Chapter Text
Thursday the twenty-third is the last day before Winter Break and also the night of the Christmas pageant. Ian arrives at the school a little before 5pm, thirty minutes before the student stage manager and run crew’s call time. He acted in plenty of school plays in these halls when he was a student from third grade all the way through eighth grade and even high school. And he has helped with Mickey’s Christmas pageants, choir concerts, and Spring musicals ever since they’ve been back together.
Coming into his old elementary school when classes are done for the day is nothing new to him, but there is always something unnerving about being in the building on the day before the start of the break when classes have let out but before the performers or even the techies have arrived. It feels like visiting an evacuated city on the precipice of a calamity, as though he were tasked with being the one to repel an oncoming storm.
Of course, it feels different being here specifically when Mickey isn’t. Sometimes, being in Lincoln Heights Elementary as an adult feels conditional, like revisiting Neverland as an adult and Mickey is Peter Pan, providing Ian with safe passage despite being too old to be here. But Mickey is still at home, getting changed and keeping the kids on track to get to the auditorium well-before the actors’ call time.
He often feels a strange sort of inversion of what he used to feel when he spent too much time at home as a kid: an innate sense that he needs to earn his keep. From an early age, he would sign up for after school activities and little league sports just so that he could be one less thing that Fiona had to worry about. She had a very small Debbie and Carl at home who requited a lot of pseudo-parental oversight. And Lip could go from being her right-hand man to the problem child on the turn of a dime. If Ian could be one less burden, he would. That’s how he first knew Mickey when they ended up playing on the Canaryville Lions together. And it was also how he got into theater in the first place. As a result of spending so much of his waking hours out of the house, when he was home, he felt like he had to compensate by finding things to do around the house, doing his best to anticipate what Fiona would want done. Washing kitchen cabinets, cleaning out the refrigerator, pulling weeds, etc.
Now, circumstances have reversed themselves. When Fiona started spending most of her nights in her apartment across town, Lip and Debbie both in their own ways seemed to be the centers of homelife; Lip as the head of the household and Debbie as a the young mother of the next generation of Gallaghers. But with Lip living down the street with his own little family and Debbie quite firmly out of the picture, Ian has become the connective tissue of the household. Even if he thinks he would be overwhelmed with the pressure if Mickey weren’t around, he is still the one who gets the kids to school on-time and makes sure the utility bills are paid. He is the one who lends a supportive ear when Carl gets frustrated with the CPD. Now, it’s Lincoln Heights Elementary where he feels like he has to keep busy just to prove that he may have outgrown it, but he still deserves to be here even if he no longer truly belongs. It isn’t as though he is the director like he had been the past two years. Even if he is technically commissioned by the school district for his time and effort as the Tech Director, there is this fear in the back of his mind that a teacher who may not have even been teaching here when he was a student much less recognize him, will take him for an intruder. Unless he is being productive, he worries that Malachi from The Children of the Corn is going to pop up and start hollering, “Outlander! Outlander!”
That is how he finds himself in the tech booth of the auditorium, reorganizing all the gobos, gel frames, and DMX cables that the students were supposed to have put away days ago during their down time over the tech weekend.
“Poydem, Pasha!” he hears Svetlana before he hears the click-clack of stilettos that usually presages her arrival. She continues to patter out her end of a conversation in Russian while Peter mainly responds in English. Ian has come to learn to tell a lot about Svetlana’s mood by how her Russian sounds. When her syllables are lusher and rounder, hitting the ear like Alpaca wool, that's the kinder, gentler Svetlana at play.
Ian looks out the two-way glass and finds her dressed more like she’s waiting for a pumpkin to take her to the ball than a school play. She is clad in a cinch-waisted icy blue ankle-length gown with a boat neckline and a white trim at the hem, paired with a colorful brocaded bolero jacket that evokes the Aurora Borealis. Her light brown hair is pinned up in an elegant loose chignon, resembling a Gibson girl. Meanwhile her usual garish costume jewelry has been replaced by a demure pearl necklace and cubic zirconia earrings. By Svetlana's standards, this is understated. She looks the way Ian imagines what a snow angel would look like in real life.
The kid, too, looks gussied up for the show. He’s in a dark green pair of khakis and a red and blue Pokémon ugly holiday sweater. His hair, usually shaggy and unkempt, is gelled within an inch of its life and fashioned into a side part. Though there is still a cowlick towards the back struggling to break through of the Dep’s hold.
“Remember, tonight is big night. I expect best behavior,” she insists, switching to English.
“Do I really gotta stay in the audience, ma?” he asks. “I’ve been here all week. I could stay home with Sasha.”
“No. You need babysitter.”
“Sasha could keep me safe.”
“Sasha is dog.”
“A guard dog!”
She laughs. “Sasha is old basset hound. He only guards food bowl. Nice try. You grow up. Become lawyer. Buy mama house on beach.”
“Zach P’s mom is letting him stay home.״
“Which one is Zach P? Boy with big red birthmark on cheek?”
“No, ma,” Peter groans frustrated, very much the same tone of voice that Franny uses when Ian mixes up her favorite WWE wrestlers. “That’s Zak C. Zach P is the one who can bend his fingers on his one hand all the way back. His big sister’s playing the cat.”
“Lion.”
“Lions have manes.”
“Shiegra is she-lion.”
“Uh-huh,” hums the child. “So, can I go home?”
“Of course no.”
The boys slumps over.
“None of this pouting, bear cub. Law says you are too young to be home alone. It is stupid law. Your grandparents left me and your aunts home alone very often. No harm came to us. Then again… No matter. Stupid law is still law. When Americans are bad mamas and papas, they take kids away until parents behave. When I am bad mama, guess what happens?”
“You gets put on a boat,” Peter singsongs, clearly having heard it all before.
“Yes, I go on boat to Russia. Other side of world. And you are put in orphanage like Orphan Annie.” She kneels to be at eye level. “But I am good mama. When I find new sitter—good sitter, not lazy American— then you can stay home. Understood, little bear?”
“Yes, mama,” sighs her son dejectedly.
“Of course, next time you audition, da?” She asks coaxingly. “Your father was musician. Your mother is dancer. You follow in footsteps maybe?”
“Maybe. Can I hang out with Franny backstage?”
“Little red girl, da?” She asks. “You like this one, mama knows.”
The boy sputters, blushing bright red. Ian stifles a laugh, having arrived at the same conclusion. “Not like ‘boy/girl’ like,” her son insists. “Like friend like.”
She giggles. Ian actually hears Svetlana— fire-breathing dragon in human form — Yevgenevna giggle. Granted, she is friendlier towards Ian than towards Mickey in general, but even then, she is still poised and ever so icy, like still has her guard up. “It is good you have friend who is girl now, Pasha. It is good education how to treat girls who are more than friends when you are older. And redhead is good girl. Carrot Boy does good work with her. Piano Teacher, too, but you don’t tell him I say so.”
“Yes, mama.” Ian catches a glint in Peter’s eye, a desire to broach a subject that he knows is off limits. Good fucking lord, does Ian know what that expression looks like. The boy swallows it back.
Ian is starting to feel guilty for eavesdropping on the mother and son, even if it is refreshing to see Svetlana let her hair down (ironically when she has her hair perfectly coiffed). Especially considering Mickey hasn’t approached her about knowing the truth of her son’s paternity, Ian feels like they have her at a disadvantage. And it is Mickey’s decision when, how, and even whether they broach the subject with her.
He decides to let her know that she and her son are not alone. Though, first he sneaks towards the outside door of the tech booth, furtively climbing halfway down the ladder and opening the door, letting it swing wide, the creak of the door unmistakable. Then makes a ruckus of climbing back up the ladder and slides open the two-way mirrored glass of the booth window.
“Svetlana?” He asks, feigning surprise. “I’m surprised to see you here this early.”
“I am setting up front of house in lobby. Principal says school makes more selling baked cupcakes and Pepsi than ticket sales.”
“That’s true.” He agrees, nodding. “Hey, if you want, I could keep Pete occupied. I could show him how to set up prop tables and how the light and sound consoles work.”
She turns to her son. “Pyotr?”
He looks between the two adults. “Sounds like more fun than fractions.”
“You’re doing schoolwork? It’s winter break!”
Svetlana smirks at her son. “See what I tell you about lazy Americans, little bear?”
****
Svetlana circles up the actors for company meeting in Mickey’s classroom half an hour before the house is due to open. But she allows Mickey to lead the meeting. She says that this is his school, his classroom. This play is his and Ian’s baby. It’s only fair. Mickey doesn’t know if there is another shoe that he should be expecting to drop any time soon, but he has been teaching long enough that even the high school seniors in the drama club were his students at least for a little while. These are his kids and he is more than pleased to be the one to tell them how proud he is of everything they’ve accomplished over the past six weeks.
They form a circle around the room and Mickey squeezes Ian’s hand to his right, who in turn squeezes the hand of the student beside him, and so on as Mickey’s rallying speech continues until finally Mickey feels the squeeze return to his left hand. It’s a tradition he was always taught back when he was a music student in Pittsburgh. It’s a burst of energy a cast shares, bringing them together, centering them to the task at hand.
He ends the meeting by having everyone throw a hand into the middle of the circle and throw it into the air with a cheer. Then the company disperses. The adult and teenage actors prepare in the green room set up for them in one classroom while the elementary school students have one dressing room set up for the boys and another for the girls.
Ian holds one last mini meeting with his student stage hands before they all peel off to their respective pre-show tasks. Then he turns to Mickey. “You coming?”
Mickey looks at Svetlana. She looks so pristine, like untrammeled snow on a moonlit night. He keeps trying to find the time to broach the discussion. He know he has to.
“I’ll catch you up?”
Ian looks between him and Svetlana, the understanding clear on his face. “You’re sure? Now? You wanna do this now?”
He nods. “Don’t know if I’ll have a better time after this.” He detects the worry on Ian’s face. “I’m not gonna cause a scene if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“You swear?”
“Every goddamn day.”
“Mickey…”
“Yeah, I promise.”
Ian gives him a peck on the lips. “Our seats are right up front. Just make sure you two get it out of your systems by the time you take your seats, okay?”
Mickey holds up two fingers in a V shape. “Scout’s honor.”
“You know that’s not the Boy Scout salute, right?”
“So?”
“I’m not even sure it’s Girl Scouts. It might be Sailor Moon.”
“Whatever. She’s a scout. It counts.”
One more peck on the cheek later and Ian is gone. But then, Svetlana seems to have left the room as well. Not that it’s hard to predict where she’ll be. She’s a smoker. Mickey was smoking when he first started teaching. It’s been almost three years since the last cigarette, though. There was a time during high school and college when he would pick up the habit during mid-terms and finals. stress relief. He had been in particular need of stress relief his first year as as a teacher but took his last smoke in April of that year for the sake of his students. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t know all the places smokers on staff tend to skulk around here. He makes a beeline to the back of the school’ inner courtyard where teachers in need of a nicotine fix tend to convene.
He thinks about what he wants to say. He is confronting her, but trying to tamp down his own tendency towards being confrontational. He knows legally he Peter, Pyotr, whatever name the kid uses, is not his son. And still he cannot help but see himself in the boy, a version of himself that can get cocky with his very intimidating mother because he knows he can press her buttons and not end up limping the next day. He sees a happy child, a loved child. Perhaps he sees in him a version of himself where Laura took better care of herself and got them away from Terry when they were much younger, or perhaps what he might have been like if he had been born directly into a family unit like the one that ended up adopting him and Mandy.
That’s all thanks to Svetlana. His spunk helped her make a healthy baby, but she and she alone made a happy child.
“Hey,” he calls out when he finds her with a long white furry coat on that looks like it required one hundred and one puppies.
She looks at him, cigarette between her lips. She pinches it between thumb and forefinger. “Don’t you have jacket, Mr. Reese?”
He doesn’t think he has ever heard her address him by his legal name before. It’s always Piano Man. Or Mr. Composer. Or something else in that vein. “Russians don't got a monopoly on winter weather, you know. I’m a Chicagoan and I spent half my childhood in Pittsburgh. I might not be from Siberia, but I can deal with the cold.” He tries to think of how to segue into the discussion. The best he can come up with is, “You did a good job with those kids. It’s hard to believe most of them didn’t know their left foot from their right before.”
She nods. “You do good job with music.”
He makes a grimace, never good at accepting compliments from new people in his life as a general rule. “Yeah, I guess. Hey, look. There’s been this thing I’ve been meaning to talk about with you for a few days now. And, well, I’m not trying to stick my nose in where it’s not wanted. I’m not that kinda guy, right? You tell me to fuck off and I will. But..." he sighs defeatedly. "I don’t know where I’m going with this. I really never thought I’d be in a situation like—”
“I know you know,” she spits out impatiently.
Mickey is caught off-guard. “What?”
“My Pyotr can grow up to be great many things. Covert spy is not in cards. He takes picture off mantel, he moves other pictures, thinks I won’t notice missing one. Dust marks all off because he does not think of such things. Nor does he wipe off sticky fingerprints. Shameful. My contacts in KGB had such high hopes.”
She clucks her tongue and it takes a moment of her stone-faced deadpan before he realizes that she is fucking with him. When she smiles, it is coy and subversive.
“Look, like I was saying—”
“Rambling. If I did not rip off band-aid, you would likely still ramble.”
He rolls his eyes annoyedly. “Look, to get to my point, I know this has to be an awkward situation. And I know I’m not your son’s father.”
“No, you are.” She rebuts coolly. “Genetically speaking, you are father.”
“But I’m not his dad.” He isn’t sure if he is doing this right, but neither of them are biting the other’s head off, so he is going to take that as a good sign. “But I guess I’m sorta family, right? And Ian’s family is big on family. And I guess I am, too. My adoptive parents are big on that sort of thing.”
“You’re adopted?”
“Mm-hm. Ever hear of Terry Milkovich?”
Her eyes go wide as she takes a long drag of her Pall Mall. “Rapist Terry Milkovich? Wife and children murderer Mickey Milkovich?”
“See why I took my adoptive parents’ name? But he didn't actually kill his kids. At least none that I know about. Me and my sister got shipped out to live with some second cousins when I was eleven after he got put away. Took me longer’n I’d like to accept that my aunt and uncle were my family. I had it in my head that me and Mands were better off on our own.”
“But you weren’t?”
He shakes his head. “It’s just you and Peter here, right?”
She nods. “I came to America with man who turned out to be piece of shit and got me into bad situation. When I got my life back, it was just me. I wanted child, not husband. You understand, yes? You and Carrot Boy have girl, no wife?”
He shrugs. “We’re trying to adopt Ian’s niece.”
“They are same age, I think. My Pyotr likes her. He gets flushed and awkward when I ask about her.”
“Yeah. Ian caught onto that, too. Fran’s doesn’t really notice that sorta thing yet, though.” He stops and clears his throat. “So, yeah. Like I was saying. I’m not tryin’ to be his dad. Ian’s spent some time around the kid, and it sounds like you’re doing a bang-up job without one. But if you want some extended family, we could be that for you and Pyotr.”
“That is generous of you. Really. But—”
Mickey shakes his head. “Offer’s on the table, you don’t gotta take it now. Or at all. But the invitation is always on. And Ian’s the kind of guy that believes in extra place settings.”
She thinks and replies, “I will take it under advisement. But come. We have children ready to perform soon.”
“Mind if I ask a question?”
“If you can walk and talk.” She answers, snubbing out her cigarette.
“If you didn’t want your kid to meet me, what’s with the photo in the first place?”
She doesn’t answer right away, instead click-clacking her way across the stony path of the courtyard. Mickey walks alongside Svetlana, feeling not quite as icy with her as he did before. “It is not as though I expected to ever meet you in person. I started him in kinder care at two. By pre-k at age 4, he had many classmates with both mother and father. He wanted to know about his papa. I had your picture. I framed it. I told him, ‘This is your papa, he was musician. He died in tuba accident.”
“Tuba accident?”
“You have lower brass face.”
“What the fuck does that even mean?”