Chapter Text
There are Gallagher family dinners on most Sundays. And there are Milkovich family game nights maybe once or twice a month. But big family nights are a rarity. Mickey doesn’t know what exactly the commotion is all about, but something has to be up.
Fortunately, Chicago is having an Indian Summer and the weather in late September is so perfect you’d think it was April 25th. The Gallaghers have the most interior space of the three families, but even then it’s a tight squeeze. Mickey can get awfully claustrophobic when there are too many people in too tight a space. More than once, he has wondered if that comes from dancing from such an early age—perhaps he is doomed to feel ill at ease in any space where he doesn’t have the breathing room for fouettés.
Instead, dinner is a barbecue in the vacant lot beside the Gallagher house. The Gallaghers, Milkoviches, and Fisher-Balls all squeeze into four picnic tables while Vee and Mickey’s Aunt Chava vie for dominance at the grill.
At one table, old Frank is trying to convince Debbie, Iggy, Collin, and a skeptical-looking Kev of what Mickey assumes to be some patently hair-brained scheme involving. He suspects that defrauding the government is involved.
Liam is monopolizing Lip and Fiona, eager to consult the people in his life that most resemble parents. It’s a change, to be sure. The youngest of Ian’s brother used to be the benevolent dictator of the younger kids, a natural child wrangler. But the younger generation, who are all getting dangerously close to their teen years, are instead hanging towards the back of the house. Mickey had gone unnoticed when he spotted his son along with Franny and the twins telling each other dirty jokes that they think are original.
This afternoon though it sounds like he has his sophomore year on his mind. Being so much younger than his classmates at Howard had been a bit of a struggle last year, but now that he has transferred, he can’t stop singing Chicago State’s praises.
Carl’s boyfriend Thom must be becoming more of a staple at family gatherings. Along with Svetlana’s latest husband, Cliff, the two honorary Southsiders have their own little topics of conversation, light and non-committal, but still mostly friendly.
Carl has Mandy and Svetlana cornered, asking for hair and makeup advice. The little turncoat. But then again, Mandy did help improve Mickey’s own skill in front of a vanity mirror, so he understands. Ruby Jubilee's makeup truly is ratchet, and Cha-Cha’s career has been a bit too busy to help his drag daughter lately. Every little bit helps, though Mickey wishes he could be around more. He misses the time he used to have to teach, even if he gets to perform full-time now.
Honestly, Cha Cha Heals LLC has kept Mickey and Ian on a breakneck schedule ever since Mickey’s stint on Drag Race. They may have a week here or a weekend there when they can come home and decompress, but rarely do they find time off from the life of a full time drag queen and her personal drag coordinator when they get to actually see the family all together like this. Mickey is relieved to have an excuse to spend Saturday in the old neighborhood instead of ricocheting from one gay bar or performance venue to another across the country.
To think, he might have missed this if Mandy hadn’t threatened violence.
Mickey is actually thankful that he pissed off World of Wonder the way he did. A year ago, he probably would have leapt at an opportunity to tour the whole country as the reigning winner of his season, or even join the RPDR live show in Las Vegas. But now he is pretty sure he would have been miserable if he had signed on for more of what RuPaul’s production company had to offer. Yes, there is still a lot of coming and going on his and Ian’s part these days, but signing the sort of long-term contracts that had been on offer would have kept him tethered to someone else’s time table and performing like a trained monkey in someone else’s creative vision without the control he has of his calendar as a free agent.
Still, he feels so uprooted lately. Every time he comes home and sees his son, Yevgeny looks that much older. He has sprung up like a weed in the past year, his little guy is slowly metamorphosing into a man while he isn’t looking. He is losing days and weeks and even months with his son who he used to have three night a week.
“Penny for your thoughts?” The redhead asks as they sit at one of the tables.
Mickey turns around to see his husband, like him, dressed more for a luau than a barbecue. A plate for each of them with Chicago-style hotdogs, beans, and Mac & Cheese in his hands. The floral prints remind him of the honeymoon they never had and the all expenses paid cruise that he still has yet to redeem from winning Miss Congeniality on Drag Race .
I’m contemplating quitting. A drag sabbatical.
“Not really thinking,” Mickey lies. “I’m just enjoying the peace and quiet.”
“At the Gallagher house?”
“Fuck off, you know what I mean. We’ve been traveling so much we could have raked in some serious cash the past year if we rented out the house.”
“No way. We spent years turning that dump into a home. I don’t want strangers—”
Mickey reaches across the table, squeezing gingerly at his husband’s forearm. Ian is right. There was a time when Mickey would rather live on the streets or get himself thrown in a juvenile detention center than be in that house. Too much pain, trauma, and sorrow. At age eighteen he would have just as soon burned it to the ground.
If not for Ian.
True, it started when Ian was clearly manic and at loose ends when he set about cleaning out the detritus of the derelict house for the first time. But then Ian took his mental health by the horns. And Mickey turned his life around in spectacular fashion. And little by little, the Milkovich house was given a new lease on life as well. The beautiful home, the happy life that they made in the shadow of his father’s cruelty is equal to any accomplishment Mickey has made in the classroom or on stage.
“I know, calm your tits, ya big softy. All I’m saying is—”
Mickey is cut off by the sound of a spoon banging on an aluminum platter.
“Can we have your attention, please?” Announces Lip standing in the space between the four picnic tables.
“That includes you kids!” Mandy shouts.
The children remain out of sight.
Yevgeny’s and the girls’ heads pop out from behind the house like a mob of meerkats. Fiona barking at the kids to sit down is what actually gets the pre-teens’ butts into seats. Mickey can’t help but laugh at all the times over the years he has borne witness to his sister-in-law swear that she is nobody’s mother.
“They look way too happy,” Ian whispers. “They’re never happy in public.”
“This is the part in the movie right before you discover they’re pod people.”
“Think we’re on candid camera or something?”
“I swear if they’re making public announcements about their breakups now, maybe we should miss more family—”
“—we’re getting married!”
Mandy and Lip continue speaking, but those three words are the only words his sister declares that find any purchase in Mickey’s head. They resound and reverberate in his imagination. And for once, Mickey seems to stand stationary and it is the world dancing around him.
The barbecue settles after the announcement, even if there is the buzz permeating the air. Mickey looks over at his sister, who is showing off her ring to Debbie, who seems keen to gawk at the modest stone now that Mandy isn’t hiding it any longer. It’s a brilliant, smooth green gem in a square cut on a gold band. Malachite , Mickey realizes, transformation and healing—perfect for a Capricorn. And meaningful for someone who has been through as much as my sister has.
Lip pulls Ian aside as Mandy sits down to join Mickey at their table. Blue eyes blink back at his, radiant in the light of the Summer sun now low in the horizon. Her hair is a cozy honey blonde these days. Her tongue plays with the inside of her lip piercing expectantly.
“You’re awfully quiet.”
“You kind of caught me by surprise. I thought you two were doing the whole casual thing.”
She laughs in spite of herself. “Yeah. We were. But Mickey, that was two years ago.”
“What? No fucking way that was two years ago!”
“Yeah, it was. Almost three. Remember? That Christmas I broke my leg on the ice?”
“The White Christmas routine. I still don’t know how Ian convinced Lip to learn that routine.” He nods, the memory bubbling wistfully to the surface. “So. When’s the big day?”
“We’re planning for early November.”
Mickey shrugs, a wry half-smile quirking to the side of his face as he scratches at the side of his . “Before the baby bump shows.”
She looks like she might bite Mickey’s head off, but then softens. “That transparent, huh?”
Mickey puts his elbows on the table, head in hands. “Well, obviously you don’t want to be big as a naval carrier in your wedding photos.”
“Somehow, I think just saying ‘fat’ would have been kinder.”
“And you will need to pay way extra in photoshopping fees in your photographer has to touch up the circles under your eyes if you wait until after.”
“ Hey,” Ian returns, grinning, and sit beside his husband, legs straddling the bench. “Lip just tapped me to be his best man.”
“Well, obviously.”
“I’m definitely going to have a field day calling the gigs we got lined up for November. Hopefully, they can move you to a different date.”
“Of course they can. Cha-Cha’s a guaranteed money maker. I’m overdue for a break, anyway. Lord knows we still gotta plan our belated honeymoon.”
“You still haven’t taken that cruise you won?”
“Cha-Cha’s a working girl, Mands.”
“I thought you would have cashed that in by now. Flimsy excuse to prance around a gay cruise in those skimpy bathing suits you don’t think I know about.”
“Yeah?” asks Mickey not even bothering to sound defensive. The whole world watched him run across the Werk Room in just his tucking panties and a breastplate to fight over a bolt of blue organza on national television. What does he care if his sister, or really anyone, knows his “sun’s out, buns out” approach to beachwear. Not like she knows how much he enjoys the way Ian’s eyes bug out of his skull and plays with his cheeks like bongos whenever he wears them. That’s their little secret. “And how exactly did you figure that out? Go through my dresser or something?”
“Pfft. Hardly. You do realize the tabloids love you, right?”
“The Paparazzi, Mick,” Ian reminds him.
“Oh, right.”
“We’ve been blocking new outlets ever since the episodes were airing.” Ian explains. “And only using socials to plug gigs.”
“Well… You were featured in a Buzzfeed article. Something about femme Drag Race queens entering their butch era.”
“Who the fuck thinks I’m effeminate?” Mickey asks a little too loudly. Not just Ian and Mandy, but half the people in their immediate area burst out laughing. “I mean by the standards of Drag Race, assholes!”
“God, we are so fucking off track. I keep trying to ask you…” she looks about, the thinning crowd of the family still seeming to be a bit too crowded for her. “Wanna walk with me?”
Ian is already standing, a conspiratorial flair in his eyes. “Yeah, didn’t we leave a bottle of margarita mix back at the house?”
It’s hardly likely that there is any sort of alcohol in their house. Even if they were at home more regularly, Ian has barely been able to handle more than a glass of wine with dinner, if that, in years now. And Mickey chose to cut alcohol out of his life almost completely when he resolved that maintaining a ballet dancer’s trim figure was more important to him than a bottle of Daniel Boone. Still, there is an off-chance that they had mixers. Mickey knows beyond the shadow of a doubt that they don’t, but the rest of the family doesn’t need to know that if Mandy is aiming for secrecy.
They chat about the sort of meaningless bullshit they always do as they stroll away from the noise of the Gallagher house. It is only once they pass through the alley that separates Wallace and Trumbull does Mandy round her way to her intended line of discussion. “So. About the wedding. I’ve got an ask for you.”
“What? You wanna know how I scored the planetarium for ours?”
“The daughter of a member on the board was one of your students, right?” asks Ian, as though the two of them don’t still have the fine details of their nuptials commemorated in an album that still sits in pride of place atop the living room mantelpiece.
“Emmaline Gordon-Browning.” Mickey nods, the name flowing to him in the languid currents of his memory. “Not Emma. That would’ve been too normal. Christ that kid’s gotta be in her twenties. I feel myself withering into dust just thinking…”
“Can I stop you guys there?” Mandy asks, nibbling lightly on hr pursed lips. “No planetarium. In fact, I had to talk Lip out of a Star Wars -themed wedding.”
“Would the groomsmen get lightsabers in this scenario?” Asks Ian.
Of course that’s his immediate question , Mickey snickers to himself.
“I don’t fucking know. But I shot that down. I’m not getting married dressed like Carrie Fisher.”
“What’s wrong with Carrie Fisher?” demands Mickey, bordering on personally offended. “She was a natural treasure!”
“Oh my god, homos.” She grumbles, pressing her index and middle fingers to either side of her temples. “Could you both get it the fuck together?”
“Look, if you’re asking me to give you away or whatever—”
“What? No. I’m not bothering with that tradition. And it would be Colin, anyway.”
“Excuse the fuck you?” He snarls at his sister. “You never even woulda been dating Lip if it weren’t for me!”
“No, that woulda been Ian.”
“Oh. So this is my fault, huh?”
“Well, maybe if you weren’t running around with a certain mystery guy,” she jabs Mickey in the ribs playfully, “Maybe I’d still be pining after you instead of your brother.”
“Fuck’s sake, If you were still obsessing over my husband’s gay ass fifteen years later, I’d schedule an intervention.” Mickey huffs. “You do know the guy can’t even say ‘clitoris’ without tasting vomit in the back of his throat, right?”
“What? Seriously?”
Ian shrugs in confirmation.
“You were a medical professional. Oh my god...”
“So, what? You want me in your bridal party? Man of honor or some shit like that?”
He silently prays that she doesn’t want him for her Maid of Honor. He wouldn’t have the first idea where to take a gaggle of straight chicks on a bachelorette party. He certainly won’t cross the streams and take them to a gay bar. He fucking hates it when bachelorette parties roll into the gay bars and act like the queers are just clamoring to drop what (or who) they’re doing and be their entertainment for the night.
“Ha! Nothing like that. I’m going traditional. All women in my party. Girlfriends from the industry, mostly. In fact, you’re not even invited to the reception.”
Mickey opens his mouth to snap at her, but then he stops. “What?”
“I want Cha-Cha there.”