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arrowflier · 3 years

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Fic prompt: How do people who tangentially know Ian react when Gay Jesus goes viral? Do they reach out to Ian/the Gallaghers? Lip's college friends, Milkovich cousins, ROTC classmates, Kash and Linda ... Is Gus Pfender telling someone Gay Jesus was his brother-in-law for 4 seconds? :D

I Heard it Through the Grapevine

“This is a pretty new one,” Gus Pfender said into the mic, sitting onstage at a little bar on the outskirts of New York City. “About a girl I knew a while back. A girl that was totally crazy, you all know the type.” He paused and waited for the knowing laughter to die down.

“No, but really though, she was!” he continued, idly tapping on the neck of his guitar as he talked. “She got me to marry her and everything, then slept with her ex, then tried to marry some other guy before we were even separated! Can you believe that?”

The laughter was more awkward that time, but he didn’t notice.

“Anyway, turns out she came by crazy honestly, runs in the family or something.” Even his band mates were starting to get a little antsy behind him, but he wasn’t quite done throwing his ex under the metaphorical bus.

“Yeah, get this—her little brother started a cult, called himself Gay Jesus or somethin’. Just saw him on the news—he blew up a van!” Gus laughed so hard he almost fell off his stool, but the audience was quiet.

The drummer cleared his throat behind him, and Gus finally got with the program, righting himself and coughing into the mic before saying, “Anyway, here it is; sing along loud if you know it, maybe she’ll hear us all the way back in Chicago.”

And he launched into the opening chords of “Fuck You Fiona”.

In the audience, Mandy Milkovich straightened up at the first round of Fiona’s name echoing around the dimly lit room. Her date—well, her client—touched her arm, and she jerked away before she could remember herself. Remember that she was supposed to like being touched, now.

“Sorry,” she simpered at the short older man, putting her hand on his when he let it fall to the table between them. “You just surprised me, hun.”

She smiled at him sweetly, pressing her tongue to the back of her teeth until it hurt. “Be right back,” she promised him quickly, before standing and grabbing her purse from the back of her chair. “Just need to go freshen up for you.”

She cringed as she said it, but it had the desired effect, the man just waving her away as he turned his attention back to the stage just in time for the rousing chorus of “fuck you”.

As soon as the bathroom door slammed shut behind her, Mandy was leaning over the sink, breathing heavily. Chicago. Fiona. Crazy family. Little brother.

Ian.

She fumbled in her purse for her phone, a sleek black thing that one of her more dedicated clients had bought for her. She swiped past the homescreen that he had set to a picture of the two of them, and opened up her browser.

Ian Gallagher she typed in, holding her breath as the results of the search loaded.

It came out in a single whoosh when she saw it, leaving her limp against the dirty porcelain.

Chicago’s Ian ‘Gay Jesus’ Gallagher Charged with Arson and Destruction of Property read the very top headline. Mandy skimmed the rest through the tears that filled her eyes, not daring to let them fall.

Ian Gallagher, middle child of six, pled guilty by reason of insanity at his trial last week, claiming his unmedicated bipolar disorder was the reason for his irrational behavior.

Oh god, Ian.

Last time she saw him, Ian had his shit together. He had a job, and a boyfriend, and he was taking his meds, and he kept her calm and helped her deal with a fucking body and gave her a place to stay for the night. What had happened since then? How had things gone so wrong for him again?

She didn’t know. She needed to know. She needed to know that he was okay.

Mandy bit her lip, mind racing as she considered her options. None of them were good. Mickey was gone. She didn’t speak to the rest of her family. She could call Iggy, or Colin she supposed, but she wasn’t even sure they weren’t in jail themselves. Besides, if they weren’t, she didn’t want Terry overhearing.

With shaking hands, she dialed a number she had been pretending she didn’t know, instead. A number that she had been trying her best to forget.

Phillip Gallagher picked up on the very first ring.

“Yeah, alright. No, I know, Mandy. Don’t worry, I’ll keep you posted.”

Lip sighed as he pressed the end call button, rubbing a hand over his face. Joaquin, sitting next to him, blew a stream of smoke in Lip’s face until he straightened again, coughing.

“The hell was that for, asshole?” he asked, waving the smoke away. “You know how much shit I’m gonna get if Tami smells that on me?”

Joaquin snorted. “Still can’t believe you shacked up with your baby-mamma, man,” he teased. “You have a kid now, what the fuck?”

“Yeah, well,” Lip muttered, reaching over to steal the joint right out of his hand despite his warnings about the smell. “A lot of things have changed since the last time I saw you.”

No shit. The last time Joaquin had seen Lip Gallagher, he’d been helping him steal money from the high-end startup Lip was working for. Then he’d just disappeared, only to wander into the little cafe where Joaquin liked to take lunch just a few days ago. They’d been catching up a little bit each day since, but Joaquin’s head was still spinning trying to equate this short-haired, run-down family man with the brilliant guy he knew back in the day.

“So, who was that?” Joaquin pried. “Who’s Mandy? You two-timing your girl already, Gallagher?”

“Fuck no,” Lip exclaimed, nearly spitting out the joint. Joaquin snatched it back immediately—the Gallagher he knew never would have risked the good stuff like that.

“No,” Lip repeated more calmly. “I uh, used to date her,” he revealed. “Before I knew you. But that was a long time ago.”

Joaquin nodded. “So what’s she callin’ you for then?”

Lip rubbed at his lip—Joaquin giggled in his head at that thought—and went quiet for a long moment. Joaquin just sat by him and smoked, content to wait it out.

“She was asking about my brother,” Lip answered finally. “They were friends.”

“Which brother?” Joaquin questioned. “The janitor, or the crazy one?”

Lip eyed him oddly. “The janitor is the crazy one,” he said, but Joaquin shook his head.

“No, no,” he rambled, “the little guy, the one you thought was dealin’.”

“Carl?” Lip clarified, and laughed, fingers picking idly at the knee of his jeans. “Nah, Carl’s actually doin’ alright now, I think. It’s Ian. The one you met.”

“What’s goin’ on with him?”

Lip hesitated, and then, “You heard about Gay Jesus?” he asked, and Joaquin felt his eyes go wide. He almost dropped the joint himself this time.

“No way,” he breathed out. “That was him?” He gestured wildly. “With the kids, and the cult, and the van?”

“That was him,” Lip confirmed grimly. “Off his meds, we think. That’s what he says, at least.”

Joaquin whistled, and handed the joint back. “Think you need this more than me right now,” he said.

Lip didn’t disagree when he took it.

Linda looked up when a stranger entered her store, then promptly rolled her eyes and went back to her magazine. The kids were with the sitter and the store was practically empty, so there was no reason not to take some time for herself for once. A single stoner wandering around the aisles wasn’t that much of a concern.

Still, she kept an eye on him as he poked through what they had to offer. He wasn’t bad looking, despite his floppy hair and red-rimmed eyes—reminded her a little bit of a young Kash, even.

She promptly hated herself for thinking of her absent, no-good husband, and hated the stranger in the store for making her do it.

So when he finally came to the counter, holding two bags of chips and a Red Bull, she might have been just a tad ruder than normal.

“Put it on the counter,” she ordered gruffly when he just stood there, staring into space.

“Whoa, yeah, sorry, sorry,” he rambled, doing as he was bid. “Just came from visiting a buddy, guess I left my mind behind a bit, huh?” He giggled. A grown man just giggled in her store.

“Maybe you know them, the Gallaghers?” He continued while she rang him up. Her hands barely paused when she heard the name. That was a long time ago, and they didn’t come here anymore.

The stoner was still talking, though. “Man they’ve had some bad luck, you know?” He shook his head. “First with Lip’s stuff, now his brother again?”

Linda stilled, bag of chips still in hand.

“Which brother?” she asked despite herself. She shouldn’t care, but somehow she still did. That little shit had stolen her husband, got his boyfriend shot in her store, and bailed on her with no warning, but when he had been there, he had been good to her. Helped her run the store, even helped her with the kids if she begged. She’d been sad to hear it when he went off the rails, but the rumor around town was that he was doing better, now.

“The crazy red-haired one,” the stoner answered, and she guessed a rumor was all it had been. “They call him Gay Jesus now, he blew up a van and everything.”

“Ten seventy-five,” she told him, not commenting any more on the topic. It wasn’t her business.

But as the stranger walked out the door, leaving her to her magazine again, she considered sending some sort of basket to the Gallagher house. For old time’s sake.

She was so caught up in her thoughts, she didn’t even notice the bell over the door ring a second time as someone else hurried out.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Iggy Milkovich muttered to himself as he rushed off down the street away from the Kash’N’Grab, forgetting to even steal anything in his hurry.

Ian fucking Gallagher. Gay fucking Jesus. How had nobody around him seen that coming?

Iggy remembered when Ian was living with them, before he went crazy the first time. Or while he went crazy the first time? Who fucking knew, that kid was always off the rails if he thought taking up with Iggy’s kid brother right under Terry’s nose was a good fucking idea.

But there was that one time, when things were mostly still going good, when he remembered hearing Mickey talk to his boy about crashing some funeral. A funeral for a fairy soldier that Ian knew when he was going by his brother’s name out at bootcamp. They’d come home from that thing with Ian practically vibrating, bouncing off the walls with fury at the protest they had wandered into, and he had seen the way it made Mickey freak out.

Mickey was in Mexico now. Iggy knew that. Everybody fucking knew that, even if they pretended they didn’t. And it was a bad fucking idea for him to find out about this, for so many reasons.

But Iggy couldn’t do that to his brother. He couldn’t hide something like this. And if Mickey found out some other way, from someone else…well. There was no saying what stupid shit that fucker might do.

So when he got home, he hit the bong to calm his racing heart. Then he picked up the phone, and dialed a number he wasn’t supposed to know.

“Yeah, thanks Ig,” Mickey said into his burner phone. “I already knew.”

His partner for the day, some new cartel wannabe that got paired up with the Gringo to see how he managed the streets, gave him a weird look as he shoved the phone into the pocket of his jeans.

“Who was that?” the burly man asked, voice rough, and Mickey rolled his eyes.

“Your girlfriend,” he answered dryly. “Wanted to know if I had dropped your ass in the grave yet so we can go fuck in peace.”

The idiot looked like he actually believed it, and Mickey snorted.

“A fuckin’ contact, okay?” he revealed. “And none of your fuckin’ business ‘til you manage to climb the ladder past ‘basic bitch errand boy’, so get the shit and let’s get movin’.”

At least the moron followed instructions.

Mickey wiped a hand over his face while the other man’s back was turned, gathering himself. It was confirmed, then. First by those weird-ass rainbow shirts, and now by Iggy, who wouldn’t lie to him about something like that. Ian Gallagher had gotten himself in trouble, and Mickey wasn’t there to save him this time.

He sighed as his partner came back with the rest of the goods, and they set off to a new position on the next corner.

One way or another, it looked like Mickey Milkovich was going back to Chicago.

#this one was really fun #thanks for the cool idea!#forgot the ROTC kids though #daily speedwrite #gay jesus #ian gallagher #gus pfender #mandy milkovich #lip gallagher #joaquin #linda karib #iggy milkovich #mickey milkovich #lots of mentions of the exploding van #not sure how to warn for that but I know somebody asked for warnings for car crashes and car accidents and this might count

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