lip.

      The contrast between Lip Gallagher and Blaine Anderson went without saying. A notable silence contended with the patter of rain, as for the first time in ages, Lip realized how uncharacteristically quiet the house was. Everyone had their own shit these days, and while Frannie’s lungs would keep them all on their toes, lives were being lead and it wasn’t a barrel full of monkeys. Instead, Lip found himself mulling over the most simple of things. He didn’t want to be theatrical by any means, but most would look at the pair and see a very Prince and the Pauper situation. Various times, he had warned Blaine about dressing the way he did and showing his face in their neighborhood. People got jumped for less. Fuck, last year alone, one of the preps from Uni had been at a party two blocks over and they’d been stabbed after getting smart. When someone had a knife, you gave em what they wanted. Unless you knew better. Clearly prep dude hadn’t.

      That of course was vastly off topic, instead he thought of a miniature Blaine in his little McMansion, with absent parents, and probably nannies out the ass because the only tie to that level of sickening wealth had been Amanda and the stories remained. While he had a stable foundation, and all the money in the world, isolation came to mind; even though the pair were very much within one another’s company. Hell, maybe he was reading too far into it. Maybe Blaine meant at night, waiting to fall asleep. Breaking from the small trance, he looked up at the other, curious. “It’s not usually like this.” Lip admitted, “You wouldn’t be able to hear yourself think before.” Carl blowing shit up, Fiona and one of her various toys fucking or fighting. Debbie arguing, or running her little daycare. Liam with Ninja Turtles or unsupervised porn on full blast, compliments of a passed out Frank. Fuck. Frank alone was meddlesome. And then there was Ian and his training, or getting caught up on the drama with Mandy and Mickey. Monica’s… Monica.

     Fuck. It was undeniable how much changed. Plus he was no saint; over the years whether it be his own screaming matches, booty calls, or other dysfunction they all played their part. But now it felt empty. Wetting his lips, Lip nodded, drawing Blaine’s attention to behind the door where a poster hung, the corner of it peeling back revealing the beginnings of a MUCH bigger hole. “One of Frank’s favorite, and rare, sober activities.” Though some would have just assumed they’d put the bat through the wall in some sort of home invasion. “He’d get clean for a few days. Come back playing Dad, and start tearing the place apart. By the time he got to fixing it, he was already too fucked. Living rooms a lot worse too. And the attic.”  Even so, his mind still stuck on Blaine’s original statement.

      “You ever get lonely?” Even with the laundry list of problems both himself, and the rest of the Gallagher kids had to deal with, at the end of the day… They could always rely on each other… Save for a few special situations. But still, family was family and he was thankful for it. Without Fi, Frank would have undoubtedly accidentally killed the rest of them by now. Hot cars were all the rage in a drugged out stupor when the dealer was giving out samples. “I just… Can’t imagine, y’know?”  Where would he have been if he had Blaine’s life? Would he have been one of those stuck up fuckasses that had his own head so far up his ass that his grasp on reality was null? The potential was there.

        Undoubtedly, especially with his brain. He’d still have some good in him, but without the rest of his siblings, and the constantly sobering experience of his fuck up parents? What would all the money in the world buy? Clearly Blaine had the right heart, but Lip could be disgustingly arrogant. As it was, often he thought he was the smartest ones in the room, though putting down the bottle and actually looking in the mirror had started to make him realize that wasn’t always the case. From twelve years old, he walked through life either high or drunk, following in the footsteps of the deadbeats that he would forever be tied to. Without the humbling experiences, would he have ended up like one of those assholes that sold weed in the bathroom thinking they were above everyone else? “What was it like?”

      Everyone back home would stare at him in disbelief if they knew where he spent almost every waking minute of his free time since falling into a friendship with Lip Gallagher.  No.  No over exaggeration.  Blaine, quite literally, fell into the uncanny friendship via never quite growing past his severely light-weight status and way too much Purple Jesus.  Which had nothing to do with religion or colors of the rainbow.  Come to find out.  Unless you counted praying to the porcelain god while throwing up the Lucky Charms you scarfed down trying to prevent kneeling for the rest of the night.  Only to be let down in the worst possible way by Lucky the Leprechaun ever to exist.  A stumble from a group of people who were more blurry than not followed by a trip and crash into a cursing, smoking just-not-as-drunk stranger who stuck around through that mess?  Heck, even helped pick him up off the bathroom floor and put him in bed had gifted him one of the best people Blaine had ever known.  With an iron stomach yet to boot?  Happened to toss the two of them together and it just stuck.  The rest, they say, is history.

Ever since that night, Blaine found himself gravitating towards Lip and his chaotic family with their weirdly functioning dysfunctional lives welcoming him into the fray far easier than people ‘of his own caliber’ ever would.  There was no putting on a front with Lip.  He’d see right through it anyway.  No need to remain as put together, though that was a habit Blaine might always have without liquid courage to bring out another side of him.  Being around Lip, the Gallaghers and by secondhand involvement, the Milkovich family was easy.  Probably one of the easiest things Blaine’s ever done.  Being relaxed back against a bunch of pillows pushed against the wall, legs stretched out in front of him, Blaine felt worlds apart from the live he normally lead.  Perfectly so.  

Turning his head at the mention of the hole barely hidden by the poster Blaine noticed weeks before Lip pointed it out tonight, Blaine stretched his feet and rocked his ankles shrugging as he looked back down at the other.  “You should just start putting little plaques below it.  Give the holes dates and titles.  Frank Partied Too Hard Under The Bridge, March 2017.  We could take pictures.  You could use it as some edgy elective photography exhibit.”  A warm smile and arch of his brow passed off the joke in a gentle, poking manner meant to make Lip smile back rather than to pick on anything about his father he couldn’t change.

Changing the subject was good, too.  Even if the topic was aimed at him and his family situation.  A subject Blaine always seemed to skirt around rather than dive into.  He fell quiet, letting the patter of rain against the window fill the room as he thought of how to work his response without trying to make his past sound anywhere close to what Lip has gone through.  In comparison.  Blaine knew he was lonely but he had everything he wanted.  Ignored, but his needs were provided for.  He had money.  Anything material he asked for, he could simply get.  Polo lessons, sailing, country clubs and the list went on and on.  

Lip grew up wondering if he’d have electricity the next day in the middle of winter.  Or if his younger siblings would have something to eat the next day.  Blaine, struggling for his father to love him for him was a hell of a lot different than Lip just giving up on his for the reasons he had.  So how to word something you once thought was horrible when you’ve seen people like the Gallaghers?  “Lonely.  It was lonely.  The quiet we have tonight is great when you barely get it.  When that’s all you have?  It sort of starts to feel like it’s seeping inside of you.  Making your insides hollow and you start desperately trying anything to fill them up.  I focused on people.  On being what everyone wanted and hoping that’d fill me up again.  Or fixing other people’s problems because fixing mine wasn’t going to happen.  So,” he pressed his bottom lip against the upper and shrugged sheepishly.  “I feel bad trying to make it sound like it was awful.  It wasn’t.  Not really.  Could have been much worse than an empty house and quiet, you know?”