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“Can I look yet?” Mickey says.
“Not yet!” Ian calls from the bathroom.
“Now?”
“Just one more minute!”
Mickey drums his fingers impatiently on the bed. “We gotta go in a minute. I know it’s a party or whatever, but I’m still working.”
Ian laughs. “I know, I know, just let me—OK, are your eyes closed?”
“Fucking . . . yes, they are!”
The bed bounces a little as Ian sits down next to Mickey. “OK, you can look now,” he says.
Mickey opens his eyes and blinks.
“Are you—”
“I’m a sexy alien!” Ian bursts out, and then falls over on the bed, consumed with laughter, nearly knocking the green deely-boppers off his head.
Mickey stares down at him. The shiny silver T-shirt Ian’s wearing stretches over his chest, just barely covering his stomach. His pants are black and tight, and he’s got a holster with what looks like a little plastic ray gun around his waist. He’s got silver and green glitter smeared around his eyes and along one side of his face.
He is, absolutely, wearing the guy version of a 1960s-style sexy alien costume.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Mickey says, one hand over his eyes.
“Mickey, don’t you get it?” Ian says, sitting up just enough to grab his hands, and tugging him down so he’s leaning over Ian on the bed.
“What’s to get?” Mickey says. “You’re a sexy alien. Same as every other day.”
Ian rolls his eyes, but he also kisses Mickey, so, eh.
“No, not that,” Ian says. “We match now.” He looks pointedly at the black suit Mickey’s wearing, the staff’s agreed-upon bouncer uniform for the Halloween party at the bar. “All you need is a pair of sunglasses.”
“That a fucking Men in Black reference?” Mickey says.
“I come in peace.” Ian grins and rolls his hips up against Mickey. “Take me to the president.”
“You know that’s not the—ah, fuck it,” Mickey says. “Hope you got more of that glitter, ’cause we’re about to mess it up real bad.” He presses Ian down onto the bed and goes for his pants.
“You’ve got some glitter on the side of your face,” Ian says, as they walk down the street toward the bar. He rubs at it with his thumb. “That just made it worse.”
“Leave it,” Mickey says. He doesn’t mind it, something showing that he’s Ian’s, that Ian is his, even if it’s just some dumb makeup.
“Looks kinda good, actually,” Ian says, and his eyes are soft, even though his smile is teasing.
“’Course it does, I make everything look good.”
“Wish you didn’t have to give that suit back,” Ian says wistfully.
“It’s probably gonna have beer and puke all over it by the end of the night,” Mickey says. “Halloween parties are the fuckin’ worst.”
“Except that I’ll be here for this one.”
“Yeah,” Mickey says. “Except for that.”
They get to the end of the block right before the bar, and Mickey stops. “Hey,” he says, grabbing Ian’s hand. “You’ll tell me if you want to go, OK? If it’s too much?”
Ian laughs. “It’s gonna be fine. I know I got freaked out last year, but that was before I knew about the costumes.”
“Yeah,” Mickey says. “I mean, to be fair, that guy had gone way too hard on the fake blood. And the severed hand was, uh, very realistic. But still. People go way harder on Halloween than, like, any other night of the year.” He shudders. “Except St. Patrick’s Day. But, Ian, I promise—we will never go to the bar on St. Patrick’s Day.”
Ian nods solemnly. “Deal.” He squeezes Mickey’s hand. “Can we go now? Clem said she’d save me some candy, so I could prank and present.”
“It’s trick or—” Mickey starts to correct automatically, until he sees Ian stifling a laugh. “Hey, fuck you, man!”
He flicks one of the deely-boppers, and Ian yelps. “Ah, my antenna! Mickey!”
“Come on, Marvin the Martian.”
The first hour or so is relatively chill. Ian manages to eat more candy than any person inhabiting the body of a human probably should, between trying new drinks in increasingly unlikely colors that Clem is mixing up, and Mickey even gets to dance with him for a bit.
But around eleven they start getting people coming from their first or second parties who are already tanked, and it devolves pretty quick from there. Mickey has to throw out a zombie, three vampire chicks, and an incredibly handsy Spider-Man in the space of half an hour, and by the time things calm back down, Ian is nowhere in sight.
Mickey checks the bathroom and the basement with no luck, and finally pulls out his phone.
-
Mickey
?
-
E.T. 👽
in the alley!
-
Mickey
????
Mickey heads to the back of the bar and pushes open the door to outside.
Ian’s crouched down in between the trash bins, his shiny shirt making him still easy to spot even in the darkness, and Mickey starts forward in a mild panic, until Ian turns around and holds his finger up to his lips.
“Look,” Ian whispers, and turns back to the open cardboard box in front of him, putting his hand down near the bottom.
A black paw bats at Ian’s fingers from inside the box. Ian laughs and reaches inside to skritch the ears Mickey can just barely see.
“The fuck is this?” Mickey says.
“It’s a cat, Mickey,” Ian explains patiently.
“Yeah, no shit. I mean, why are you hanging out in an alley playing with it?”
“She was hunting a mouse in the basement, but it ran outside, so we came out here instead.”
“The fuck we paying that exterminator for,” Mickey said. “Anyway, don’t play with it. It’s a street cat, probably has fifteen kinds of diseases.”
The cat sticks her head out, evidently curious why Ian’s stopped petting her. She stares at them for a minute, motionless, then jumps out of the box and darts away.
“Jesus,” Mickey says. “On Halloween and everything. Spooky.”
“I saw there’s lots of pictures of black cats on everything,” Ian says. “Do they bring the candy or something?”
“Bad luck,” Mickey says. “If you believe that kind of thing.”
“Luck?” Ian says.
“It’s like . . . when good stuff happens, more than it’s supposed to. You find a ticket and win the lottery, or like . . .” Huh. What does it say about his life that that’s the only example he can think of? “Stuff like that.”
Ian makes what Mickey thinks of as his “sounds weird, but guess I’ll take your word for it” face.
Ian makes that face a lot.
“And what’s bad luck?” he says.
“Stuff breaking at the worst time, starts raining when you’re too far away from the train, tripping down the stairs and breaking your neck,” Mickey lists off. “Cops show up right when you’re robbing a place. You know. Wrong place at the wrong time.”
“And the cat makes that happen?” Ian raises his eyebrows.
“Look, I didn’t say I believed it. And it’s not like the cat does something. It’s more like, you see it and it’s a sign. It means bad stuff is coming.”
“But you don’t think that?”
Mickey shrugs. “I’ve seen a lot of bad stuff happen without any cats around. Mostly just wish it had caught that mouse.”
Ian doesn’t look satisfied. Mickey sighs, and flicks one of Ian’s antennae again, then gives him a hand up.
“Gotta get back inside,” he says. “You coming, or do I have to go all Independence Day on your ass?”
“Do you really think you’d win?” Ian says. “Against my superior technology?” He pushes Mickey playfully against the wall.
“Depends,” Mickey says. “Is that a ray gun, or are you just happy to see me?”
“Hmm. Both,” Ian says and goes in for a kiss.
That night—technically that morning, but the sun isn’t up yet—after they get home and shower, they curl up clean and warm under the blankets, and Mickey buries his face against the back of Ian’s neck, ready to get a few precious hours of sleep.
Ian shifts a little, making the bed creak.
Mickey squeezes his waist and presses a sleepy kiss to Ian’s skin.
Ian squeezes his hand in reply. But he doesn’t relax.
Mickey sighs. “What’s up?” he asks.
“The opposite of down,” Ian says.
“Ian, I swear to god—”
“Do you think she’s OK?” Ian blurts out, sounding pretty much distraught.
“The girl who was dressed like Carrie? Yeah, man, I told you, it’s just makeup and food coloring.”
“The cat,” Ian says. “It’s supposed to be cold tonight.” He curls up more, pushing himself back against Mickey for comfort.
Mickey doesn’t even try to put up a fight. Why bother, when he knows how it’s gonna end?
“We’ll put out some food for her and take her to the vet tomorrow,” he says, resigned. “But I’m not scooping any poop, Ian. Do you hear me? Not one piece of poop.”
“No scooping,” Ian says. Mickey can hear the smile in his voice.
Ian brings Mickey’s hand up to his mouth and presses a kiss against his fingers.
“Hey, Mickey?”
“Mmm-hm.”
“You know I don’t look like this, right?”
Mickey blinks, suddenly feeling very awake.
“Yeah,” he says cautiously. “I remember.” He saw what must be Ian’s actual form once, the first night they met, for a second. It wasn’t a body at all, at least as far as he could see; just light and energy, so bright he couldn’t even look at it.
“Does it bother you?” Ian asks.
“Your taste in music bothers me,” Mickey says. “The alien thing, not so much.”
“I don’t know,” Ian confesses. “I don’t know if . . .”
“What?” Mickey says. Ian’s nervousness is making him nervous now.
“It’s been so long. I don’t know what would even happen if I tried to . . . go back.”
“Do you want to?” Mickey says warily.
Ian twists around and takes Mickey’s face in his hands and kisses him before Mickey even realizes what’s going on. Mickey goes down easy, his body responding to Ian’s without thought or hesitation, mouth open, hungry for him.
“No,” Ian says, after he pulls away. The next kiss is softer, sweeter. “No,” he says again. “I love being here with you. It’s the best”—he stops and swallows—“Mickey, you’re the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“Jesus,” Mickey mutters. “I mean.” He rubs a knuckle in his eye. He’s not tearing up or anything. His eyes are just tired after that crazy shift, is all. “You too.”
Ian smiles. “Three. If you count the cat.”
Mickey rolls his eyes. “Well, I guess the last time I brought someone home from an alley, it worked out OK.”
“Does that mean that aliens are good luck?”
“Don’t think we have any traditions about what seeing an alien means. So, sure. Why not.”
“And you would still love me, right?” Ian says.
“I mean, yeah.” Mickey pauses. “If what, though?”
“If I didn’t look like this.”
Mickey reaches up and brushes Ian’s messy hair out of the way, then presses a kiss to his forehead.
“Even if you were a big bright ball of light,” he agrees. “Not sure how that would work exactly. Kinda think you might zap me by mistake if we tried to do most of the stuff we do now. But we’d figure it out. OK?”
Ian smiles and gives him another kiss. Then one on his cheek. And another against his temple.
“OK, all right, you gonna go to sleep now?” Mickey says. But when Ian kisses him again, Mickey slides his hand up and cups it around the back of Ian’s neck, holding him close.
Ian reaches back and puts his hand over Mickey’s. What feels like a tiny jolt of static zaps gently against Mickey’s skin.
“Hey!” Mickey gasps and pulls away. “Ian, what the fuck?” he says, laughing.
“That was your trick,” Ian says. His eyes are wide in the darkness, and Mickey isn’t sure if it’s the streetlight outside the window making them sparkle, or something inside. “Do you want your treat now?”
“You’re fucking right I do,” Mickey says. “Come here, you—”
They’ve both been awake so long now, it’s slower and softer than usual, but Mickey doesn’t mind.
He’s never been a big fan of candy, but there’s nothing wrong with something sweet, from time to time.