Rating: Teens and Up (for language and mentions of sex)
Words: 1,533
Summary: Imagine your OTP: It’s early in the morning. Person A has got up early to go for a run. Person B has stayed up all night watching Netflix. What happens when Person B runs out of snacks and bumps into Person A at the corner shop?
It’s not Mickey’s fault, you see. It’s fucking Netflix’s fault for releasing a whole season of a show in one go. Whose fucking idea was that?
So of course there’s nothing Mickey can do except binge watch it. He hadn’t meant to watch all the episodes, just the first ones. Then he’d stop, go to sleep, and continue the next day. But the thing was fucking addictive and he couldn’t muster the will to just stop and go to bed. So it’s not his fault, not really.
Words: 1,213
Rating: T
Relationships: Ian Gallagher/Mickey Milkovich,
Summary: "Imagine Your OTP: Imagine person B calling person A their “Romeo” by accident"
You can feel Gallagher’s eyes on you, burning holes into your back like he always does. You know what’s coming, but you don’t push for it. You continue shovelling and you wait for it.
“Hey, Mick?”
You grunt out an acknowledgement. If you give him anything more than that he’ll go on for hours instead of the few minutes you might be able to keep this to. You heave another pile of dirt onto your shovel and wait for him to start.
“I know you’re busy, but … murder in Washington D.C. is a capital offence.”
You ignore the joke. “Good thing we’re not in Washington D.C.”
“Yeah, but I was thinking about that other time, you know?”
You pause to wipe at your brow with your forearm. “Which time, Gallagher?”
“With the dude, you know? I think - I think his name was Barry. Barry M. Deep.”
You ignore him again. You go back to shovelling, half hoping he’ll shut the fuck up if you don’t reply, but half hoping he never stops. That’s how it is with Gallagher. If you’re not wishing like fuck it never comes, then you’re somehow eager for it, almost excited to see what he will come up with.
“Anyway, I’m sorry about what went down tonight,” he continues. “I really fucked up. Made a grave mistake.”
You suck in a breath through your nose and grit your teeth. It doesn’t matter how many of these he does, he always gets to you eventually. You focus on the shovel in your hand, the burning blisters it gives your palms because your gloves are covered in blood. You think about the pool back at the hotel, and how nice it will be to slide on into after digging this fucking grave in this heat. You think about how summer is exactly thirty-seven days away. You think about how it feels like it started thirty-seven days ago despite the setting sun.
You think about anything but Ian Gallagher and his damn jokes.
“That - that was some really bad execution on my part, huh, Mick?”
You say nothing. You dig and you dig and you try not to think about the fucker behind you and the stupid smile you know he’s wearing. Sometimes you wish like hell you’d never agreed to work with him. Shit, most of the time you still don’t know why you did; being a hitman is solo work, not something you do with a hard-to-miss redhead who never shuts up.
“Don’t worry,” he continues, “from now on I’m going to start doing more to urn my keep.”
One side of your mouth tilts up, but he can’t see it and you keep it that way. The fucking dick gets way too smug when he makes you laugh with his dumb jokes - something you learned early on - so you keep your amusement to yourself. You have a hard enough time convincing Gallagher of some things as it is - can’t let him get the idea into his head that you actually enjoy his fucked-up sense of humour.
“He put up one hell of a fight, though, huh? He was a waste of space, but I’ll say this for him: he sure had a lot of guts.”
You stop to wipe your brow again, and turn around. You hold the shovel out to Gallagher and he sighs.
“I mean, when they said I’d have to do the graveyard shift I didn’t take it so literally, you know?”
You shake your head and stalk past him. “I might be getting the credit for this one, but you’re getting most of the cash, shit head. Time to do your share.”
He continues with the pile of dirt where you left off, and you lean against the tree behind you to cool off. You grab a beer from the cooler next to you and down half of it in one go. This system you’ve got going with Gallagher will probably get you into a ton of shit one day, but it’s a good system, the kind of system the establishment should use.
You and Gallagher work for the same company. Hell, you’ve crossed paths on multiple occasions over the last few years. But up until six months ago he was just another guy, just another you, doing what you both do. Someone whose way you stayed out of, who stayed out of your way, because that was how it worked, that was the unspoken code.
Until he saved your ass.
“There!” he declares, patting the last few loose bits of dirt with the shovel. “All done.”
“Finally.”
He turns to face you. “We should do this again sometime.”
You pause and close your eyes, take two deep breaths, then grab out a beer for him. “Really, man? Again?” Because that’s one line he never gives up on, and you always know where it leads.
“Yeah, Mick, I think we need to take life a little more seriously, you know.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“And you’ve got far too much blood on your hands.” He grabs them both in his, and you shake your head. For a moment, though, he looks genuinely concerned at the state of your hands. You go to pull them away, but he holds tight and smiles. “It’s cool, though, Mick. I still dig you.”
You continue to shake your head, fighting the stupid fucking smile his stupid fucking smile brings out in you. He’s been doing this lately, turning these stupid jokes and puns into something a little more, something flirty. It’s dumb and it’s awful and it’s fucking infuriating.
And you kind of like it.
You kind of like the flirting, you kind of like the smirks, you kind of really like the look he gets in his eyes when you take someone down together.
You kind of definitely like him.
More than you should.
He leans close. “I bet you’re a killer lay, Mick.”
You can’t help the laugh that escapes this time, or the words that follow. “Seriously, Gallagher, you’re going to be the fucking death of me.”
Words: 4,987
Rating: M
Relationships: Ian Gallagher/Mickey Milkovich, Mandy Milkovich & Mickey Milkovich
Additional Tags: post 5x12, Angst, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence
Summary: "Iggy doesn’t know shit either, Ian isn’t answering my texts or calls, and you’re a fucking vault with more locks than anybody could crack open!” She poked a finger into his chest and looked at him, eyes wide with honesty. “I’m worried about you, asshole.”
Getting Svetlana her citizenship takes significantly more effort than any of them had anticipated.
Both she and Mickey are more than ready to sign divorce papers, no question there, but before they can do that Svetlana needs a green card. Shit. Their one saving grace is that by some fucking miracle Svetlana is actually a fucking legal immigrant, the one demand her parents made when they sold her into slavery all those years ago. Despite this, immigration decided to make their lives a living hell anyway, by dropping by their “marital home” for surprise visits. Fun.
Mickey keeps a cheap wedding band in his pocket, ready to slip on to his finger the second anyone with a badge shows up. Every time Ian sees that flash of pawn shop gold glinting on Mickey’s finger, his brain spins with possibilities. Once Svetlana has her green card, she and Mickey can get the divorce they so desperately want, which would open things up for Ian. Wedding-related things. He can't say he ever thought much about marriage before, but everytime he sees that band of gold on his boyfriend’s finger he thinks that he sure as hell wouldn’t mind a matching one on his own.
The first time Ian brings the idea up it is the briefest of mentions, barely even a question. Mickey reacts with the same disinterest that he has toward his current marriage. When Ian tries again, this time more directly, Mickey's face sets into a frown.
"The fuck would we get married for? It's just a bullshit piece of paper," Mickey says, remaining focused on cleaning his gun in the living room. "Fuck, we may as well sign on for a fucking domestic partnership. It wouldn't be any different."
Ian doesn't bring it up again. Mickey never cared about his marriage with Svetlana, but Ian always assumed it was just because he didn't want to get married to her. It never occurred to him that Mickey might not care for marriage in general. It’s a bitter thought to swallow.
Surprisingly, Lip is the one to sit him down and reawaken the hope Ian had shoved down and trampled.
“Let me ask you something.” His brother said as they discussed it a week later.
"Does he cook for you?"
Mickey's culinary abilities definitely do not belong in a five star restaurant. His signature meal is a tray of Pizza Rolls heated in the oven. Hell, even pizza bagels have a tendency to burn when Mickey is involved.
This knowledge is why Ian is so surprised when he stumbles across his boyfriend standing in the kitchen and stirring a pot of pasta sauce.
Debbie is ordering him around and checking on the meal, but Mickey is standing next to her, carefully moving the spoon around the steaming pot as she moves and talks around him. There's even an empty pan on the next burner where he had been helping to cook the beef.
"Is that going to be burned, Mick?" Ian teases, resting his chin on the shorter man's shoulder.
"No, and fuck you for asking," Mickey replies distractedly, eyes fixated on the bubbling tomato sauce.
"I've been keeping an eye on him," Debbie assures her brother with a confident smile. "He's getting better at helping me."
Getting better? That implies that Mickey's sudden interest in cooking isn't as sudden as Ian initially thought. He lets his mind wander back, wondering how many of his other meals Mickey might have had a hand in. By the way that Mickey is studiously avoiding Ian's eyes, the answer is probably a hell of a lot.
"Didn't know you were learning to cook," Ian says lightly and kisses his boyfriend's neck.
Mickey shrugs, "Figure I should learn while I can."
Debbie calls for Ian's help with the noodles and he leaves Mickey to stir the pasta sauce. Still, he can't get the proud smile that appeared on Mickey's lips for a split second out of his mind.
“Does he fold your clothes?”
The dryer that JimmySteve bought them years ago still sits in the kitchen, now covered by a layer of grime and enough scuff marks to make it look like it belongs in the house. Mickey knows this. He also knows that doing his laundry at the Gallagher’s place would piss Fiona off. With Ian’s older siblings looking for any excuse to throw him out, he can’t risk making her mad.
Ian knows that Mickey knows this, which is why it throws him when Lip stalks into the bedroom he used to share with the younger boys, looking for Ian. His face is already set into a frown when Ian looks up from what he’s studying.
“Why the fuck is Mickey doing his laundry here?” Lip bites out in annoyance, motioning down the hall.
“I don’t know,” Ian replies, brow furrowed in confusion. He stands up as Lip continues.
“You better go talk to him because that shit isn’t going to fly.”
Ian rolls his eyes at the threat and walks down the stairs. Sure enough, Mickey is standing in the kitchen and pulling laundry out of the dryer. He’s already got half of the load folded on top of the machine. However, Lip got one major detail wrong.
“Mick, why are you folding my clothes?” Ian asks from the doorway.
“Ran out of clean shirts to steal from your drawer,” Mickey replies easily, as if that makes perfect sense.
“Ah,” Ian says, as if that reason alone is enough to make sense of the vision in front of him. “Alright.”
When he returns to his room and settles back onto his bed, Lip is waiting with raised eyebrows. Ian ignores him and opens the workbook he was looking at before the interruption. This GED shit is going to kill him. After a minute feeling his brother’s eyes boring into him, he lifts his head and looks over to his brother.
“He isn’t doing his laundry, he’s doing mine.”
“Does he stay over more than four nights a week?”
Mickey has this thing about cuddling that Ian will never understand. He avoided it like the plague for the first few years of their relationship, refusing to so much as lay in bed with Ian. Even after all of this time, he still isn’t used to curling up together. It’s lucky for them that Ian is very fucking persistent.
For the fifth night that week, Ian feels the bed dip under a second person’s weight. It’s a small twin bed and really isn’t made for two people, but he rolls over with a sleepy smile on his face and presses himself against Mickey’s back. Their fingers fit together perfectly and Mickey’s legs tangle with Ian’s immediately.
“Thought you were staying at home tonight,” Ian mumbles sleepily against Mickey’s bare back.
“Yevy’s asleep, Svet and Nika wanted the house to themselves,” he whispers back, eyes already closed. “I can go if you want.”
“Nah, you can stay. I guess I like you enough.”
“Oh, you do?” Mickey says and his lips curve up into a flirtatious smile.
“Juuust enough,” Ian says, dragging out the words.
Their conversation ends there, but Ian nuzzles his face into the back of Mickey’s head. He wasn’t lying when he told Carl that he likes the way Mickey smells. Cheap shampoo, cigarette smoke, and the faintest scent of sweat. He falls asleep to the sound of Mickey’s slow, even breathing.
“Does he help you out with random stuff?”
Ian leans forward, running his fingers through his hair, and starts to list everything that Mickey helps him out with. Remembering meds is the first thing that comes to mind, the thing he still struggles with from time to time, but Mickey does so much more than that. He drops by the store if Ian forgot to grab something. When Ian finds himself broke between paychecks, Mickey hands him a twenty and insists that he owes Ian plenty of cash anyway.
There’s even more than Ian doesn’t give voice to. The domestic shit like brushing their teeth together, fixing Ian’s hair, and telling him when his shirt has a stain on it. Yevgeny started talking months ago and already calls Mickey “Papa” and Ian “Dada”.
