Work Text:
“But I don’t wanna,” Ian whines like a four year old, burying his face in Mickey’s chest and God, Mickey fucking loves him. So much. Even like this. When he’s annoying as shit and throwing a fit about work, Mickey would still burn the world for him.
“Quit bitchin’ and get your gangly ass up, Gallagher. If I gotta go to work, so do you.”
“Could just stay home,” Ian suggests in that tone that makes the hairs on Mickey’s arms stand up. “Could spend the day reminding you what I’m good for.”
“Or,” Mickey says pointedly, pushing Ian’s face away from his stomach, “you could go make some fuckin’ money and remind me of that when you get home.”
“You’re no fun,” Ian pouts up at him. Mickey thinks he could die right this second and it’d be okay. “But I love you, anyway.”
And it’s right there, on the tip of Mickey’s tongue and bursting from his overworked heart. I love you, too. I’d kill for you. I’d die for you. But his throat locks up with fear and his stomach drops to his feet and he’s so, so fucking sick of being scared all the time. So sick of seeing Ian’s face crumble for a second before he quickly covers it with a kiss to Mickey’s neck as he slides out of the bed.
But words like what the hell does that even mean and this isn’t me anymore ring loudly through his ears and he just fucking can’t. Because being asked what his love is worth and being told he wasn’t enough is permanently scratched into his fucking skin and those three fucking words can’t erase the scars.
Because he’s so much of a pussy now that he can’t even say a phrase without his chest clenching up like he’s been shot for a third time.
Mickey listens to the shower run and drags his nails over the bruises on his hips and wishes those were scars, too.
So he goes into the kitchen and he opens a beer at nine in the morning and pretends he’s not a spineless piece of shit while he waits for Ian to leave. Just for work. He’ll be back . It’s like a fucking mantra because clinging to that is the only thing that stops his hands from shaking when Ian kisses him goodbye.
“You just gonna stand in the kitchen looking like that and expect me to go to work?” Ian asks with a smirk as he walks back in, dressed and trying to smooth his hair back. “Couldn’t even put a shirt on to make it easier on me?”
And Mickey’s a teenage girl, hoping that his beer bottle will cover the blush he can feel spreading up his neck as Ian walks toward him, confident and gorgeous and the very fucking thing that lets Mickey’s lungs expand like they should over and over again.
Ian grips him around the waist, hard, pulling him away from the counter to press against him and Mickey rethinks his earlier declaration because, suddenly, he can’t breathe at all.
“Let me call in,” Ian murmurs against his neck, sliding his hand over Mickey’s ass. “Want you.”
It’s a hard fought battle against the moan working its way out of his mouth and how his cock aches between his legs but he needs to see Ian come back. Just for work. He’ll be back . Needs to watch Ian walk out the door and back through it again or else he can’t fucking sleep and spends the night remembering the way he’d watched the door for his mom, for Mandy, for everything he’s ever loved that’s left him behind.
He needs Ian to leave and come back to him, every day, because Mickey is fucked up and just wants to feel safe for a little while, curled up in bed with Ian wrapped around him after leaving and coming back and staying .
Mickey swallows around the lump in his throat and presses his hips forward, grinning. “Give ya’ somethin’ to wonder about all day, tough guy. Think you can handle it?”
Ian groans and kisses Mickey hard for not nearly long enough. “You’re a fucking tease, Mikhailo Alekdsandr.”
And Mickey has to cover his flinch because he knows, he fucking knows , Ian only knows his full name because of the cops. Probably when he escaped. He’s never fucking told him because Mickey hates it the same way he hates brass knuckles and being woken up with a shake.
“You’re gonna be late,” Mickey murmurs against Ian’s mouth, wishing he tasted full lips instead of bitter memories. “Don’t make me kick your freckled ass out.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Ian sighs, pulling back and dragging his eyes down Mickey’s body and Mickey swears he can fucking feel that shit. His whole goddamned being responds to that look. “I’ll see you tonight, right?”
“‘Course,” Mickey says too quickly to be normal. Where else would he be? The world could collapse in on itself in the next eight hours and Mickey would still be right here to see Ian walk through that fucking door. “No hero shit, yeah?”
“Promise.” Ian replies as he walks to the front door, oblivious of how Mickey’s eyes track the movement and how Mickey’s jaw clenches with the click. Just for work. He’ll be back .
He doesn’t panic when Ian is six minutes and forty five seconds late. He just caught an extra red light, no big deal. He doesn’t panic when he finishes the shitty horror movie that was playing in the background in hopes of drowning out the beating of his fucking heart. He doesn’t panic when the noise outside dies down to nothing as people start retreating inside.
He doesn’t panic. He drinks and he paces and remembers the way the wind blew salt water on his face but he doesn’t fucking panic. I did a porno. He doesn’t call Fiona and only calls Ian’s phone twice or seven times. He doesn’t fucking cry.
And when midnight rolls around, and he puts a new hole in the wall near the back door and opens his last beer, he still doesn’t cry. But don’t worry, guy said he was clean. He sits on the couch and counts the seconds and wonders why he let himself do this again. He’s fucking weak, Terry was right and damn it, if that doesn’t hurt.
So he cries but that’s really nothing new and what would Terry have to say about that? He can imagine. A Milkovich, the fag, sitting on his couch, crying like a bitch because he let his heart get stomped on again. He thinks of red hair and harsh bites and how green is the prettiest color in the world. He fucking cries.
When the door opens six hours and twelve seconds too late, he doesn’t want to look up. He wants to think about the time he and Mandy snuck into a concert and got drunk or the way his mother used to smile when she thought no one was looking because seeing that glassy look in Ian’s eyes again is too hard. But he looks up anyway because blue always meets green somewhere, eventually, forever.
Except Ian just looks tired at first glance so Mickey looks away and pretends there’s nothing beyond tired. He went to work. He came back . He picks at the label on his beer bottle and wishes he felt as drunk as he should be.
“Where ya’ been?” Because if he’s gonna go out, it’s gonna be with a fucking bang instead of this pussy shit he’s been doing since he was five and realized he shouldn’t make noise when dad’s sleeping.
“Seven car pile up. You gotta start getting news updates on your phone, Mick.”
His eyes burn when Ian kisses his shoulder on the way to the kitchen and Mickey feels his heart slow down, speed up, give out entirely as he listens to Ian in the other room. He went to work. He came back . So Mickey stands up and forces his heavy legs to move and watches Ian, solid and real and here , in his ratty ass kitchen, just like he was this morning.
And he’ll never fucking say it out loud that just pressing his face against Ian’s back, solid and real and still fucking here is better than the stolen XBOX he got for Christmas all those lifetimes ago or the ocean at sunrise.
“Worried about you.”
Because if Ian thought he was a pussy before, Mickey can only imagine what he’d think now and that’s not something he can ever let happen. Ian has always wanted him to be braver than he’s ever really been but Mickey’s good at pretending. Fake it till he makes it so he will if it keeps Ian solid and real and here, with him.
So he’s not gonna tell him about the last six hours and twelve seconds that Mickey spent wondering if a gun is really the easiest way to go or the new hole in the wall. He’s not gonna tell him that all the beatings Terry gave him were nothing compared to the thought that Ian wasn’t coming back.
But when they’re in bed and he pulls Ian’s arms around him and clings like the last time he hugged his mom, he’s pretty sure Ian knows it, anyway.