Ian Gallagher

#85 FURIOUS @ muserevival

Ian was absolutely fucking furious at his sister. He was so fucking sick of the only interaction with her was being told to take his meds or hurry the fuck up. He didn’t need his family. For the briefest of moments, he had a family of his own, and now it was all gone.

Being constantly hounded about his medication was only the slightest of steps up from being constantly compared to his nutcase, drug addict mother. That all he was to anyone now. White noise on a backdrop of a mental illness label. That was never going to change.

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#40 RUN @ muserevival

Ian hadn’t been running away. He was trying to run to something. He had such high hopes that maybe he could have his mom back and she would understand the pain he was going through. They were the same, everyone kept saying that.

He should have known she would still be messed up. The track record was warning bells enough. Time and time again they had hoped Monica would clean up and be a good mom. He just couldn’t shed the false hope he had of maybe – just maybe – he wouldn’t have to feel so alone with this horrible illness.

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#48 PICTURE @ muserevival

Two weeks after their break-up, Ian kept Mickey’s picture on the lockscreen of his phone. It was a long two weeks, where each day felt like the hours kept repeating and never quite making it to the next day. Maybe because insomnia had plagued him and the hours he laid staring numbly at the dark ceiling were monotonous.

It took half hour to pluck up the courage to remove Mickey’s picture and replace it with a stock photo of a pink poodle. A fucking pink poodle replaced Mickey Milkovich. One day it would be fucking hilarious.

Today wasn’t that day.

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#29 SOLITUDE @ muserevival

Sometimes Ian needed to be alone. He didn’t even always know exactly why. Those necessary minutes where he didn’t have to think and he could quiet his mind down, reduce the pace of his thoughts.

Sitting on the back step, taking a drag from the cigarette tucked between two fingers, and then ashed it onto the grass. When Mickey came out, shoving the door open with his characteristic roughness, Ian smirked around the cigarette and then passed it over to his boyfriend when he sat beside him. Just because he sometimes needed solitude didn’t mean he wouldn’t soon welcome company.

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#38 TONIGHT @ muserevival

Tonight, Ian had volunteered his babysitting services. Mickey’s son was an innocent factor in this whole arrangement. As much as Mickey was fatherly-challenged (probably because his own was a fucking bastard), Ian loved kids and wanted to help Mickey accept it better.

He wanted them to be a family.

There was a genuine smile as Ian nursed Yevgeny in the baby bath, splashing some of the bubbles over his belly as he kicked his feet. Maybe he was naïve thinking this could be a thing, but the baby was part of Mickey which meant he was part of Ian too.

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#02 ROSES @ muserevival

Ian told Mickey a few times that he didn’t need “any fucking roses”. There were a lot of things conventional relationships seemed to have that Ian didn’t – or never would – need. Maybe that was why he and Mickey worked. There were no airs and graces, no bullshit.

But coming home after a long night at work with a pounding headache, he found a small bunch of roses (that looked like they were stolen from someone’s garden) sitting in a ‘FUCK U’ mug full of water with a note that said, Say one word and I’ll fucking punch you – M x

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#20 BABY @ muserevival

Ian never had a dramatic realisation he was gay. He was just never into girls, and when puberty hit, he was jerking-off over pictures of guys, and boobs never turned him on. He never had any sort of dramatic coming out either. Lip found his porn stash, and when push came to shove, his big brother was fine with it, and he directly told Fiona, who already knew. He was comfortable with what he was and wasn’t ashamed of it. Maybe ultimately it was that ownership over who he was that gave Mickey the firm nudge out of the closet.

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#32 AGGRESSIVE @ muserevival

When the doctor confirmed Ian’s bipolar diagnosis, he had been angry. He hated his mother for passing it on to him, hated that he was raised in a shitty environment, and hated that he felt like his whole life was doomed one way or another.

When Mickey had cornered him to try to get him to talk about it, he aggressively slammed him up against the wall and told him to stay the fuck out of his private shit. Typical, Mickey just told him to get fucked, he wasn’t going anywhere, and pulled him into a rough but secure hug.

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