This is me. Enjoy ;)

Whatever happens tomorrow you must promise me one thing. That you will stay who you are. Not a perfect soldier, but a good man.

Nobody’s saying our neighborhood is the Garden of Eden. Hell, some people say God avoids this place altogether. But it’s been a good home to us, to me and my kids, who I’m proud of, ‘cause every single one of them reminds me a little bit of me. 

Fiona, my rock, huge help. Has all the best qualities of her mother, except she’s not a raging psycho bitch.

Lip, smart as a whip. Straight A’s and the honor roll - boy’s definitely going somewhere.

Ian, industrious, conscientious, ambitious, incredible work ethic. Don’t have a clue where he got that from. Wants to be a paratrooper. Knows how to disembowel an enemy with a roll of dimes and an old gym sock.

Carl. Uh, I don’t really know that much about Carl. Oh! Loves animals. Always dragging home some poor stray he found, taking them up to his room.

Ah, Debbie. Sent by God. Total angel. Raises money for UNICEF year-round, some of which she actually turns in.

Liam, going to be a star. I’m no biologist, but he looks a little bit like my first sponsor. He and the ex were close.

Kev and Veronica, fantastic neighbors. There’s nothing they won’t do for each other. Or *to* each other. That didn’t hurt half as much as I thought it would. I never realized how little sex I was having till V and Kev moved next door.

Mickey?

He looks so fucking old. Look how these few seconds aged him nearly twenty years.

A lesser lover would have been too wrapped up in thinking “this is goodbye”. “This may be the last time I’ll ever see him again”.

Not here.

This is the face of a man who is so wrapped up in another’s well-being, he’s not even considering how damn sad this all is. He’s not mourning an ending, a goodbye. He’s fucking rejoicing Mickey’s New Beginning.

All those times Mickey got caught were flashing before his eyes just a second ago. He’s not thinking about how THEY could never be together, how things never worked out for THEM.

No. The only thing on his mind is MICKEY. All those times Mickey was hauled away. Beaten. Arrested. All those times MICKEY could never catch a break.

We will never know why Ian didn’t go. Maybe he was considering his own future. Maybe he was thinking about what a burden he would cause Mickey, with finding meds and treatment and “this isn’t me” harkened back to a time where he had the LUXURY of just taking off without repercussions. Maybe Ian realizes his own self wouldn’t let him get away with that. Maybe he didn’t want to grow bitter at Mickey later on like he had before.

Or maybe it dawned on him that every time Mickey’s life got fucked over - since that bullet to the leg in the Kash n’ Grab - it was because of Ian. Because of them being together. Because of Ian’s sickness. Because he KNOWS Mickey would stick with him no matter what and Ian KNOWS he was always selfish enough to use Mickey as an outlet for his anger. Perhaps “this isn’t me” meant “I am not the same fickle bratty boy who would keep you around as my protector, my outlet, my buffer, my blanket, my punching bag, my obsession, even though I was too selfish to care I was driving your life deeper into hell.”

We will never know.

But what we do know, just from that one look, is that for the first time in his life, Ian puts Mickey before their own relationship, and Mickey’s safety, Mickey’s life, is the only thing that matters.

Me, an intellectual :