Archive of Our Own ^beta

“I can’t believe this shit. Third time this month, Jesus fuckin’ Christ,” Fiona stormed into the Gallagher house, slamming the door so hard it rattled on its hinges. The rest of the Gallaghers, who (along with Kev, Veronica, and Steve) were all moments before occupied hogging burgers, fries, and milkshakes at the dinner table, all focused their undivided attention on her.

“Let me guess, you forgot to pay a bill again?” Lip asked through a mouthful of beef.

“No!”

“Carl’s been suspended?”

“Shut the fuck up, Debbie!”

“Carl! Language!”

“Ok, y’all, calm down. Fiona, what’s going on?” Veronica asked loudly over the sounds of a whiny Liam fussing in her lap.

Fiona sighed and sat at the dinner table next to Steve, who quickly handed her a chicken burger. “Frank got arrested again.”

“Ha! I won our bet! Pay up, Kev!” Ian crowed as he reached over the dinner table towards Kev, who rolled his eyes but nonetheless threw him a crumpled 20-dollar bill.

“So he’s at the station?” Steve asked Fiona, already doing the calculations in his head as to how much cash he’d be losing in his girlfriend's father’s bail.

“Yep. They’re holding him overnight.” Fiona leaned her head against Steve’s shoulder before taking a rueful bite out of her burger.

“What did they get him for this time?” Debbie asked somewhat curiously.

“Breaking and entering, possession of illegal substances, assault and battery-”

“Indecent exposure?” Carl guessed while trying to shove the straw of his milkshake up his nose.

“Yup.” Fiona sighed.

“So we gotta bail him out again, right?” Lip elbowed Steve, who just nodded along, clearly resigned to his fate.

“I say we let him stew in there for a few days. Maybe even give him over to the feds. That’ll really show him.” Veronica suggested snarkily before doubling her efforts to feed Liam a french fry. “Do you want your Daddy to go to prison, Liam? Yes you do, yes you do!”

“No, Daddy can’t go to prison!” Debbie protested. “All the other inmates will bully him!”

“Oh, they’ll do more than just bully him-” Kev started, only to be cut off by Fiona.

“No one is going to prison!” She gritted out, her burger wrapper scrunched tightly in her fist. Fiona glanced over at her boyfriend. “And I’m not letting you waste another cent on Frank’s bail, either.”

“Then how the hell are we gonna get him out of there?” Lip asked. He was met with shrugs all around, and the kitchen quickly lapsed into a moody silence.

Fortunately, the Gallagher house never stayed quiet for long.

“We could always break him out,” Ian suggested quietly. For a moment, everyone stared at him open-mouthed.

And then, the shouting began.

“Fucking hell—”

“Are you nuts, Ian?”

“HELL YEAH!”

“Now just wait a damn minute—”

“Guys, I’m serious!” Ian protested. “It could work!”

“Pffft sure it could! And one day Carl’s gonna be a cop,” Veronica chortled.

“GROSS!”

“You know, now that I think about it, people have escaped from that police station before,” Kev said as he thoughtfully took a bite out of his burger. “Old man Larry managed to get out a few years ago.”

Steve wrinkled his nose and glanced at Fiona. “Didn’t you tell me they found him a day later chain-smoking cigarettes naked in the back of one of the squad cars?”

“Yeah, but the point is that he got out!” Ian insisted.

“I think it could work!” Debbie chimed in. It was almost concerning how thrilled she looked at the idea of breaking her father out of prison.

“Okay, okay, let's consider this for a second,” Steve said as Fiona glowered silently beside him. “If no one posts bail within forty-eight hours, they’ll set a date for his hearing. We have to get him out before that happens.”

“We’d have to do it at night because that’s when they have the fewest guards on duty!” Carl chimed in.

“They haven’t changed the locks on those holding cells since the Depression. A few hits with a hammer should be enough to break one of them clean open,” Lip added.

“Oh, please,” Fiona scoffed. “Even if that did work-”

“It could,” almost everyone else interrupted in unison.

“Even if it did, the officers would be on you the moment they saw the hammer. You’d never even get the chance to use it.” Fiona rolled her eyes.

Veronica, who had been uncharacteristically silent throughout the whole exchange, suddenly grinned from ear to ear. “So we don’t give them the chance to see it.” She smiled wickedly. “We’ll cause a distraction.”

“Hell yeah, now we’re talking!” Kev whooped. The others at the table were starting to look excited as well.

Fiona, however, still wasn’t buying it. “The cops would notice they’re down a prisoner the second they saw his empty cell,” She protested.

“That’s easy, we’ll just need a place for him to lay low for a while,” Steve shrugged. “It’ll have to be somewhere they won’t come looking for him though. So this place, Kev and V’s, Sheila’s, and the Alibi Room are all out.”

“And that’s another thing! What the hell are we gonna do when the police start searching for Frank? We can’t hide him forever!”

Now it was Veronica’s turn to roll her eyes at Fiona. “Gee, if only there was a cop who worked at that station who’s head over heels in love with you that you could bribe into losing his case file.”

“Yeah!” Lip wiggled his eyebrows suggestively at Fiona. “I bet Tony would combust at the mere mention of you blowing him,”

“I bet Tony would combust at the mention of Fiona asking him out to dinner!” Debbie giggled.

“No one has to blow anyone!” Steve replied quickly whilst firmly grasping Fiona’s hands under the table to keep her from attacking her siblings. “But dinner isn’t a bad idea.” He glanced at his girlfriend, searching for a sign of approval. Slowly, all the eyes in the room migrated towards Fiona.

“It’s your call, Fiona,” Kev stated matter-of-factly. “We’re not doing this without you.”

A tense silence blanketed the kitchen. Fiona worried her bottom lip, mulling the idea over. Beside her, Steve silently toyed with a plastic fork. Kev and Veronica exchanged knowing looks. Lip and Ian watched their big sister carefully. Debbie and Carl appeared to have gotten into a game of footsie under the table. Liam was now trying to eat the abandoned french fry out of Veronica’s hand.

Finally, Fiona let out a long, deep sigh. “We’re all gonna go to fucking jail for this.”

If they'd been in a nicer neighborhood, the resounding cheer from the Gallagher house would have surely summoned the cops.

…

“So… lemme get this straight,” Mickey looked at Ian like he’d just asked him to dress up as a unicorn and prance around the neighbourhood. The two of them were sitting side-by-side on the back porch of the Gallagher home, beers in hand. “You’re askin’ if I’ve got a place to hide your decrepit-ass daddy after your insane family springs him from jail?”

“Yeah, and if you’ve got anything, I’ll need it by tonight,” Ian nodded, wincing as Mickey choked on a sip of his beer, sending spit flying all over the steps.

“By tonight? Shit, Ian, you couldn't have given me a bit more notice? Who the fuck’s harebrained idea was this anyway?”

“Um,” Ian awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck and squinted against the last rays of the setting sun. “It was kinda… mine?”

“Oh.” Mickey’s brows furrowed as he first made eye contact with Ian, then glanced away. “Shit. I didn’t mean… You know I don’t think… fuck, our house has an attic that might work?” Ian smiled into his beer can as he took a long gulp. It was probably for the best that he wasn’t going to be completely sober for this anyway.

“Yeah, that could work. And, before you go, there’s just one more thing I’m gonna need your help with.”

…

“I can’t believe we’re actually fucking doing this,” Fiona cursed. Steve had provided (and was the designated driver of) their getaway car for the night: a run down looking minivan that looked like it had once been a lovely shade of baby blue. Sitting in the van (all dressed in various shades of black) were Fiona, Steve, Lip, Carl, Debbie, Kev, and Veronica. Ian and Mickey were already in position at the jail, and Liam was being babysat at Sheila’s.

“I’m so excited!” Debbie squealed from the back seat, causing everyone else in the van to wince.

“Keep it down, will ya, Debs?” Lip suggested gently whilst adjusting a hammer in his fists.

“So, just out of curiosity, what's the plan if we get caught?” Kev asked, catching Steve’s eye somewhat nervously in the rearview mirror.

“Oh, relax, you big baby! Our plan is practically foolproof!” Veronica chortled as she patted Kev good naturedly on the back.

“Plus this is way more fun than doing homework,” It was almost disturbing how genuine Carl’s smile was.

“Alright, we’re here,” The minivan came to a rattling stop in a dark alleyway. Fiona quickly checked the time on her watch before glancing back at her companions. “Everyone knows what they’re doing?” There was a series of quick murmurs and nods of agreement. Fiona blew out a deep breath before glazing briefly at Steve, who gave her a quick thumbs up. “Let’s go rescue Frank.”

…

Ian glanced at the time on his watch.

12:25 am.

He and Mickey were sat at the right side of the station, directly underneath a window that led straight into the bullpen connected to the holding cells. It was cracked open a bit to let in some of the summer breeze. Little did the officers know that cracking that window open would turn out to be one of the shittiest decisions they’d ever make.

“Fiona and the others should be arriving any minute,” He told Mickey, who was fiddling around with a mason jar full of a dirty yellow liquid. “So… what’s in there exactly?”

“Uh… you know what, I’m not exactly sure,” Mickey’s eyebrows furrowed together as he studied the bottle. “From what I can tell, it’s a healthy mix of tear gas, polio, cocaine and bat piss. Plus, you know, a bunch of other shit thrown in for luck. I’ve got another one made of vodka and WD-40 in Steve’s van,” He shrugged, his eyes trailing upwards to focus on the night sky high above them.

Unable to tell whether he was being serious or not, Ian nodded before focusing his attention back on his watch. “Thanks for helping us. I know it was super last minute.”

“Nah, don’t mention it. This shit is a lot better than anything else I’d be gettin’ up to at home anyway,”

“Yeah. Still, though, it means a lot,” Ian meaningfully met Mickey’s eyes, and for a moment, the two of them almost forgot the whole reason they were squatting outside a police station at midnight on a random Tuesday.

Almost.

“Okay, it’s 12:30! Lip, Kev, and Carl should be in position.” Ian nodded to Mickey, who unscrewed the lid of the jar, took a whiff, gagged, and gave Ian a watery-eyed thumbs up. “Let’s torch this motherfucker. Fire in the hole!” Mickey coughed before tossing the mason jar through the open window.

Everything happened quickly after that. From somewhere inside the station, Ian heard the jar shatter. A few seconds later, a thick, white gas began to pour out of the open window. Ian grinned at Mickey as shouts of disgust and horror reached their ears as the officers began to inhale the noxious gas. Within a minute, the sound of running footsteps filled the air as the officers nearly trampled each other in their attempt to get out of the building, too concerned about their own watering eyes and burning nasal hairs to worry about the prisoners they’d left behind. Ian offered Mickey a high five as they sat there on the pavement, holding their sleeves over their noses to drown out the stench. To his surprise, Mickey slapped his palm against Ian’s, squeezing briefly before letting go.

…

“Christ, Mickey really made good on his word. It fuckin’ reeks in here,” Kev groaned through his ski mask.

“I can’t wait to make this stuff at home!” Carl added excitedly. Kev, alongside Lip and Carl, had been tasked with the unfortunate job of… liberating Frank from jail. The three of them were armed to the teeth with power tools and various other demolition supplies. While he and Lip were less than thrilled to be there, Carl had insisted on coming with them. Even Fiona had had to grudgingly agree that taking the kid along was a good idea. After all, he did know his way around a pair of bolt-clippers.

“Yeah, well, let’s not stay too long. We’ll just get Frank and go.” Lip said decisively. Kev and Carl nodded before advancing forward, doing their best not to breathe too deeply. Though the whole precinct was hazy with white gas, they were able to locate the holding cells fairly easily. Surprisingly, Frank was the only person inside. He was lying on his side, wearing a filthy brown jacket paired with an even filthier pair of jeans that were stained with what looked like several bodily fluids. His hair was matted and greasy, and, from the looks of his face and hands, he hadn’t bathed in days.

In other words, Frank Gallagher looked perfectly normal.

He looked up balefully, grey-blue eyes travelling over the three of them. The toxic gas in the air didn’t seem to be bothering him in the slightest. Frank watched in silence as Carl stepped forward and happily destroyed the cell’s padlock in one deadly chop. The door swung open. If Kev’s eyes hadn’t been burning so much from the stench, he would have rolled his eyes at the way Frank stood and stretched in the same way a cat would after a particularly long nap. “Well, look what we have here. Took you long enough.” Frank sulked, crossing his arms over his chest. Beside Kev, Lip impatiently checked his watch before reaching out and grabbing Frank by the sleeve of his right arm.

Kev and Carl moved to flank them as Lip ground out, “For once in your life just shut the fuck up and come with us, Frank.”

…

“Uh… go fish.” Steve confusedly scrunched his brows together from the driver’s seat. Veronica did the same from the back, glancing briefly at her cards from where they were pressed to her cleavage (to prevent the others from cheating, of course). Debbie seemed extremely proud of herself, while Fiona looked about two seconds away from trying to kill herself with her seatbelt.

“Debs, aren’t we playing gin rummy?” Veronica asked gently.

“...I’m confused,” Debbie said after a few moments of silence.

“Same here,” Steve sighed.

“That’s cause you three suck at this game,” Fiona interjected mawkishly. “And because you all started out playing fucking poker.”

Steve dropped his cards into his lap before turning to face his girlfriend, who was sulking quite spectacularly. “Aw, come on, baby, what’s wrong?” he asked, poking playfully at Fiona’s side.

“Nothing,” Fiona growled, swatting his hand away.

“I’m… gonna go outside the van and wait for everyone to come back,” Debbie said before quickly putting away her cards.

“Yeah, I’ll come with you, Debs. Have fun, you two!” Veronica wiggled her eyebrows at the couple before clambering out of the van behind Debbie.

Steve waited until both Debbie and Veronica had closed the doors behind them before turning to Fiona. “So, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Fiona gritted her teeth and turned away from Steve’s curious gaze, out towards the street outside. “Fiona,” when she didn’t respond, Steve reached out and took her chin between his fingers, forcing her to turn her head to look at him. “It’s just me here. You can tell me what’s wrong.” For a few moments, Fiona continued to silently glower at Steve, her brown eyes filled with barely suppressed anger and frustration. Never one to back down from a challenge, Steve stared right back at her, waiting for her to break.

It didn’t take as long as he’d expected. After about thirty seconds of tense silence, Fiona blew out a breath. “I just found myself thinking… you know, why bother?” She didn’t sound as angry as before. Instead, Fiona just sounded tired.

Steve tilted his head to one side. He knew where this was going. He’d been thinking the exact same thing since they hatched this whole crazy scheme. Still, he questioned, “Why bother with what?” Fiona’s eyes dropped to the steering wheel in front of Steve.

“He… he just won’t care. Frank isn’t going to give a rat’s ass that we’re doing all this for him. He’ll probably be back in that cell next week.” Unsure of how to proceed, Steve stayed silent in the hopes that Fiona would keep talking unprompted.

Sure enough, she continued, “He’s never going to change. He won’t even say thank you. I mean, I don’t expect a thank you, I never did, but it’d be nice to hear it, you know? Instead, all I’m gonna get is a fuckin’ date with Tony.”

“You don’t have to go on the date if you really don’t want to,” Steve quickly interjected. Hell, he thought. He was the first person who should be objecting to his girlfriend being forced to go out with some smartass cop.

“Yeah, but it’s not about that! It’s about Frank.” Fiona held eye contact with Steve as she gestured wildly around her. “What happens when, eventually, the kids don’t wanna be involved in this shit anymore? What happens when they get older, when they get some common sense? When the risks get too high? What the hell then?”

Steve worried his lip in thought, absentmindedly reaching for Fiona’s hand over the console. She let him take it, her brown eyes wide, waiting for him to say something.

Finally, after what seemed like forever, Steve simply said, “He doesn’t deserve any of you. Not Liam, not Debbie or Carl, Ian or Lip and definitely not you.”

Fiona gave him a sad smile and leaned over to kiss him on the cheek. As she pulled away, her expression froze, her gaze locked on something over his shoulder.

“Hey, Steve?”

“Yes, Fiona?”

“Why the fuck are they running towards us?”

Steve swerved around to look, and, sure enough, Ian, Mickey, Lip, Carl, and Kev were all running towards the van at breakneck speed whilst practically dragging a grumpy-looking Frank behind them.

“START THE FUCKIN’ CAR!”

“ONE OF THE COPS SAW US LEAVE!”

“WE GOTTA GO NOW!”

Steve sighed and buckled his seatbelt as Fiona stuck her head out the passenger window and began shouting for Debbie and Veronica to open the back doors.

“Shit.”

…

As it turned out, the Gallaghers made terrible criminals. No sooner did Lip slam the passenger door closed (crushing one of Kev’s fingers in the process), did Steve peel out of the parking lot and begin furiously speeding down the road.

However, they weren’t alone.

The sound of the following police car’s siren and the flashing red and blue of it’s lights sent the occupants of the van into a frenzy. At the back, Lip, Carl and Kev were all screaming for Steve to drive faster, all while trying to subdue Frank, who was loudly demanding that they pull over at The Alibi Room to get him a drink. In the middle row, playing cards were flying everywhere as Veronica threatened to castrate Ian and Mickey for getting caught. Debbie, who had somehow wedged herself under Fiona’s seat, was arguing with her big sister about “being allowed on the next heist”. Steve was simultaneously shouting at Kev to make sure that Frank didn’t vomit on the floor of his van, and doing his best to lose the cop car by wildly turning onto random streets. The van continued to gain speed as the volume inside rose to a crescendo:

“I SWEAR TO GOD YOU HAD ONE JOB AND YOU DUMBASSES BLEW IT!”

“Aw, c’mon son, just a quick stop-”

“SHUT THE FUCK UP, FRANK!”

“STEVE, CALM DOWN MAN, THERE'S KIDS IN THE CAR!”

“But Fiona-”

“No means no, Debs!”

“ALL OF YOU SHUT UP OR SO HELP ME I WILL PULL THIS CAR OVER RIGHT NOW!”

“POTHOLE!” Mickey yelled before launching himself over the console between Fiona and Steve, grabbing the steering wheel from the latter and yanking it to the right. Everyone screamed and grabbed onto the person closest to them as the van tilted crazily onto its right wheels, making a deafening screeching sound as it did so. To keep the van from tipping, Fiona threw herself onto Steve’s lap, practically crushing a howling Mickey in the process. Frank helped unintentionally (having launched himself toward Mickey’s second, previously hidden jar of toxic liquid thinking it was a bottle of gin); his weight caused the van to slam back down onto four wheels. A stunned silence reigned for about two seconds before everyone resumed their arguments with even more gusto.

Behind them, the police car was quickly gaining speed.

“I DON’T KNOW HOW MUCH LONGER I CAN OUTRUN THEM!” Steve shouted to Fiona before sending the car into a stomach-lurching Tokyo drift.

“IF ANYONE HAS ANY BRIGHT IDEAS, NOW’S THE TIME!” Fiona yelled over her shoulder, before bracing herself against the dashboard as Steve sped over a speed bump that caused half the van’s occupants to smash their heads against the car’s roof.

Still in a daze from both the blow and the sheer speed of the van, Ian surveyed his companions. Debbie looked terrified, Carl had his head out the window and was screaming joyously into the night, the wind whipping at his clothes and hair. Kev was throwing up into a backpack while Veronica simultaneously rubbed his back and rolled her eyes. Lip was calmly lighting a cigarette, while beside him, Frank was sipping Mickey’s toxic elixir as though it was champagne.

The front bumper of the police car suddenly rammed into the van’s rear fender, throwing everyone forward as Steve attempted to maintain control of the van.

And suddenly, in a moment of complete clarity, Ian knew what he had to do.

In an instant, he snatched both Lip’s lit cigarette and Frank’s bottle and shoved the butt of the cigarette straight into the liquid, shaking the bottle wildly as he shouted for everyone’s attention.

“Hey, HEY! Do you guys know what happens when you mix a liquid with a 90% alcohol concentration and a lit cigarette?” Ian didn’t wait for an answer before yanking Carl away from the window and flinging the glass bottle as hard as he could through the windshield of the police car. With a resounding crash, the bottle exploded into flames, causing the police car to swerve off the road and into a nearby fire hydrant, which consequently burst and sent a river of water through the open window of the van, instantly soaking almost everyone to the skin.

“You get a Molotov cocktail, Gallagher!” Mickey (who was still draped over the front console) gurgled triumphantly through a mouthful of water.

Everyone broke into ecstatic whoops and cheers. Although he was driving way over the speed limit, Fiona pulled Steve in for a kiss as Mickey pretended to gag below them. Lip, Carl, Veronica, and Kev all enveloped Ian in a gigantic (and very wet) bear hug, as behind them in the back seat, Debbie (who’d somehow gotten herself unstuck in all the chaos) comforted Frank over the loss of his drink.

They continued to whoop and holler as the van sped off into the night.

…

“So, how’d it go?” Sheila asked kindly as she held a sleeping baby Liam in her arms. The accomplished bandits, who (after doing their best to dry off in Sheila’s bathrooms) were sprawled all over her living room, made various noises of success.

“About as well as it could have,” Fiona smiled from where she was lying on the sofa with Steve. “We got Frank to the Milkovich’s just a half hour ago. Mickey said he’d take it from there.”

“Thanks for taking care of Liam,” Debbie, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor, piped up.

“Oh, any time! Karen and I had so much fun looking after him! In fact, maybe you should all stay here for tonight! I’m sure the police will be keeping an eye on your house in case Frank shows up,”

“Uh… you sure you don’t mind all the dirt?” Lip asked, pointedly glancing at his filthy, sopping wet trainers.

“That’s alright,” Sheila cheerfully waved away his concern. “I’ll just incinerate everything you all touched once you leave tomorrow morning!”

No one was really in the mood to pile back into the van (which was still wet from the inside and had pretty much been destroyed during the journey), so the group quickly accepted her offer. Other than the faint glow of the streetlights outside, the room was completely dark. Though the room reeked of wet clothing, no one really seemed to care. Within thirty minutes, almost everyone was either asleep or nodding off. Lip, Ian, Debbie, and Carl were all piled haphazardly on top of each other on the sofa, while Kev and V were both sound asleep on one of Sheila’s two air mattresses.

“Well,” Steve said as he settled down next to Fiona in their shared bed space. “I’d say that went pretty well,”

“Yeah, right? Thank god we didn’t have to bring Frank over here, too.” Fiona shuddered. “If he’d gotten to sleep in Sheila’s fuckin’ bed tonight while the rest of us toughed it out down here, I might have lost my shit and murdered him on the spot.”

“Don’t worry, I’m sure Mickey is torturing him enough for all of you,” Steve chuckled before taking the hem of her still-damp sweatshirt and pulling her closer under the thin, ratty blanket that Sheila had provided them with. For a few moments, there was nothing but the sound of breathing and snoring to be heard.

Then Fiona looked up at Steve and whispered, “Thank you for helping us. Again.”

“Any time, Gallagher.”

“I think we messed up your van pretty good,”

“We’ll deal with it tomorrow,”

“...Frank’s gonna be back there next month at the latest,”

“Goodnight, Fiona.”

“‘Night, Steve.”