blue ; gallavich

7

IAN

I walk down the stairs quietly, hoping that Caleb isn't down there. I step into the living room to see no one there and I let out a sigh of relief. I walk over to the window and look out, noticing that his car is gone, too.

"Left about a half hour ago. Seemed pissed. Must've really set him off." Lip says bluntly, appearing from the kitchen sipping a beer.

"Uh, yeah. We got into a fight. I mean, if you could call it that." I say. The room is so awkward, probably because I know that Lip is currently holding a huge grudge against me.

"About Mickey?" He asks. I just look down at the floor and then back up at him as he nods. "What's going on between you and him, anyways?"

"Me and Mick? Nothing." I reply. At least Lip is talking to me. That's a start.

"Exactly. It should be something. Not nothing." He pauses and his tone becomes sharp and judgmental. "What the fuck Ian?" Lip asks me, his voice sounding pained and flustered. I just stare at him, waiting for him to continue, which he doesn't.

"What, Lip? The fuck do you expect me to do? He barely talks to me."

"Oh here we go with that bullshit again. Does nobody understand that he can't talk to you. What the fuck is he gonna say to you, Ian? He obviously still loves you and now that your with fucking Super Man it's awkward as shit for him." Lip yells at me as I roll my eyes.

"Oh yeah? And how would you know, Lip?" I ask him, my voice venomous but calm.

"Because I know how he feels. When you love someone and do everything for them and then... And then all the fucking sudden it's over." He says as his face turns as red as a tomato. He must be referring to Mandy. "He fucking risked his life coming out for you, Ian. His dad could've killed him but he didn't care. He did it so your selfish ass wouldn't leave him. But now he has no one. He came out for you so you would love him and in return he lost his relationship with his father. And now you let him go and he has no one, Ian. No one." He says, a baffled sigh following. "And you don't feel even just a little bit guilty every fucking time you kiss Caleb?"

I just stare at him in complete shock. Partly because he hasn't said something this intelligent and Lip-esk in a long time, and partly because he's right. Mickey has no one thanks to me. I even talked Mandy into hating him at a point in time. But I love Caleb. I think.

I lean over the back of the couch and rub the bridge of my nose in exhaustion. "Fuck." I whisper under my breath as Lip walks over to me and imitates my movements.

"Fuck is right." He replies. I suddenly feel safe with him back at my side. But at the same time I feel so vulnerable knowing that Caleb found out about the whole thing with Mickey and I.

"I kissed him." I tell Lip as he just mutters a confused 'what' under his breath. "I kissed Mickey. We fought and then kissed- well kinda fought- and we slept together and it was just like the old times." Lip just looks at me, a smirk appearing on his face.

"And Caleb found out." He says, finally stitching the pieces together. I nod and he just pats me on the back.

"Ian," he says as I look up at him, still leaning on the couch, "being honest, I fucking hate Caleb." He laughs as he goes back into the kitchen. I chuckle and a guilty but not completely untrue though forms in my mind.

"Yeah. He's pretty fucking boring." I say as I suddenly cover my mouth in shock. Holy shit did I just say that? Lip just turns around and stares at me wide-eyed as we both start cracking up.

"Fucking bum!" Lip yells as I topple to the floor with laughter. He leans against the railing of the staircase and just smiles at me. "But Mickey on the other hand... He's something else." He says as I nod my head in agreement.

"Shooting people. Beating up guys. Getting jealous when someone does so much as look at me. Marrying a fucking crack-whore, though you gotta love Svet. Getting forced to have sex at gunpoint. Jesus he's got quite a life." I say, following it with a chuckle.

"Dealing with your crazy ass for five years." Lip says as we both laugh, my sides hurting from the amount of tittering.

"Caleb is dealing with me too, though." I reply, half-assed trying to make Caleb seem just as good, though neither of us fall for it.

"Oh yeah," Lip scoffs, "call me when Caleb gets arrested." He says as I buckle onto the floor with laughter.

"Three... Times." I say in between deep breaths as I try not to die from laughing so much.

I calm down and look up at Lip, his face pink like a beet. He pulls me towards him and wraps his arm around my shoulder. I smile and sigh, remembering how good the old days used to be. Before Fiona got arrested. Before Lip got addicted. Before I got sick and Carl went to juvie. Before Debs got pregnant and Mickey went to jail.

"Look Ian," Lip says, his voice now sounding serious, "I obviously can't convince you that Mickey is better than Caleb, but I really just want you to make the right choice. And also, you know that if Mickey finds out about Caleb being positive and you guys doing it and all, he'll fucking kill the man with his bare hands." Lip informs me. As he is about to walk away I grab his wrist and my heart flies up into my throat, beating like a drum.

"How the fuck do you know about that?" I ask him as I start to feel worried. What else does he know about?

"Oh, Mandy and Caleb get along pretty well. I mean, he's not her favorite person but you know her type. He told her a lot." He says, and it freaks me out how relaxed his voice sounds.

"Shit. You think she told Mick already?"

"I mean, she'd have to find him first. And Mickey doesn't know where Caleb lives."

"Lip," I say deepening my tone,"Be sensible. This is a fuckin' Milkovich we're talking about. They can find anyone and everybody's so fucking scared of Mickey that he could get away with murder if he needed to."

Lip just looks at me, his eyes sharpening into mine. "Don't worry about it, Ian. Mandy is at work so even if she does tell him, Caleb has few more hours alive." Lip winks. He laughs to himself as he leaves the room and lights up a cigarette, walking out the door.

I palm myself in the face before sighing and throwing myself back down on the couch. Caleb's gonna die, I think as I turn on the television and just stare blankly at some show on the Discovery Channel.

'The mother bear gets mad at the intruder for messing with her baby and she chases it off, not leaving it without wounds. The intruding bear is shown to have bites and scratches all over it as the mother bear returns to her young ones. She does anything to protect the ones she loves.' The man on the TV says.

I sit there and think about how stupid I feel, using real life people to relate to this situation. Lip would make fun of me if he knew what I was thinking right now.

Mickey's the mama bear, doing anything to protect me and Caleb is the intruder, waking in on Mickey's progress and ruining it, taking claim of what's not his. Stealing Mickey's loved one. And I'm the little baby bear in the back, having to choose between one or the other.

And from what I saw of that torn up trespasser bear, Caleb's dead meat.