Can you do jealous Mickey 😊
This is sort-of jealous, sort-of insecure. But I have a more traditional one here too!
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“—and that’s why we tend to get prescriptions for those particular disorders,” their tour guide finished.
Mickey rolled his eyes. They weren’t here for a fucking science lesson, they were here to lock down a contract and get the fuck out. But when he turned to look at Ian, expecting his husband to look back with the same annoyed expression he was doing his best to hide on his own face, Ian didn’t even notice.
His eyes were too busy shining toward the nerdy man in the lab coat leading them through the dispensary.
“Damn, that’s pretty cool,” Ian said. He sounded like he really meant it, and Mickey grit his teeth rather than ruin the moment with some snarky comment.
“I used to be an EMT, you know,” Ian continued, leaning closer to their guide. “But they didn’t really teach us about this stuff.” He shrugged. “Guess it wasn’t really on their radar yet.”
“Oh, an EMT?” the guide asked with way too much interest. He eyed Ian over the top of his thick-rimmed glasses, tapping a hand nervously against his clipboard.
His empty fucking clipboard. Who the fuck carried a clipboard in a retail place like this, anyway?
“That’s so interesting,” the man went on. “What did you get your degree in?”
Mickey saw the way Ian hesitated at the question, and wanted to rip the man’s tongue out for making him uncomfortable. But Ian shrugged it off—”oh this and that,” he said—and they were off again, talking about things Mickey had no knowledge of or interest in beyond his occasional desire to abuse the product.
It continued for way too long, in his unbiased opinion. Until an alarm went off on Ian’s over-sized watch, interrupting whatever tangent the two of them had gotten off on, and Mickey’s husband finally realized that they had been there for far too long.
“Oh shit, sorry,” he said. “We were supposed to be out of your hair, like, twenty minutes ago or something.”
“Oh, it’s no trouble,” he was assured. “In fact, I’d like to—”
“No, no,” Ian insisted. “We’ve taken enough of your time, right Mickey?”
Ian turned to look at him, and Mickey attempted to smile and nod. But based on the way Ian’s happy expression fell when he saw him, he was pretty sure it had come out as more of a grimace.
“Take your time, man,” Mickey made himself grit out. “We’re done with pickups today.”
Ian frowned.
“I know,” he said slowly, “but we really need to—”
“Oh, great!” their guide interrupted, daring to place a hand on Ian’s bicep. “Because I’d love to chat some more. Maybe your business partner can come pick you up later?”
Fuck. Business partner? Who did this twerp think he was?
Thankfully, before Mickey could tear the guys head off with his bare fucking hands, Ian removed his arm from that tenacious grip.
“Thanks,” he muttered uneasily, “but I think my husband and I both need to go.”
The stress on the word husband was subtle, but Mickey could see it hit its mark. Their nerdy companion pulled back like he had been burned, adjusting his glasses with the hand that had just been gripping Ian like he was the last man on earth, and he backed away so quickly he almost tripped over his own steel-toed shoes.
Ian didn’t even look back as he got a hand on Mickey’s back, and pushed him unprotestingly toward the door.
“So I’ll call you about the contract?” the man called after them, but Ian just waved him off as the door closed behind them, focusing instead on steering Mickey toward their retro-fitted ambulance.
Mickey knew he was being unusually quiet as they got in and buckled up, but he kept staring out the windshield as Ian started the vehicle. Then Ian turned the key a second time, the engine falling silent under them, and Mickey finally met his eyes.
“What’s wrong?” Ian asked. So simple, yet so full of worry. “I, uh,” he said, then huffed a nervous laugh. “Kind of surprised you didn’t punch that guy back there, honestly.”
Yeah, Mickey thought. That was fair. Any other day, any other guy, and they would have had Mickey’s wedding ring imprinted on their face before they even had a chance to realize where they went wrong in touching what was his.
He had never been very good at sharing. But…
“Don’t know, man,” he answered, and ignored the furrow of Ian’s brow.
“Hey,” Ian said. “Don’t lie to me, Mick.”
He leaned over the center, into Mickey’s space, and laid a firm hand on Mickey’s cheek.
“We don’t lie to each other, remember?”
Fuck. Of course Mickey remembered.
“I don’t know, though,” he repeated, and this time it sounded like a confession. “Just…kind of seemed like you might’ve been into it, I guess.”
Ian’s jaw actually dropped at that, and Mickey might have laughed if it didn’t feel like his heart was about to beat it’s way out of his chest.
“Why would you…,” Ian started, then snapped his mouth shut.
“Not the physical stuff,” Mickey hurried to reassure him, knowing that Ian’s brain was probably running circles around everything he had done inside, every possible way he could have misstepped to make Mickey think that he welcomed someone else’s advanced.
“I know you’re not interested like that,” Mickey said, then bit his lip.
“But?” Ian pressed, knowing that something else was coming.
“But you were talkin’ ‘bout stuff I don’t even understand, man,” Mickey finally revealed. “And you were practically fuckin’ beaming gettin’ to have a conversation like that.”
“Mickey,” Ian said flatly, clearly still lost. “We have conversations all the time.”
Mickey snorted. “Not like that we don’t,” he argued. “All science-y and shit, stuff you learned in your do-gooder classes.” He looked away, licked his dry lips. “I don’t know any of that crap, man.”
A moment of silence. And then—
“And you think I care about that?” Ian asked. “You think I’d rather hang out with some lab coat guy chatting about alternative medications when I could be out here riding with you?”
He made it sound so stupid, but it really wasn’t.
“You used to want that,” Mickey muttered, picking at a hangnail on his thumb. It burned when he tore it too far.
“You used to want a lot of things,” he continued when Ian stayed silent. “A lot of stuff I can’t give you, can’t do for you.”
He glanced at Ian from the corner of his eye, but he couldn’t read his husband’s expression. He sighed.
“And I’m jealous as shit, okay?” Mickey confessed. “Cause I can’t make you nerd out like that, and guys like that can.”
“Mickey,” Ian said, almost sternly. “Look at me.”
And fuck if that voice didn’t get what it wanted every time.
“I don’t want anything from that guy,” he insisted once they locked eyes. “I don’t want to talk to him. I sure as hell don’t want to be with him. And all of that in there?” He paused, made sure Mickey was paying attention.
“That was for the job, Mickey,” he said. “Playing nice for the contract we came here to get, that’s all.”
Mickey nodded, and let Ian lean in for a kiss.
“Besides,” Ian teased as he pulled back, reaching again to turn the keys in the ignition. “I’d rather smoke up product with you than listen to some random guy extoll it’s virtues for the treatment of glaucoma, for Christ’s sake.”
As the ambulance shuddered to life under them again, and Ian peeled out of the parking lot with one hand on the wheel and one firmly in place on Mickey’s thigh, Mickey relaxed for the first time in almost an hour.
“We gonna do that tonight then?” he asked, playing with Ian’s fingers there on his leg. “Smoke it up, I mean?”
Ian laughed. And as they rolled up to a stop light, he leaned over for another quick kiss.
“You bet,” he agreed, grinning widely. “And afterward, I can show you some of the other things I’d rather do with you.”
Mickey leaned back into his seat as the light went green again, keeping hold of Ian as they pulled forward into traffic.
Yeah. That sounded pretty good to him.
