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“Mandy’s got this guy she wants to set me up with.”
Ian’s got his back to him, pulling his jeans back up and buckling his belt. His short hair is messy and sweaty and Mickey can see marks on his shoulder, marks Mickey made with his teeth and lips and nails. It sort of pierces through his stomach how much he likes the sight of Ian like this.
“What should I tell her?”
Mickey zips and buttons up his own jeans slowly, thinking about what Ian’s just said.
Mandy’s got a guy for him. A set up. Ian can do whatever the fuck he wants, he can fuck whoever he wants and Mickey knows he has. They both have. That’s not really what’s bothering Mickey. It’s all the other shit that comes with being set up. Because just thinking about what they would do, things that he and Ian get up to but different and probably better because it’s the kind of shit Ian hints at sometimes when they’re drunk. Date things. Relationship things.
Thinking of Ian doing that bullshit with someone else, well that makes Mickey feel kind of shitty.
Ian turns around to stare at him when he doesn’t answer and his face is still pink and his eyes are still blissed out. Fuck. Mickey flicks his lighter with fingers that are still shaking.
“Mick, what should I-”
“Why’re you asking me?”
Ian looks sort of lost for a few seconds and Mickey almost takes a step closer. Instead, he hates himself standing still.
“What do you want me to tell her?” Ian asks slowly, head tilted.
Mickey turns away, grabbing his Security vest from the shelf and shrugging into it. The only thing he wants to say is for Ian to tell Mandy to fuck off. He wants Ian to not want to do shit like that. He wants to be able to do shit like that.
Ian’s looking at Mickey like he’s got all the answers though. He wants to give them to him, he just doesn’t know what they are yet or how to give them to him yet.
Mickey grits his teeth. He wants to not fucking want at all.
“Do whatever you want, man.” And then he’s out in the store, trying to clear his head and chest of things that feel like fucking jealousy.
He stands by the magazine rack, fiddling with People and Us Weekly and doesn’t turn around when Ian brushes by him to unlock the door and sit behind the counter.
Mickey’s phone buzzes in his pocket and his mouth twitches when he reads i wanna hang out later. you?
//
"She won’t care."
Mickey stares at Ian, at the smoke curling out of his mouth, at the little dots of sweat on his forehead, at how the sun filtering in through Mickey’s cracked window makes his face and eyes sort of glow. He blinks and breathes through a throat rough from sex and cigarettes.
Ian stares back, lazy and so sure of himself and amazing all rolled into one package that Mickey can’t seem to get over. For the goddamn life of him, he can’t get over this guy.
They’re lying there in Mickey’s bed, the blankets kicked off the end. Futile attempts at making them feel cooler in his warm room on one of the fucking hottest days of the summer. His house is surprisingly empty of drunk fathers and shithead brothers, Mandy off doing whatever she does with Lip. That’s the only reason they’re still lying there, shoulder to naked, sweaty shoulder. Mickey’s got both doors locked just in case though.
"Mandy," Ian clarifies, like Mickey’s a fucking idiot, and he takes another drag from the cigarette. Just because he feels like being an ass, Mickey plucks it from his mouth.
Ian rolls his eyes. Whatever.
"I know who you’re talkin’ about smartass.”
Ian scoots closer, their thighs touching, a layer of sweat almost immediately forming between their skin. Ian’s fingers move lightly across his stomach, setting his skin on fire and he’s ready to go again.
“She really won’t. Trust me. It didn’t matter to her, when I told her about me. It wouldn’t be that bad.”
Mickey doesn’t say anything, just smokes and breathes it out through his nose. It would be though. Bad. That’s not just Mickey being a pessimist and underestimating his sister. Too many people knowing about his shit is not something he’s interested in.
And Ian just doesn’t fucking get it. He wants to say how goddamned nice it must be, having this glass half full kind of outlook on life and Mandy and liking dick, but Mickey’s not like that, never has been. He doesn’t know how to be like that. He’s never been allowed that kind of freedom and probably never will be.
He knows how to do this though, how to keep things close to him, inside, and not let them escape. He doesn’t even want to think about it, what might happen, what he might lose, if they do.
“If we just told her-“
“I’m sure if we did that, it wouldn’t be we she’d be pissed off at.”
It wouldn’t be we that’d get buried six feet under by Milkovich hands and hatred if Mandy can’t keep her mouth shut, is what he doesn’t tack on to that even though he wants to.
Ian sighs long and tired, his hand stilling on Mickey’s stomach. It’s like Mickey can feel the disappointment coming off him. And that fucking sucks.
He stares at his face, at the shut down look. Then lower, at Ian’s lips, red and puffy and he wants. He just wants all the time. Again, it fucking sucks.
He puts the cigarette back in Ian’s mouth and slides down the bed, mouthing and nipping at his hip bones and palming his half-hard dick. Mickey never really does this but he wants to and Ian takes a shuddering breath, his fingers hovering around Mickey’s hair, like he’s afraid to touch him. Like if he touches him, Mickey will do something like leave.
It’s not entirely off base, Mickey realizes as he licks his lips.
“You don’t have to-“
“Just shut up.”
Ian groans when he takes him into his mouth and he feels fingers fist in his hair.
“’kay,” is the breathless reply.
//
When Terry comes home from the Alibi drunk, he gets the idea that Mickey’s getting in his way on purpose.
He shows up to work the next day with a split lip and bruising on the side of his face and his ribs. It hurts when he breathes but it could’ve been worse. He’s both seen and had worse.
Ian presses his lips into a thin line when Mickey tells him to fuck off and stop looking at him like he’s gonna break down or something equally as weak and gross. It’s not like he can’t take it, like he’s not used to it. Ian is too, Mickey knows that.
They get a truck delivery in the afternoon and Mickey feels like he’s dying, going back and forth with the heavy boxes pressing against his chest.
Ian fudges the numbers on the inventory sheet, sneaking a box of whiskey behind crates and shit in the back room. Mickey watches with raised eyebrows and keeps one eye on the stairs leading up to Linda’s like Ian tells him to.
That night they go to the little league field and sit cross-legged on the first base line. They start drinking and somewhere around the end of the second bottle, Mickey’s feeling drunk silly and happy staring at the guy across from him.
Ian tells him about this one time when Veronica Fisher used her tits to distract a dairy truck driver while Ian stole shit like milk and butter from the back. And Mickey doesn’t know what’s wrong with him but for some reason, he thinks that’s really funny.
The next thing he knows, he’s lying flat on his back, and he’s laughing so damn hard. His throat and ribs fucking hurt and his hands sort of fall on his chest but he can’t stop laughing. It’s so stupid and he feels so fucking stupid but Ian’s looking down at him with a soft smile on his face, the sky black and full of stars behind him.
Ian touches one of his hands on his chest, still silent. Still looking at him.
Mickey will deny that it was that that did it. He’ll say it was the alcohol and Ian’s story and the fact that he always acts like a complete sloppy dumbass when he’s drunk, but looking up at Ian, at his warm face that seems to glow in the dim lighting, he feels his eyes sting. He blinks hard a few times but after a few seconds, tears are leaking sideways down his cheeks into the dirt below him.
He’s still laughing but it turns into spluttering hiccups, his nose is blocked, face red and splotchy and his throat burns.
Ian lies down next to him, his hand still covering Mickey’s.
“Fuckin’ stupid,” he wheezes out. Stupid and weak and so fucking gay he wants to die.
“No,” Ian says simply.
He rests his head next to Mickey’s shoulder, pressing his mouth against it. As Mickey continues hiccupping and trying to calm down his pounding heart, he thinks he hears Ian mumbling, “I’m sorry,” over and over into his shoulder.
//
Mandy does this thing where she drinks her feelings.
When they were kids and something pissed her off, made her cry, or made her happy, she’d eat. Now at the age of 17, it’s like she traded one vice for another; she drinks and cuts bitches instead of shoving it all down with food. The girl’s a stick and exists solely on a diet of toast, cigarettes and her own warm brand of ruthlessness. Growing older, losing a mother and becoming the only girl in a house full of guys toughened her up like that. Mickey used to worry about her, still does from time to time, but she’s proven she can hold her own. He’s proud of her.
She doesn’t come to him with her shit anymore. Maybe because he never gave anything back, a fact she’d sometimes point out when she was feeling especially pissy. It’s kind of the same song and dance he’s got going on with Ian now.
He comes in late one night and sees Mandy lying on her back on the couch, finishing off the last dregs of a bottle of wine, her mouth stained red, and he knows something’s up. Mickey rifles through the leftovers in the fridge, heating up mac and cheese and eating it with his fingers.
He tosses her legs off the couch and tosses himself in their place.
“Asshole,” she slurs affectionately and puts her feet in his lap. It’s kind of funny in a sad way how she becomes a happy, sloppy drunk in comparison to everyone else in their family. She always rolls her eyes and shoves him whenever he makes fun of her for it (“You do the exact same shit or was that Iggy singing off key and falling asleep with his head in my lap the other night?”).
He picks at the mound of mac and cheese and stares at the movie playing without really seeing it.
“I hate Lip.”
“No you don’t.”
“No I don’t.”
They grin at each other. She twists some of her hair in between her fingers and brings it across her face, under her nose, like a mustache. It’s moments like this when Mickey loves his sister, really likes being home.
“He’s being a shit to me though.”
Mickey considers this. “Want me to do something?”
She kicks his stomach but he barely feels it. “No. Ian already did.”
Mickey hates himself for basically perking the fuck up whenever Ian’s name is mentioned, but there it is. It sucks and it makes his stomach clench all at the same time.
Mandy sighs explosively, her hair falling around her mouth. “Ian’s my friend.” She sounds sad and all Mickey can do is nod.
“Yeah… he is.”
And he’s really grateful for that. Grateful for Ian Gallagher and the way he cares about Mandy. Grateful for red hair and green eyes and warm smiles that mean something when he gives them. Grateful for things he can’t even put words to, things he feels when Ian falls asleep in his bed, when he sees Ian wearing one of his hoodies, when Ian so much as glances at him.
“I used to think I loved him.”
She’s tracing the pattern of the throw blanket on the back of the couch and he sits as still as possible.
“He’s just so… Ian. It’s kinda hard not to.”
Maybe this is what she’s drinking down. She can’t have Ian the way she wants Lip and she can’t have Lip the way she wants Ian.
He wants to tell her. Right then. Probably for the first time in his life, he wants to tell her that he and Ian are whatever they are, that he wants whatever they are, that he wants Ian. He opens his mouth but nothing but hot breath comes out, the mac and cheese sitting in his gut like a rock, and then she’s up, swaying to the kitchen and grabbing the vodka from the freezer.
He falls asleep on the couch with Mandy, her head on his shoulder, his stomach in knots.
//
Sometimes they fuck like they fight, Ian slamming Mickey up against the brick of an alley or Mickey pushing Ian down onto his back on splintered wood in the dugout, all teeth biting shoulders and hands leaving bruising fingerprints on hips, hard and fast and loud, Ian’s hand jerking him off to the rough pace, Mickey biting down on his tongue so he can taste blood. It’s these times that Mickeys can feel it starting in his toes and it races up his spine like hot, white heat and he’s a shaky, sweaty mess afterward.
Other times, when they’re in bed or fumbling around at the store and they kind of have to be quiet, Ian puts his face into Mickey’s neck and sucks and bites hickeys into his skin, his hips moving slowly, unhurried, but still breathing harsh and hot. Mickey’s hands splay across Ian’s back, digging into his shoulder blades, holding him close, and practically whining at the slowness of it all. He feels it in his stomach like a slow burn that eventually spreads out everywhere. All over. When Ian kisses him, he’s even shakier after, and when Ian falls asleep with his mouth open, snuffling into the pillow, that burn races up his throat and breathes through it thickly. He wants more of that.
//
Ian wants to do shit with him. Like hang out and spend time together and talk and see movies and sneak into baseball games and walk home from work together. It’s annoying how good all of that makes Mickey feel.
Ian texts him one morning, says he needs a day off so he’s skipping school and ROTC and that Mickey can come over if he’s not doing anything.
He isn’t.
Mickey snaps his phone shut without answering and chain-smokes through the rest of a pack.
He showers before he leaves. He takes the long way to Ian’s house and knocks on the door close to an hour later. He really doesn’t want to be That Guy, the one who just comes running whenever the dick he’s seeing wants him, but walking up to the front door, Mickey realizes with a sinking feeling that he’s turning into That Guy.
Ian answers the door in his boxers and shirt that belongs to Mickey.
Jesus Christ.
“Hey.” Ian smiles, wide and happy and Mickey struggles to breathe. “Get in here, I need you.”
In the living room, the couch cushions are on the floor, a pizza box on the table, the contents room temperature, and half empty beer bottles next to it. Ian plants his ass in front of the TV and tosses a video game controller at the spot next to him.
“I’m gettin’ fucking killed here. I need you.”
Mickey sits beside him, I need you, I need you, I need you, I. Need. You echoing through his head.
They spend the rest of the afternoon fighting aliens. For what purpose, Mickey’s got no fucking clue, but Ian gets really into it, apparently though not as much as his little sister. They eat pizza and drink beer and Ian turns shocked, playful eyes on him each and every time Mickey fucks up and gets them both killed (“Seriously, Mick, what the fuck?!” “Alright, alright, fuck off.”). He nudges Mickey with his elbow, grins and stuffs a piece of pizza into his mouth, yells at the TV with his mouth full.
Mickey stares at him for a second longer than he should, getting a shove to the arm when they die again.
Mickey’s got no idea what the fuck he’s even doing, not just with the video game.
“We’ve got like, an hour before Fiona gets home.”
And just like that, they toss the controllers aside and head up to his room, Ian at his back, warm breath on his neck, hands on his hips. With the door locked, Ian grabs the back of his knees, picks him up easily, too easily for someone who a year ago was such a fucking scrawny wimp of a thing, and deposits Mickey on his bed. It smells like Ian, like cigarettes and warm and just there. Ian plants both of his hands on either side of Mickey’s face, a small smile twitching in the corners of his mouth. Mickey’s heart is in his throat.
It doesn’t take long for them to get their clothes off and for Ian to get lube and press two fingers inside of him, Mickey’s legs wrapped around his waist.
"Good?" Ian’s breathless and they’ve barely just started. It’s way too good and Mickey nods, staring at Ian’s open mouth.
Yeah, he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing.
But he’s knows he’s gonna try.
//
Watching Ian train becomes a weird pastime for Mickey.
He’s got camo shit mixed in with his clothes and he and Ian have fucked a few times on and under his camo sleeping bag but that’s about as far as Mickey’s gone into this ambition of Ian’s.
But after a few days of going to the abandoned building where Ian’s obstacle course is, the one that he’s over the fucking moon for, Mickey’s got his routine pretty much down.
100 pull-ups, 100 pushups, 100 sit-ups, and then he’ll go through his circuit holding that gun above his head.
Mickey listens to him count out everything he does, precise and exact and wearing his camo pants and boots and Mickey sits on the side, smoking and trying to not think about how much time has already passed since they’ve started whatever this is and how much time is left before it ends. Because it will end. It kind of has to.
Because Ian’s in his last year of high school. He’s been talking about the army and West Point and the future a lot more lately and it fills Mickey up with nerves. It’s still only the fall but it’s the same kind of shit with Mandy, even though it’ll be a fucking miracle if she graduates.
Ian though.
He’s got it all figured out although sometimes, underneath the excitement and the want, he looks unsure of himself, like his dream is so far out of reach, and he’ll whisper things to Mickey when he thinks he’s asleep. Things like he’s not gonna be able to make it, he won’t get in to West Point, his grades aren’t good enough, his physical and practical test scores aren’t good enough. He’s not good enough.
Which is bullshit.
And not just because Mickey may have looked at the West Point website a few times and knows that Ian’s got everything they’re looking for. Leadership, responsibility, good work ethic.
It’s bullshit because Ian is way too good for this shitty place, way too good for what a life here would be like. And, Mickey can’t help thinking as he watches Ian do another set of pull-ups, way too good for Mickey.
“Think you done enough of those?” Mickey calls out, a cigarette in between his lips.
“Nope,” Ian grunts out and yeah, okay, the way he sounds with the way his shirt is sort of riding up and showing off his abs, Mickey can’t really help it, he wants to fuck him right here in this obstacle course. He ignores the big part of him that says he’s selfish and he doesn’t deserve to have this, Ian.
Ian’s looking at him like this is all he’s ever wanted. Maybe that can be enough.
//
His brother catches them while Ian’s got his hands down Mickey’s jeans, cupping and squeezing his ass, and his tongue, hot and wet, in his mouth.
Mickey pushes Ian away and passes the gob smacked expression on Carl Gallagher’s face (“Ian you know you’re kissing a dude right?”) and runs down the stairs blind, his heart and head racing a mile a minute, breath caught in his throat.
Ian snags his wrist and Mickey pulls away harshly, his back hitting against the kitchen wall.
Ian holds his hands up in a calm the fuck down gesture and Mickey hates him. Mickey hates the way his face his still flushed red from kissing him, the way his chest is rising and falling hard and fast, the way his face looks so open and worried and intense.
Hates him for doing this to him.
“He doesn’t care.”
“You’re really starting to sound like a broken fucking record with that shit, you know.” Seriously. Mandy won’t care. His family won’t care. Carl won’t care. Fucking stop it. They will care. And Mickey hates that he cares that they care. That he’s not like Ian and isn’t able to just let it be what it is.
Ian doesn’t blink, doesn’t breathe. Neither does Mickey.
He keeps his hands up and steps closer to Mickey, softly touching his shoulder.
“It doesn’t matter to him.”
Mickey snorts, almost laughing tiredly, and his fingers twist into his pockets, looking for a cigarette. He doesn’t move away though.
“I thought we were trying.” Ian’s thumb rubs into his shoulder, then down his arm.
“Fuck off.” Even as he says it, he steps closer, smelling his breath and the laundry detergent in his clothes and something else so familiar it aches.
Ian laughs, a relieved, hoarse sound, and his mouth kind of trembles. Mickey’s eyes stay fixated on his lips.
"It’ll be fine. He might have questions but you can just tell him to shut up,” Ian grins. “He’ll probably want to know more about guns and if you’ve ever killed a man with your bare hands.”
"Maybe he can watch me kill you."
Ian smirks and pinches his elbow.
Mickey bites the inside of his cheek until he tastes blood. Okay. Okay. Fuck.
Ian’s looking like a weight’s just been lifted off his shoulders. Mickey leans up a little on his toes and plants a small kiss on his lips, quick and still, before Carl comes stumbling down the stairs and he pulls away.
The kid is wielding probably the hugest fucking knife Mickey has ever seen. He points it at Mickey’s face and he doesn’t even blink. Ian laughs loudly and carefree, the fuckhead.
“It means he likes you,” he tells Mickey.
When Carl turns away, running through the house, stabbing the air, Ian grabs his hand, even though it’s a little sweaty and still shaky.
Fuck.
//
“Will you tell me something?”
"I signed the petition for Leo to get his Oscar."
"No," Ian snorts out a laugh, long and like it comes from deep inside his chest. Mickey smiles. "Something real."
They’re still in bed, he’s lying naked on top of Ian’s chest from where he dropped after coming; his knees splayed and still clutching Ian’s sides, feeling the steady rise and fall of his breathing. His face is pressed to Ian’s neck and he smells so fucking good. Ian’s hands are on his back, running slowly up and down his spine. He’s not usually this clingy, but he’s way too comfortable to give a shit. Ian’s not complaining so whatever.
“Mick?”
“What do you want to know?”
“Anything. You know everything about me.”
“You share all your shit. Not my fault.”
Ian pinches his side and Mickey squirms before sighing.
“Not much to tell.”
Ian scoffs softly. “Bullshit.”
They fall silent, Mickey spreading out next to Ian in bed, pulling the blankets around them, flopping onto his stomach, his face in Ian’s pillow. Ian watches him, lifting his hand to his face once Mickey settles and traces a long, thin scar on his chin.
"Shaving?"
Mickey shakes his head. “Dad.”
Ian’s eyes and frown are deep and angry and before he can go off about how shitty their shitty existences are, Mickey reaches up and grabs his hand.
“I’m scared,” Mickey says quietly into the pillow.
Ian’s face doesn’t change. “Of me?”
Of him. Of everything Ian makes him feel and want. Everything Ian showed him and taught him to be. Selfish and wanted and safe and afraid and needed. A whole mess of shit Mickey never wanted but can’t get for the life of him let go of now because it’s inside him, in a space that aches and gets bigger every day, every time he sees Ian, every time Ian touches him, every time Ian kisses him.
He nods once and prays that’ll be the end of it.
Ian scoots closer to him, hooks an ankle around his leg and tosses an arm over his waist. He just aches more. Mickey’s heart hurts, it’s beating so hard with something he’s too scared to put a name to. Something he’s not ready to acknowledge. Yet.
//
"Mandy met this guy through Lip. Says he’s cute and might be good for me. Did you know I have a bad track record?"
Mickey glances over at Ian munching on popcorn and staring at the movie screen in front of them. Non-fucking-chalant.
Ian looks at him as he takes a sip of the soda Mickey spiked with rum. “What should I tell her?”
The lights dim as the previews start playing and Mickey grabs a handful of popcorn, settling in to the seat, his shoulder brushing against Ian’s.
"Tell her you’re seein’ someone."