Work Text:
1.
The place smells like metal and disinfectant, like something died and somebody tried to cover it up with drugstore bleach. Mickey’s mouth tastes like metal and headaches, like a part of him died and he tried to cover it up with cheap beer.
The place is all glaring tube lights and yellowing walls, the blankness of the same wooden chairs lining every counter, the same blue-suited boys lining the chairs. The place is all muted laughter, and the burning colours of Ian’s face superimposed on to Mickey’s retinas.
“Take your hand off the glass,” Mickey barks out, staring resolutely at the counter. His eyes stray up for a second and catch Ian’s, and there’s something knowing about his smirk as he puts his hand down. His fingerprints linger on, and Mickey’s clutching the telephone like a lifeline, and the feeling in his gut isn’t happiness, but it’s terrifyingly close.
2.
Ian’s there when he gets out. Ian’s there. His heart catches in his chest, beats to the sound of Ian’s footsteps. Ian’s there.
Mandy’s arms are wrapped around him, and he can smell her cigarettes and bubblegum smell, can feel the brilliant sunlight cover his face. And Ian’s smiling at him from behind her, Ian’s smiling, the sun is shining, Ian’s smile is the sun.
Mickey’s mind stumbles on phrases, but all he can think of is Ian. He didn’t think he’d feel this way.
Ian wraps his arm around Mickey’s shoulder, and there’s a split-second between the moment Mickey feels Ian’s skin against his and the moment he pushes him off, and it isn’t enough. Not nearly enough.
He didn’t think he’d feel this way.
3.
You at home tonight? Ian texts him.
Mickey doesn’t reply.
You wanna not go back home tonight? Ian texts him.
Mickey doesn’t have to reply.
4.
They’re lying on the grass, looking up at the sky, sharing a cigarette. The fence casts long shadows over them, the smell of freshly cut grass so sharp in the air, and it takes him back to ten years ago, to the same field and the same two boys, to first base and second base and home base when they held no other meanings, to the desperate urge to pee and the sound of tinkling laughter.
He hadn’t known, then.
That he’d know that boy, now.
That he’d want that boy, now.
“You up for round three?” Ian asks, voice high from the beer. The stars burn on above them, and Mickey can pretend Ian’s the only one who’s ever asked him that question, can pretend he’s the only one Ian’s ever asked that question.
Mickey snorts and turns around to face Ian. “Ready whenever you are,” he says, arching his eyebrows at him. Ian laughs, and the sound makes Mickey hard, again, the sound makes Mickey want to stab out his heart, again.
5.
He doesn’t want to hide the hickeys, so he doesn’t. He doesn’t want to cover them up with cheap drugstore makeup or long-sleeved shirts or strategically drawn temporary tattoos. So he doesn’t.
He doesn’t want questions. He doesn’t get them. Mandy raises her eyebrows and smirks at him, Iggy makes a joke, and Terry doesn’t care or doesn’t notice.
Ian hides his smile when he sees the bright red marks and recognized the outline of his own lips. Mickey doesn’t hide his smirk.
6.
He wouldn’t have seen himself, here. Not a month ago, not a year ago. Wouldn’t have imagined counting cans of chicken stock with Ian, pelting him with stolen bags of popcorn, fucking him in the freezer. Wouldn’t have thought he could ever have that.
Wouldn’t have thought that the smell of blood and fried metal bullets would be so easy to wash off, wouldn’t have thought his armour could be so easily pierced. Wouldn’t have thought a convenience store could feel so much like home, or a clean, innocent, freckled boy feel so much like family.
7.
“Where did you get this from?” Mandy asks, holding up a CD for Mickey to see. Mickey colours and snatches it out of her hands.
“None of your business,” he snarls.
It’s not just the CD.
There’s also the school textbook Ian left in Mickey’s room, and the pair of blue gingham boxers. There’s also the half-empty chapstick, and the DVD of The Godfather. A few empty cans of beer, a dozen candy wrappers.
And the painted fingerprints he left on the wall, one day when both of them were high and hickeys weren’t enough for Ian to mark Mickey, for Ian to proclaim to the world that that dirty, fucked up boy was his. Mickey wouldn’t admit to it, but later that night, he’d pressed his own fingers to the five orange spots on the wall, and pretended he could still feel the heat.
So, it’s nothing new.
Ian leaves real, tangible parts of himself in Mickey’s room.
It isn’t something they talk about.
8.
For every time Mickey almost kisses Ian, comes this close and then turns away, always only on the cusp of everything they could be and never in the middle of it, there’s another time Mickey grabs Ian’s hand while fucking, or lets Ian rest his head on his knees, or strokes away Ian’s hair from his face.
There’s another time Mickey gives Ian a tiny part of him, tells him the colour of his mother’s eyes, or about the time he spelt out ‘fuck you’ with coke on the Principal’s desk, or hands Ian one of the various gold chains he owns.
There’s another time when he calls Ian dork or nerd and they both know it’s as close to baby or dear as he’s going to get, another time when he takes up Ian’s invitation of sneaking into movie theatres or baseball games, another time he tells Ian the way he feels without telling Ian the way he feels.
9.
Ian wants a love like religion.
Ian wants bright bright balloons and soaring musical scores and every goddamn cell in his body alive, alive, alive.
Ian wants to hurt and Ian want to burn and Ian wants to want someone so much that there’s nothing else left but that blatant want and nothing else left but that clawing need.
Ian wants fire and brimstone and kisses that feel like coming up for air and the feeling of drowning in one boy’s eyes.
Ian wants to trace ciphers onto skin and make up an entire language just to say I love you, Ian wants it bloody and hard and breathtaking and brilliant and more, more, more.
Ian wants Mickey.
It isn’t something they talk about.
10.
They steal a motorbike, one day. The next day, it’s a car.
Mickey’s used to feeling like a criminal.
This is different.
This is heady and intoxicating and Mickey knows this, has felt this, but it’s not muted anymore. It’s raging and powerful and beautiful and it’s basically sex, except they’re laughing at eighty miles an hour down a North Side freeway in a stolen car, and that’s not like sex at all, except it is.
Mickey doesn’t think about why it only feels different with Ian.
11.
It’s the way that Ian catches him off guard- after sex, before sex, in the middle of jokes, as they’re walking back home. The way Mickey’s heart starts beating just that much faster, the way his stomach clenches just a little, and the way he can't keep his smile down.
It’s the way Ian says his name, shortening the two syllables into one, or the way he never lets Mickey steal shit during their shifts. It’s the way he talks about Lip and Fiona and the three kids, the way his eyes shine when he talks about West Point, the way he laughs when Mickey teases him about it.
It’s the way Ian always drinks beer from the can, but never drinks coke without a glass. It’s the way he makes bad jokes, laughing at Mickey’s reaction before it comes. It’s the way he bites his lip before coming, and the way his voice turns raspy afterwards.
And it’s the way Mickey can tell he’s going to smile a second before he does. It’s the way Mickey can tell when to push, and when to let it go. It’s the way he can guess who Ian would dress up as for Halloween, or the way he can tell it’s Ian from the sound of his footsteps.
That’s the way Mickey knows he’s fucked.
12.
They’re in the middle of the beginning when it ends.
It doesn’t happen the way Mickey thought it would.
It’s fucking stupid, they’re fucking stupid. Mickey could write an essay about all the ways they’d fucked up, how the end was a long time coming, how a lifetime of swallowing blood and broken hearts couldn’t prepare him for it.
When the end comes, it’s brutal and messy and quick. Over before it begins. The afternoon melts around them as Mickey says things he doesn’t mean, digs his fingernails into his palms and grits out words like silver bullets.
The thing about bullets is they ricochet. The thing about skin is it isn’t fucking armour. Mickey does the math seconds before his heart falls crooked in his chest.