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Ian Gallagher’s favourite place in the whole world is the space between Mickey Milkovich’s thighs.
He loves the way they wrap around his waist, tightening minutely with every downward roll of Ian’s hips. He loves the way he can grab at them as he pushes into Mickey, the way that when he pulls his hands away to steady himself against the headboard, he can see red marks in the shape of his fingers against the beautifully pale skin. Mickey's thighs are incredible things, sculpted by the fucking angels, and Ian doesn’t know how he lived 23 years of his life without them.
It’s Ian’s love for them, really, that means they’re always the recipient of his least favourite admission.
“Fiona’s set me up on a date again,” he says, punctuating it with a small, chaste kiss to the smooth skin. He chances a glance up and finds Mickey looking down at him, expression carefully blank and unreadable – like always. “His name’s Chad, apparently.”
Mickey snorts, turning away. “Ha, Chad. He sounds like a douchebag.”
“He probably is,” Ian agrees, sitting back on the balls of his feet and running a hand through his hair. They are both so wonderfully naked, so wonderfully alone in Mickey’s studio apartment, and Ian could have just left this information out of their night, but he finds that he just can’t ignore it. “I can say no. I want to say no.”
“The fuck would you do that for?” Mickey asks, catching Ian’s eye again. “We got a good thing goin’ on, Gallagher. I trust you. Just go, man.”
Ian’s jaw clenches involuntarily. He feels irrational in it, but he’s angry, damn it.
“How long does this go on for, huh?" he demands. "6 more months? Another year?” Mickey bites at his bottom lip and has the decency to look somewhat guilty, but Ian’s anger just keeps bubbling up and up and over. “What, do I fucking marry someone else, and we keep fucking on the sly? How the fuck is this supposed to go down, Mick?”
Mickey rolls his eyes, but reaches out to twist his fingers between Ian’s at the same time.
“You are such a drama queen,” he comments, but his voice is soft. Ian can feel the anger leaving his system almost immediately as he allows himself to be tugged to be sitting against the headboard next to Mickey. He settles back and rests his head against Mickey’s, staring down at their intertwined fingers. “It’s not forever, alright?”
A stagnant silence. Ian traces his thumb over the hyphen on Mickey's index.
“Would it really be the end of the world?” Ian truly hates how desperate he sounds.
Mickey exhales heavily. “It’s not forever,” he repeats. “Just. Just right now. No one can know.”
“We could ask her not tell anyone,” Ian tries, weakly.
Mickey laughs, once, quick and mirthless. “You are so damn naïve, Gallagher. People have ways of finding things out, even if everyone keeps as quiet as they promise to.” Ian says nothing to that – what can he, he’s tried his best but there’s no convincing Mickey – and moves his eyes from his and Mickey’s hands over to Mickey, just stares at his profile until Mickey turns toward him as well. “Just go on the date with fuckin’ Chad, and tell Fiona the same as every other time.”
Mickey's mouth is tugged down into a frown, his bottom lip caught by his teeth. His eyes flit away from Ian's every few seconds, palpably uncomfortable.
Ian decides to simply take the path of least resistance.
Again.
“Sorry, Fi," Ian says, monotone. "We just didn’t click. Maybe next time.”
Mickey nods. “Yeah,” he responds, climbing into Ian’s lap and taking Ian’s face in his hands. He leans down and kisses him, quick and hard. “Now, where were we?”
Ian pushes down the sick feeling still omnipresent in his stomach. He’ll deal with it another day, another time, when he’s alone in his own bed. Not here, not now, not when he’s got Mickey all to himself and they can be what Ian so desperately needs them to be.
He ignores that feeling and instead smiles as he flips Mickey over and begins kissing his favourite body part once again.
----------
Ian had met Mickey at a company mandated picnic on a Saturday afternoon in June, three months ago. Ian didn’t actually work for the company, but Fiona did and she’d dragged him along, saying that she needed a friend and V was too busy with the new babies, and all, to be her plus-one. Ian spent the first couple of hours there trying to be polite, listening as intently as he could to the boring stories Fiona’s colleagues were throwing at him – the one Ian had with a middle-aged lady about her goddamn hamster had lasted forty-five minutes, for fuck’s sake.
Ian had noted a late-comer two hours into the event. A short, dark-haired guy in a sleeveless vest had arrived, headed straight for the keg, poured himself a generous cup, and then stalked into the shaded trees at the back where no one else was.
“Who’s that?” Ian had asked, nudging Fiona with his elbow.
Fiona had followed his gaze for a second before settling. “Oh, that’s Mickey. He’s in IT. Doesn’t really talk to anyone, everyone thinks he’s an asshole.” She had paused, pursed her lips. “I think he’s okay, though. You remember when Liam was up all night with that cough last winter? Well, I was talking about how exhausted I was at work the morning after, and I think he must have heard me, because he shoved a cup of coffee and a bagel in my hand 30 seconds later. He wouldn’t let me thank him and he barely looked me in the eye when he did it.” She had paused again, completive. “I think it was his bagel, y’know.”
Ian had smiled, Fiona had moved on to talking to a different colleague, and then Ian had followed Mickey into the shadows.
“Fuck do you want?” were Mickey’s first words to Ian.
“I’m Ian.” He had taken one, two, three steps closer until he was close enough to Mickey to confirm his earlier suspicions: Ian was definitely attracted to him. “I’m Fiona’s brother.”
“That’s fuckin’ lovely,” Mickey had said slowly, “but it don’t answer my fuckin’ question. The fuck do you want?”
Ian had shrugged, reaching out and snagging the almost finished cigarette from between Mickey’s lips. Mickey had sputtered indignantly but Ian ignored it, instead placing the cigarette between his own lips, taking a few drags and then throwing it to the floor and grounding it beneath his foot.
“Some company,” Ian had answered, eventually, cocking his head and looking at Mickey’s mouth. “My sister says you work in IT?”
“There’s a whole crowd of company out there, man,” Mickey had replied, sounding irritated and ignoring Ian’s question entirely. “Why you gotta come bother me?”
Ian had shrugged. “Maybe you look more interesting than the rest of them.”
Barely half an hour had passed since Ian had uttered those words, before Mickey’s pants were down and Ian was blowing him in the public bathrooms.
The first month after that had been just fucking – Mickey would booty call Ian at odd hours of the night, and Ian would show up as quickly as he possibly could and take as much of Mickey as Mickey was willing to give him.
After that month, Mickey seemed willing to give more and more. Ian remembers it as precisely one month and three days since their first meeting. Mickey had texted him at 9pm – earlier than usual, Ian had noted absentmindedly – and they’d ended up fucking on the goddamn floor, they were so desperate for each other the second they were in arm’s reach. In the wake of it all, once Ian had gotten his breath back, he’d immediately reached for his clothes, ready to make his way home. He hadn’t expected Mickey to pull Ian back down and kiss him short and slightly off, more mouth to chin than anything else, and ask him to, “Stay, Gallagher.”
It became more after that. It became nights in with movies and beers, it became make out sessions that led to nothing more than some PG-13 groping because one or both of them had somewhere to be, like, 20 minutes ago. It became something resembling dating, something neither of them had expected or were particularly well versed in, and it was nice.
Mickey never made it a secret that this was a down-low kind of thing. Yes, he was pretty much out. No, he doesn’t announce it to every damn person he meets and he doesn’t want to become some faggy office gossip – his words, not Ian’s. Mickey’s sister knew and Ian knew. Mickey maintained that he didn’t have to tell the whole damn world just to make it true. The important people were clued in, and that’s all that mattered.
When Fiona started setting Ian up on dates with random gays she knew, he’d expected Mickey to let Ian tell her. Surely someone trying to set your almost-boyfriend-but-they’ve-not-used-that-word-yet up on a date with other dudes makes them somewhat important to be in the know. But Mickey hadn’t agreed with that.
They’d fought about it. Ian told Mickey he was a goddamn coward, Mickey told Ian that he pushed too hard for pointless shit when things were fine as they fucking were. They yelled and threw superficial insults at one another until they were back to laughing again, throwing each other around and concluding each push with a biting kiss, until they were fucking on the couch and hissing stupid barbs in each other’s ears as they went at it.
Mickey wouldn’t change his mind. Ian couldn’t find it in him to push any longer. Ian agreed to go on the date and Mickey agreed that it wouldn’t be forever.
Ian’s been on seven dates with seven different guys since that agreement.
----------
Chad ends up being nice. He’s tall, dark-skinned, and polite. He doesn’t let Ian pay anything towards dinner and he asks Ian twelve times how he’s getting home, whether he’s sure he doesn’t want a ride. Chad has a sweet smile and a good sense of humour, and Ian knows that if they’d met before he’d have gone home with him.
He instead ends the night by giving Chad a chaste kiss on the cheek and catching a bus straight over to Mickey’s.
“Hey,” Mickey greets, opening the door in a holey black t-shirt and grey sweatpants that sit low on his hips. Ian steps through the door and shrugs his jacket off, dropping it to the floor next to Mickey’s. “How was your date?”
Mickey’s smirking when he asks. Ian can’t find it in him to laugh.
“He was nice,” Ian says simply, shrugging one shoulder and moving over to take a seat on the couch as Mickey wanders to the fridge in the corner. “Paid for dinner. Made me laugh. Asked me on a second date.”
“How’d he take it when you said no?” Mickey asks, snorting derisively as he returns.
Ian pauses. “I didn’t,” he admits. Mickey is standing in front of him as he says it, a beer in each hand, one slightly proffered towards Ian. Mickey’s face is unreadable, so Ian looks away. “I gave him my number.”
“The fuck did you do that for?” Mickey’s voice is raised as he slams the two beer bottles down onto the old wooden coffee table at his shins. “You wanna go out with him?”
“No,” Ian replies, and it’s true, he really doesn’t. “He was just, I don’t know. He was nice.” He pauses again, closes his eyes. “He isn’t afraid to be seen with me.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Mickey says, his voice even louder this time. “Are we fuckin’ back on this?”
Ian frowns. “I don’t know what you expect of me, Mick. The only time we ever hang out, it’s in this tiny room. Your sister and friends don’t know I exist. My family think you’re just one of Fiona’s colleagues, not that many of them even know about you. You beg me to go on dates with other guys, just so no-one could ever figure out I’m seeing someone, in case they figure out that someone is you. I mean, fuck. Are we even together?”
“Of course we’re together,” Mickey asserts, like it’s obvious.
“It doesn’t feel like it.” Ian stands up, walking to stand on the opposite side of the room, back against the wall as he stares down at his feet. “It feels like I’m a secret.”
Mickey doesn’t say anything for a long time. Ian doesn’t have to look up to know that Mickey will have picked up one of the beers and will be pulling from it incessantly, pacing slightly as he flexes his tattooed knuckles.
“Did you fuck him?” Mickey asks, a bite to his tone.
Ian’s head snaps up. “What if I did, huh?” he goads, thrills in the way the tendons in Mickey’s neck jump at it. “I didn’t even wanna fucking go, you fucking made me.”
Mickey grits his teeth. “Answer the fucking question, Ian.”
“No, I fucking didn’t, alright?” Ian shouts, and they both step closer to each other at the same time. “He asked me back to his, and all I could fucking think about was you, so I fucking left him and came straight here, for – for this.”
He’s gesturing between them as he finishes, and he hopes Mickey understands. He hopes he understands that Ian will never fucking give this up, that he will do whatever the fuck it takes to keep this happening. He has fallen so fucking hard and so fucking irrevocably that there’s no goddamn hope for him now; there's nothing for him after this.
Mickey grabs Ian by the collar, bites out, “Good, and don’t you ever fucking think about it again,” and then they’re kissing, teeth clacking and noses bumping. There’s no finesse and it hurts, hurts in the way Mickey’s hands are too tight as they clamp his shoulders and hurts in the way Ian’s heart thumps erratically against his chest, like it might burst out any second now and beat, weak and vulnerable, at Mickey’s feet.
They kiss and they kiss and they kiss, pulling and pushing at each other in a messy tangle of limbs, only interrupted by the text alert on Ian’s phone.
“It’s probably Fiona,” Ian whispers, neither of them pulling away one bit.
“If it’s Chad, I will fucking hunt him down and kill him.”
Ian breathes out a laugh. “And I’m the drama queen,” he muses, reaching into his pocket and reading the message from the lock screen. “It is Fiona. She’s asking how the date went.”
“What are you gonna say?” Mickey’s thumb rubs gently against Ian’s cheekbone.
“We just didn’t click,” Ian says aloud as he types. “Maybe next time.”
Mickey grins and pulls Ian down into another kiss.
----------
Fiona corners him the very next day as soon as he gets home from work.
“What was wrong with Chad?” She’s got him boxed in by the stove in the kitchen, when all he’d been trying to do was grab a glass of juice before he headed over to Mickey’s for the evening. “He’s a nice guy, Ian!”
“I know,” Ian accepts. “He was nice.”
“Then why did he tell me today that you guys swapped numbers at the end of the date, and then barely an hour later you were texting him to say that you wouldn’t see him again?”
“It’s complicated,” Ian says uselessly.
Fiona narrows her eyes. “Is there someone else?” she asks. Ian stays silent, bites his lip. Fiona puts her hands onto her hips and jabs a finger at his chest. “If there’s someone else, and he’s making you keep it a secret, that ain’t good news, Ian. I thought you were done with married guys!”
Ian has no idea what to say to that. Mickey isn’t bad news, he’s just – he’s just Mickey. He doesn’t consider himself in the closet, even though the only people who know he’s gay are his sister, the guys he’s fucked in the past, and Ian. He doesn’t think that what he and Ian are doing is hiding; he just doesn’t want to broadcast it further than it needs to go. Ian knows he was lucky with his own family, that they all accepted his sexuality as easily as he had. Ian also knows that Mickey wasn’t so lucky in that respect.
Mickey isn’t a coward, Ian has come to realise, but he is scared. After the stories he’s told Ian about his father, Ian can truly understand where that fear comes from.
So instead of the truth, Ian says, “There’s no-one else, Fiona. Chad just wasn’t what I’m looking for.”
He doesn’t bother mentioning that he found what he was looking for four months ago.
Fiona frowns at him, but turns her pointing finger into a pat on the chest. “Okay,” she replies. “I believe you.”
She leans up to press a short kiss to his cheek, and then moves so that he can walk around her. Ian gives her a smile that he hopes looks realer than it feels, then moves around her and grabs the overnight bag he’d dropped by the kitchen table before their conversation began. He shoulders it and leans down to kiss Liam’s head.
“I’m staying at a friend’s tonight,” he lies, walking out the backdoor.
“There’s another company picnic on Saturday,” Fiona calls after him when he’s halfway out. “D’ya wanna tag along with me again?”
Mickey hadn’t mentioned it, but Ian’s not surprised at that.
“Sure,” he agrees. He owes her this, at least.
She smiles at him, and that easy, trusting smile feels like a punch to Ian’s gut.
----------
Saturday rolls around with still no word - or, dare he dream, invite - from Mickey about it. Ian's not surprised, he never would have been regardless, but added to the way Mickey barely acknowledged Ian mentioning Fi's invite, it doesn't even really hurt this time to be shunned in public.
He'd left Mickey's that morning to meet Fiona at the L bright and early. Mickey hadn't been awake when he'd left, so he'd pressed a kiss to Mickey's temple and scribbled a silly message on one of the post-it notes beside the TV for Mickey to wake up to.
No Chad could ever make me as happy as you do x
He'd met with Fiona at the agreed time, and they had arrived to the function about 45 minutes ago. She wasted no time in "subtly" steering Ian toward the only clearly gay guy at the event. Ian also wasted no time in steering himself away after one curt hello.
"What was wrong with Derek?" Fiona had immediately demanded. "You didn't even give him a chance!"
Ian had sighed, but managed to fight the overwhelming urge to close his eyes and pinch the bridge of his nose between his forefingers.
"Just have a day off, Fi," Ian had implored. "Yeah?"
She'd frowned, gave him her should-be-award-winning concerned face, but nodded in agreement nonetheless.
As it is now, Ian's managed to zone completely out - a skill vital in a house as crammed as theirs, growing up - as Fiona talks shop with one of her colleagues. He's thrilled to pieces for her that she likes her job, and is the happiest and most stable she's ever been, honestly. It's just that, well - the topic of printer ink, and the speed at which it seemingly runs out, has never been a riveting one for him.
All Ian is hearing is a pleasant buzz of white noise, focusing instead on the feeling of a warm sun against his back and a soft breeze brushing against his bare forearms. Every now and then, his stomach will remind him that breakfast was quite a while ago and he'll wonder absentmindedly as to where the buffet is, but nothing more pressing than that enters his mind. He's so zoned out, even, that he almost doesn't quite catch what Fiona says.
"Huh?" Ian says, eyes scanning incessantly behind Fiona, blinking more rapidly than is likely necessary.
"I was just saying, looks like the latecomers are arriving just in time." She nods towards the shaded tree area. "Lunch buffet's just coming out."
Ian shakes his head. "No, no, about - who, Fi? Who's arrived?"
She frowns at him, confused. Her colleague has wandered off by this time, presumably toward the buffet that Ian literally could not care less about right now.
"Um, well. Jackie came in about 10 minutes ago, spoilt brats in tow, and I think I saw Evan not long after that, and Mickey showed up literally just now, I think." Her frown deepens. "Everything alright, Ian? You feeling okay?" Ian doesn't have a chance to respond before Fiona talks again, and this time not to him. "Hey, Mickey! I didn't think you were coming today."
"Uh, yeah," Mickey says, awkwardly. "Last minute decision."
Ian doesn't know where to look, or what to think or to say. Mickey is standing right goddamn beside him, right out in the open, in front of people Mickey knows! He can almost feel Mickey's discomfort rolling off him in waves, pressing against him and making him feel second-hand anxiety. He may not be looking, but he just knows Mickey will be biting his lip, averting his eyes like he does anytime he's uncomfortable. He can smell the smoke from Mickey's unease cigarette.
But if he's so uncomfortable, why has he voluntarily attended? Even then, why has he voluntarily struck up a conversation with Ian and his goddamn sister, for Christ's sake?
"Well, it's good to see ya." She nods at Ian before she continues. "This is my little brother, Ian, he came to the last one of these they did. Did you meet each other?"
Ian bites his snort back before it can become even a fathom of a reality.
"Uh, you could say that," Mickey mumbles, and Ian whips his head up to look at him, neck twingeing at the speed and angle of it. "I mean, uh, yeah, we did."
"Um." Ian is dumbfounded. "Did we?"
Fiona tuts at him - she thinks he's being impolite.
Mickey rolls his eyes, looking at Ian for the first time.
"Yeah, dumbass, we did." He punctuates his final word by dropping his cigarette to the floor and taking a grip of Ian's hand. Ian truly believes he was hit by a car on the way here, because none of this can be real. He absolutely does not fucking dare look at Fiona right now. "And we're fuckin' together, ain't we?"
The inflection in his voice truly makes his last statement seem like a question. Ian would answer if he could remember how to fucking talk.
"Uh, what?" Fiona nigh on shrieks.
Mickey looks pained. Ian would help him out if, again, he could remember how to actually fucking talk.
"Four months," Mickey blurts, and Fiona's eyes bug open even further. Mickey's fingers are painfully tight around Ian's. Ian squeezes back as hard as he can, and hopes it successfully coveys the message he means it to - I'm in this with you. "Well, nearly five."
"You're shitting me," is all Fiona manages, more of a breath than a banshee this time.
Ian tries to speak - to explain, to assist - but Mickey just talks over his weak attempt.
"I wouldn't let Ian tell you because I have a thing about, well. A thing about people knowing I'm, um." He pauses, scratches the back of his neck with his free hand and lets his face twist up. "You know."
He can't say the word - gay. Ian could literally not care less right now. That word is a baby step. This? It's goddamn Neil Armstrong.
"Wow," Fiona whispers, almost to herself. "Five months. That's practically married, in South Side terms."
"Jesus, Fi, let's not make this scarier than it already is," Ian finally pipes in, finding his voice. She grins at him. "I'm sorry I didn't -"
She doesn't let him finish. "Don't." She's smiling slightly, sweetly.
He knows by "don't", she really means "not now". Later, he knows they will talk about this for a long time, likely way longer than is truly necessary. He also knows that he'll allow every second of it.
"Right." Ian returns her smile. "Thanks."
She nods at him, her eyes catching on their still clasped hands.
"I'm gonna go make a plate," she says, already beginning to move away. "I'll, uh. I'll be back."
She leaves with that, her back to them as she wanders, almost dazedly, away. Ian knows exactly how she feels.
Mickey clears his throat. He still doesn't move his hand.
"So," he says.
"That was fucking huge," Ian finishes.
Mickey laughs. "Yeah, well." He lights another cigarette with his free hand, struggling slightly with the manoeuvres involved. "I did say it wasn't forever."
"You did," Ian agrees, tugging Mickey's hand to move them so that they're tucked away, pretty much out of sight of the crowd. "I guess I thought it was a line."
"Says the guy who used the 'looking for company' line on me."
Mickey smirks. Ian can't contain himself any longer.
"I know it's your first day, really, but can I kiss you?" Ian glances behind him. "I don't think anyone can see us here."
The expression that falls over Mickey's face can only accurately be described with one word: determined.
"Move where they can see us," he says, slowly pushing at Ian's chest, "and then, yeah, you fuckin' can, Firecrotch."
Ian may have kissed Mickey a thousand times by now, but this one alights something in Ian he never thought he'd be truly allowed to feel.