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Entry tags:
Shameless fic: falling for you without a second look
title: falling for you without a second look
Pairing: Ian/Mickey
Rating: NC17
Words: ~7,500
Summary: Mickey fiddles with his vest for a long moment before saying, "I gotta go out of town for a couple days."
Notes: I'm calling this early Season 3. You could probably fit it between 3x02 and 3x03 if you use a shoehorn. Warnings for canon-typical language/slurs and canon-typical drinking/smoking/marijuana use. Underage: Ian's seventeen.
[AO3]
falling for you without a second look
"You working this weekend?" Mickey asks.
His voice is lazy and fuck-rough, a little too casual. He's slouching against the magazine rack with an unopened beer in one hand and his security vest in the other.
Ian says, "No," and tries not to look at Mickey's rumpled hair, at the pair of hickies blooming on his throat. Ned mentioned taking him out Saturday—dinner and drinks before grabbing a room at the Park Hyatt—but Ian hasn't called him back yet. He isn't sure he wants to. "Not 'til Monday."
Mickey fiddles with his vest for a long moment before saying, "I gotta go out of town for a couple days."
"'Kay. You need me to tell Linda? Or—"
"Nah. She knows. I'm—" Mickey huffs and chews at his lip. "You wanna come?"
"Me?"
"Yeah, you. Joey and Colin are moving some guns with my dad, and Iggy bitched out on me. Got a meeting with his PO, or some shit."
"So," Ian says, leaning his elbows on the counter. "I'm your last resort?"
Mickey flushes a little. "Fuck off, is what you are." He pops the cap on his beer and flicks it at Ian's head. "If you're gonna be a girl about it, I'll pry Mandy off your brother's dick and take her instead."
"Yeah, okay," Ian says, snorting. "Good luck with that."
"Whatever. You coming or what?"
Ian bites back a smile. "Sure."
+
Lip comes into the bedroom as Ian's tossing a change of clothes into his backpack. They stare at each other for a few seconds—Lip frozen in the doorway; Ian holding a mismatched pair of socks. A car rumbles down the street, and Fiona's voice rises and falls downstairs. Ian breaks first; he rolls the socks together and stuffs them into the backpack. A beat later, Lip walks over and sits on Ian's bed.
He asks, "You going somewhere?" and helps himself to Ian's cigarette.
Ian shrugs. "Out."
"Out," Lip repeats, smoke streaming from his nose. "You don't usually take your toothbrush to the club, so... I'm guessing out with Mickey?" When Ian doesn't say anything, he adds, "Mandy told me he got released the other day. Haven't seen much of you since."
Ian shrugs again. Since he's already caught, he grabs the lube stashed under his mattress without bothering to hide it.
"Really?" Lip asks. He pokes at the mark under Ian's jaw, a narrow bruise cut by Mickey's teeth. "I thought you said you guys were done."
Ian had said that. And when Mickey first got locked up, he might've even meant it. But as the months wore on, he ended up missing Mickey more than he hated him for the shit he said before he punched that cop. He thought a lot about how it felt to hold Mickey's hips, to kiss the top of his spine, to push into him rough and quick.
"Whatever," Ian says. He snatches the cigarette back like it isn't crawling with ash. "We—it's complicated."
"Right. Complicated." Lip leans back on his hands and stretches his legs. "What romantic locale have you crazy kids picked for tonight's secret rendezvous? The baseball field? An abandoned building? A hobo squat under the El?"
"Lip—"
"You know, the alley behind the Kash & Grab is pretty sweet. Decent mood lighting, only one dumpster. You—"
"Dude, shut up." Ian shoulders his backpack and jams the dead cigarette into the ashtray overflowing on the desk. "We're going out of town."
Lip just stares for a second. "What? You—out of town?"
"Yeah."
"Wow," Lip says slowly. "That almost sounds like a date."
The plumbing rattles behind the walls—someone flushing the downstairs toilet. Ian says, "No," and fiddles with the straps on his backpack. "Kinda. I don't know. He's gotta head out for a couple of days, and he asked me to come with him."
"You—" Lip huffs under his breath. "I take it back. That sounds like a drug run."
Ian can't help laughing a little. "Knowing him? Probably." Before Lip can argue about it, Ian says, "I'll be fine, Dad. Stop worrying."
"What about Fiona?"
Ian says, "Not telling her," and unlatches the window. It jerks open with a tired scrape and a burst of smelly, Southside air. "Better to beg forgiveness, yeah?"
After a pause, Lip shakes his head. "Fine. I haven't seen you. Try not to get arrested."
+
It takes them over an hour to get out of Chicago, crawling north on I-90 as the sky goes dark and Iggy's beater of a Buick drinks oil. Mickey spends most of that time chain-smoking and chugging blue Gatorade. He drums his fingers on the steering wheel and fiddles with the radio. The brake lights up ahead cast his face in deep, shadowy reds. Ian just watches him, trapped by the curve of his mouth, the long line of his throat.
Mickey notices eventually; he cocks an eyebrow and aims a lazy punch at Ian's thigh. "The fuck you looking at?"
"You," Ian admits.
"Fag," Mickey gripes, but there isn't much heat behind it. "Knock it off."
Ian snorts and turns toward the window. He wastes a few minutes staring at the concrete noise barrier, at a pile of lumber abandoned on the shoulder, at a guy fumbling to change a tire in the dark. The traffic is thinning now that they've passed the airport. Ian shifts in his seat, trying to get comfortable. His feet are sharing the floorboard with a dirty flannel shirt and an unopened can of Dr. Pepper; he nudges the soda aside and stretches his legs.
A few miles later, Mickey offers Ian the back-half of his cigarette. He watches as Ian brings it to his mouth.
Ian asks, "What are you looking at?"
"Nothing," Mickey says, chewing his lip. "I'm—it's just weird, you know? Doing this with you instead of my brother."
"What are we doing, anyway?"
It's a stupid question; Ian should've asked before they left. But he—Mickey has that effect on him sometimes.
A horn honks somewhere behind them. Mickey grabs the cigarette and says, "Nothing," again. "Gotta pick something up."
"Shit," Ian mutters. Lip's going to laugh himself sick. "Is this a drug run?"
"Kinda." The Mercedes they've been tailgating moves over; Mickey leans on the gas. "Stuff's already paid for. I just gotta get it."
"Where?"
"Greyhound station in Minneapolis. Supplier sent us a baggage ticket."
Ian blinks; he's watched old noir movies with less ridiculous plots. "That's—"
"Bullshit? Yeah, I know." Mickey cracks the window enough to toss their cigarette butt. "Asshole usually deals outta his house—some dump in Milwaukee. But he's a fucking schizo. Every once and awhile, the voices tell him he's getting raided. He freaks out and stashes all his product, and his buyers get stuck playing fucking hide and seek."
"And your dad's okay with that?"
"Eh," Mickey says, shrugging. "He's known the crazy sonofabitch forever. Served in juvie together, or some shit." The radio cuts from music to a commercial—a dude with a heavy accent shouting about used cars. Mickey turns it down and shoots Ian a sideways glance. "You cool?"
"Yeah."
"You sure? 'Cause you don't look cool. You look like you're about to bitch out on me."
"Nah. I'm just—" Ian cuts off, sighing. He thinks about the stolen car Lip borrowed from Jimmy, about the night he spent handcuffed to a chair.
"Chill, man. Everything's gonna be fine. It's just a few kilos of pot."
"Yeah," Ian scoffs. "It's just interstate trafficking."
"Jesus Christ—"
"Possession with intent."
"Gallagher—"
"Maybe some conspiracy to commit."
"Holy fuck," Mickey barks. He jerks the wheel as the car rumbles over a rough patch of asphalt. "This heap has a secret compartment in the trunk. It ain't like you're gonna ride back with all that weed sitting in your lap." When Ian doesn't say anything, Mickey sighs and taps his fingers on his knee. "Look, getting the stuff's gonna take me fifteen, twenty minutes. That gives us a lot of time to do whatever."
"Whatever?" Ian repeats, smiling a little. "We gonna go bowling, Mick? Visit a museum?"
Mickey says, "Ay, fuck off," and pinches Ian's side. Then: "If you wanna go home, just tell me. Tell me now and I'll turn around."
Mostly, Ian wants to bite the hinge of Mickey's jaw.
"Nah," he says. "I'm cool."
+
Mickey hisses, "Jesus Christ, Gallagher," and grabs the back of Ian's neck. "Fuck. Fuck."
Ian pulls up slow, letting his lips and tongue drag over the head of Mickey's dick. He wipes the spit off his chin and says, "Hey. Both hands on the wheel."
"You fucking kidding me?" Mickey snaps, hips shifting. His dick bump-slides against Ian's jaw. "C'mon, man."
"You want something?"
"Uh, yeah. I want you to put my dick back in your mouth."
Ian hums quietly and sucks Mickey back in. The angle is bad; his left arm's folded up against his side, and the empty Gatorade bottle is jabbing him in the ribs. But he loves this—the wet heat and the ache in his jaw, the way Mickey fills his mouth, presses against his tongue. He hollows his cheeks and swallows Mickey down, down. Mickey squirms in his seat. He makes a noise in the back of his throat—something low and warm and dark, louder than the farm report buzzing on the radio.
Ian finds a rhythm: drawing up, sinking down. He curls his tongue at the top, opens his throat when his nose hits the dark hair curling around Mickey's dick. Mickey's hips jerk again, and the car jerks with them, bouncing as the tires graze the ruts lining the shoulder. Ian braces his free arm across Mickey's thighs, holding him still, pinning him down.
"Shit." Something creaks—Mickey white-knuckling the wheel. "Shit, shit, shit."
Ian pulls up again and tongues Mickey's slit. "You gonna come?"
"Yeah, fuck."
Ian sucks him back in, taking him as deep as he can, sliding his mouth up and down, up and down. Mickey's thigh's tense, and he grabs Ian's head again. He comes with a bitten-off moan, his back arching, his nails digging into Ian's scalp.
After, Ian sits up and wipes his mouth. He rolls a kink out of his shoulder and settles into his seat. The air inside the car is humid, sex-thick. Ian's dick is a heavy ache between his legs.
Mickey glances at him—once, twice. He reaches over and palms Ian through his jeans. "Need some help over there?"
Ian pushes up into Mickey's hand for a couple seconds, but then the car starts to drift and he bats him away. "Not if you're gonna run us into a ditch."
"Fine. Do it yourself, asshole."
"Yeah?" Ian hooks his fingers in his belt. "You want me to?"
"Yeah," Mickey says. He's beautiful like this—the flush on his cheeks, the sweat-sheen on his throat. "Do it. Get your dick out."
Ian says, "Alright," and unzips his jeans. "But keep your eyes on the road."
Mickey snorts and puts a cigarette in his mouth. "Yeah, whatever."
+
Fiona texts Ian a little after midnight. He frowns at the message for a few seconds, then types out a vague reply about crashing at a friend's place. She's pretty distracted now that Jimmy's back; Ian figures she won't really start bugging him until Sunday afternoon.
Mickey asks, "Who's that?" as Ian's pocketing his phone.
They're at a Mega Holiday in Eau Claire because Mickey was hungry and the Buick needed another quart of oil. The only other car in the lot is a seventies land yacht parked diagonally across two spots, its chrome glinting in the store's white-bright lights. Mickey's sitting on the Buick's trunk and eating a shriveled-looking hotdog with his entire face; he has mustard on his cheek and he's chewing with his mouth open. Ian wants to kiss him nearly as much as he wants to smack him for being disgusting.
He says, "My sister," and bites into his nasty microwave burrito. It tastes like wet cardboard and goes down like a mouthful of glue. "She wanted to know if I'm coming home."
"What'd you tell her?"
"That I'm hanging out with my ROTC buddies."
"You got any of those?" Mickey asks. He flashes Ian some teeth before adding, "I don't mean that fat faggot I caught you banging under the bleachers."
Ian doesn't, but he isn't going to admit it—not to Mickey. He says, "Yeah," and takes another bite of his burrito. Ralph's been avoiding him since Mickey bashed him, and he's never really talked to the others. Mark and Antonio are scrawny, jumpy freshmen who salute him constantly because he outranks them; Michelle, Lindsay, and Tanika don't like him because of some beef with Mandy that dates back to middle-school. The rest are a bunch of ass-kissing seniors busy trying to snag one more promotion before graduation. Ian doesn't really care; it's not like he signed up for ROTC to make friends. "A few."
Mickey chews his lip for a beat or two, then dives back into his hotdog. A glob of relish drips off his fingers and splats onto the asphalt. Mouth full, he asks, "How'd you end up sticking it that noisy twat, anyway?"
Ian snorts. "'Cuz you never make any noise."
Mickey sneers at him, but it loses something because of the mustard on his face. "Not like that, I don't." He takes a minute to lick his greasy fingers. "That get you off? All that G.I. Joe talk?"
The store's door chimes as a guy walks out with a can of Redbull and a carton of smokes. Ian says, "No," and tosses his burrito wrapper in the garbage.
"So? What made you—" Mickey makes a rude gesture and shoves the last of his hotdog in his mouth.
"We bunked together on a camping trip." Ian caught Ralph browsing the 'Solo Male' section of PornHub on his phone, which led to them trading sloppy handjobs while sweating their asses off in a tent. A few days later, they swapped blowjobs at an empty shooting range. He only fucked Ralph that one time, but he's not admitting that to Mickey, either. "We just—" he shrugs. "You know."
"I guess," Mickey says. After a pause, he wipes his hands on his jeans and hops off the trunk. "C'mon, fuckstick. We still got a hundred miles to go."
+
Ian wakes up to Mickey punching him in the arm.
"Ay. Earth to assface."
"Yeah," Ian mumbles, rubbing his eyes. Mickey's standing beside the open passenger-side door, backlit by the blue-green glow of a flickering neon sign. A train whistle blares in the distance as Ian sits up. He loses a few seconds staring at Mickey's mouth. "Where are we?"
The last thing he remembers is passing a highway sign announcing the Wisconsin-Minnesota line. Mickey had been telling a story about one of his brothers getting eighty-sixed from the Rusty Hammer—something about a pool table catching on fire.
"Where's it look like, genius?"
Ian rubs his eyes again. The building behind them is the kind of flop found south of Canaryville, down where hookers circle the street corners in the middle of the afternoon and crackheads pass out for the night in empty lots. It's all colorless rock siding and chipped, sun-bleached stucco. Half the porch lights are broken. Scraggly shrubs are dying underneath each window.
"A motel?"
Mickey shrugs. "Figured you didn't wanna sleep in the car."
Ian doesn't. But: "How'd you pay for it?" Even dumps like this run sixty or seventy bucks a night, and he's pretty sure Mickey bought that hotdog with nickels and dimes.
"I didn't," Mickey says, flashing a credit card. "Colin cleaned out some mailboxes in Wicker Park last week. Herbert MacMillan has an eight-thousand-dollar limit." After a pause, he hefts his bag and shuffles back a couple of steps. "You coming or what?"
Ian grabs his stuff, locks the car, and follows Mickey across an oil-stained parking lot scattered with cigarette butts. An empty beer can chases them part of the way, nudged along by a lazy wind. Their room is at the end of the row, crouched beside a stairwell and facing a bank of ancient vending machines. The ice hopper gurgles and spits as Mickey wrestles with the key.
Inside, the room is a dump. The carpet is nearly bald, and everything smells like dust and cheap pot. But the bed is huge, and it doesn't look too lumpy. The mini-fridge is big enough for the two cases of beer they brought.
"It's all they had left," Mickey says suddenly, his voice tight, urgent. "One bed. We're not—"
"Whatever," Ian cuts in. He's learned that it's better to stop Mickey's 'no homo' tapdances before they really start. "Sleep on the couch, if you're worried about it."
"You sleep on the fucking couch."
Ian pushes Mickey into the room and kicks the door closed. The naked light-bulb above their heads gutters like a candle. They just stand there for a minute, staring at each other, breathing too hard. Mickey's collar is stretched out from too many washes, yawning around the dip of his throat. He thumbs his lip a couple of times; the floor whines as he shifts his feet. Ian steps closer and pushes him again—this time toward the bed.
"Gallagher—"
"Shut up," Ian says, low. "Just—take your clothes off."
+
Mickey arches up and back, hard. He mutters, "Damn it, Gallagher," in a voice so rough Ian feels it in his gut. "C'mon."
He's still too tight, nearly strangling Ian's fingers. Ian works them in rough and quick, tries to make more space. There's lube everywhere—the inside of Ian's wrist, the curve of Mickey's left asscheek, the notch of his tailbone, the thin skin behind his balls. Ian curls his fingers again, rubs his thumb over Mickey's rim. Mickey grits out a noise and jabs his heel into Ian's thigh.
"Jesus fuck. Now."
"Not yet."
Fabric rustles as Mickey scrabbles at the sheets. "Get on me or I'm gonna go jerk it in the bathroom."
Ian leans up a little. He says, "Yeah, alright," and gropes around the bed with his free hand. "Where's the rubber?"
"Fuck the rubber."
And that's stupid, stupid—Ian's been careful with Ned, but God only knows what Mickey did in juvie—but Ian's dick's so hard it hurts, and Mickey's rocking his hips now, pushing back like he plans to just ride Ian's hand to the finish line. Ian grabs Mickey's waist and yanks him up, shoving at his shoulders until he sinks onto his elbows. He expects Mickey to bitch at him—he likes to pretend he doesn't love having his ass in the air—but Mickey just lets out another noise and hides his face against his arm.
Ian lines himself up and sinks in, in, in. Mickey's still too tight, hot and soft inside like nothing Ian's ever felt. He gets a good grip on Mickey's hips, then fucks into him a couple of times—easy, almost slow. Mickey pushes into it, snarling, "Move, pussy," over his shoulder. He twists an arm back and claws at Ian's side.
Ian's knee skids on the sheets. The headboard bangs against the wall, and he leans up to brace a hand on in, pressing himself against Mickey's back. Heat coils in his gut; he wants to crawl inside Mickey and stay there. He fucks harder, faster, angling up, smiling when Mickey arches under him—when Mickey clutches around him, chokes out a moan that slurs into his name.
"Yeah?" he asks. He already knows, but he likes hearing Mickey say it. "There?"
"Yeah, fuck," Mickey hisses, his back curving, perfect. "Just like that."
+
It's kind of awkward, after: the two of them naked and sitting side-by-side on the bed, Ian cross-legged and Mickey sprawled out, not touching except to pass a cigarette back and forth. They still aren't sure how to do this part yet, how to hang out without it leading somewhere, without Mickey either angling for another round or running for the door. Ian can't find anything to say, so he nurses a beer and picks at a fray in the sheets and sneaks glances at Mickey in the watery, blue-white flicker of the TV.
A pair of finger-shaped bruises are blooming on Mickey's left hip. Ian wants to touch them, trace them with his lips, his tongue. More, he wants to pull Mickey close, wrap an arm around Mickey's waist, feel Mickey breathe against his skin. It's stupid, and if he tried it Mickey'd just call him a faggot and shove him away. But Ian's never really had that—not even with Ned, who's way less jumpy that Mickey, not nearly as closeted, but still has somewhere to be afterward, a wife who expects him to come home.
"Ay," Mickey says suddenly, his voice too sharp for the silence. "The fuck are we watching?"
On the screen, a chick in a flowered apron is feeding zucchinis into a thing that turns them into noodles. Shrugging, Ian says, "Infomercials."
"I know that, genius. Why?"
"'Cuz it's three-thirty in the morning." That, and the motel only has six channels. "Not much else on."
Mickey says, "Bullshit," and grabs for the remote.
Laughing, Ian holds it out of reach. Mickey grabs for it again, slapping at Ian's arm and climbing halfway into his lap. Ian waves it over Mickey's head, then drops it on the floor. Instead of diving for it, Mickey yanks Ian up and flips him onto his back. They wrestle for a few minutes, rolling back and forth across the bed as they scrap and scratch and twist. Ian gets elbowed in the ribs more than once, and his thumb digs a bruise on the inside of Mickey's thigh. When they finally settle, panting, Ian's looking down at Mickey, one hand in his hair and the other around his wrist.
Mickey's staring up at him, his mouth open and his eyes dark. Ian wants to kiss him, almost thinks Mickey'd let him. He rocks his hips a little, letting their half-hard dicks ride together. Mickey hooks a leg around Ian's thigh and drags his free hand down his side.
"You gonna get on me?" he asks, soft.
"Yeah," Ian says, his chest aching. "Yeah."
+
"So," Ian says, pausing as he reaches for the ugly bedside lamp. "You gonna sleep on the couch?"
Mickey lolls his head to the side and slowly lifts an eyebrow. His hair is sweat-limp, falling over his forehead. "You want me to?"
"No."
Huffing, Mickey tugs the sheet up over his hips. He fidgets a little, stretching his legs and burrowing into the pillow. He ends up closer than Ian expects—not close enough to touch, but close enough.
"Then shut the fuck up."
+
Ian wakes up groggy and sprawled face-down on the bed, his arm hanging off the mattress and his chin stuck in a damp patch of drool. His mouth tastes like an ashtray, and his legs are mummy-wrapped in the sheets. Morning has come and gone; the sunlight bleeding through the flimsy curtains is afternoon-hot and bright enough to make him squint.
He rubs his eyes, then flops onto his back and lets out a yawn that nearly pops his jaw. Stretching makes a dull ache spread down his thighs. He just lays there for a few minutes, breathing in motel dust and commercial-grade detergent and listening to Mickey move around the room. Something clicks—a fresh clip sliding into a gun. The TV is on next door; game-show applause cuts through the wall in sharp bursts.
Just as he's starting to drift off again, Mickey says, "Ay," and jostles the bed with his knee. "You up?"
Ian doesn't want to be, but they might as well get this drug bullshit over with. Mickey's already dressed, his gun a bulky lump in the pocket of his jeans. His backpack is waiting beside the door.
"Yeah," Ian mutters, yawning again. He shakes himself out of it and leans up on his elbows. "I guess."
A car coughs to life in the parking lot. Mickey says, "Here," and hands Ian a grease-spotted McDonald's bag. "Breakfast. Or—" he glances at the clock "—lunch. Whatever."
It's just three dollar-menu cheeseburgers and a large order of fries, but Ian—Ian grins at him. He's wearing his blue tank-top, and his hair is still fucked. His boots are dusty with the kind of Canaryville dirt that's half stockyard grit and factory soot. Ian can't kiss him, so he reaches out and skims his fingers over his hip.
Mickey allows it for about five seconds. Then he closes himself off, like he always does when he feels like things are getting too gay.
"You're supposed to eat it, dickhead. Not cry about it."
Ian snorts and climbs off the bed. He kicks at the clothes on the floor until he finds his boxers and jeans. "I'll eat it in the car."
"The car?" Mickey repeats, frowning. His eyes are stupidly blue. "The fuck you think you're going?"
"Uh, the bus station? We gotta go get the stuff."
Mickey says, "No, I gotta go get the stuff," and jerks his head toward the door. "You're staying here. I'll be back in like an hour."
Ian just stands there, his boxers in his hand, watching as Mickey grabs his keys and double-checks his gun. A weird, hollow feeling gnaws into the space underneath his ribs. He—fuck. Fuck.
"You—you're really gonna go by yourself?"
"Yeah, I'm really gonna go by myself."
It hits Ian all at once—hits him like a fucking truck. "You don't trust me."
Mickey drops his backpack and whips around. His eyes narrow, and an angry noise hitches in his throat. He crowds in close, getting right in Ian's face. His shoulders tighten like he's gearing up to throw a punch.
"If I didn't trust you, Gallagher, I wouldn't've fucking brought you."
"Whatever," Ian snaps, tossing his boxers on the bed. "Go. I'll be here when you wanna get fucked again."
Mickey grabs Ian's jaw, presses his thumb to the corner of Ian's mouth. "You dumb sonofabitch. You really think I—" He cuts off, chewing his lip. Then he drops his hand and steps back. "You wanna come? Fine. But you're gonna do exactly what I tell you, okay? You ain't with your shithead brother, buying dirt weed under the El. I don't need you fucking this up 'cuz you're sketching like a little bitch."
"Fine."
+
"It's in there?" Ian asks, looking at the ugly brick building across the street.
It's shimmering like a mirage in the afternoon sun, blurred by the light glaring off its aluminum awning and huge, blue-tint windows. The trees flanking the entrance are drooping in the heat. A homeless guy in a bathrobe and sweats is arguing with the fire hydrant on the corner.
Mickey says, "Yeah," and blows a long stream of smoke through his nose. He reaches under his seat and pulls out a pair of sunglasses and a dusty, tired-looking Sox hat.
"Okay. What's the plan?"
"The plan is, I'm going in. You —" he pokes Ian's chest "—are gonna wait here. If I ain't back in thirty minutes, you're gonna go back to the motel."
"What? No. You—"
"You're gonna go back to the motel," Mickey insists. He cracks his FUCK knuckles with his thumb before poking Ian's chest again. "If I don't turn up by check-out tomorrow, you're gonna drive back to Chicago. Don't take the car to my house—Iggy will kick your ass first and ask questions later. Park it at the ball field and give the keys to Mandy."
"Okay," Ian says slowly. Mickey's out of his fucking mind. "What am I supposed to tell her?"
Shrugging, Mickey says, "Whatever." He hits the cigarette and passes it to Ian. "Make something up—something that doesn't involve how much I like your dick."
Ian flashes him a smug smile. "Oh, you like my dick?"
Mickey just stares at him, his tongue at the corner of his mouth. Then: "You're gonna lose it if you don't shut the fuck up." He puts on the glasses and shakes the dust off the hat. "Okay. Thirty minutes."
"Yeah. Thirty minutes."
Mickey bumps his knuckles against the back of Ian's wrist and climbs out of a car.
+
Thirty-six minutes: Ian lights another cigarette and puts a few cold french fries in his mouth.
Thirty-seven minutes: Ian unwraps his last cheeseburger, then rewraps it and sets the bag on the seat. He chews his thumbnail until it bleeds.
Thirty-eight minutes. Thirty-nine minutes. Forty minutes.
Forty-one minutes: Mickey comes out of the bus station behind a crowd of teenagers wearing the same t-shirt—some kind of high school field trip. He's carrying two large duffle bags, one on a strap so long it knocks against the back of his thigh as he walks. The Sox hat is pulled low over his forehead.
Forty-two minutes: Ian stubs the cigarette in the Buick's tiny ashtray and breathes.
+
"You waited for me."
"Yeah."
"You were supposed to take off."
"Fuck, Mick. I wasn't just going to leave you here."
+
Mickey's ridden Ian before, once, on a sticky night at the dugouts, Ian laid out on the bench with Mickey straddling him, his hands on Ian's chest, his shoes rasping on the sandy concrete as he worked himself up and down. It was amazing—watching Mickey's face, the hot flush burning down his throat and chest—but it wasn't like this. It wasn't Mickey sucking Ian until he was hard, then shoving him down on the couch and crawling into his lap. It wasn't Mickey curling his arms around Ian's neck, biting the spot below Ian's ear, panting into the curve of Ian's cheek.
"Shit." Mickey claws at Ian's shoulder, the scratchy cushion behind Ian's back. "Gallagher—fuck."
"Yeah?" Ian asks. He's barely moving, just letting Mickey use him, unwilling to disrupt the filthy roll of his hips. "Good?"
Mickey makes a noise—desperate, low. He says, "Yeah, fuck," with his mouth against Ian's jaw.
Ian can't stop touching. He pushes his hand into Mickey's hair, tugs until Mickey lifts his head. He slides his other hand down to Mickey's ass, skimming his fingers down to where Mickey's opening up, taking him in. Mickey's eyes flutter; his mouth drops around a moan. His thighs tense, and his nails dig into Ian's skin. Ian holds him closer and fucks up into him, biting the inside of his cheek so he doesn't blow too soon.
In, in, in. The couch squeaks. Shuddering, Mickey hisses, "There, fuck. Right—right there."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
Ian thrusts up again and again, harder, harder. He mouths at Mickey's throat, the stubble-rough skin under his jaw. "Can you come?"
"Dunno." Mickey never has, not without a hand on his dick, but he's holding Ian like a vise, and Ian can't stop pulling his hair, can't stop teasing his fingers around Mickey's rim. "I—"
"Want you to," Ian says, breathless. "Like this. On my dick."
"Fuck. Fuck."
Mickey shakes through it, eyes closing, his head tipping back, his throat flexing and pulling around a dark, rough noise. A few quick thrusts and Ian's following him; he can't help it, just wants to be where Mickey is, would probably follow him anywhere.
+
The phonebook on the nightstand is a couple years out of date. After dialing two dead numbers and three places on the wrong side of town, they find a Chinese restaurant that still exists and is willing to deliver to the motel. They order a shitload of food, way more than they'll finish tonight or even tomorrow. Mickey puts his boxers back on long enough to give the driver Herbert MacMillan's credit card information. Ian catches himself staring as Mickey's signing the receipt—at the curve of his ass, the new bruise blooming on his hip, the bright red scratches running down his back.
They eat side-by-side on the bed, pillows stacked behind their backs, their shoulders bumping as Ian tips his head to drink his beer, as Mickey shovels more pineapple fried rice into his mouth. The motel's TV channels still suck; the only decent thing on is M*A*S*H. Mickey gripes about it being too old and boring, but Ian figures it's better than watching some chick chop vegetables all night.
Halfway through their third episode, Mickey points an eggroll at the TV and asks, "You really wanna do that shit?"
Ian blinks; on the screen, Hawkeye is fishing a bullet out of some guy's gut. "Do what?"
"Get your ass blown off in Fallujah."
"I wanna not get my ass blown off."
After a pause, Mickey says, "C'mon, man," and elbows Ian's side. "I'm serious."
Ian steals the last bite of Mickey's eggroll and pops it into his mouth. Chewing, he says, "So am I." When Mickey just stares at him, he continues, "Look, I know you don't get it. But it pays pretty well, if I go in as an officer. And I—" He shrugs. "It'll get me outta the Southside."
Out loud, that sounds terrible. His family is in the Southside—probably always will be, unless Lip stops being a dipshit about college. But there's nothing there for Ian, except his dead-end job at the Kash & Grab and the very real possibility that one day he'll get his head bashed in because he's a fag. Just that, and Mickey. And if he ever does get out of Chicago, he's taking Mickey with him.
On the screen, Hawkeye and Trapper are plotting against Frank. Mickey says, "So, what do you gotta do? More fucking geometry?"
Ian huffs out a laugh. "Lip's been trying to teach me trig."
"And?"
"It's not going so well."
"What else?" Mickey rolls toward the nightstand, making the bed dip and creak. He swaps the pineapple fried rice for broccoli beef and grabs another beer. "You've been training, right? Push-ups? Pull-ups? Weights?"
"Yeah," Ian says, nodding. "Pretty much every day. I need to start doing more endurance stuff, though. Running, or—I could set up an obstacle course."
Mickey shakes his head and snorts, "An obstacle course," under his breath. "Jesus Christ, Gallagher. You're outta your fucking mind."
"No, I'm not. I'm just—hey!" Ian grabs at the carton Mickey's holding. "Stop picking out all the meat!"
Mickey jerks the carton out of Ian's reach and stuffs another piece of beef into his mouth. "No way. It's the only part I like."
+
They end up fucking again, moving together in the grainy, gray-green light of another M*A*S*H episode. Ian gets Mickey on his back and hooks his arms under Mickey's legs, leans in until Mickey's spread out underneath him. The stretch is enough to make Mickey squirm, to make him grit out a noise and bare his teeth, but he pushes into it as soon as Ian slides inside him, moaning long and low and grabbing at Ian's shoulders, the sheets.
It doesn't take them long to find a rhythm: Mickey arching up as Ian drives in; Ian gripping bruises into Mickey's hips as Mickey bites fresh marks into his collarbone. The bed shudders and creaks; Ian pins Mickey to the mattress and tries to breath through the feeling rising in his chest. He knows what it is—the twisting ache, the live wire arcing under his skin—and he gives in and lets himself have it. He sinks a hand into Mickey's hair and drags his mouth up the line of Mickey's throat and lets himself be in love.
Mickey falls asleep as soon as they're done, his shoulder pressed to Ian's, the back of his hand nudging Ian's thigh.
+
"Ay," Mickey says, his voice low, almost careful. He's wearing Ian's red plaid boxers and a single sock that's gray from too many washes, so shapeless it's slouching around his ankle. His hair is wet from the shower they just shared. "We should probably head back."
He's right: Ian has school tomorrow, and they both have work. Fiona's already texted three times. Still, Ian wastes a few seconds wondering how far eight thousand dollars would get them, if it would be enough to start over in Los Angeles or Boston or New York. Anywhere, as long as it was far away from Chicago, from Terry Milkovich and the Southside, as long as Mickey wouldn't have to be afraid of this anymore, afraid of them.
A door slams upstairs. Mickey's watching Ian, his lip caught between his teeth, so Ian snaps out of it, says, "Okay," and grabs his shirt.
+
Mickey says, "Listen," as they're pulling onto I-35W. He's got his U-UP hand on the wheel and his FUCK hand on a cup of Stop N Shop coffee so old and burnt it's stinking up the car. "About the weed. If shit goes down—"
"I thought you said it wouldn't." Mickey'd given Ian a whole speech back at the motel, delivered it over his shoulder as he loaded the bags into the Buick's fake trunk. He'd barely even paused to breathe. "You called me a pussy for even bringing it up."
"Maybe 'cuz you were being one."
"Why? 'Cuz I don't wanna do fifteen years?"
"Ay," Mickey snaps. He wedges the coffee cup between his thighs so he can smack Ian's arm. "Nothing's gonna happen. But if it does, you tell 'em you didn't know anything about it, alright?"
"Yeah," Ian says, snorting. "Like that's gonna work."
"It will if we both give 'em the same story," Mickey insists. "You tell 'em you're thinking of moving up here after graduation. You came up to have a look around—jobs, apartments, whatever." He changes lanes, and the soda can on the floorboard rolls into Ian's foot. "You ain't got a car, so you paid me a hundred bucks to drive you."
"What about you?"
"What about me?"
Ian shakes a cigarette out of their pack and grabs the lighter tucked under Mickey's thigh. He says, "That's gonna put you on the spot," with an ache underneath his ribs.
"It's my car, genius. And I already got a record. You—" Mickey shrugs and taps his thumb on the wheel. "I'm fucked no matter what."
"Mick—"
Mickey smacks him again, snipping, "Don't be a fag about it," but his cheeks are faintly pink. "I just—there's no point in both of us getting tossed in the can."
"Sure," Ian says. He bites back a smile and passes Mickey the cigarette.
+
"Were you serious?" Mickey asks suddenly. It's the first thing he's said in almost an hour.
They're in bumfuck southern Wisconsin, somewhere between Madison and the Illinois border. Ian's pretty zoned out; he's been staring at speed-blurred cornfields so long that looking at Mickey hurts his eyes for a second.
He rubs his hand over his face and asks, "About what?" around a yawn.
"About the obstacle course."
"I don't know." Ian straightens from where he's been slouched against the window, wincing as his shoulder pops. "That kinda shit costs money."
"What kinda shit? Like—tires, or whatever?"
"Yeah. Tires, lumber, rope, netting."
They pass a highway sign announcing that they're approaching Beloit, population 36,966. Mickey asks, "Where you wanna put it?"
Ian says, "I don't know," again because he doesn't. He hasn't thought about it too much because there's no way to make it happen. "That building on 47th would work."
"That dump where I go shooting sometimes?"
Ian nods and swallows another yawn. "Up on the roof, maybe. It's big enough, and it probably won't collapse on my head."
Mickey eyes Ian sideways for a second. Then: "My uncle did time with a guy who works at a junkyard. He might have tires going cheap, if I'm asking."
"Really? That's—"
"Ay," Mickey says, his voice sharp around the edges in a way that's all bluster. "You're doing it again."
"What? Being a fag?"
"Yes."
Ian barks out a laugh and slides his hand over Mickey's thigh. Mickey squirms a little, but he lets Ian keep it there for the next six and a half miles.
+
They get back to Chicago just as the sun is hitting the horizon. The sky stretching between the freeway and the ballpark is streaked orange and purple and pink. A pick-up game is winding down as they drive by; only six guys are still standing on the nearly-dark field. Another handful are crowded around one of the dugouts—the one Ian and Mickey don't use for hook-ups because the bench is swaybacked and bristling with splinters.
Mickey cruises past Sheila's place, the empty lot the neighborhood uses to dump old furniture, and a guy pushing a shopping cart of what looks like copper pipes. The lights are still on at Patel's dry cleaning shop. Mickey pulls over a couple blocks from Ian's house, under a street lamp that's buzzing and popping as it warms up for the night. He glances at Ian—once, twice. A smile tugs the corner of his mouth.
Ian wants to lean over and kiss him goodbye. That isn't going to happen, so he says, "See you," and climbs out of the car.
As he closes the door, Mickey slouches down and looks at him out the window. He chews his lip for a second before asking, "What time you working tomorrow?"
"After three." Ian ducks down and rests his elbows on the trim. "Unless I ditch sixth."
"What is it?"
"Bio."
Mickey waves that off and lights his cigarette. "Skip it. Come in at two and help me with the fucking beer delivery."
"Why? Is it gonna be big?"
"Oh, yeah. Huge." Mickey gives him a long, lingering look. "I probably can't handle it by myself."
A siren wails in the distance. Laughing, Ian says, "You're an idiot."
Mickey just gives him the finger. Then: "You gonna be there or what?"
"Yeah, I'll be there."
+
The house is weirdly quiet for a Sunday night. Ian doesn't hear anything as he digs for his keys—no voices, no music, no TV. The only light is coming from the kitchen, a yellowish glow in the window over the sink. Ian hopes his siblings all went out somewhere. He's exhausted, and he's pretty sure he's at the top of Fiona's shit-list. He just wants to sneak upstairs and crawl in bed before anyone even realizes he's back.
The lock is old enough that it needs to be jiggled a few times before it will flip over. Lip is rummaging in the fridge when Ian finally walks in. He turns toward Ian and slowly raises an eyebrow.
"Well, well, well." A joint is tucked behind his ear. He grabs two cans of Old Style and closes the fridge with his shoulder. "If it isn't my brother, back from his secret drug-deal-slash-date."
"Shut up," Ian mutters. He drops his backpack on the table, then takes the beer Lip hands him and pops the tab. "Where is everyone?"
"Debbie's giving Liam a bath," Lip says, gesturing over their heads. "Carl is... somewhere. Probably committing a misdemeanor with Little Hank."
"Fiona?"
"Out with Vee. Something about Kev's wife."
"That's still happening?"
"Apparently."
The kitchen is oven-warm, smells like Ian missed a lasagna dinner. He swallows some beer before asking, "So, how dead am I?"
"Pretty dead." Lip flashes Ian a shit-eating grin. "If we were on the Discovery Channel, vultures would totally be circling you right now."
"Thanks a lot, asshole."
"Hey. You asked." Lip grabs the joint and starts patting his pockets like he's looking for a lighter. "So, which was it? Drug deal or date?"
Ian says, "Date," because it's easier, because it's least likely to earn him a lecture. Besides, it's more or less true.
"Huh." Pausing, Lip takes a long swig of beer. Then: "I mean, is it really a date if you just hole up somewhere and fuck savagely for two straight days?"
Ian shrugs. "Works for me."
The ceiling creaks—Debbie moving around upstairs. Lip asks, "How was it?"
"How was what?"
"The savage fucking."
Ian snorts out a laugh. "You really wanna hear about Mickey's—"
"You know what?" Lip cuts in. "No. No, I don't."
He opens the drawer at his hip and pokes around until he finds a box of matches. The first two crumble on the strike-strip; the third winks out before Lip can use it. The fourth flares up like a crack torch, leaves a sulfur sting behind after Lip blows it out.
Once the joint is going, he asks, "You want some of this?"
"I'm good." Ian's beer is still half-full; he pushes it toward Lip and grabs his backpack. "I think I'm gonna go to bed. I'm pretty wiped."
Lip's mouth twitches. "I bet you are."
+
[Mickey @ 9:17 pm]: nite fuckface
[Ian @ 9:19 pm]: night mick
Pairing: Ian/Mickey
Rating: NC17
Words: ~7,500
Summary: Mickey fiddles with his vest for a long moment before saying, "I gotta go out of town for a couple days."
Notes: I'm calling this early Season 3. You could probably fit it between 3x02 and 3x03 if you use a shoehorn. Warnings for canon-typical language/slurs and canon-typical drinking/smoking/marijuana use. Underage: Ian's seventeen.
[AO3]
"You working this weekend?" Mickey asks.
His voice is lazy and fuck-rough, a little too casual. He's slouching against the magazine rack with an unopened beer in one hand and his security vest in the other.
Ian says, "No," and tries not to look at Mickey's rumpled hair, at the pair of hickies blooming on his throat. Ned mentioned taking him out Saturday—dinner and drinks before grabbing a room at the Park Hyatt—but Ian hasn't called him back yet. He isn't sure he wants to. "Not 'til Monday."
Mickey fiddles with his vest for a long moment before saying, "I gotta go out of town for a couple days."
"'Kay. You need me to tell Linda? Or—"
"Nah. She knows. I'm—" Mickey huffs and chews at his lip. "You wanna come?"
"Me?"
"Yeah, you. Joey and Colin are moving some guns with my dad, and Iggy bitched out on me. Got a meeting with his PO, or some shit."
"So," Ian says, leaning his elbows on the counter. "I'm your last resort?"
Mickey flushes a little. "Fuck off, is what you are." He pops the cap on his beer and flicks it at Ian's head. "If you're gonna be a girl about it, I'll pry Mandy off your brother's dick and take her instead."
"Yeah, okay," Ian says, snorting. "Good luck with that."
"Whatever. You coming or what?"
Ian bites back a smile. "Sure."
+
Lip comes into the bedroom as Ian's tossing a change of clothes into his backpack. They stare at each other for a few seconds—Lip frozen in the doorway; Ian holding a mismatched pair of socks. A car rumbles down the street, and Fiona's voice rises and falls downstairs. Ian breaks first; he rolls the socks together and stuffs them into the backpack. A beat later, Lip walks over and sits on Ian's bed.
He asks, "You going somewhere?" and helps himself to Ian's cigarette.
Ian shrugs. "Out."
"Out," Lip repeats, smoke streaming from his nose. "You don't usually take your toothbrush to the club, so... I'm guessing out with Mickey?" When Ian doesn't say anything, he adds, "Mandy told me he got released the other day. Haven't seen much of you since."
Ian shrugs again. Since he's already caught, he grabs the lube stashed under his mattress without bothering to hide it.
"Really?" Lip asks. He pokes at the mark under Ian's jaw, a narrow bruise cut by Mickey's teeth. "I thought you said you guys were done."
Ian had said that. And when Mickey first got locked up, he might've even meant it. But as the months wore on, he ended up missing Mickey more than he hated him for the shit he said before he punched that cop. He thought a lot about how it felt to hold Mickey's hips, to kiss the top of his spine, to push into him rough and quick.
"Whatever," Ian says. He snatches the cigarette back like it isn't crawling with ash. "We—it's complicated."
"Right. Complicated." Lip leans back on his hands and stretches his legs. "What romantic locale have you crazy kids picked for tonight's secret rendezvous? The baseball field? An abandoned building? A hobo squat under the El?"
"Lip—"
"You know, the alley behind the Kash & Grab is pretty sweet. Decent mood lighting, only one dumpster. You—"
"Dude, shut up." Ian shoulders his backpack and jams the dead cigarette into the ashtray overflowing on the desk. "We're going out of town."
Lip just stares for a second. "What? You—out of town?"
"Yeah."
"Wow," Lip says slowly. "That almost sounds like a date."
The plumbing rattles behind the walls—someone flushing the downstairs toilet. Ian says, "No," and fiddles with the straps on his backpack. "Kinda. I don't know. He's gotta head out for a couple of days, and he asked me to come with him."
"You—" Lip huffs under his breath. "I take it back. That sounds like a drug run."
Ian can't help laughing a little. "Knowing him? Probably." Before Lip can argue about it, Ian says, "I'll be fine, Dad. Stop worrying."
"What about Fiona?"
Ian says, "Not telling her," and unlatches the window. It jerks open with a tired scrape and a burst of smelly, Southside air. "Better to beg forgiveness, yeah?"
After a pause, Lip shakes his head. "Fine. I haven't seen you. Try not to get arrested."
+
It takes them over an hour to get out of Chicago, crawling north on I-90 as the sky goes dark and Iggy's beater of a Buick drinks oil. Mickey spends most of that time chain-smoking and chugging blue Gatorade. He drums his fingers on the steering wheel and fiddles with the radio. The brake lights up ahead cast his face in deep, shadowy reds. Ian just watches him, trapped by the curve of his mouth, the long line of his throat.
Mickey notices eventually; he cocks an eyebrow and aims a lazy punch at Ian's thigh. "The fuck you looking at?"
"You," Ian admits.
"Fag," Mickey gripes, but there isn't much heat behind it. "Knock it off."
Ian snorts and turns toward the window. He wastes a few minutes staring at the concrete noise barrier, at a pile of lumber abandoned on the shoulder, at a guy fumbling to change a tire in the dark. The traffic is thinning now that they've passed the airport. Ian shifts in his seat, trying to get comfortable. His feet are sharing the floorboard with a dirty flannel shirt and an unopened can of Dr. Pepper; he nudges the soda aside and stretches his legs.
A few miles later, Mickey offers Ian the back-half of his cigarette. He watches as Ian brings it to his mouth.
Ian asks, "What are you looking at?"
"Nothing," Mickey says, chewing his lip. "I'm—it's just weird, you know? Doing this with you instead of my brother."
"What are we doing, anyway?"
It's a stupid question; Ian should've asked before they left. But he—Mickey has that effect on him sometimes.
A horn honks somewhere behind them. Mickey grabs the cigarette and says, "Nothing," again. "Gotta pick something up."
"Shit," Ian mutters. Lip's going to laugh himself sick. "Is this a drug run?"
"Kinda." The Mercedes they've been tailgating moves over; Mickey leans on the gas. "Stuff's already paid for. I just gotta get it."
"Where?"
"Greyhound station in Minneapolis. Supplier sent us a baggage ticket."
Ian blinks; he's watched old noir movies with less ridiculous plots. "That's—"
"Bullshit? Yeah, I know." Mickey cracks the window enough to toss their cigarette butt. "Asshole usually deals outta his house—some dump in Milwaukee. But he's a fucking schizo. Every once and awhile, the voices tell him he's getting raided. He freaks out and stashes all his product, and his buyers get stuck playing fucking hide and seek."
"And your dad's okay with that?"
"Eh," Mickey says, shrugging. "He's known the crazy sonofabitch forever. Served in juvie together, or some shit." The radio cuts from music to a commercial—a dude with a heavy accent shouting about used cars. Mickey turns it down and shoots Ian a sideways glance. "You cool?"
"Yeah."
"You sure? 'Cause you don't look cool. You look like you're about to bitch out on me."
"Nah. I'm just—" Ian cuts off, sighing. He thinks about the stolen car Lip borrowed from Jimmy, about the night he spent handcuffed to a chair.
"Chill, man. Everything's gonna be fine. It's just a few kilos of pot."
"Yeah," Ian scoffs. "It's just interstate trafficking."
"Jesus Christ—"
"Possession with intent."
"Gallagher—"
"Maybe some conspiracy to commit."
"Holy fuck," Mickey barks. He jerks the wheel as the car rumbles over a rough patch of asphalt. "This heap has a secret compartment in the trunk. It ain't like you're gonna ride back with all that weed sitting in your lap." When Ian doesn't say anything, Mickey sighs and taps his fingers on his knee. "Look, getting the stuff's gonna take me fifteen, twenty minutes. That gives us a lot of time to do whatever."
"Whatever?" Ian repeats, smiling a little. "We gonna go bowling, Mick? Visit a museum?"
Mickey says, "Ay, fuck off," and pinches Ian's side. Then: "If you wanna go home, just tell me. Tell me now and I'll turn around."
Mostly, Ian wants to bite the hinge of Mickey's jaw.
"Nah," he says. "I'm cool."
+
Mickey hisses, "Jesus Christ, Gallagher," and grabs the back of Ian's neck. "Fuck. Fuck."
Ian pulls up slow, letting his lips and tongue drag over the head of Mickey's dick. He wipes the spit off his chin and says, "Hey. Both hands on the wheel."
"You fucking kidding me?" Mickey snaps, hips shifting. His dick bump-slides against Ian's jaw. "C'mon, man."
"You want something?"
"Uh, yeah. I want you to put my dick back in your mouth."
Ian hums quietly and sucks Mickey back in. The angle is bad; his left arm's folded up against his side, and the empty Gatorade bottle is jabbing him in the ribs. But he loves this—the wet heat and the ache in his jaw, the way Mickey fills his mouth, presses against his tongue. He hollows his cheeks and swallows Mickey down, down. Mickey squirms in his seat. He makes a noise in the back of his throat—something low and warm and dark, louder than the farm report buzzing on the radio.
Ian finds a rhythm: drawing up, sinking down. He curls his tongue at the top, opens his throat when his nose hits the dark hair curling around Mickey's dick. Mickey's hips jerk again, and the car jerks with them, bouncing as the tires graze the ruts lining the shoulder. Ian braces his free arm across Mickey's thighs, holding him still, pinning him down.
"Shit." Something creaks—Mickey white-knuckling the wheel. "Shit, shit, shit."
Ian pulls up again and tongues Mickey's slit. "You gonna come?"
"Yeah, fuck."
Ian sucks him back in, taking him as deep as he can, sliding his mouth up and down, up and down. Mickey's thigh's tense, and he grabs Ian's head again. He comes with a bitten-off moan, his back arching, his nails digging into Ian's scalp.
After, Ian sits up and wipes his mouth. He rolls a kink out of his shoulder and settles into his seat. The air inside the car is humid, sex-thick. Ian's dick is a heavy ache between his legs.
Mickey glances at him—once, twice. He reaches over and palms Ian through his jeans. "Need some help over there?"
Ian pushes up into Mickey's hand for a couple seconds, but then the car starts to drift and he bats him away. "Not if you're gonna run us into a ditch."
"Fine. Do it yourself, asshole."
"Yeah?" Ian hooks his fingers in his belt. "You want me to?"
"Yeah," Mickey says. He's beautiful like this—the flush on his cheeks, the sweat-sheen on his throat. "Do it. Get your dick out."
Ian says, "Alright," and unzips his jeans. "But keep your eyes on the road."
Mickey snorts and puts a cigarette in his mouth. "Yeah, whatever."
+
Fiona texts Ian a little after midnight. He frowns at the message for a few seconds, then types out a vague reply about crashing at a friend's place. She's pretty distracted now that Jimmy's back; Ian figures she won't really start bugging him until Sunday afternoon.
Mickey asks, "Who's that?" as Ian's pocketing his phone.
They're at a Mega Holiday in Eau Claire because Mickey was hungry and the Buick needed another quart of oil. The only other car in the lot is a seventies land yacht parked diagonally across two spots, its chrome glinting in the store's white-bright lights. Mickey's sitting on the Buick's trunk and eating a shriveled-looking hotdog with his entire face; he has mustard on his cheek and he's chewing with his mouth open. Ian wants to kiss him nearly as much as he wants to smack him for being disgusting.
He says, "My sister," and bites into his nasty microwave burrito. It tastes like wet cardboard and goes down like a mouthful of glue. "She wanted to know if I'm coming home."
"What'd you tell her?"
"That I'm hanging out with my ROTC buddies."
"You got any of those?" Mickey asks. He flashes Ian some teeth before adding, "I don't mean that fat faggot I caught you banging under the bleachers."
Ian doesn't, but he isn't going to admit it—not to Mickey. He says, "Yeah," and takes another bite of his burrito. Ralph's been avoiding him since Mickey bashed him, and he's never really talked to the others. Mark and Antonio are scrawny, jumpy freshmen who salute him constantly because he outranks them; Michelle, Lindsay, and Tanika don't like him because of some beef with Mandy that dates back to middle-school. The rest are a bunch of ass-kissing seniors busy trying to snag one more promotion before graduation. Ian doesn't really care; it's not like he signed up for ROTC to make friends. "A few."
Mickey chews his lip for a beat or two, then dives back into his hotdog. A glob of relish drips off his fingers and splats onto the asphalt. Mouth full, he asks, "How'd you end up sticking it that noisy twat, anyway?"
Ian snorts. "'Cuz you never make any noise."
Mickey sneers at him, but it loses something because of the mustard on his face. "Not like that, I don't." He takes a minute to lick his greasy fingers. "That get you off? All that G.I. Joe talk?"
The store's door chimes as a guy walks out with a can of Redbull and a carton of smokes. Ian says, "No," and tosses his burrito wrapper in the garbage.
"So? What made you—" Mickey makes a rude gesture and shoves the last of his hotdog in his mouth.
"We bunked together on a camping trip." Ian caught Ralph browsing the 'Solo Male' section of PornHub on his phone, which led to them trading sloppy handjobs while sweating their asses off in a tent. A few days later, they swapped blowjobs at an empty shooting range. He only fucked Ralph that one time, but he's not admitting that to Mickey, either. "We just—" he shrugs. "You know."
"I guess," Mickey says. After a pause, he wipes his hands on his jeans and hops off the trunk. "C'mon, fuckstick. We still got a hundred miles to go."
+
Ian wakes up to Mickey punching him in the arm.
"Ay. Earth to assface."
"Yeah," Ian mumbles, rubbing his eyes. Mickey's standing beside the open passenger-side door, backlit by the blue-green glow of a flickering neon sign. A train whistle blares in the distance as Ian sits up. He loses a few seconds staring at Mickey's mouth. "Where are we?"
The last thing he remembers is passing a highway sign announcing the Wisconsin-Minnesota line. Mickey had been telling a story about one of his brothers getting eighty-sixed from the Rusty Hammer—something about a pool table catching on fire.
"Where's it look like, genius?"
Ian rubs his eyes again. The building behind them is the kind of flop found south of Canaryville, down where hookers circle the street corners in the middle of the afternoon and crackheads pass out for the night in empty lots. It's all colorless rock siding and chipped, sun-bleached stucco. Half the porch lights are broken. Scraggly shrubs are dying underneath each window.
"A motel?"
Mickey shrugs. "Figured you didn't wanna sleep in the car."
Ian doesn't. But: "How'd you pay for it?" Even dumps like this run sixty or seventy bucks a night, and he's pretty sure Mickey bought that hotdog with nickels and dimes.
"I didn't," Mickey says, flashing a credit card. "Colin cleaned out some mailboxes in Wicker Park last week. Herbert MacMillan has an eight-thousand-dollar limit." After a pause, he hefts his bag and shuffles back a couple of steps. "You coming or what?"
Ian grabs his stuff, locks the car, and follows Mickey across an oil-stained parking lot scattered with cigarette butts. An empty beer can chases them part of the way, nudged along by a lazy wind. Their room is at the end of the row, crouched beside a stairwell and facing a bank of ancient vending machines. The ice hopper gurgles and spits as Mickey wrestles with the key.
Inside, the room is a dump. The carpet is nearly bald, and everything smells like dust and cheap pot. But the bed is huge, and it doesn't look too lumpy. The mini-fridge is big enough for the two cases of beer they brought.
"It's all they had left," Mickey says suddenly, his voice tight, urgent. "One bed. We're not—"
"Whatever," Ian cuts in. He's learned that it's better to stop Mickey's 'no homo' tapdances before they really start. "Sleep on the couch, if you're worried about it."
"You sleep on the fucking couch."
Ian pushes Mickey into the room and kicks the door closed. The naked light-bulb above their heads gutters like a candle. They just stand there for a minute, staring at each other, breathing too hard. Mickey's collar is stretched out from too many washes, yawning around the dip of his throat. He thumbs his lip a couple of times; the floor whines as he shifts his feet. Ian steps closer and pushes him again—this time toward the bed.
"Gallagher—"
"Shut up," Ian says, low. "Just—take your clothes off."
+
Mickey arches up and back, hard. He mutters, "Damn it, Gallagher," in a voice so rough Ian feels it in his gut. "C'mon."
He's still too tight, nearly strangling Ian's fingers. Ian works them in rough and quick, tries to make more space. There's lube everywhere—the inside of Ian's wrist, the curve of Mickey's left asscheek, the notch of his tailbone, the thin skin behind his balls. Ian curls his fingers again, rubs his thumb over Mickey's rim. Mickey grits out a noise and jabs his heel into Ian's thigh.
"Jesus fuck. Now."
"Not yet."
Fabric rustles as Mickey scrabbles at the sheets. "Get on me or I'm gonna go jerk it in the bathroom."
Ian leans up a little. He says, "Yeah, alright," and gropes around the bed with his free hand. "Where's the rubber?"
"Fuck the rubber."
And that's stupid, stupid—Ian's been careful with Ned, but God only knows what Mickey did in juvie—but Ian's dick's so hard it hurts, and Mickey's rocking his hips now, pushing back like he plans to just ride Ian's hand to the finish line. Ian grabs Mickey's waist and yanks him up, shoving at his shoulders until he sinks onto his elbows. He expects Mickey to bitch at him—he likes to pretend he doesn't love having his ass in the air—but Mickey just lets out another noise and hides his face against his arm.
Ian lines himself up and sinks in, in, in. Mickey's still too tight, hot and soft inside like nothing Ian's ever felt. He gets a good grip on Mickey's hips, then fucks into him a couple of times—easy, almost slow. Mickey pushes into it, snarling, "Move, pussy," over his shoulder. He twists an arm back and claws at Ian's side.
Ian's knee skids on the sheets. The headboard bangs against the wall, and he leans up to brace a hand on in, pressing himself against Mickey's back. Heat coils in his gut; he wants to crawl inside Mickey and stay there. He fucks harder, faster, angling up, smiling when Mickey arches under him—when Mickey clutches around him, chokes out a moan that slurs into his name.
"Yeah?" he asks. He already knows, but he likes hearing Mickey say it. "There?"
"Yeah, fuck," Mickey hisses, his back curving, perfect. "Just like that."
+
It's kind of awkward, after: the two of them naked and sitting side-by-side on the bed, Ian cross-legged and Mickey sprawled out, not touching except to pass a cigarette back and forth. They still aren't sure how to do this part yet, how to hang out without it leading somewhere, without Mickey either angling for another round or running for the door. Ian can't find anything to say, so he nurses a beer and picks at a fray in the sheets and sneaks glances at Mickey in the watery, blue-white flicker of the TV.
A pair of finger-shaped bruises are blooming on Mickey's left hip. Ian wants to touch them, trace them with his lips, his tongue. More, he wants to pull Mickey close, wrap an arm around Mickey's waist, feel Mickey breathe against his skin. It's stupid, and if he tried it Mickey'd just call him a faggot and shove him away. But Ian's never really had that—not even with Ned, who's way less jumpy that Mickey, not nearly as closeted, but still has somewhere to be afterward, a wife who expects him to come home.
"Ay," Mickey says suddenly, his voice too sharp for the silence. "The fuck are we watching?"
On the screen, a chick in a flowered apron is feeding zucchinis into a thing that turns them into noodles. Shrugging, Ian says, "Infomercials."
"I know that, genius. Why?"
"'Cuz it's three-thirty in the morning." That, and the motel only has six channels. "Not much else on."
Mickey says, "Bullshit," and grabs for the remote.
Laughing, Ian holds it out of reach. Mickey grabs for it again, slapping at Ian's arm and climbing halfway into his lap. Ian waves it over Mickey's head, then drops it on the floor. Instead of diving for it, Mickey yanks Ian up and flips him onto his back. They wrestle for a few minutes, rolling back and forth across the bed as they scrap and scratch and twist. Ian gets elbowed in the ribs more than once, and his thumb digs a bruise on the inside of Mickey's thigh. When they finally settle, panting, Ian's looking down at Mickey, one hand in his hair and the other around his wrist.
Mickey's staring up at him, his mouth open and his eyes dark. Ian wants to kiss him, almost thinks Mickey'd let him. He rocks his hips a little, letting their half-hard dicks ride together. Mickey hooks a leg around Ian's thigh and drags his free hand down his side.
"You gonna get on me?" he asks, soft.
"Yeah," Ian says, his chest aching. "Yeah."
+
"So," Ian says, pausing as he reaches for the ugly bedside lamp. "You gonna sleep on the couch?"
Mickey lolls his head to the side and slowly lifts an eyebrow. His hair is sweat-limp, falling over his forehead. "You want me to?"
"No."
Huffing, Mickey tugs the sheet up over his hips. He fidgets a little, stretching his legs and burrowing into the pillow. He ends up closer than Ian expects—not close enough to touch, but close enough.
"Then shut the fuck up."
+
Ian wakes up groggy and sprawled face-down on the bed, his arm hanging off the mattress and his chin stuck in a damp patch of drool. His mouth tastes like an ashtray, and his legs are mummy-wrapped in the sheets. Morning has come and gone; the sunlight bleeding through the flimsy curtains is afternoon-hot and bright enough to make him squint.
He rubs his eyes, then flops onto his back and lets out a yawn that nearly pops his jaw. Stretching makes a dull ache spread down his thighs. He just lays there for a few minutes, breathing in motel dust and commercial-grade detergent and listening to Mickey move around the room. Something clicks—a fresh clip sliding into a gun. The TV is on next door; game-show applause cuts through the wall in sharp bursts.
Just as he's starting to drift off again, Mickey says, "Ay," and jostles the bed with his knee. "You up?"
Ian doesn't want to be, but they might as well get this drug bullshit over with. Mickey's already dressed, his gun a bulky lump in the pocket of his jeans. His backpack is waiting beside the door.
"Yeah," Ian mutters, yawning again. He shakes himself out of it and leans up on his elbows. "I guess."
A car coughs to life in the parking lot. Mickey says, "Here," and hands Ian a grease-spotted McDonald's bag. "Breakfast. Or—" he glances at the clock "—lunch. Whatever."
It's just three dollar-menu cheeseburgers and a large order of fries, but Ian—Ian grins at him. He's wearing his blue tank-top, and his hair is still fucked. His boots are dusty with the kind of Canaryville dirt that's half stockyard grit and factory soot. Ian can't kiss him, so he reaches out and skims his fingers over his hip.
Mickey allows it for about five seconds. Then he closes himself off, like he always does when he feels like things are getting too gay.
"You're supposed to eat it, dickhead. Not cry about it."
Ian snorts and climbs off the bed. He kicks at the clothes on the floor until he finds his boxers and jeans. "I'll eat it in the car."
"The car?" Mickey repeats, frowning. His eyes are stupidly blue. "The fuck you think you're going?"
"Uh, the bus station? We gotta go get the stuff."
Mickey says, "No, I gotta go get the stuff," and jerks his head toward the door. "You're staying here. I'll be back in like an hour."
Ian just stands there, his boxers in his hand, watching as Mickey grabs his keys and double-checks his gun. A weird, hollow feeling gnaws into the space underneath his ribs. He—fuck. Fuck.
"You—you're really gonna go by yourself?"
"Yeah, I'm really gonna go by myself."
It hits Ian all at once—hits him like a fucking truck. "You don't trust me."
Mickey drops his backpack and whips around. His eyes narrow, and an angry noise hitches in his throat. He crowds in close, getting right in Ian's face. His shoulders tighten like he's gearing up to throw a punch.
"If I didn't trust you, Gallagher, I wouldn't've fucking brought you."
"Whatever," Ian snaps, tossing his boxers on the bed. "Go. I'll be here when you wanna get fucked again."
Mickey grabs Ian's jaw, presses his thumb to the corner of Ian's mouth. "You dumb sonofabitch. You really think I—" He cuts off, chewing his lip. Then he drops his hand and steps back. "You wanna come? Fine. But you're gonna do exactly what I tell you, okay? You ain't with your shithead brother, buying dirt weed under the El. I don't need you fucking this up 'cuz you're sketching like a little bitch."
"Fine."
+
"It's in there?" Ian asks, looking at the ugly brick building across the street.
It's shimmering like a mirage in the afternoon sun, blurred by the light glaring off its aluminum awning and huge, blue-tint windows. The trees flanking the entrance are drooping in the heat. A homeless guy in a bathrobe and sweats is arguing with the fire hydrant on the corner.
Mickey says, "Yeah," and blows a long stream of smoke through his nose. He reaches under his seat and pulls out a pair of sunglasses and a dusty, tired-looking Sox hat.
"Okay. What's the plan?"
"The plan is, I'm going in. You —" he pokes Ian's chest "—are gonna wait here. If I ain't back in thirty minutes, you're gonna go back to the motel."
"What? No. You—"
"You're gonna go back to the motel," Mickey insists. He cracks his FUCK knuckles with his thumb before poking Ian's chest again. "If I don't turn up by check-out tomorrow, you're gonna drive back to Chicago. Don't take the car to my house—Iggy will kick your ass first and ask questions later. Park it at the ball field and give the keys to Mandy."
"Okay," Ian says slowly. Mickey's out of his fucking mind. "What am I supposed to tell her?"
Shrugging, Mickey says, "Whatever." He hits the cigarette and passes it to Ian. "Make something up—something that doesn't involve how much I like your dick."
Ian flashes him a smug smile. "Oh, you like my dick?"
Mickey just stares at him, his tongue at the corner of his mouth. Then: "You're gonna lose it if you don't shut the fuck up." He puts on the glasses and shakes the dust off the hat. "Okay. Thirty minutes."
"Yeah. Thirty minutes."
Mickey bumps his knuckles against the back of Ian's wrist and climbs out of a car.
+
Thirty-six minutes: Ian lights another cigarette and puts a few cold french fries in his mouth.
Thirty-seven minutes: Ian unwraps his last cheeseburger, then rewraps it and sets the bag on the seat. He chews his thumbnail until it bleeds.
Thirty-eight minutes. Thirty-nine minutes. Forty minutes.
Forty-one minutes: Mickey comes out of the bus station behind a crowd of teenagers wearing the same t-shirt—some kind of high school field trip. He's carrying two large duffle bags, one on a strap so long it knocks against the back of his thigh as he walks. The Sox hat is pulled low over his forehead.
Forty-two minutes: Ian stubs the cigarette in the Buick's tiny ashtray and breathes.
+
"You waited for me."
"Yeah."
"You were supposed to take off."
"Fuck, Mick. I wasn't just going to leave you here."
+
Mickey's ridden Ian before, once, on a sticky night at the dugouts, Ian laid out on the bench with Mickey straddling him, his hands on Ian's chest, his shoes rasping on the sandy concrete as he worked himself up and down. It was amazing—watching Mickey's face, the hot flush burning down his throat and chest—but it wasn't like this. It wasn't Mickey sucking Ian until he was hard, then shoving him down on the couch and crawling into his lap. It wasn't Mickey curling his arms around Ian's neck, biting the spot below Ian's ear, panting into the curve of Ian's cheek.
"Shit." Mickey claws at Ian's shoulder, the scratchy cushion behind Ian's back. "Gallagher—fuck."
"Yeah?" Ian asks. He's barely moving, just letting Mickey use him, unwilling to disrupt the filthy roll of his hips. "Good?"
Mickey makes a noise—desperate, low. He says, "Yeah, fuck," with his mouth against Ian's jaw.
Ian can't stop touching. He pushes his hand into Mickey's hair, tugs until Mickey lifts his head. He slides his other hand down to Mickey's ass, skimming his fingers down to where Mickey's opening up, taking him in. Mickey's eyes flutter; his mouth drops around a moan. His thighs tense, and his nails dig into Ian's skin. Ian holds him closer and fucks up into him, biting the inside of his cheek so he doesn't blow too soon.
In, in, in. The couch squeaks. Shuddering, Mickey hisses, "There, fuck. Right—right there."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
Ian thrusts up again and again, harder, harder. He mouths at Mickey's throat, the stubble-rough skin under his jaw. "Can you come?"
"Dunno." Mickey never has, not without a hand on his dick, but he's holding Ian like a vise, and Ian can't stop pulling his hair, can't stop teasing his fingers around Mickey's rim. "I—"
"Want you to," Ian says, breathless. "Like this. On my dick."
"Fuck. Fuck."
Mickey shakes through it, eyes closing, his head tipping back, his throat flexing and pulling around a dark, rough noise. A few quick thrusts and Ian's following him; he can't help it, just wants to be where Mickey is, would probably follow him anywhere.
+
The phonebook on the nightstand is a couple years out of date. After dialing two dead numbers and three places on the wrong side of town, they find a Chinese restaurant that still exists and is willing to deliver to the motel. They order a shitload of food, way more than they'll finish tonight or even tomorrow. Mickey puts his boxers back on long enough to give the driver Herbert MacMillan's credit card information. Ian catches himself staring as Mickey's signing the receipt—at the curve of his ass, the new bruise blooming on his hip, the bright red scratches running down his back.
They eat side-by-side on the bed, pillows stacked behind their backs, their shoulders bumping as Ian tips his head to drink his beer, as Mickey shovels more pineapple fried rice into his mouth. The motel's TV channels still suck; the only decent thing on is M*A*S*H. Mickey gripes about it being too old and boring, but Ian figures it's better than watching some chick chop vegetables all night.
Halfway through their third episode, Mickey points an eggroll at the TV and asks, "You really wanna do that shit?"
Ian blinks; on the screen, Hawkeye is fishing a bullet out of some guy's gut. "Do what?"
"Get your ass blown off in Fallujah."
"I wanna not get my ass blown off."
After a pause, Mickey says, "C'mon, man," and elbows Ian's side. "I'm serious."
Ian steals the last bite of Mickey's eggroll and pops it into his mouth. Chewing, he says, "So am I." When Mickey just stares at him, he continues, "Look, I know you don't get it. But it pays pretty well, if I go in as an officer. And I—" He shrugs. "It'll get me outta the Southside."
Out loud, that sounds terrible. His family is in the Southside—probably always will be, unless Lip stops being a dipshit about college. But there's nothing there for Ian, except his dead-end job at the Kash & Grab and the very real possibility that one day he'll get his head bashed in because he's a fag. Just that, and Mickey. And if he ever does get out of Chicago, he's taking Mickey with him.
On the screen, Hawkeye and Trapper are plotting against Frank. Mickey says, "So, what do you gotta do? More fucking geometry?"
Ian huffs out a laugh. "Lip's been trying to teach me trig."
"And?"
"It's not going so well."
"What else?" Mickey rolls toward the nightstand, making the bed dip and creak. He swaps the pineapple fried rice for broccoli beef and grabs another beer. "You've been training, right? Push-ups? Pull-ups? Weights?"
"Yeah," Ian says, nodding. "Pretty much every day. I need to start doing more endurance stuff, though. Running, or—I could set up an obstacle course."
Mickey shakes his head and snorts, "An obstacle course," under his breath. "Jesus Christ, Gallagher. You're outta your fucking mind."
"No, I'm not. I'm just—hey!" Ian grabs at the carton Mickey's holding. "Stop picking out all the meat!"
Mickey jerks the carton out of Ian's reach and stuffs another piece of beef into his mouth. "No way. It's the only part I like."
+
They end up fucking again, moving together in the grainy, gray-green light of another M*A*S*H episode. Ian gets Mickey on his back and hooks his arms under Mickey's legs, leans in until Mickey's spread out underneath him. The stretch is enough to make Mickey squirm, to make him grit out a noise and bare his teeth, but he pushes into it as soon as Ian slides inside him, moaning long and low and grabbing at Ian's shoulders, the sheets.
It doesn't take them long to find a rhythm: Mickey arching up as Ian drives in; Ian gripping bruises into Mickey's hips as Mickey bites fresh marks into his collarbone. The bed shudders and creaks; Ian pins Mickey to the mattress and tries to breath through the feeling rising in his chest. He knows what it is—the twisting ache, the live wire arcing under his skin—and he gives in and lets himself have it. He sinks a hand into Mickey's hair and drags his mouth up the line of Mickey's throat and lets himself be in love.
Mickey falls asleep as soon as they're done, his shoulder pressed to Ian's, the back of his hand nudging Ian's thigh.
+
"Ay," Mickey says, his voice low, almost careful. He's wearing Ian's red plaid boxers and a single sock that's gray from too many washes, so shapeless it's slouching around his ankle. His hair is wet from the shower they just shared. "We should probably head back."
He's right: Ian has school tomorrow, and they both have work. Fiona's already texted three times. Still, Ian wastes a few seconds wondering how far eight thousand dollars would get them, if it would be enough to start over in Los Angeles or Boston or New York. Anywhere, as long as it was far away from Chicago, from Terry Milkovich and the Southside, as long as Mickey wouldn't have to be afraid of this anymore, afraid of them.
A door slams upstairs. Mickey's watching Ian, his lip caught between his teeth, so Ian snaps out of it, says, "Okay," and grabs his shirt.
+
Mickey says, "Listen," as they're pulling onto I-35W. He's got his U-UP hand on the wheel and his FUCK hand on a cup of Stop N Shop coffee so old and burnt it's stinking up the car. "About the weed. If shit goes down—"
"I thought you said it wouldn't." Mickey'd given Ian a whole speech back at the motel, delivered it over his shoulder as he loaded the bags into the Buick's fake trunk. He'd barely even paused to breathe. "You called me a pussy for even bringing it up."
"Maybe 'cuz you were being one."
"Why? 'Cuz I don't wanna do fifteen years?"
"Ay," Mickey snaps. He wedges the coffee cup between his thighs so he can smack Ian's arm. "Nothing's gonna happen. But if it does, you tell 'em you didn't know anything about it, alright?"
"Yeah," Ian says, snorting. "Like that's gonna work."
"It will if we both give 'em the same story," Mickey insists. "You tell 'em you're thinking of moving up here after graduation. You came up to have a look around—jobs, apartments, whatever." He changes lanes, and the soda can on the floorboard rolls into Ian's foot. "You ain't got a car, so you paid me a hundred bucks to drive you."
"What about you?"
"What about me?"
Ian shakes a cigarette out of their pack and grabs the lighter tucked under Mickey's thigh. He says, "That's gonna put you on the spot," with an ache underneath his ribs.
"It's my car, genius. And I already got a record. You—" Mickey shrugs and taps his thumb on the wheel. "I'm fucked no matter what."
"Mick—"
Mickey smacks him again, snipping, "Don't be a fag about it," but his cheeks are faintly pink. "I just—there's no point in both of us getting tossed in the can."
"Sure," Ian says. He bites back a smile and passes Mickey the cigarette.
+
"Were you serious?" Mickey asks suddenly. It's the first thing he's said in almost an hour.
They're in bumfuck southern Wisconsin, somewhere between Madison and the Illinois border. Ian's pretty zoned out; he's been staring at speed-blurred cornfields so long that looking at Mickey hurts his eyes for a second.
He rubs his hand over his face and asks, "About what?" around a yawn.
"About the obstacle course."
"I don't know." Ian straightens from where he's been slouched against the window, wincing as his shoulder pops. "That kinda shit costs money."
"What kinda shit? Like—tires, or whatever?"
"Yeah. Tires, lumber, rope, netting."
They pass a highway sign announcing that they're approaching Beloit, population 36,966. Mickey asks, "Where you wanna put it?"
Ian says, "I don't know," again because he doesn't. He hasn't thought about it too much because there's no way to make it happen. "That building on 47th would work."
"That dump where I go shooting sometimes?"
Ian nods and swallows another yawn. "Up on the roof, maybe. It's big enough, and it probably won't collapse on my head."
Mickey eyes Ian sideways for a second. Then: "My uncle did time with a guy who works at a junkyard. He might have tires going cheap, if I'm asking."
"Really? That's—"
"Ay," Mickey says, his voice sharp around the edges in a way that's all bluster. "You're doing it again."
"What? Being a fag?"
"Yes."
Ian barks out a laugh and slides his hand over Mickey's thigh. Mickey squirms a little, but he lets Ian keep it there for the next six and a half miles.
+
They get back to Chicago just as the sun is hitting the horizon. The sky stretching between the freeway and the ballpark is streaked orange and purple and pink. A pick-up game is winding down as they drive by; only six guys are still standing on the nearly-dark field. Another handful are crowded around one of the dugouts—the one Ian and Mickey don't use for hook-ups because the bench is swaybacked and bristling with splinters.
Mickey cruises past Sheila's place, the empty lot the neighborhood uses to dump old furniture, and a guy pushing a shopping cart of what looks like copper pipes. The lights are still on at Patel's dry cleaning shop. Mickey pulls over a couple blocks from Ian's house, under a street lamp that's buzzing and popping as it warms up for the night. He glances at Ian—once, twice. A smile tugs the corner of his mouth.
Ian wants to lean over and kiss him goodbye. That isn't going to happen, so he says, "See you," and climbs out of the car.
As he closes the door, Mickey slouches down and looks at him out the window. He chews his lip for a second before asking, "What time you working tomorrow?"
"After three." Ian ducks down and rests his elbows on the trim. "Unless I ditch sixth."
"What is it?"
"Bio."
Mickey waves that off and lights his cigarette. "Skip it. Come in at two and help me with the fucking beer delivery."
"Why? Is it gonna be big?"
"Oh, yeah. Huge." Mickey gives him a long, lingering look. "I probably can't handle it by myself."
A siren wails in the distance. Laughing, Ian says, "You're an idiot."
Mickey just gives him the finger. Then: "You gonna be there or what?"
"Yeah, I'll be there."
+
The house is weirdly quiet for a Sunday night. Ian doesn't hear anything as he digs for his keys—no voices, no music, no TV. The only light is coming from the kitchen, a yellowish glow in the window over the sink. Ian hopes his siblings all went out somewhere. He's exhausted, and he's pretty sure he's at the top of Fiona's shit-list. He just wants to sneak upstairs and crawl in bed before anyone even realizes he's back.
The lock is old enough that it needs to be jiggled a few times before it will flip over. Lip is rummaging in the fridge when Ian finally walks in. He turns toward Ian and slowly raises an eyebrow.
"Well, well, well." A joint is tucked behind his ear. He grabs two cans of Old Style and closes the fridge with his shoulder. "If it isn't my brother, back from his secret drug-deal-slash-date."
"Shut up," Ian mutters. He drops his backpack on the table, then takes the beer Lip hands him and pops the tab. "Where is everyone?"
"Debbie's giving Liam a bath," Lip says, gesturing over their heads. "Carl is... somewhere. Probably committing a misdemeanor with Little Hank."
"Fiona?"
"Out with Vee. Something about Kev's wife."
"That's still happening?"
"Apparently."
The kitchen is oven-warm, smells like Ian missed a lasagna dinner. He swallows some beer before asking, "So, how dead am I?"
"Pretty dead." Lip flashes Ian a shit-eating grin. "If we were on the Discovery Channel, vultures would totally be circling you right now."
"Thanks a lot, asshole."
"Hey. You asked." Lip grabs the joint and starts patting his pockets like he's looking for a lighter. "So, which was it? Drug deal or date?"
Ian says, "Date," because it's easier, because it's least likely to earn him a lecture. Besides, it's more or less true.
"Huh." Pausing, Lip takes a long swig of beer. Then: "I mean, is it really a date if you just hole up somewhere and fuck savagely for two straight days?"
Ian shrugs. "Works for me."
The ceiling creaks—Debbie moving around upstairs. Lip asks, "How was it?"
"How was what?"
"The savage fucking."
Ian snorts out a laugh. "You really wanna hear about Mickey's—"
"You know what?" Lip cuts in. "No. No, I don't."
He opens the drawer at his hip and pokes around until he finds a box of matches. The first two crumble on the strike-strip; the third winks out before Lip can use it. The fourth flares up like a crack torch, leaves a sulfur sting behind after Lip blows it out.
Once the joint is going, he asks, "You want some of this?"
"I'm good." Ian's beer is still half-full; he pushes it toward Lip and grabs his backpack. "I think I'm gonna go to bed. I'm pretty wiped."
Lip's mouth twitches. "I bet you are."
+
[Mickey @ 9:17 pm]: nite fuckface
[Ian @ 9:19 pm]: night mick