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Ian went blind when he was 14.
He was defending his sister when the first blow to the head knocked him to the ground. Some kids in his grade were calling her a whore, making crude gesticulations while describing what she’d supposedly done with their brothers, and he’d started throwing punches before he had time to think. He didn’t see the baseball bat until it was swinging into his face.
He didn’t see anything else ever again.
He woke up several days later to nothingness. The force of the hit detached his retinas, rendering him blind for the rest of his life. The surgery to save his vision was too expensive, and with the doctors saying it would likely fail, he had told Fiona he didn’t want it.
He’d heard her crying once, when she thought he was sleeping. He knew she wanted Ian to have that surgery with everything in her, but he also knew they couldn’t afford it. It was easier to stay blind.
So he adapted to life. He went through therapy, medical checks, lessons on how to properly use his new cane. They said he could carrying on living life as normally as he did before he lost his sight, but he knew that was bullshit. For starters, he had to be escorted fucking everywhere, constantly hanging off the arms of his siblings. He spent a lot of time crying about it, frustrated more than anything, but it got easier with time.
Lip helped him secure a job at the Kash and Grab, the local convenience store, and that gave him some of his confidence back. He was trusted with the cash register, trained so that he could operate it by memory alone, and Linda was kind and understanding without being patronising.
It was tough, and his life wasn’t without assholes ready to take advantage of him, but he was happy. Years were passing, and life without sight became manageable, pretty boring, even.
And then Ian met Mickey.
“Ian!” Linda barks as she passes him, and his head snaps up from where he’s slumped over the counter tiredly.
He and Lip had been out late last night, and the last thing he wants to be doing is ringing up self-entitled assholes all day, especially when, more often than not, his father is one of those self-entitled assholes.
“Yeah?” He yawns. She smacks him upside the head, and he hears a second voice in the room, a quick snort of patronising laughter. He straightens up a little, straining his ears.
“We have a new employee,” She says. “Security. You’ll have to tell him how things work around here, the boys are late for school.”
“But wait, I-” He starts, but the kids are rushing past him and he hears the bell jingle as Linda pushes open the door. Within seconds, the store falls into silence. He hears the guy sigh. “Uh, hi?”
“What’s up?” He says gruffly, and Ian half-recognises the voice. He sounds kind of cold and sarcastic, and Ian subconsciously leans away from the counter a little.
“So security, huh?”
“Yeah, whatever,” He says dismissively. “My fuckin’ probation officer says I’m lucky I’m not at the meat packing plant. Bet she’d love it if I was.”
Probation officer?
“You been in jail?” He says without thinking.
“Juvie. What’s it to you?” He huffs. Ian feels himself growing more and more uncomfortable.
“Nothing, I just - I don’t know,” He shrugs, fingers absentmindedly flipping a pack of gum. He scrambles for something to say. “I like to know things about people.”
“Well, now you know I’m a criminal,” He says flatly. Ian gives a tight nod.
“What’s your name?”
“Mickey Milkovich,” He responds, and it all falls into place.
He recognises the voice from Mandy’s house, from school hallways and from little league when he was younger. Mandy had told him her brother was fresh out of juvie, thrown in for some bullshit reason or another. He feels the tension in his body dissipate a little, despite it perhaps not being the most common feeling when learning someone’s Milkovich.
He casts his mind back, tries to put a face to the name, but nothing comes up. He thinks of Mandy, and her dark hair and narrowed eyes, and decides he must look something a little like that. Then again, his image of Mandy is still based on her appearance 2 years ago.
“Oh, Mandy’s brother!” He says happily, and Mickey grunts in confirmation.
“Yeah. I know who you are, too,” He says, then pauses, like he can’t decide what to say. “Ian Gallagher.”
“That’s me.”
They fall into silence for a few seconds. Ian wracks his brain for something to say but come up blank. Is he just supposed to launch into how things work around here? Is he supposed to make small talk?
“Nice shades,” Mickey says eventually, voice only a little strained. He sounds like he’s trying to make small talk, but it obviously doesn’t come naturally to him. Ian smiles a little, hand flying up to touch the frames of his stolen Ray Bans.
“Thanks. I’m, uh-”
“You’re blind,” Mickey says, cutting him off. “I know that.”
Ian sits in stunned silence for a few seconds. For someone who’s supposed to be some kind of lone-wolf, he sure isn’t trying to hide that he knows Ian. Suddenly, it occurs to Ian that Mickey’s only secured his job here because he knows Ian can’t see shit. He’s basically got a free pass to ship whatever he wants straight out the front door, and Ian’ll be none the wiser.
“I, uh, I still have a pretty good sense of what’s going on, so don’t try and pull shit over on me,” He tells Mickey, trying his best to be threatening. He wonders if Mickey can tell he’s too shocked to make any real threat. Mickey scoffs.
“Fuck off, man,” He drawls, and Ian can hear him starting to wander around the store. “I wouldn’t do that.”
The sound of crinkling plastic begs to differ.
“You’re supposed to be my eyes, I guess,” He says, before adding. “Stealing’s gone up since they hired me.”
“I think you’ve got to be pretty fucked in the head to steal from a blind guy,” He says. He sounds pretty serious, too. The plastic stops crinkling. He hears the footsteps get closer to him.
“Doesn’t stop people,” He shrugs.
“They’re gonna get stopped now.”
“Thanks?” He doesn’t like that his voice sounds questioning, but he’s honestly finding Mickey’s behaviour a little off-putting. How the fuck is he supposed to trust this guy when he’s literally just got back from Juvie? He makes a mental note to ask Mandy about it.
“Don’t mention it,” He says. A moment passes, before he burps loudly. “So, we get staff discount?”
Weeks pass, and it seems Mickey is staying true to his word at the store.
Stealing is practically unheard of. Not only are people no longer getting away with shoving a can of soup down their pants, but they aren’t coming in with the intention to do so anymore. Word got around that Mickey Milkovich was the new security guy, and people weren’t exactly queuing up to test Terry’s son’s patience.
Mickey also doesn’t give Ian any shit, even though he’s probably the easiest fucking target on the Southside. He never makes any comments about Ian’s blindness, never takes things from him when he’s not alert. He helps him stack things, moves things Ian might trip up on.
They aren’t exactly friends, but they’re not far from it.
Until, one day, as the sun is setting and Mickey and Ian are getting ready to close up, things change between them.
Ian’s literally about to ask Mickey to help him count up the money from the register when the doorbell jingles, heavy footsteps slamming against the linoleum. His head shoots up, ears straining to find Mickey, but he can hear boxes being shuffled in the back room. He’s alone in the front.
“You run this store?” The person asks. It’s a man, voice rough and scratchy, and the smell of alcohol and bad breath fills the air. Ian tries not to make a face.
“Nope,” He says. “I’m just the cashier.”
“You wanna look me in the eye when I’m talking to you?” The man demands. Ian feels heat creeping onto his cheeks.
It doesn’t happen often, but he hates it when customers don’t realise he’s blind. Most of the patrons are local, coming in regularly, fully aware of his impairment. Occasionally they get people from out of town, and if they don’t already twig that he’s blind from the sunglasses, they’re usually pretty polite when he explains it to him.
Not today, though.
“I’m blind,” He tells the customer. They let out a booming, sarcastic laugh, and Ian feels them lean in closer.
“Don’t fucking lie to me, carrot top,” He says dangerously, awful breath washing across Ian’s face.
“I’m not lying, I-”
Before he knows it, the guy’s hand is pressing up against his face, and then his glasses are gone. He hears the clatter of plastic as they hit the ground, thrown halfway across the store.
“Shit!” The guy laughs, leaning in again. The sound of more footsteps become clearer, and Ian panics. “That’s some freaky-”
The guy's head slams into the counter, so loud that Ian jumps back from his stool, stumbling against the wall. He panics, about to call Mickey to help sort out whatever fight is breaking out in front of him, when he hears Mickey’s harsh voice cutting across the silence.
“You think that’s fucking funny, huh?” He’s spitting, and Ian hears the customer’s head smash into the counter again. “Want me to make you blind?”
“Mickey, stop!”
“He fucking snatched your glasses off your face, Ian!” Mickey yells, voice more angry than Ian’s ever heard it. The guy is whimpering now, and the metallic smell of blood furls into his nostrils. The room is filled with Mickey’s heavy breathing as he holds the guy against the counter.
“Let him go before Linda comes down,” Ian says warningly. Mickey doesn’t move. “Mickey.”
He hears Mickey spit, probably in the guy’s bleeding face, and then the sound of frantic scuffling. The door jingles, there’s a dull thump, and then Mickey’s locking the door, the guy probably passed out on the doorstep.
The air between the two of them is tense to say the least. Ian grabs for the disinfectant and cloth from beneath the counter, wiping at the counter with shaking hands, and he can hear Mickey pacing up and down, muttering expletives as he goes.
Suddenly, he feels a hand grip his wrist, and Mickey takes the cloth from him.
“You’re missing some,” he says distractedly, distress still apparent in his voice. Ian sits back down on his stool, and Mickey drops something onto the counter. Ian reaches out, and, feeling the cool glass and plastic arms, realises it’s his glasses.
“Thanks,” He says quietly, slipping them back onto his face. Mickey huffs in response. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“They were only by the candy,” He grunts.
“No, I mean you didn’t have to do-” He pauses, waving his hands at the blood on the counter. “-all that.”
Mickey doesn’t reply, just keeps scrubbing at the counter while Ian listens. A siren sounds in the distance, and they both turn their faces towards the door, but it fades again.
“He can’t do that to you,” He mumbles eventually. “It’s fucking unfair.”
“It’s not like it hasn’t happened before,” Ian reminds him gently. Mickey stops scrubbing.
“Yeah, but I wasn’t there before,” he says, an edge of finality to his voice.
That’s when Ian realises that something has changed between them. This isn’t a matter of just working together anymore.
Mickey isn’t just protecting the store. He’s protecting Ian.
After that, Ian realises very quickly that he’s falling for Mickey.
He looks forward to working like it’s fucking Christmas, craves every little second of it. He finds himself wishing the days were longer, willing the hours to pass by slower. Being around Mickey is like lighting a thousand fireworks beneath his skin, constantly buzzing, but never bursting into colour. He almost explodes every time Mickey so much as brushes past him.
Mickey’s more talkative at work now, too. He tells him little things, chipping away at the surface of the Milkovich mystery. He’s heard some of it before from Mandy, but it sounds different, more hesitant coming from Mickey’s mouth. Mandy had told him without much care, but Mickey tells him like he’s trusting Ian with it.
He also reads to Ian, if the store is empty. Ian had spent so long listening to Mickey flipping the pages of magazines that he’d eventually broke down and asked what he was reading. Mickey had read the whole article to him without protest, and, after 3 more days of Ian prompting Mickey to read, he’d started doing it spontaneously.
Ian thinks he’s probably in love with Mickey’s voice, they way he reads quietly at first, building in volume and expression as the day wears on. He likes the way Mickey’s voice is different for him, the way he’ll snarl and grunt at the customers, then immediately resume reading to Ian lightly when the door slams shut.
He could probably listen to Mickey read Us Weekly for the rest of his life.
Ian’s lying in bed one night, thinking about his shift with Mickey earlier that day, when he realises he still has no clue what the boy looks like.
Usually, he either knows the person from before he went blind, or he doesn’t give enough of a shit to bother to find out, so wanting to know what Mickey looks like poses a bit of a problem.
He’s felt people’s faces before, tried to construct an image from the planes of their cheeks and the plumpness of their lips, but somehow he doubts Mickey would be down for that. He could ask him what he looks like, but Mickey would probably scoff and dance around it, not taking the question seriously.
So he decides to ask Lip. It’s pretty late, and he knows his older brother is probably already dead to the world, but he doesn’t think he’ll sleep unless he gets it off his chest.
"Lip?" He asks. The room remains silent, punctuated only by his brothers' deep breaths. He clears his throat and repeats it a little louder. "Lip?”
"Wha’ you want?" He slurs tiredly. Ian almost backs out.
"What does Mickey Milkovich look like?" He asks, voice rushing out of him in one quick breath. He hears Lip shift around a little in his bed.
"What the fuck? Why?" He says gruffly.
"He works at the store, I just wanted to know."
"He looks like a douchebag."
"C'mon, Lip, be serious,” He pleads. Lip doesn’t reply. “He look like Mandy?"
"Not really,” He yawns. “Same colouring, less hot."
"But what's his face look like?" Ian presses. Lip sighs heavily.
"Like he wants to kill someone all the time,” He says. When he doesn’t get laughter from Ian, he sniffs sleepily, voice sounding as though his face is pressed into the pillow. “I don't know what you want to hear, man. He's got black hair and a dirty face. He's always raising his fucking eyebrows. He doesn't smile. I don't know."
Ian can’t help but think that the description Lips’ given him doesn’t really match the Mickey he knows. For starters, he laughs pretty much every day when he’s with Ian, so it can’t be true that he never smiles. He finds himself still desperate for more, and knowing that Lip won’t delve into the exact details of Mickey’s face, gives up and decides to sleep it off.
"Thanks, Lip," Ian says, rolling over to face the wall.
"Whatever,” He mumbles. “Go to sleep."
“Can I touch your face?” Ian blurts 3 days later.
The store is deserted, Linda’s at her sister’s with her sons, and the question’s been on the tip of his tongue for so long it’s a wonder it didn’t burst out before now. He realises it’s perhaps not quite the right way to word it.
“Can you fucking what?” Mickey snaps. He stops flipping the pages of his magazine.
“I want to know what you look like,” He explains quickly. “And unless you want to give me a lengthy fucking description, you may as well just let me do it.”
“You want to know what I look like?” Mickey says, voice full of disbelief. Ian nods eagerly.
Mickey doesn’t respond for a while, and Ian figures he must be fighting with himself. He knows Mickey’s stance on touching. He is very clear about his personal space, and Ian’s already so ready for a rejection that he barely registers Mickey’s trudging footsteps towards the door, the familiar click of the lock.
“Make it quick,” Mickey says, walking back over to Ian. He leans over the counter, face so close to Ian’s that he can feel Mickey’s cool breath against his own cheeks. He smells like cigarettes and mint toothpaste.
Ian can barely keep his hands from shaking as he reaches out, touching Mickey’s face gently, as though he might disappear from beneath his fingertips.
His skin is soft, heat flaring up on his cheekbones from where he’s clearly blushing. Ian bites back a smile and tries to keep his heart rate steady. The tips of his fingers dance across the hard line of his nose, the soft skin under his eyes. He feels Mickey’s eyelashes flutter against his fingernails as he shuts his eyes, and he brushes his eyelids hesitantly. They flicker beneath his touch.
He moves over slightly, feeling up his forehead and into his hair. It’s short, slight traces of gel in it, combed back away from his face. He feels kind of like he’s embarrassing Mickey by running his hands through his hair, so he pulls away, settling on on his face again.
His fingers skim across a groove in his skin, up near his temple. He pauses.
“My dad,” Mickey whispers, and Ian nods, understanding. The thought of someone leaving such a mark on Mickey’s body makes anger flare up inside of him.
More than anything, he wants to feel Mickey’s lips. He brushes his fingers down his cheeks, around his mouth and across his chin, but he deliberately doesn’t touch. He can feel Mickey’s gentle breath against his hands, stilling slightly when Ian inches closer to his lips.
Eventually, he bites the bullet and moves his fingers across, resting against Mickey’s mouth. They’re thick, thicker than his anyway, and softer than he’d ever imagined. He lets his fingers linger there for a moment, and then pulls away.
“Thanks,” He says, hoping he doesn’t sound too breathless.
Mickey clears his throat, and gives a quick “No problem.”
Mickey walks away from him, unlocks the door, and disappears into the store, his footsteps growing quiet as he skulks along the back wall. Ian sends up a quick prayer that he hasn’t freaked Mickey out, and spends the next half an hour willing his hands to stop trembling, to stop burning with the remnants of Mickey’s face.
He draws together an image in his mind, taking into consideration what Lip told him; dark hair, Mandy’s colouring, raised eyebrows. He tries to imagine the way it all fits together, but all he can think of is the heat of Mickey’s skin, the way his eyes had fluttered shut. He thinks of the way Mickey laughs and how quiet his voice gets when he talks about his family.
He decides that Mickey must be beautiful.
After a while, Mickey stops trying to avoid him and starts reading him an issue of Rolling Stone, detailing some rock star’s descent into drug addiction. Ian’s only half listening, just glad Mickey’s not freaked out by the situation, but when Mickey suddenly stops, he looks up.
“Why’d you stop?” He asks, but Mickey doesn’t reply.
“Can I see your eyes?” Mickey says suddenly, words tumbling from his lips like he can’t stop them. Ian blanches.
He doesn’t like having people see his eyes. He doesn’t like not having the safety of his sunglasses. He knows they look weird, he knows they wander and can’t focus on anything. His family swears they don’t see the problem, but he’s heard enough strangers make disgusted comments to know he should probably keep them covered in public.
He doesn’t want Mickey to be disgusted by him.
“They’re ugly,” Ian whispers, turning his face away.
“My face is ugly and I just let you touch it up,” Mickey retorts gently, earning a soft laugh from Ian. He manages to bite back a denial, hold back the certainty that he knows it’s not.
“You’ve seen them before, anyway,” He points out. “When that guy took my glasses.”
“I was a little pre-occupied with beating the shit out of that asshole. You had them back on before I had time to think about it.”
Ian bites his lip, nervous.
“I don’t want to freak you out,” He admits reluctantly. Mickey makes a strangled noise in his throat.
“They’re just eyes, man. Fuck anyone who made you feel like that,” He says, and he sounds so sincere that Ian takes a deep breath and rests his fingers on his glasses’ frames.
He removes them gingerly, placing them on the counter with shaky hands. He tries his best to keep his gaze forward, even though he knows his efforts are futile. He takes a deep breath and juts his chin out defensively, daring Mickey to make a comment.
All he can hear is Mickey’s soft breathing. He feels heat rise in his cheeks, blushing hard under Mickey’s studious gaze.
“You don’t need to wear your glasses around me, if you don’t want to,” He says eventually. Ian’s heart swells. “I think your eyes are...I think they’re fine.”
“Thanks. I, uh,” He starts, thinking of something to say. “I think your face is fine.”
Mickey huffs out a quiet laugh, pushing himself off the counter and resuming his place by the magazines. He pauses before starting to read.
“We’re both fine,” He says. Ian smiles.
“What’s it like?” Mickey asks one night, lying on the baseball pitch. Mickey had offered to walk him home from work instead of having one of his siblings meet him, and instead of taking him home, had brought him here. Ian had almost burst open with joy, thrilled at the prospect of spending more time with Mickey.
His arm is millimeters away from Ian’s, heat radiating from him and setting Ian’s whole body on fire.
“Being blind?” He says. Mickey hums in confirmation. “I don’t know. Like - it’s just nothing.”
“So it’s all black?” He asks. Ian shakes his head.
“I don’t really know how to describe it,” He admits. He thinks for a minute, chewing his lip. “Okay, so tell me what you see right now. What’s in front of you?”
“I dunno, the sky? I can see the moon. And the dugouts.”
“Right. So without turning, what can you see behind you?” He says.
“What? I can see fuck all ‘cause I’m not looking at it,” Mickey scoffs.
“Exactly. I’m not looking at anything, it’s just nothingness,” Ian explains, and Mickey lets out noise of frustration.
“Well that fucking sucks,” He grumbles. Ian gives a noncommittal grunt.
After a while, he hears Mickey’s head shifting against the grass, most likely turning to study him.
It makes him feel self-conscious when Mickey does things like that; Just watches him. He does it at the store sometimes, when he thinks Ian doesn’t know he’s there. Just stands down one of the aisles watching him. Ian always knows he’s there.
He doesn’t think Mickey would do it if Ian wasn’t blind, but he also thinks Mickey wouldn’t do a lot of things if he wasn’t blind. There’s that extra bit of security for him, knowing that Ian can’t see him, knowing he can’t embarrass himself.
They lie there for a while, cars passing in the distance, a gunshot far away, and Ian’s never felt safer in his life. He knows, in reality, they aren’t safe. If someone were to see the two of them lying together like this, hear the thoughts he has about Mickey screaming through his head, they wouldn’t be safe.
But he feels safe in himself with Mickey. His sunglasses are lying a few feet away from the two of them, and he doesn’t feel any desire to cover his eyes. He doesn’t feel like he’s pretending to be something he’s not. He’s fucking blind, not incapable, and Mickey knows that better than anyone.
He hears the snick of a lighter, and then plumes of smoke are wafting into his nose, creeping into his throat. Mickey hands him the cigarette without asking, because he doesn’t need to. He knows Ian without asking.
They lie in silence for a while, passing the cigarette back and forth, until he hears Mickey shift to look back up at the sky again. He takes a deep breath, then let’s it out. He stubs the cigarette out in the earth between them.
“Y’know,” He starts, hesitating a little. Ian’s heart speeds up. “You’re my best friend, man.”
He says it kind of flatly, like he’s stating a fact, but it’s more sincere than Mickey’s ever sounded.
He means it. Ian knows he does.
There’s no alcohol in their systems, they haven’t been smoking anything but cigarettes. Mickey knows he can’t take it back.
Ian knows what having a best friend feels like. He knows how to confide in Lip, how to rely on Mandy. He knows how to trust someone with things, and be trusted right back.
But he also knows Mickey’s never had that. He knows the weight of the words, how much courage it must have taken for him to say it.
He thinks of Mickey, and how they’ve fallen so easily into each others lives without trying. He doesn’t even hesitate with his reply.
“You’re my best friend, too.”
It’s cold outside when everything changes for them.
Mid-November, Ian’s getting ready to close up, trying to locate his jacket and scarf without asking Mickey for help, because he doesn’t need help. He wants to be ready before Mickey, so he can chat with him in the freezer for a while before Lip shows up to walk him home.
He always wants as much time as he can get with Mickey.
Tightening his jacket around him, he unfolds his cane and whistles as he makes his way to the freezer. He feels for the cool handle easily, twisting the knob and yanking the door open, hoping to catch Mickey by surprise.
Last time, he’d found Mickey singing, belting out some One Direction as he stacked the inventory. He’d dropped two jars on Ian’s arrival, cursing and shouting at Ian in embarrassment, and Ian had teased him for the rest of the day.
Today, however, he yanks the door open to a muffled “shit”, followed by the sound of multiple bags of chips cascading to the ground.
“Gotcha!” Ian says happily, only a little disappointed there wasn’t more fanfare.
“Yeah, nice one,” Mickey says grumpily, but there’s something off in his voice. It isn’t the usual Milkovich grunt. There’s something else there.
Ian steps forward to help Mickey pick up the fallen groceries, even though he knows he’s probably slowing Mickey down. Mickey doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even dismiss him with the usual cutting remark, just accepts the chips silently and stacks them back up.
He remains in stony silence while they stack, ignoring Ian’s attempts at conversation and grunting out vague answers to any questions. Ian’s getting pretty pissed off about it, wondering what’s fucking crawled up Mickey’s ass, so he drops the bag he's offered Mickey in favour of shoving past the older boy to leave the freezer, electing to wait for Lip outside.
Except shoving past Mickey means brushing up against him, because he hadn't realised how close they're stood.
He freezes instantly.
Mickey’s hard.
He knows Mickey’s knows he’s just felt it, if only by the way his whole body tenses up, breath screeching to a halt as they both wait for the other to say something.
Ian's mind is spinning out of control, every muscle in his body aching to brush up against Mickey again. It doesn't even cross his mind to think about why Mickey's hard, until he hastily connects the dots in his mind.
His whole body flares up, heat burning his skin, and he knows Mickey must be able to tell.
“Mickey-”
“Fuck off,” He snaps quickly, body squaring up towards him defensively. He knocks Ian against the shelving unit, crowding into his space. His dick presses against Ian’s hip bone.
"Were you - fuck - were you jerking off in here?" He breathes, wishing the arousal in his stomach would chill the fuck out. He’s already getting hard, and Mickey’s barely touched him.
"So what if I was?" Mickey snarls, and Ian has to bite the inside of his cheek to stop himself from imagining it. Mickey is literally pressed against him now, breathing threateningly against his neck.
Ian shifts his hips slightly, cowering away from Mickey’s fury, but the hitched gasp Mickey lets go of makes his head snap straight back up.
Mickey stills against him, holding his traitorous breath, but he’s given it away. He’s given Ian his weakness.
Slowly, Ian tries another experimental wiggle of his hips, grinding Mickey’s dick against the top of his thigh. Mickey grunts wordlessly, attempting a step back, but Ian grips his waist and pulls him back in.
“Gallagher, get the fuck - oh, shit.”
Ian holds onto Mickey’s hips as he grinds their clothed dicks together, granting Ian the friction he’s been craving for months. He can’t help the quick, panted breaths that fall from his mouth, and though Mickey’s obviously trying to keep a lid on it, he keeps huffing against Ian’s neck, the same overwhelmed sound each time.
They’re frantic, scrambling to grip onto more of one another while simultaneously trying to keep themselves upright. Ian’s leaning back against the shelving unit, hands flailing wildly as he tries to find a surface to hold himself up on, when Mickey crowds in even closer and roughly shoves a thigh between Ian’s.
Ian’s pretty sure he’s dreaming. It’s too good to be true; the feeling of fucking fireworks exploding with every thrust, the damp heat of Mickey’s breath panting against his neck.
Without thinking, he reaches down between them, fumbling quickly with the front of Mickey’s jeans, trying to gain entry. Mickey practically whines, his own hands joining Ian’s to free his achingly hard cock, easily letting Ian take it into his hand.
He’s hot and hard, thick but shorter than Ian’s own dick. He starts jerking Mickey off earnestly, spitting into his hand to ease the friction, when Mickey starts grabbing at Ian’s pants, movements stunted as he shivers and sighs with Ian’s ministrations. Instead of pulling Ian’s pants down, he just shoves his hand down the front of the younger boy’s jeans.
Ian gasps loudly, throws his head back so hard it slams into the metal shelf behind them.
“Fuck,” Mickey mutters under his breath, hand leaving Ian’s pants to grab the back of his head, pulling him away from the unit.
“I’m fine, Mick,” He insists quickly, reaching out for his dick again, but Mickey stops him with a kiss before he can.
A kiss. His hand is still cradling the back of Ian’s head, the other gripping at his waist, and he’s kissing Ian.
If he thought Mickey’s mouth felt good beneath his fingertips, feeling it pressed to his lips is a fucking miracle. He can barely breathe, let alone kiss back with any finesse. They’re pressing their mouths together, letting tongues slip in and breathy moans slip out, desperately melting into each other as hard and as quick as they can.
When Mickey breaks the kiss, Ian frowns, half considering leaning in for more when Mickey’s hand is swiftly forced back down the front of Ian’s jeans and his mouth is attached to Ian’s neck. It takes him a second to remember to get his hands back on Mickey, too.
He doesn’t know whether to blame it on the fact he’s still a teenager, or that it’s Mickey, but he can already feel himself teetering dangerously close to the edge.
“Fuck, Mickey, ‘m gonna come,” He whines breathily, too fucking hot to be embarrassed by the state of his voice. Mickey responds with a desperate sounding moan, pressing their mouths together again.
He can feel his muscles tightening, his body tensing as he starts cascading towards the edge.
And then Mickey speaks, voice muffled against his neck but message loud and clear.
“Want you to fuck me so bad,” He chokes out, running his thumb over the tip of Ian’s dick.
Ian comes so hard he sees stars.
When Mickey walks him home, they don’t talk about it. It’s not awkward, there’s no tension between them or stilted conversation. It feels as though it never happened, even though there’s a bruise on the back of Ian’s head and the ghost of Mickey’s lips still pressed against his own. If anything, it seems to have made things easier between them. Maybe this thing they’ve had going on for weeks was all sexual tension, and now that they’ve broken it, they’re relationship has moved forward, changed a little.
Or maybe Mickey’s putting up a front. Maybe he won’t show up to work tomorrow, too horrified by what’s happened, too eager to tell the rest of the neighborhood what a fag Ian Gallagher is. Maybe Mickey was disgusted by him the whole time.
Ian tries to push these thoughts down, focusing on the gentle laughter Mickey’s emitting, hand low on his back. He doesn’t seem disgusted.
When they stop outside his house, Mickey seems to hesitate a little. Ian waits, wondering if he’s going to kiss him goodbye, but then he remembers it’s Mickey Milkovich.
Instead, Mickey punches his arm gently and mutters a goodbye, telling him he’ll see him tomorrow.
It’s about the most romantic thing he’s ever done.
Ian practically floats up the steps, pushes open the front door, and finds life at home remarkably unchanged. He feels like there should be some kind of shift in the air, now that he’s finally fucked around with Mickey, but no. He can hear his siblings sat around the table, loud and unphased by Ian’s arrival, and it almost makes him buzz harder.
Fiona scolds him absentmindedly for being late and tells him to wash up for dinner. She lingers by him for a second, before smirking and adding, “Nice hickey.”
Ian reaches up for it, vague smile on his face, and Fiona helps him put his fingers over the mark. He feels the twinge from the pressure he puts on it, mind flashing back to Mickey’s weight pressed against him, grinding their dicks together while he sucked on Ian’s neck.
“Ian?” Fiona says, knocking him out of his stupor. “Dinner.”
He spends the entirety of the meal willing himself not to get hard.
After that, he and Mickey must fuck on a near daily basis.
After his little comment, they’d moved on from handjobs to blowjobs to full on fucking, with little protest from either party.
At work, Mickey’ll lock the door to the store, Ian following him wordlessly into the back. He fucks Mickey over one of the tables, or against the shelving units, hard and fast and wired with the chance of Linda catching them any minute. Mickey’s quiet, letting barely anything more than a grunt fall from his lips, and Ian craves the sounds he makes when they’re alone properly.
If they’re not working, Mickey takes him back to the baseball field, to the dugouts, to the abandoned buildings he hides in after he fights with his dad. Their cold and uncomfortable, but they’re so clearly Mickey’s places that he can’t help but love them. Mickey’s trusting him with everything he has, and Ian’s desperate not to let him down.
Ian’s favorite, though, and he’s pretty sure it must be Mickey’s favorite, too, is the rare days they get to fuck in a bed.
The minute Ian realises he has the house to himself, he has Mickey on the phone. If Mickey’s family is out of town, he’ll show up at the Gallagher’s back door, claiming they need Ian down at the store. He thinks his family must realise that something’s going on between them, if only by the amount of times they’ve come home to find Mickey leaving, but they don’t say anything. When Mickey comes by for Ian, they barely bat an eye.
Having Mickey so close, soft sheets wrapped around them and firm mattress beneath them, is the best feeling Ian can think of. They fuck slowly, face to face, safe in the security of no one walking in or finding them in a public place. Mickey lets himself make sounds, whining as Ian crooks a finger inside him, or panting Ian’s name as their thrusts get more erratic. It turns Ian on more than anything else has in his life, and Mickey is well aware of this.
It’s times like those that make Ian want to be able to see again most, just so he can witness this beautiful boy fall apart in front of him, fall apart because of him.
It becomes so frequent and so obsessive that Ian realises they’re blurring the lines between fuck buddies and boyfriends. All he thinks about is Mickey, all he ever wants to talk about is Mickey. When something funny happens, he can’t wait to tell Mickey. They see each other almost every day, and it still isn’t enough. He realises this thing they have, whatever Mickey wants to call it so it doesn’t sound too intimate, is getting out of hand.
He thinks Mickey must feel the same way on some level. It has to be more than just fucking for him, too. He calls Ian if they don’t see each other, he makes sure Ian’s okay in whatever they’re doing. He guides Ian places without thinking twice about it, hand low on his back, cracking jokes in his ear.
But Ian knows Mickey is scared. He knows his family life isn’t as easy as his.
So he gives him time.
Apparently, the world doesn’t want to give them time.
Lip catches them in January. Ian just thanks god it wasn’t one of Mickey’s brothers. Mickey doesn’t thank anyone.
It’s mid-evening, and Ian thought for sure that he had the house to himself for a few hours. Fiona was taking Debbie, Carl and Liam for haircuts over at Sheila’s, and then they were going to sneak into the movies after. Frank was a fucking mystery, as per usual, and Lip was supposed to be with Mandy.
Mickey had sworn he was with Mandy, even if he wasn’t very happy about it. Mickey wouldn’t have said it if he didn’t think it was true.
So there they are, sprawled out on the couch, Ian’s hand down Mickey’s pants. Some shitty sitcom is blaring in the background, barely masking the sounds of Mickey’s bitten-back moans. Ian leans in and kisses Mickey’s neck, breathing hotly against the shell of his ear. Mickey literally has his hand on Ian’s crotch, palming him through his jeans, when the door creaks open, heavy footsteps falling into the house.
Mickey shoves him away so hard he falls off the couch. He curses, immediately reaching down for Ian in apology, but he fumbles against Ian’s sweater. Ian shifts out of reach, and the room falls into deafening silence.
“Well,” Lip says. Ian cringes, hanging his head in embarrassment. Mickey sniffs loudly.
“Look, man, it’s not what it looks like,” Mickey’s saying, but Lip just lets out an amused little huff.
“Looks like my brother was jerking you off,” He snorts.
This is it. This is when Mickey grabs his coat, forces past him, leaves the house. He won’t show up to work anymore. He won’t call Ian in the middle of the night. Lip’s fucking ruined it. From 100 to nothing in seconds.
But Mickey doesn’t move. He doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t move. Ian can practically hear the wheels turning in his head, imagine the look of distress on his face. This is everything Mickey’s afraid of. He knows he’s thinking of his dad right now. He knows he’s thinking of a way to keep Lip’s mouth shut.
“Look, man, you can’t tell my dad about this,” Mickey says lowly, as if on cue.
“When the fuck am I going to see your dad?” Lip scoffs.
“No, I mean - fuck. You can’t tell anyone,” Mickey clarifies, voice wobbling, trying to keep himself calm. “Don’t tell Mandy, don’t tell Fiona, don’t tell anyone. If you do, I will fucking kill you.”
Lip laughs, but Ian and Mickey don’t. He clears his throat.
“Jesus, he’s serious?” He says quietly. Ian nods. “I wouldn’t tell anyone anyway, man. Ain’t my place.”
“You have to promise me, Lip,” Ian says. He climbs back up onto the couch, carefully avoiding sitting too close to Mickey. “It’s not enough just to say you won’t.”
“I promise I won’t tell anyone, Ian,” Lip says seriously. Ian waits a moment, hopefully giving Mickey enough time to glare threateningly at his older brother, then clears his throat.
“Good,” He says. “Now get the fuck out.”
Lip doesn’t need to be told twice.
So it’s just Ian and Mickey again, and it’s awkward to say the least. The automated laughter from the TV rings out flatly. Nothing’s funny now. There’s no happiness between the two boys.
“Mickey, I’m so-”
“Not your fault,” Mickey dismisses quietly, cutting him off. Ian clasps his hands in his lap.
“But I could have-”
“We could have done a lot of things differently,” He says, before adding a muttered, “Fuck.”
“I’m sorry for dragging you into this," Ian says.
“Into what?”
“I don’t know," He sighs, running a hand through his hair. "All - all this! Fucking all the time. Acting like we’re goddamn boyfriends.”
“Hey, I wanted it just as much as you did," Mickey argues, but Ian can feel himself growing more frustrated, so fucking angry at himself and the situation and this stupid fucked up neighbourhood that keeps them in the dark.
“Yeah, but you’ve got this - this responsibility,” He chokes out, hating the sound of it on his tongue.
“You’re not my fucking responsibility,” Mickey says angrily, and Ian feels his heart sink. Mickey stands up from the couch, pacing around the living room. Ian prepares himself for the slamming door.
It doesn’t come.
“God, I’m not - I don’t pity you, Ian,” Mickey chokes out. “I’m not here to look after you. I’m not sticking around because you’re blind and I feel sorry for you. I fucking like you, if you haven’t noticed. You make me feel better about myself. I know that sounds fucking stupid, but I want you to believe it. I don’t think you’re weak, because you’re not. You’re stronger than me. You’re a better person than me.”
Ian sits in stunned silence. Mickey throws himself back down on the couch, jostling Ian a little.
“I’m not running away,” He says finally.
Ian doesn’t even know what to say.
“Thank you,” He breathes, leaning against the older boy.
He can hear Mickey’s soft breaths, feel the tense muscles through his shirt, smell the familiar detergent and cigarette smoke scent that clings to Mickey’s skin. He leans into Mickey, trying to force his way ever closer to the broken boy who never let him down.
He doesn’t say anything, probably staring at the TV defiantly like nothing’s happening, but he softens a little.
He knows Mickey is scared. He knows that this cloud hanging over him, the threat of his dad literally killing him over this thing they have, is heavier than it’s ever been. He knows
it can’t be fixed overnight. He knows it’s going to be hurting him for a long time.
But he also knows that Mickey deserves better than that. Ian thinks the fucking world of him, and he decides quietly that he won’t rest until Mickey’s finally fucking happy. Not rich or powerful or even successful. No. He just wants Mickey to be able to wake up and know he doesn’t have to be afraid of who he is.
“You’re strong, Mickey,” He says earnestly. Mickey just scoffs.
“I’m muscle strong,” He says, chin brushing against Ian’s hair as he shakes his head. “I can bash some guy’s head in, but I can’t say no to my dad. I can’t fucking sleep at night because I’m so scared of him finding out. That’s not strong.”
“You don’t have to be macho every second of the day to be strong,” He tells him. “You’re allowed to be scared.”
“Whatever,” He grunts, nudging Ian as he folds his arms across his chest.
“You’re so beautiful, Mick,” He blurts, unable to stop himself. Mickey just laughs at that, soft and sad.
“You can’t even see me,” He says, voice dripping with self-loathing. “You wouldn’t say that if you could see me.”
Ian wants to punch something when he hears how disgusted Mickey sounds. It breaks his heart to know that this boy can’t believe how beautiful and worthy he is, can’t accept a compliment after years of abuse.
“I don’t need to see you to know that, Mickey,” He says firmly, reaching up to tilt Mickey’s chin to face him. “I’ve never needed to see you to know that.”
He feels heat flare up under his fingertips, an indication that Mickey’s definitely blushing, and feels heat rise on his own cheeks.
Mickey doesn’t say anything, but he leans forward, gently placing a kiss on Ian’s mouth. His breath washes over Ian’s face, shaky and warm, and Ian closes his eyes. Mickey presses a kiss to both of his eyelids, sending shivers down his spine. He knows what Mickey is trying to tell him.
He thinks, deep down, that Mickey needs him just as much as he needs Mickey.
They hold each other up. They rely on each other.
They’re best friends.