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They put the crib from Kev and V into the spare room, implications left unsaid. At first, Mickey complains that it was supposed to be used as storage space for their guns and ammo, but Ian knows he just needs to be a little patient with him, and he’ll warm up to the idea eventually.
Standing there barefoot in his pajamas one morning, Ian watches it from the doorway, thinking how strange it looks with it being the only piece of furniture in an otherwise empty room.
In a way, it seems fitting. The crib represents a dream that he has no idea how they’re going to achieve and that Mickey may never be totally onboard with. So far, it’s just a puzzle piece in the grand scheme of things called the happy future of Ian and Mickey, husbands from the South Side. A pretty fucking significant piece, if you ask Ian, but just a piece nonetheless.
As he takes a sip from his cup of coffee, the toilet flushes in the next room, and he shakes off his reverie just in time to see Mickey coming toward him. He’s wearing just his raggedy bathrobe, and it seems totally arbitrary since he leaves it open and flapping comically around his naked body.
Ian shakes his head, amused. “This how things are gonna be from now on, huh?”
“Figured since it’s finally just the two of us,” Mickey smirks at him. “You complainin’?”
“Might not be the best idea, darling,“ Ian teases. “We don’t have curtains yet.”
“So what? Let the nosy fuckers enjoy the show.”
As Mickey sticks his head in the doorway beside Ian, Ian wonders what he sees.
“Still think my bazooka would’ve looked better in there,” Mickey mutters, and Ian thinks he’s probably got the only answer he was going to get any time soon.
The day they install their new bed frame is also the day they put it to good use, and as Ian fucks Mickey from behind in hard thrusts, both of them holding onto the headboard, he realizes bed frames aren’t probably going to have a long lifespan in this household.
“You don’t think it’s gonna change things too much?” Mickey asks after when they’re lying in bed quietly, indulging each other in soft lingering looks.
“Dunno. They usually say it’s the mattress that changes your life.”
“Ain’t talkin’ about the bed, dumbass.”
“Oh.”
Ian’s eyes flick to the spare room unwittingly. He hums, letting Mickey’s concern fully register.
“You don’t have to worry about it just yet,” Ian says after a minute as he reaches out to cradle Mickey’s head, his fingers brushing his face lovingly. “First, I plan on fucking you on every surface around here. Although at the rate we’re going, that might as well be next week.”
Mickey’s body gives a little twitch at that.
“Kidding,” Ian quickly adds, shuffling closer to him. “Maybe, in the meantime, we can get more surfaces to fuck on? That way, we get more time to deal with this shit?”
“Sure, why not,” Mickey replies after a while, all gentle and grateful.
On a free weekend, Ian paints the spare room in a calming mellow yellow shade.
“What do you think?” he asks Mickey when he’s done with all four walls.
“Looks fuckin’ yellow.”
Ian sighs, the day’s physical exertion getting to him. “It’s supposed to be relaxing.”
“No, you’re right,” Mickey nods in consideration, “the baby’s gonna need all the fucking chill in the world with the two of us as parents.”
As long as baby is not Mickey’s nickname for a bazooka, Ian thinks they’re on the right path.
He shows Mickey the first-ever tomato he grows in their shared garden with almost parental pride. It’s tiny and still kind of green, but it’s a thing that came solely from Ian’s hard work and patience, and he couldn’t be more delighted about it.
“Oh hey, look at that!” Mickey says cheerily. “You’re a regular Gordon Ramsay.”
Ian gives him an unimpressed look. “He’s a chef.”
“Whatever. I bet he jerks off over his organic produce, too.”
Mickey plucks the tomato from Ian’s hand and unceremoniously throws it in his mouth. “It’s good, man,” he tells Ian mid-chew.
Watching him, Ian realizes that some things in life need their time and care to properly grow and that you can’t take them before they’re ready and pretend it’s all good just because you can’t wait any longer.
He’s going to give Mickey all the time he needs.
The spare room slowly becomes the perfect place to hide all their useless shit—the ugly gifts they got from their family and neighbors, the bedsheets they ruined, the stuff they’re too lazy to throw away,… you name it.
It works like magic, really, because they can just shove it all in, turn the lights off, close the door and pretend like they’re going to come back to everything inside very soon.
This way, at least, the crib doesn’t stand out like a painful reminder that sometimes Ian had to let go even of his biggest hopes and dreams.
Lip and Tami’s baby number two is a boy again, and Ian wishes nothing more for him and Fred than to have the same kind of close relationship that he and Lip have always had.
The meeting of the new baby comes with a tour of their new house—Liam’s room and a massaging showerhead that Lip’s recently installed in the bathroom being the presumed highlights.
For Ian, though, it’s without a doubt the feeling of holding his newborn nephew in his arms for the first time. He knows he’s not being subtle when he keeps shooting tentative glances at Mickey throughout it.
“Wanna hold him?” Ian whispers gently, trying his hardest not to disturb the sleeping baby.
“Fuck no,” Mickey retorts. “I definitely wanna try the showerhead, though.”
“The couple in 103 just had a baby, and I can’t remember the last time I had a good night’s sleep,” their neighbor Jill complains one day when they’re all lounging by the pool together.
“I’m sure they can’t either, my dear,” her husband Alan quips from his magazine.
“All I’m saying is,” Jill continues, pointedly ignoring him, “I just hope you’re not planning on having a screaming infant on your own anytime soon, Ian.”
Not thinking about it too hard, Ian huffs out a laugh. “Ha, no. We’re like the last people to worry about in that area.”
Without a word, Mickey suddenly gets up from his lounger and jumps into the pool.
“When will he understand that that’s not allowed?” Alan speaks into the tense silence, and Ian wants nothing more than to deck him in the face with the rule board.
They offer to help out Lip and Tami and take the boys for the day. Liam mostly sticks to his book, but the baby manages to wreak havoc just by crawling where he isn’t supposed to, and with Fred running around the apartment like a maniac, Ian and Mickey go to bed feeling like the life was sucked right out of them.
“Thank fuck they’re gone,” Mickey murmurs as he plants face-first onto his pillow. Ian just groans in reply.
They lie there like that for a moment, achy and tired, before Ian turns on his side to look at Mickey’s slowly rising back.
“You were really good with the kids today,” he tells him softly, not knowing if he’s still awake or not.
“Don’t,” Mickey replies, his voice muffled.
“Don’t what?”
With the least effort possible, Mickey moves to face him back.
“Know exactly what you’re doing, asshole.”
“Not doing anything,” Ian utters, meaning it.
He holds Mickey’s gaze until he lets out an overly dramatic groan and shuffles to lie on his back, eyes focused on the ceiling.
“The baby was loud as fuck,” he finally says.
“Yeah.”
“I remember he was a pretty quiet kid. Yev.”
Ian takes a deep breath. “Yeah.”
“Keep thinking about how he used to fall asleep on your chest. All curled up in there, so small and peaceful. Didn’t make a sound.”
“Yeah.”
“I loved that.”
“Yeah.” Ian sighs as he closes his eyes. “Yeah, me too.”
“What the fuck are you doing?” Ian asks in amusement when he finds Mickey on the floor of their living room trying to duct tape their unused electric outlets.
“Just trying to cover these fuckers, so no one licks them and gets electrocuted,” Mickey explains before he heaves himself up.
“Why would you be crawling on the floor licking our outlets?”
“Well, I wouldn’t. Goddamn it, Ian,” he grunts as he leaves the room, visibly irritated.
“Check this out. Looks fucking cool.”
They’ve been spending the evening in bed, showing each other funny shit on their phones, and when Ian looks up from a photo of a wiener dog in a hot dog costume, he’s kind of expecting to be shown yet another video of someone getting kicked in the nuts, which Mickey finds hugely entertaining, for some reason.
Instead, it’s a photo of a baby onesie with a black print of brass knuckles on it.
“Hm. Don’t think Lip and Tami would appreciate it,” Ian notes, going back to his phone.
“Why the fuck would they get a say in that?” Mickey replies in affront. “Our kid’s gonna look so rad.”
In the morning, Ian starts clearing out the storage room until it’s empty again, save for the crib pushed back against the furthest wall, patiently waiting to carry out its true purpose.
The day after that, Mickey finds the old can of mellow yellow under the kitchen sink, and together they give the room a new coat of paint.
Neither of them calls it storage room ever again.