knows what it's like to want revenge for that, and to go after it with both hands, to come away bloody. He understood her.]

[There are things he will never understand about Mickey. One of those is what it's like to love Ian Gallagher. Cassel thinks he understands love - that he knows the ins and outs of it, what it means in every situation, what it can do to you, how it can harm you or help you, how it can trap you or set you free.]

[But he can't imagine what it's like to love somebody sick. Not like Ian. Not like that.]

[So when Mickey crumbles, he doesn't really understand what's going on. He doesn't know. But he doesn't have to. All he has to do is love and listen and be here. Which is good, because sometimes, that's all he can do, too.]

[There's a moment when he lets it happen - lets Mickey cry, lets him feel the full brunt of what he's feeling - and then he's scooting over right next to him, wrapping one arm around his shoulder, plucking the paper gently out of his hand and pulling him close.]

Hey. It's okay.

[No don't cry. No what's wrong. Just this: light pressure and presence, the space to be.]

[Mickey shakes his head hastily and wipes at his eyes when he feels Cassel's arm going around his shoulders: no, no, I'm fine. At some point he stopped caring quite so much about people seeing him cry -- at some point, hell, it was checking Ian in the hospital, bawling quietly into his shoulder until the nurse came to take him away -- but his father is still fresh on his mind, hard to shake. Terry's influence is tempered, though, by the fact that Mickey can't quite seem to speak yet. He presses his lips tight together and hides his face in his hand, shoulders shaking silently.

He doesn't even really know why he's crying. He's never felt relief like this before. He's never had a reason to. What he knows is that the entire shape of the future has suddenly changed; it feels like they can have one now. Something like it was for those brief few months he was madly, deliriously happy with his life, before real madness got in the way.

It doesn't last all that long. It's really only a minute or so before he stills, then takes a few slow, deep breaths and swallows back the salt on his lips. He wipes his face on the shoulder of his shirt and flashes Cassel an apologetic look.]

I'm okay.

[It seems like longer than that, or maybe shorter - like time is moving too slow or too fast, like Cassel doesn't know what to do with his hands, or like everything ends too quickly. When Mickey looks at him, he smiles, but soft and careful like he thinks he might break this moment into pieces if he doesn't act right, and backs off a little.]

[But only a little. His knee nudges Mickey's, and his hand is close on the seat between them. In soft tones:]

I know you are.

[He knows.]

See why I couldn't tell you over the phone?

[He sniffles and flashes a weak smile.]

So you could see me freak out like a girl, huh?

Yeah.

[He bumps Mickey's shoulder.]

Exactly. That's exactly why.

Fucking douchebag.

[He takes another deep breath to steady himself and swipes his arm across his face to clear some of the stickiness away, sitting back. He stares at the paper, like he still doesn't quite believe it's real.]

You know what that is, right?

The deal?

[A quick sideways look, still a little careful. He doesn't want to say the wrong thing.]

I don't know what it is. I don't - feel like that's something I should guess about.

I think you probably could.

[But, okay. Mickey reaches for his abandoned cigarette and taps out the ash that's built up, then drags deep, the smoke scratchy and soothing in his lungs.]

Ian's sick -- I told you that, right? Or was sick.

[Was. He smiles a little.]

[He takes a sip of his beer, watches Mickey smoking. It's the visual equivalent of readjusting his glove cuffs: familiar, comforting.]

Yeah. I knew that.

[Now he does want to guess, but keeps his mouth shut, just cocks his head, listening.]

Really sick. He tried to take Yevgeny -- we had to put him in the hospital.

[That's a story he's been holding onto, except for when Venus accidentally dragged it out of him, but it feels so much easier to say now. Before, it was a grim, suffocating reminder of what awaited him at home. Now, it's just history.]

He'll be out when I get back. Good as new.

[Now it's just history. And Cassel can see the way it's lifted like a weight off Mickey's back - like he's sitting up straighter, his spine less crooked.]

[It's beautiful. Cassel smiles.]

And you can be a family again.

[For half a second, Mickey looks like he might just start crying again -- but then he smiles instead, all bright eyes and boyish toothiness.]

Yeah. Not a minute too soon, too -- he's way better at all that parenting shit than I am.

[Okay, but he kidnapped a baby, Cassel thinks doubtfully but definitely doesn't say, instead just scooting sideways to lean on Mickey's shoulder.]

Well, yeah, no shit. I wouldn't trust you with a baby.

[Maybe he picks up on the thought anyway, or maybe he realizes it's the inevitable thought process when the two things -- kidnapping Yevgeny and being a good dad -- came one right after the other. Maybe he just hears him instead of you. He glances over at him.]

He's good at it when he's not sick. Which now he won't be.

[God, that feels so good to say -- if he could tell Fiona he's not sick anymore and mean it this time. He closes his eyes, blowing out a cloud of smoke.]

Fuck, man. This is...

[Huge. Life-changingly huge. But the changes in Mickey's life have always happened in big moments.]

Yeah. Kind of a big deal.

[He takes another drink, then, not looking at Mickey directly:]

Are you still mad at Iris?

[He suspects Cassel wants him to say no, and so he gives himself a little time to think about it, and then to think about whether it's worth lying. In the end, he nods.]

Yeah.

[But now it's more like being mad at Mandy; for a minute there, he had truly hated Iris, but that much has passed.]

I'll do... something, though. Go say thank you. Get flowers or whatever.

[He's not expecting anything. Iris is hurting, but people hurt all the time, and Mickey was hurting, too. He understands, even if he doesn't like it.]

[At Mickey's answer, he shrugs.]

Do what you feel like you need to do. Don't force it.

I can't just leave it like that.

[Even he has some manners.]

I'll figure something out.

. . . You're a good guy, you know that?

[He means it. Despite all the shit, everything Mickey's said to him, he thinks it's true. Because there's a part of him that, if he was as mad at Iris as Mickey is right now, wouldn't say a word.]

Shut up, man.

[Unsurprisingly, he squirms a little under the positive attention.]

I just-- I owe her that fucking much, that's all.

[Sorry, Mickey. Cassel just thinks it's true.]

She loves you.

[And you love her too. But there are lines you don't cross, of course, and saying that's one of them.]

[He doesn't say it, and he doesn't quite respond to what Cassel does say, but he lets a beat of silence fall between them like its own kind of acknowledgement.]

I wouldn't take it if that was the only reason, though.

I know.

[Because then it would feel like a handout. Cassel wouldn't take it, either.]

You never really talked about her before.

fifty-five ➢ spam & voice

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