#daily speedwrite

[arrowflier]

My water heater is broken, and I had my first hot shower in two weeks visiting my parents this weekend.  It made me think of this.

Cleansed

Mickey had never really thought that the Gallagher bathroom was anything special.  A spit-splattered mirror, cracked tiles, and a toilet that wouldn’t flush unless you jiggled the handle—even he’d grown up with that much.

But right now, standing naked in the center of it as steam starts to fill the room, listening to the soft splash of water on over-scrubbed porcelain and the quiet rattle of metal rings as he pulls back the curtain, he thinks it might be the best fucking bathroom he’s ever seen.

Water is already filling the bottom of the tub, pouring out faster than it can drain through old, clogged pipes.  But it’s warm when Mickey steps in, as it swirls around his aching feet, and if he closes his eyes he thinks it might feel like the ocean had back in Mexico.

He doesn’t, though.  He keeps them open.  

Open, so he can see where he is.  Not for safety, but to make sure it stays real.  He tugs the curtain closed, a flimsy thing covered in childish patterns that barely even keeps the water inside, and feels more secure than he ever had with three guards watching and a wall at his back.

The stream from the shower head is weak.  He ducks his head into the spray, lets it trickle down over him like rain.  Light, and soft, and welcome, and so unlike the hose-like cleaning he’s come to expect that his shoulders relax despite the lack of pressure.

His eyes do close then, despite himself.  Just for a moment, one single blissful second when nothing else exists.  Then there’s a voice in the hallway, someone walking, and they’re open again in an instant.

But he doesn’t move.

He doesn’t need to.

He does, however, need to get clean.  Needs to wash of the stench of prison, the remnants of the past.  The bits of roadside gravel still stuck in the scrapes on his hands.

And his options seem extensive, all of a sudden, as he eyes the brightly colored bottles that line the edge of the tub.  So much more than the shared bar of soap he’d been using for months.  There’s something pink and flowery, the label faded from overuse; an organic wash for “baby-soft skin” that looks like something out of a magazine ad; a half-used bottle of blue dishsoap with suds running down the sides; a bar of Irish Spring that’s been used down to the last misshapen sliver and then stacked on top of a new one rather than wasted.

Mickey reaches out.  Hesitates with his hand over the soap he knows is Ian’s, before it veers left.  He pours out a healthy dollop of creamy organic bullshit onto a faded washcloth—he never thought he’d be so glad to see a rag that hadn’t been bleached beyond the very concept of color—and works it into a lather.

Even taking his time, it goes quickly.  He’s too used to rushing, too used to making the most of every second.  But the wash feels good on his skin, the grime rinsing off with the soap to stain the water around his feet like sand, and eventually even the puddle he stands in is clear again.

He swipes the washcloth once more over his chest, eyes scanning lazily over a bottle of shampoo, a child’s chipped bath toy, and woman’s razor, a worn loofah, a—

His eyes go back to the razor, washcloth slowing.  Suds cling to the hair on his chest, clean but mussed.  Dark over the ink he knows is there, no matter how many times he thought it might be better to forget.  Ink that’s more part of him than parts of his own body.  Ink that he trapped there under his skin and never let free.

He grabs the razor, and a can of girly shaving gel.  

-

The water has been running a long time.  It’s fine, Ian told him to take as long as he likes.  Is glad that he’s taken him up on it, that he’s comfortable enough to do so in a house that’s apparently full of strangers.

But he knows the hot water will run out soon, and he doesn’t want Mickey to get cold.  So he grabs a change of clothes, a fresh towel, and sneaks through the door as quietly as he can to leave them.

“Who’s there?” Mickey calls out anyway as Ian sets the load carefully on the closed lid of the toilet.  A dark head pops out from behind the curtain, rosy-cheeked from the heat, blue eyes narrowed under wet lashes.

“Ian?” Mickey asks.  “What’re you—“

“Sorry,” Ian rushes to apologize, backing up with both hands out.  “Not trying to interrupt, I know what a big deal that first shower is when you get out.”  He chuckles a little, and adds, “First time in a year without keeping your back to the wall, it’s kind of weird, right?”

“Ian,” Mickey says again, softer.

“I’ll just leave you to it,” Ian rambles.  “Let you have some time alone for once.  And if you need anything just let me—“

He tries to back out the door.  But Mickey steps one foot out of the tub, reaches out with a dripping arm to grab Ian’s wrist.

Ian stares at the point of connection.  Pink skin on pale, water beading along the seam.  Mickey’s hand slips, slides away, and Ian clasps his own tight just in time to catch the very tips of his fingers.

Mickey tugs them back.  Slowly, gently.  Bringing Ian with him through that tenuous connection.

“Come on,” he murmurs, stepping back into the standing water at the bottom of the tub.  

Ian follows mindlessly.  Steps in without even taking off his socks, his sweats, his shirt.  Lets Mickey move his hand up to a broad shoulder, lets it slide down when he lets go.  Settles it over the familiar shape of his own name standing out proudly on suddenly smooth skin.

Mickey reaches up, rests a hand over Ian’s on his chest.  Then he turns around.

“Could use some help with my back,” he says quietly, and Ian swallows back a million words.  A million little phrases to show that he gets it, that he knows what that means.

Instead, he takes hold of the bottle Mickey hands him—the expensive stuff he’d bought on a whim when he got out, eager for all things good until the best came back to him—and gets to work.

[arrowflier]

I sat outside this morning and squirrel had the nerve to bark at me. So...

Territorial

It's getting a little late, the last rays of summer sun beating down heavy against the concrete of their patio.

"You ready to come in yet?" Mickey calls out from the doorway, half hidden by glass with cool air conditioning at his back.

Ian looks up from across the yard, squinting from under the wide brim of his ridiculous straw hat, nudging it up higher on his brow with one dirt-stained hand.

"You ready to come out?" he counters.

Mickey sighs. Opens the sliding door wider, steps out onto concrete that's warm and rough on his bare feet.

"Did that shit a long time ago, man," he says softer, toes curling into the grass at the edge of the patio.

Ian smiles. A soft thing, a happy thing. Happy like the spring in his step as he comes forward, meets Mickey nearer the house. Keeps moving, forcing Mickey back until he hits plastic siding, hot against his back through the thin shirt he stole from Ian's drawer that morning.

"You sure did," Ian agrees, voice low. "And it turned out pretty good."

"Only pretty good?" Mickey tilts his head up, blue eyes on green, and smooths his hands down Ian's sweaty, cotton-covered chest.

"I seem to remember somebody," he goes on, fingers working Ian's belt with purpose as the other man lips at his neck, "was pretty fucking happy to--"

Screech

Mickey's head flies back hard enough to hit the side of the house, cushioned only by the edge of Ian's hand where it had crept behind him.

"The fuck?" he blurts.

The sound comes again, close. He twists his head, looks--and the only thing that keeps him from fleeing is Ian's firm presence at his front.

Instead of running, he chooses to glare. Levels a livid look at the interloper, the creature that dared to interuppr his moment. A loud, vile, fucking disease-ridden...

Squirrel.

Screech

Right in his face, this time, the fucker.

Mickey clenches a fist in the back of Ian's shirt, braces himself, leans over.

"Relax, Mick," Ian murmurs, stroking his neck and shoulder like it will help. "It's just a squirrel, it's probably trying to protect its territory."

And Mickey does relax. Leans into his husband's grip, accepts a kiss to his cheek, then--

"WOOF," he barks at the tiny mammal that dated to threaten him. "Bow-fuckin-wow," he continues when it tenses but doesn't run, and that has it scampering up the nearby oak tree in a flash.

He feels breath against his skin, short little huffs in a familiar pattern.

"The hell are you laughin' at?" he demands, and Ian only holds him tighter.

"Did you just...bark?" Ian gasps out, all mirth, no restraint. "At a squirrel?"

"It barked first," Mickey argues. "And besides," he adds, giving up on Ian's belt to clasp his hands around that broad back. "It's our territory now, bitch."

"Our home," Ian corrects, smile giddy with laughter and love, and Mickey agrees by pulling him inside

[arrowflier]

Unpopular opinion after a very sleepless night: civilians should be not be allowed within ten feet of fireworks ever.  EVER.

It’s Not Even the 4th Yet You Fuckers

It’s been a rough day.  They woke up too early because the damn birds were so loud—they live in a place with songbirds now, how the fuck did that happen—and the pilot light went out on the gas stove Ian was so proud of owning in the middle of trying to make breakfast.  It took so long to get it going again that Ian didn’t even have time to shower before running off to his volunteer shift at the hospital, which meant Mickey’s morning routine of interrupting said shower was ruined, too.  Then Ian was late coming home after some all-hands emergency and it was all Mickey could do to get his husband washed, fed, and put to bed.

That’s where Ian is now.  Head pressed into the pillow on the wrong side of the mattress, mouth open as he breathes, lashes fluttering as REM sleep drags him under.  Mickey watches from the armchair in the corner, pajama-clad legs tucked up underneath.  There’s something special about being awake when Ian isn’t; being the one to watch, to protect.

And despite the crazy day, he’s content.  He’s got his home, he’s got his husband, and he’s got a million days ahead of him to—

*Boom*

To murder their new fucking neighbors.

He’s out of the chair and down the stairs before Ian can so much as twitch.  This is already the third damn night they’ve pulled this shit, and while it might have been fun the first time—peering out their bedroom window to sneak looks at fireworks they don’t have to pay for—it’s getting old real fast.  It’s not even the fourth yet, for fuck’s sake.

Another boom rattles the house as Mickey trips over the landing, barrels into the front door.  He fumbles with the lock while the continuous hiss of sparklers gets louder, closer, and slams it open with a grunt.

“Hey!” he shouts once it’s open, leaving the door gaping behind him as he stomps across their porch in bare feet.  “The fuck do you think you’re doin’?”

No response.  There’s a group of teenagers across the street, in pastel polo shirts and fucking khaki shorts, but they don’t look up from the mass of boxes they’re rooting through.

And hey, Mickey gets it.  He was a kid, once.  He stole more fireworks than he could count, set them off in fields and under bridges and over the river without a second thought.

Maybe if these kids reminded him of himself even a bit, maybe if they looked like making shit explode was the only thing holding them together, he would have had some sympathy.  

*Boom*

The next one sounded more like gunfire than a firework, and no.  He probably wouldn’t have.

“I’m talking to you!” he shouts, striding forward into the street without bothering to look.  “You tryin’ to get somebody killed out here?”

“Relax, grandpa,” one of the teens says, bored, not even looking at him.  “Fireworks never killed anybody.”

“They’re about to kill you,” Mickey returns, glowering.  “Cause if you wake up my husband, I’m gonna shove the next one so far up your ass your mouth is gonna shoot sparks.”

“Uh huh,” another guy says mockingly.  “I’ve met your husband, man,” he adds, “and there’s no fucking way he’d be okay with the way you’re—”

“Mickey?”

Mickey stiffens.  Glares one more time at the asshole that just spoke, who has a shit-eating grin on his face like he knows what’s coming next.  Then he looks up to where Ian is peering through their bedroom window, eyes squinted and hair tussled.

“Go back to bed, Ian,” he calls back.  “I’ll be there in a sec.”

“Mickey,” Ian says disapprovingly, voice carrying easily.  “What did I tell you about yelling at the neighborhood kids?”

Someone titters behind Mickey, and he fights not to roll his eyes.  Instead, he steps to the side, providing a clear view from the window to the mess of people and firework debris on the corner.

Ian leans forward, only the window screen keeping his head inside as he strains his eyes.

“Those aren’t kids,” he corrects himself after getting a good look.

“Nope,” Mickey agrees.

“Oh.”  Ian appears to think, one hand scratching through hair bright enough that Mickey can see it even from across the street.  “Okay then.”  He turns from the window, then returns a moment later.

“Bring me up some tea when you’re done?”

“Sure thing babe,” Mickey promises.  “You want a cinnamon stick?  Some honey?”

“No, just you,” Ian returns.  “Don’t be too long.”

He turns away from the window, and Mickey turns back to the gaggle of teenage boys watching with open mouths.

“You heard the man,” he says with a wicked grin, cracking his knuckles.  “Let’s make this fast.”

[arrowflier]

I tried to do a prompt but my brain is like molasses tonight.😭  Have whatever this is instead.

Ian wakes up with a snort, his chest compressed by Mickey’s entire body weight.  He shoves at him urgently until he rolls mostly off, only his head and arm remaining in place, and gasps in a breath.

“Not that I don’t love this,” he manages once he gets some air into his lungs, Mickey already grabbing hold again, “but what’s going on?”

“You were snoring,” Mickey grumbles, and holds on tighter, tugging Ian just a little too firmly toward him.

“So you tried to suffocate me?” Ian asks, even as he gets an arm up to hold Mickey in turn.

Mickey, who mutters something without lifting his head, and doesn’t bother to open his eyes.

“What was that?” Ian asks.

“Said I like it,” Mickey mumbles into his chest, rubbing his face into the soft cotton of Ian’s sleep shirt.  “Makes you all rumbly.”

“Rumbly?” Ian repeats, and then laughs.

“Yeah, like that,” Mickey answers sleepily, his head bouncing with the movement of Ian’s chest.  “A fuckin...massage pillow.”

“Can massage you better than that,” Ian offers suggestively, snaking a hand down Mickey’s back.

“Mmm, later,” Mickey says, and presses his nose to Ian’s breastbone.  “Do the rumbles now.”

And Ian laughs him right back to sleep.

[arrowflier]

Hi Arrow I love your fics so much. If you’re still taking prompts, I would love your take on the first time Ian called Mickey “baby” and the first time Mickey reciprocated. Speed write or long form - your choice. mucho mucho gracias! 🥰

Relevant to your interests: Baby

Being His Baby Don't Make Me A Bitch (on AO3 or continue below)

Ian had never been that big on nicknames.  Maybe it was because he had too many of his own growing up, and not all of them good.

He  was Fiona’s “sweetface”, sure, and Lip’s “little brother”; he was “kid”, and he was “red”, and he was on occasion, from Liam, just “E”.

But he was also “that fucking Gallagher boy”.  He was “the coked-out lap-dancing whore”.  He was “carrot-boy”, he was Frank’s “redheaded cocksucking bastard”, he was “the crazy one”, and “the gay one”, and “the one with all the problems”.

Fuck; he was “Gay Jesus”.  Like he wasn’t even worth his own name.

With Mickey, it had always been different.  

Mickey’s “tough guy” sounded more like admiration than a challenge; “Gallagher” sounded like a prayer.  “Army” was for teasing, not for judging, and even “you fucking moron” was lighter than air.

He had missed that, while Mickey was gone.  Missed the easy way they spoke; missed the names, and the way they sounded in Mickey’s mouth.  With Mickey, he didn’t care that it wasn’t his real name—his name was carved into Mickey’s very chest, after all, never to be forgotten.  He just cared that Mickey was with him, and that each nickname sounded like love.

He basked in Mickey’s “move over, princess,” in the rec room, when he forced himself onto the sofa at Ian’s side.  He reveled in the quiet “you good, doc?” when he returned from working the infirmary and climbed into his bunk with a sigh.  He breathed in “that’s it, beautiful” in the middle of the night, too quiet for anyone else to hear, and he bit his lip at “nice try, asshole,” in the cafeteria the next morning when he reached for Mickey’s dessert.

Still, he never offered his own monikers.  Never whispered “lover” in Mickey’s ear, or called him “sweetheart”, or called him “dear”.  He wanted to, wanted to offer his own comforts, his own affection, but years of suppression were hard to overcome.

Once a man told you that calling him sugar would result in your bones being ground down to dust and sprinkled on pastries like so much of the same, you tended to stick to his name.

But more and more, Mickey’s name didn’t feel like enough.  And in his head, Ian started calling him other things, better things: things like “darling”, and “beloved”.  Things like “mine”.

Only in his head, though.  Only where it was safe.  Where Mickey couldn’t hear it, and where no one else could care.

Until he slipped.

They were in the cafeteria when it happened.  Side by side, as always, feet touching beneath the table by excuse of overcrowding.  The yellow of their prison uniforms wrinkled with the closeness of their arms, their hips, and their forearms brushed with every bite of nutritional slop.

“So I was tellin’ ‘im,” Mickey was saying, gesturing with his spoon—the unsharpened one in his hand, not the one in his shoe, “that if he really thought he could take me, he was welcome to find me at rec time.”

The man across from them laughed.

“No way,” he said, disbelieving.  “I know you got balls, Milkovich, but taking on Crazy Cal?  You’d be lucky if that fucker left enough of you to patch up.”

“Please,” Mickey snorted, dropping his spoon to push the mush around on his tray.  “That guy’s all talk.  I could take ‘im.”

“Take him where?” another guy asked.  “Out to dinner?  Cause you’d be on the menu.”

Ian could feel Mickey bristling beside him.  It had started in good fun, perhaps, but he was going to take it personally.  His hand was tensing on his spoon, holding it more like the knife it wasn’t, and his thigh tensed as he half-rose.

Ian stopped him with a hand on his arm.  No pressure, just a solid weight.

“Calm down,” he said, his tone joking, the thread of warning something only Mickey would hear.  “They’re just kidding, baby.”

And Mickey froze, and quieted.

But so did everything else.

“Did you just call Milkovich a baby?” someone asked down the line of the table, choking on laughter.

“Nah, he didn’t say a baby,” someone else corrected, even as Ian closed his eyes in horror.  “He just called him baby.  Like, his baby.”

Laughs went around the table.  Mickey was tenser than ever under his hand, and then he wasn’t—not because he had relaxed, but because he had pulled away.

“That right Milkovich?” came the first taunt, the first of many.  “You such a girl you need pretty names to make you feel better?”

“Knew you took it Milkovich, you scream like a goddamn banshee about it,” came the next, “but you really that much of a bitch?”

“Hey now, Murphy,” someone called out, “he said baby, not bitch.  Milkovich just needs a good daddy to—”

His head crashed into the table before he could finish.

“What was that, Jackson?” Mickey asked pleasantly, as if he hadn’t nearly knocked Ian on his ass and sent three other inmates face-first into their slop just to interrupt.  “Afraid I didn’t catch that last bit.”

“Yo, Milkovich,” another man said, “what the fuck?”

“Oh, you confused, Jefferson?” Mickey asked.  He lifted his gaze to the man across the table, still holding the first one down.  The head in his hand slid a bit against the plastic table, wet with blood from his split lip, but Mickey tugged harshly back into place.

“See, Jackson here,” Mickey shook the hair in his fist for effect, “thought it would be appropriate to comment on what my friend Gallagher just called me.  But I,” he raised his eyebrows, not a challenge, just a statement, “I think that’s none of his fucking business.”

He released his captive suddenly, letting him slide half-conscious out of his seat.

“Who do you agree with?” Mickey asked, addressing the room at large.  “Me, or the fucker I just put on the floor?”

“You,” came the quick reassurance.

“Good,” Mickey said, backing away.  “That’s good.”  He walked all the way down the table, past Ian even, eying each and every one of them.  “Now don’t fucking forget it,” he ordered.  “Cause he might have called me baby, but I ain’t nobody’s bitch.”

Then he was turning, and leaving, and Ian was still sitting there, and fuck—he had just done the one thing Mickey hadn’t wanted, and he had ruined his cred in front of everyone, and he was going to be so mad—

Ian didn’t even look as he jumped up from the long table, sending his own tray and someone else’s clattering.  He didn’t look at the eyes on him, didn’t care except for what it might mean to Mickey, who was already almost out of the room.

“Mickey,” Ian gasped out, chasing after him through the cafeteria.  A few guards looked askance at them, but if they hadn’t responded to the fight, they weren’t going to stop them now.

“Mickey wait,” Ian tried, his long legs allowing him to catch up easily.  He reached out, snagged Mickey’s elbow.  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—”

Mickey turned around.  And there was no anger on his face.

“Sorry for what?” he asked nonchalantly, still backing toward the doors.  “Come on, let’s head back to our bunk.”

Ian gaped at him, then shut his mouth with a click of teeth when Mickey’s lips spread in a slow, wicked smile.

“Come on,” he said again, then, “baby.”

And laughed when Ian passed him to take the lead.

[arrowflier]

What He Needs

On Saturday, Ian wakes up naturally for the first time all week. He smiles into the sunlight on his face, breathes in the scent of the pillow, and stretches out an arm to curl around his husband's waist.

It lands heavy on the mattress, nothing there to hold.

"Mickey?" he mumbles, eyes still closed, hand patting at the space where a body should be.

The only response is the coolness of the sheets.

Ian blinks his eyes open, confirms what he already knows. Rolls over with a groan to glance at the clock.

9:54, it reads in red, and no wonder he's alone in bed. They'd promised Debbie that they'd meet her by eight to drive Franny to swim lessons, and it's late enough now that they could have been there and back.

Ian sits up, rubbing his eyes. He'd been so out of last night after a long week that he'd passed out by ten, and Mickey must have let him sleep in. Taken care of things on his own--because of course he wouldn't leave his niece hanging--and made himself scarce so Ian could rest.

And honestly, he can't decide how to feel about it. Annoyed that he missed out on seeing his family. Sad that he needed to, and Mickey knew it. Disappointed that he isn't even here now to talk to, probably still out like the early birds Ian can hear through the--

"God-fucking-dammit!"

The shout cuts over the birdsong, a rough dichotomy that has Ian halfway to his feet and grinning before he even realizes.

Found him. And by the time Ian gets pants on, makes his way to the back door to see Mickey standing out in the garden struggling to tip a twenty pound bag of seed into the bird feeder, all he can feel is love.

"You know the squirrels eat most if that," Ian says, closing the door behind him. He huffs when Mickey startles, reaches out to steady the bag he holds.

"Thought you weren't a fan of them," he adds as they pour the seed together.

Mickey looks at him without turning, easing the bag back upright.

"I'm not."

Ian takes his hands away, watches Mickey set the bag down to seal it shut.

"Yet you won't let me get a squirrel-proof feeder."

Mickey's fingers still on plastic, then continue.

"They need to eat," he says with a shrug, a kind of carelessness Ian knows well. "Can't be mad at that."

You need to sleep, Ian, he'd said the night before when Ian asked if he'd mind if he went to bed early. Can't be mad at that.

"Besides," Mickey goes on, standing up to face Ian with a squirmed brow, "the birds like the feeder we got.  There's this one red one--"

Ian groans.

"Not the cardinal again."

"Yeah," Mickey says, pointing at him. "That one. Looks just like you."

"Does not," Ian argues, but Mickey just snickers.

They're quiet for a moment while Mickey cleans up, hoisting the bag of seed and carrying it back to the patio. Ian watches him stash it, watches him rub the back of his neck after, sore from the work he's done. Wishes he had been more help.

"Sorry I slept so long," he offers softly.

Mickey glances back, startled, but his face smooths out fast.

"You need to sleep, man," he says plainly. Comes closer, takes Ian's hand. "Can't be mad at that."

So many people could, Ian thinks. So many people have.

He doesn't say it. Just squeezes Mickey's hand instead, and opens the door for them both.

"Right now, I need something else."

[arrowflier]

Please please please write Mickey’s reaction to Ian having black hair when he walks into the prison cell thank you xxx

Probably not what was expected, but here's them talking about it that night!

See Me In the Mirror (on AO3 or continue below)

“Still can’t believe this shit,” Mickey mutters late that night, as they lay together on the too-narrow bottom bunk.

“Believe what?” Ian asks, too preoccupied with tracing fingers over Mickey’s chest to really care.

“I come in here expecting a fucking firecrotch,” Mickey jokes, “and you’ve gone and hidden the ginger for the first time in your life?”

Ian shrugs, shoulders barely moving against the mattress. Mickey gets a hand up into his hair, and he lets him.

“Almost turned right back around,” Mickey says, softer, letting Ian’s close-cropped curls slide through his fingers. “Told ‘em they gave me the wrong cell, took back my cooperation.”

Ian chuckles, and smiles. Still can’t quite believe that Mickey is there, that Mickey turned himself in, that after all of his bad decisions he ended up with a reward.

“Had to do something,” he says, eyes slipping closed to the rhythmic motion of Mickey hand on his head. “Was gonna run, you know,” he adds. “Maybe join you down in Mexico.”

Mickey laughs.

“You’d never have made it past the state border,” he says. “Black hair or not, you’ve never been good at flying under the radar.

Ian disagrees. Thinks he’s done pretty well at it for most of his life. The middle child that fades into the background, the man doing just well enough not to raise brows. Even half out of his mind with mania, he’d made it farther than anyone expected.

He doesn’t bother to argue. It doesn’t matter. What matters is Mickey, and his face close to Ian’s on the pillow, and his hand in Ian’s hair.

"Why black though?” Mickey asks, tugging at dyed strands. “You miss me that much?”

"Hmm?" Ian murmurs, whacking at Mickey's arm before settling his hand there instead.

"Couldn't see me in person," Mickey explains, "so you made it so you'd see me in the mirror?"

Ian opens his eyes. Blinks Mickey into focus, the faint freckles on his nose so close they seem to dance, never quite settling.

“No,” he says honestly, and wonders if he should have lied. But Mickey doesn’t frown, and he doesn’t pull away. He just lies there tangled in Ian, fingers stroking through artificially dark hair.

“I like that, though,” Ian muses, leaning into the touch. His thumb strokes Mickey’s wrist, once, twice, and he doesn’t let go. “A little piece of you on me where everyone can see it.”

And he does like it. Rather a lot, actually. That after years of hiding, and years of being apart, a stranger could look at him and see Mickey.

“What about you?” he has to ask.

It’s Mickey’s turn to hum in question.

“You ever miss me so much you tried to dye your hair red?”

Mickey snorts, the hot air of it blowing against Ian’s face.

“Nah,” he says, “I’d have to bleach it first. Helped Mandy do that once,” he adds with a grimace, “and trust me, it’s not worth it.”

“Not even to feel close to me?” Ian asks.

“Never,” Mickey confesses. “Kind of avoided anything that color for a while, actually.”

Ian feels like he should be upset by that, maybe. That Mickey avoided reminders of him when they were apart. And he must think about it a little too long, let his face show a little too much, because Mickey is cupping his face in his free hand a moment later.

“Not like that,” he assures, and leans in even closer. Their noses brush together, and Ian’s vision is filled with an endless, hazy blue.

“Way back,” Mickey says, “before Mexico, I mean.”

He pauses. Ian waits, content to breathe against his skin.

“Used to look for people that looked like you,” Mickey continues, quiet, soft. “People I could pretend were you, at least for a while.”

Ian can’t see Mickey’s mouth, but he can feel the wryness in his smile.

“Didn’t work out all that well for me, then,” Mickey says with a huff. “So I did a bit of the opposite, this time.”

Ian lets that sink in.

“So you went for people that weren’t anything like me?” he asks a moment later, curious, and Mickey shakes his head as best he can without moving away.

“No,” he says, then hesitates. “I mean, yes, but—”

“It’s okay,” Ian interrupts him. Nuzzles into Mickey’s palm against his cheek, Mickey’s fingers on his scalp. “It’s all okay.”

“Ian…”

“I mean it,” Ian says, and has decided that he does. That his brief moment before, of wondering how he should feel, was just that. Just wondering.

Because he wasn’t upset. He wasn’t put off at all. Mickey had done things, and he had done things, apart and together all their lives. Things that didn’t matter right here, right now, with Mickey in his arms in their tiny shared cell. Things that would never matter again, because neither of them were leaving this time.

“Okay,” Mickey agrees, and tilts his chin to brush lips to Ian’s cheek. “Okay.”

They lay there a moment more. Eyes closing on images of each other, lungs filled with the other’s exhaled breaths.

“Really wasn’t what I meant, though,” Mickey whispers eventually, and Ian tries to tune back in through the haze of sleep and comfort and Mickey.

“Didn’t need any reminders,” Mickey continues, “or any fake shit. Not down there.”

He doesn’t wait for Ian to say anything, to ask. He tells him anyway, like it needs to get out, out into the warm air between them.

“Just needed my memories,” he whispers. “Decided to let myself keep them.”

He kisses Ian’s lips, a gentle brush, there and gone. Gone but close, gone but never leaving.

“Kept a picture, too,” he adds, and that, Ian catches.

“What picture?” Ian asks sleepily, rubbing his cheek into the pillow.

“You’ll see it someday,” Mickey promises.

“How?” Ian asks, not really listening even though he wants to. “You stash it somewhere?”

“You’ll see it when we get out,” Mickey tells him, his voice fading as sleep comes to claim them. “When they give me back the clothes I came in, and I can take it out of my pocket.”

“Okay,” Ian breathes, and sleeps through straight ‘til morning.

[arrowflier]

Fair warning this might end up with...a lot of parts lol

Home

1. The Car

2. On a cold day halfway through autumn, Ian’s home drove away.  And unlike all the times before, when his mom kissed his head and promised it wouldn’t be long, this time it didn’t come back.

Neither did she.

“Stop crying, son,” his dad scolded him on the third night after she left.  “She doesn’t deserve it.”  He took a swig from a paper-wrapped bottle, and added, “I got somethin’ better lined up anyway.”  

Ian couldn’t stop, though.  He knew it made him a baby, like little Debbie, crying in the corner of the diner while Lip tried to rock her to sleep.  But he tucked his face further into Fi’s stomach anyway, hot tears soaking through her thin shirt, her arms tight around him.  

She was warm, and she was solid.  But outside of her small frame, everything else had turned to smoke.

“You’d better be right, Frank,” she spoke over Ian’s head, hand carding through his hair like mom used to do.  Her voice was high, but hard, and Ian missed the nights when it softly sang him to sleep through.   Lately, it just sounded tired.

“Would I lie to you?” their dad asked, and by now Ian knew the answer was yes.  But two days later, they were getting off a bus in a front of house bigger than Ian had imagined.

They told him it was home.

He didn’t like the house, at first.  Didn’t understand why it made Fiona smile, or why Lip kept exploring the rooms.  No one was ever in the same place anymore; they slept in different rooms, played in different rooms, ate in different rooms.  One time he didn’t see dad for days, then found him under the rickety basement steps with empty bottles rolling around on the concrete floor.

It was cold down there, and Ian didn’t know why he’d sleep in the cold when they were all upstairs alone.

That night, after everyone else went to bed, Ian crept out of his too-empty room.  He tiptoed down the creaky stairs, one hand on the wall to make sure it was there. He felt his way all the way to the sofa in the living room, the only place where they spent time together anymore, the only place that felt like home.  There was just enough light from the front windows to find the blanket hanging over the back, and then he curled up against the arm and pretended it was Fi’s, and that the air from the fan over his head was Lip’s breath stirring through his hair.

Come morning, it wasn’t pretend anymore.  The sun was bright, the air smelled like bacon, and his head was in Fi’s lap as she rubbed his back over the blanket.

“Hey sweetface,” she whispered when he stirred, and she didn’t sound so tired anymore.  “We made breakfast.”

And they walked together to the kitchen, Ian stumbling on sleepy feet, and Lip had laid three plates on the tall table.  They ate eggs and bacon while Frank snored in the corner by the door, giggling when baby Debbie threw mashed bananas in his hair.  

That night, Lip moved into Ian’s room.

“So you can’t sneak out or whatever,” he said as he crawled into the bed, careless of elbows and knees.  “Fiona freaked this morning.”

But he put his pillow right up against Ian’s, so Ian thought that was a lie.  Thought it had more to do with the gaping openness of an empty room, and a chill that more blankets couldn’t hide.

It didn’t matter why, though.  He fell asleep with Lip’s hair in his mouth, the sound of Fi moving in the next room, and little Debbie’s cries as she refused to be soothed.

It sounded like family, and it sounded home.