Work Text:
Ian Gallagher is diagnosed with terminal cancer on June 22, 2019.
He's sitting in an uncomfortable chair in front of Olivia Kirby's desk, wondering why the woman has such a sad expression on her face. It doesn't suit her.
"Ian, there's no easy way to say this, but you have cancer," she says, her face somehow twisting more. She goes on to get technical with it, giving him a detailed explanation of the type of cancer, where it started, where it spread, levels, stages and Ian gets so lost he stops listening.
"-chemotherapy, but I'm sorry to say there isn't much-"
Ian, whose head had fallen into his hand during Olivia's speech, snaps to attention at those words. "How long?"
Olivia sighs, running a hand through her hair. "Roughly four months."
Ian holds back the panic he feels rising in his chest, threatening to rip its way out of his mouth.
"I'm sorry, Ian. As I said before, chemotherapy is an option, but-"
"Thank you, Dr. Kirby," Ian says, abruptly standing up.
After giving the doctor a small smile, Ian exits her office.
Only when he's alone in his car does he let the first tear fall.
On July 16th, he breaks the news to everyone.
He, Mickey, Kevin, Lip, Mandy, Fiona and Liam are sitting in his living room, talking and eating Chinese food, the soft hum of the television acting as background music.
"I have cancer," Ian says suddenly, interrupting Kevin in the middle of saying something. Everyone freezes, forks and glasses half raised to their now open mouths.
Before anyone has the chance to say anything, he finishes with a, "and I have roughly four months to live."
Lip punches a hole through the wall.
Fiona talks to Debbie over the phone while holding back tears.
And Mickey- well, Mickey simply slips his hand into his, giving it a gentle squeeze. It's comfort and a promise wrapped up into a gentle touch.
I promise to be here.
On July 29th, Ian and Mickey get into a fight while waiting in line at the movie theater.
"You know you should have told me sooner," Mickey hisses. Their laughing, carefree faces only infuriates him more. How can they be so happy when his world is falling apart? "You could be getting some kind of fucking help right now!"
"That isn't what she said," Ian explains, his voice beginning to tremble. "She said do chemo, and have four months. She didn't say four months without chemo. It was we can do the chemo, but I still have only four months. Mick, I don't want to spend my last months here with needles in my arms. I don't want to spend it too sick to get out of bed, too sick to go out and spend time with my family. I want to enjoy what time I have left."
Mickey's eyes are shining now, the clear liquid threatening to spill over onto his cheeks.
On August 18th, he can't stop throwing up.
He's at Mickey's place, having gone there earlier to spend a day just watching movies with him. Barely twenty minutes into the movie, his stomach began twisting and after another ten minutes, he was running into the bathroom, dropping down onto his knees in front of the toilet.
That was an hour ago.
Mickey is there with him. He ignores his protests, ignores Ian asking him to leave.
After another twenty minutes, his worry increases to an almost unbearable level and he's pulling his cell phone out of his pocket, dialing Olivia's number.
She suggests he checks Ian into the hospital, claiming four months might have been optimistic.
On August 30, Ian isn't hungry.
He refuses to eat not only the hospital food- honestly, who can blame him?- but also the food Mandy brought him during her lunch break.
Lip, Carl and Kevin are in the corner of the room, trying to keep smiles on their faces as they joke and laugh and talk about things that don't matter anymore.
Mickey is laying in bed with him, Ian's head on his chest. He hasn't left the room once since Ian was admitted.
Ian is having a bad day on September 9th.
For the first time in the last two weeks, it's just him and Mickey in his room. The TV is on, but Ian's not paying attention to it. He's listening to Mickey, who is describing what Mexico looks like.
"We'll go there next summer," he says, though they both know that Ian won't make it to next summer. "We can go wherever the hell you want."
"I'd like that," Ian forces himself to sound cheerful, when really all he wants to do is scream and yell and throw things, much like Mickey did a few months ago. It isn't fair. He's too young to be laying in a hospital bed, dying. He's too young to be wistful, thinking of all the things he didn't get to do.
It isn't fair.
He's having a hard time staying awake on September 19th.
Fiona and Debbie are beside his bed, each holding one of his hands. Mickey, for once, is not with him. He's at home, taking a shower and getting a change of clothes. Ian's happy that he finally convinced him to leave this hospital, if only for a few hours.
He's the one condemned here, not Mickey.
The three of them talk- well, Fiona and Debbie do the talking while Ian simply listens and tries not to fall asleep- about the past. Happy memories.
For those handful of memories, he feels more free than he has in a very long time.
Ian's last day alive is September 30, 2019.
Mickey has a feeling, but doesn't say anything about it.
All of his favorite people are gathered in his room, trying their best to keep smiles on their faces when all they really want to do is cry. But they stay strong and joke and tell funny stories about themselves to try and relieve the seriousness in the air.
In the middle of a particularity embarrassing story Carl is telling about Fiona walking in on him when he was younger in the bathroom, doing something you most definitely do not want your big sister seeing, Ian finds his eyes drifting to Mickey, whose eyes haven't left his face once.
He studies Mickey's face, his eyes tracing his nose, his lips, his eyes. "I love you," he whispers.
It feels like the words the end on the last page of a book.