InsaneJournal

Who: Callum O’Reilly & Joey Malone
What: A very Gallavich Thanksgiving
Where: A public park in South Side, Chicago
When: Thursday late afternoon/early evening, November 23rd, 2017
Warnings: TBD. Definitely language, maybe some violence, probably sex?



Your average O’Reilly Thanksgiving dinner wasn't all that far off from a Gallagher one. It was nothing but chaos and too many people under one roof, cooking disasters, heated arguments, followed by too much drinking and a whole lot of partying. Thankfully this one hadn't ended with anyone slicing their wrists with a kitchen knife, but that was sort of a weird bar to set. That part of Ian's life felt so closely tied to his own that Callum was uncomfortable with how much he could relate to that particular fear. Maybe his mom hadn't tried to hurt herself tonight, but that didn't mean she wouldn't try to tomorrow night, or the night after. Especially if she was off her meds again.

Even when she was on her meds sometimes, trying to predict his mother was like trying to predict the weather. Her moods changed at the drop of a hat, when she wasn't just completely manic for hours. Tonight was one of her more manic moods, and Callum was the only one in the family who really knew how to deal with her when she was like this. It was exhausting. He loved his mom more than anything, but after awhile, it just got to be too much. He wasn't capable of not letting things get to him, and considering what a touchy subject mothers were for Ian too, that went doubly for Cal these days. He might have grown up on the South Side, but like Ian, he was uncharacteristically delicate. Fragile.

Not that anyone could actually know that just from looking at him, unless you were going by physical appearance alone. Like Ian, Callum was tall and lanky in frame, though he was lacking a lot of that hard earned ROTC muscle he used to have after years of neglect. It'd been a long time since he'd even set foot in a gym, let alone gone for a run. Still, he too had those elegant facial features that really had no place here and longer hair than most of the guys in South Side. They made him look a little soft, and maybe Callum was a little softer than some of the other people in his neighborhood, but he wasn't a fucking pussy. He was a Reilly. That meant a lot of things to people in South Side but 'pussy' wasn't one of them.

He loved his family, but sometimes, he desperately needed a break from them. Today was definitely one of those times. After an afternoon of O’Reilly family chaos with an extra dose of mom-sponsored crazy while his dad was no help, as usual, after an afternoon of spam instead of a real turkey again and too many people under one roof, Callum needed a few hours to himself before he fucking lost it. It was a Thursday so Happy Endings wasn't even open, he couldn't pick up an extra shift if he'd wanted to. He wasn't stupid enough to try and moonlight somewhere else, though, Callum had already been warned how much Jim hated to share. Jim was definitely the most eccentric boss he'd ever had and he could be a little intimidating, but Cal didn't scare easy. Also, he was kind of hot, in a psychotic sort of way.

Since going to work was out, at the end of the day Cal threw a few beers into a backpack, pocketed a couple of joints and left without telling any of his family where he was going. He didn't even really know where he was going until he finally found himself at the local park a few blocks away, which was as good of a location as any. There didn't seem to be anyone around at the moment which was only weird because there were usually at least one or two drug deals going down here at the same time. Callum shrugged it off, pulling out one of his own joints and lighting it as he sat himself down on the ground, letting his backpack fall onto the ground next to him as he leaned back on his elbows to dig his cell phone out of his pocket, thumbing down his contacts until he briefly paused over Joey's number before almost immediately throwing his phone to the side too. For all he knew maybe Joey actually had some kind of normal family Thanksgiving. Not likely, but since they usually only texted each other for hook ups, Callum figured anything else would be off the table, family or not.