You Get What You Want, But Not What You Need
continuation of this fic, which was part of Gallavich Week.
Lip may seem a bit OOC, but i've never written him before and i actually don't like him all that much, so hopefully you can forgive me for that.
anyway, enjoy :)
Dr. Grayson settled back into her chair, watching Ian. He was sickly pale, with dark circles under his eyes. His red hair was lazily styled, with strands falling into his eyes, but he didn’t seem to care. His eyes had a faraway look in them, as if he was remembering things no one else in the room had seen or done or had done to them, burning in his own private hell.
“Ian,” she said, calling his attention to her. “One of the first things I have to do with your treatment is build a history. Do you know what I mean by that?”
He swallowed. “Not really, no.”
“Well for starters, I need to know about your family and the history your family has with the disease. Who is in your immediate family?”
He cleared his throat. “My parents, Frank and Monica, Fiona, Lip, my little sister Debbie, Carl, and my youngest brother Liam.” His voice was raspy from disuse.
“Actually Monica and Frank’s brother Clayton are his parents, Frank’s not his father,” Lip corrected.
Ian rolled his eyes. “Jesus, Lip, do you really have to--”
“We need to be accurate, do we not?”
“His name’s on my birth certificate.”
“Then you should get it changed.”
Ian sighed. “Does it matter who my father is for this?” he asked Dr. Grayson.
She drummed her fingers on her desk to the beat of Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song,” a nervous habit she’d picked up from her father. “Well a specific combination of genes led to you inheriting your mother’s illness, so for the sake of accurate records, I would say yes.”
Ian’s jaw clenched. “Fine. Clayton and Monica Gallagher are my parents.”
She modified her notes, as well as adding a reminder to address the apparent tension between Lip and Ian.
“How would you describe your relationship with your parents?” she asked.
He hesitated, so Lip answered. “Well none of us even knew Uncle Clayton existed, but Monica came back and tried to take Liam away with her new girlfriend Bob, and they wanted a paternity test to prove he wasn’t Frank’s, but it turns out he is, so Ian and I decided to see if we were Frank’s, and Ian turned out to be the lucky bastard.”
Mickey scoffed at his play on words.
Dr. Grayson took in Ian's closed off look in response to his brother's words before jotting them down.
Lip continued without any prompting. “Frank’s an alcoholic and a drug addict. Mostly neglectful, you know, but every now and then he’ll get into one of his moods and smack Ian around a bit.”
A tense silence permeated through the room, but Lip seemed unaffected by it. He ignored everyone's reactions to his spiel; Fiona trying to tell him with her eyes to shut up, Mandy rolling her eyes and shaking her head, Mickey glaring at him, balling the hand that wasn’t holding Ian’s into a fist, and Ian staring blankly at the floor, resigned.
She cleared her throat, intent on diffusing the tension before there was a conflict, but Lip barrelled on. “And when Monica can be bothered to come home, she’s taking our little Ian here to gay bars and encouraging him to sleep with old dudes. Not that he really needs much persuading, but--”
Mickey had reached his breaking point. “Christ, will you stop it? Just shut the fuck up already, alright? The fuck is wrong with you?”
Lip’s eyes narrowed.
“Hey, come on, whatever problem you two have with each other, can you please deal with it some other time?” Fiona implored.
“We’re here for Ian, not to settle your pissing contest,” Mandy added, voice hard.
“We wouldn’t even need to be here for Ian if wasn’t for him,” Lip spat.
“Lip, come on--”
“No, Ian, I won’t ‘come on!’ Christ, you’re still defending this prick? After everything he did to you, you’re just gonna take him back?”
“Hey fuck you, man, you don’t know shit,” Mickey said dangerously, standing.
“I know what happened with your dad and that Russian whore,” he replied coldly. “I know that you married her and I know what it did to him. He was a fucking wreck, you know that? All he did was drink, he wouldn’t talk to us, practically slept all day, and then he fucked off to the army! That’s on you, shithead. You did this.” He turned to Fiona. “‘Gallaghers don’t do therapy,’ remember that? This is such a fucking joke. You’re full of shit, Fi.”
And with that, he stormed out, slamming the door behind him.
The rest of the room was left in stunned silence. Mickey was glaring at the floor, Ian was glaring at the door, Fiona’s eyes were wide with shock, and Mandy was watching Mickey’s fingers twitch.
Dr. Grayson cleared her throat and shuffled her folder closed. “Well,” she began awkwardly, “there seems to be some...underlying tension within your support system, and that will make everything that much more difficult. You can’t present a united front for Ian if there are cracks in your foundation, right?”
No one answered her.
“Right,” she muttered. “Mickey,” she said softly, walking over and placing her hand on his shoulder. He looked up at her. “Nothing you did caused this to happen, nor was there anything you could do to prevent it. It’s probably been building for quite some time now, just waiting for the right trigger.
“I would appreciate it if you would pass that along to Lip,” she said to Fiona. She nodded.
Dr. Grayson went back to her desk. “We didn’t get as far as I’d hoped,” she lamented, “so I’m afraid I can’t quite prescribe you anything yet.”
Fiona blanched. “What? Not--not even some lithium?”
“Our session is ending prematurely, and I can’t ethically prescribe someone that kind of medication without an understanding of their specific set of problems. Getting the dosage right is trial and error, but I'd rather there not be too much error,” she explained regretfully. “And one of the stipulations of this form of therapy is that all members of the patient’s support system be present.”
Fiona rolled her eyes. “Thanks a fucking lot, Lip,” she mumbled to herself.
“Do you think it would be at all possible to resolve whatever just happened within the next week? I don’t want a repeat of this.”
“We’ll take care of it,” Mickey said shortly.
She nodded slowly.
“What are we supposed to do til the next time we see you, then? Is he gonna go back to sleeping all day?” he asked.
“He got out of this depressive episode on his own, so unless something traumatic happens within the next week, he should continue to improve on his own.” She turned to Ian. “Stay as stress-free as you can. Don’t abuse any drugs, don’t drink excessively, just keep yourself as healthy as possible.”
He nodded his understanding.
Mickey ran a hand through his hair, looking at Ian with a distressed expression, swearing quietly. He turned to his sister. “No more of that Kenyatta bullshit, alright? I don’t want him in the fucking house.”
“What about Iggy? He gets released on Wednesday, where’s he gonna go?”
He hesitated, a pained look on his face. “He can’t come home.”
“You don’t need to keep me quarantined, Mick,” Ian said tiredly.
“Fuck off, I’m not risking a run-in with my brothers.”
“He could always come home,” Fiona said pointedly.
Mickey snorted. “To that shitstorm? No way. You don’t live in a fucking Zen garden.”
“Christ, I’m sitting right here!” He exclaimed, standing. “I get that you both want to look after me, but I don’t need you deciding who sees me and where I sleep. I might as well go to the nuthouse, if that’s what you want.”
“May I make a suggestion?” Dr. Grayson interjected.
They turned to her.
“It would be best if all of you were dealing with this together, not separately, and the only way to do that is for you all to be under the same roof.”
Fiona shook her head. “We don’t have the room for that.”
Ian snorted. “Oh please, like both of them haven’t lived there before at some point or another.”
Her lips narrowed into a thin line, and she turned to face the Milkovich siblings. “If you live in my house, you pay your way. You chip in for rent, bills, the squirrel fund, groceries, just like everybody else. You aren’t guests. And you do you own laundry.”
They looked at each other, then back at her. “Deal.”
After a tense ride home on the train, the four of them made their way to the Milkovich house to pack up their stuff. Neither of them had much, so it didn’t take long; their clothes, some bedding, and toiletries took up three bags. Ian’s jaw clenched in annoyance when Fiona took the bag of bedding away from him. “I’m not an invalid, you know,” he remarked. “I can handle one fucking trash bag.” He snatched it back from her and marched ahead of them.
This was all wrong. This was all so, so wrong. This wasn’t supposed to be his life. He was supposed to go to West Point and impress everyone, supposed to win medals overseas and be welcomed home a hero. He wasn’t meant to be a burden.
He took a deep breath before stomping up the porch steps, trying to calm himself down, but could still feel how quickly the atmosphere changed when he walked through the front door of the Gallagher house: Carl and Debbie immediately stopped whatever discussion they were having and turned to him with uncertain looks on their faces; Kev and Vee stared at him from the kitchen, a baby on each arm.
Liam broke the silence. “Ian!” he cried, jumping from the couch and running to him.
Ian swallowed his frustration at everyone else and opened his arms for his little brother. “Hey, buddy! I missed you so much,” he said, hugging him.
Liam laughed happily, and Ian knew that the younger boy missed him, too. “Come play, come play!”
He dragged Ian over to his playpen and stuffed toys into his arms, oblivious to the tension rolling off of his other siblings. Ian noticed Debbie and Carl exchange looks in his peripheral vision.
Carl came over to them and pulled Liam away from his toys. “Let’s go play upstairs, okay?”
“No! I wanna play wif Ian!” He whined, struggling in Carl’s arms.
“We can play with him later. Right now we need to talk to him.”
Ian bit back the anger that suddenly ripped through him, nostrils flaring.
Debbie walked over to him cautiously. He tried to be mindful of the fact that she hadn’t seen him since the day Fiona came over, reminding himself that she was only wary because she didn’t know what to expect.
“How did your first session go?” she asked. “Lip came back a while ago, but he didn’t really say much. Do you have your meds?”
He snorted. “Yeah, I can imagine,” he muttered to himself.
“What?”
“Nothing.” He waved her off. “And no, I don’t have meds.”
“Oh. Do we have to pick them up from the pharmacy?”
He sighed. “No, Debs. I don’t have any meds. She couldn’t prescribe me with anything.”
She blanched. “Why not?”
“Because Lip stormed out like a fucking princess!” He yelled up the stairs.
An angry "Fuck off!" rang down the stairs.
Fiona, Mickey, and Mandy walked in then, dropping their bags next to Ian’s by the couch. “What’s with the yelling?” Fiona asked.
Ian shrugged stiffly, not wanting to talk. “Nothing. I’m gonna lay down.” He trudged up the stairs, suddenly drained.
He’d barely arranged himself on his bed before Mickey was opening the door. “It’s barely noon, man,” he said.
Ian rolled his eyes. “I just want to take a nap, Mick, alright?”
He could hear the careful consideration in Mickey’s hesitation. “Will you at least eat some lunch first?”
“I’m not hungry,” he said shortly.
“Alright, tough guy. Two hours, Gallagher. Then I’m dragging your ass downstairs for grilled cheese, and you better fucking like it.”
Ian turned over to face him. “If there’s no bacon in it, then it’s not worth my time.”
Mickey rolled his eyes. “You’re such a fucking priss,” he said, shaking his head and walking out.
“And chocolate milk!” Ian called through the closed door.
“Yeah yeah yeah,” he heard Mickey reply.
Ian dozed off smiling to himself. He couldn’t even remember what he’d been upset about in the first place.
He woke up an hour and a half later to shouting. He initially tried to drown it out, but then he heard a Russian accent ask “Where is he?!”
Svetlana.
Shit.
He made his way downstairs, rubbing his temples at the headache he could feel building.
Svetlana and Mickey were in the middle of a shouting match, with everyone else casually watching from the sidelines. Her eyes found him immediately when he stepped down.
“I told you to stay away,” she spat at him, stepping around Mickey. “He needs to be at home with baby, not rubbing dicks together with you!”
Mickey blocked her path. “His therapist said we need to live here to help him get better, alright?”
“I don’t care what doctor say! We had deal! I help with Orange Boy, you help with Yevgeny.”
Mickey’s jaw clenched. “You’ve got your blond bimbo there, why can’t she help?”
“Because you’re his father, and that means you’re responsible!”
“I don’t have to live there to help with him! You wanted Nika there, and now she’s there. What the fuck’s the problem?”
“You help,” she said dangerously.
“No,” Ian protested.
“Stay out of it, Gallagher.”
“No, Mick, I’m not staying out of it.” He stepped up next to Mickey. “Do you even know what you did to us? To him?” he asked Svetlana. “Do you realize what that baby is?”
She clenched her jaw and hugged her son closer. “Still his child. Still has to help.”
“No he doesn’t. If he helps, it’ll be on his terms, not yours, and not with you threatening him more than you already have.”
“So you’re letting him get away with being a deadbeat dad, too?” Lip chimed in from the couch.
Ian glared at him. “Shut up, Lip. Just shut the fuck up.” Lip’s eyes hardened.
He turned back to Svetlana. “Just...give him time to get over it, okay? Time to get used to it?”
“He’s had almost a year,” Mandy said, confused. “How long does he need to get used to the idea? The baby’s been here for a couple months already.”
“Yeah, a year with her and Terry being there. A year of sharing the bed with her and watching her stomach get bigger. He needs to be here, away from all that. It’s so much more than not wanting to be a father, Mandy, so much more.”
Mickey shifted uncomfortably under the weight of Lip and Mandy’s stares.
Ian fixed his gaze on Svetlana again. “He’s not going back there, alright?" he said with finality. "He stays here. He’s staying with us.”