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“Okay,” Ian had said, which was how he wound up here.
He fully accepts that it was his decision. Possibly his mistake. He has no one to blame but himself, but he plans on at least dragging Mickey down with him into this misery.
For better and for worse and all that.
He’d have made Mickey come if he was stupid enough to believe that wouldn’t just make this all that much worse.
“Hey,” Fiona says softly as she lowers herself into the seat opposite.
Ian just looks at her for a second, really looks.
She’s gotten older in the years since they’ve last spoken. He can see it in the lines in her face, the look in her eyes. She looks sad, tired, but there’s hope there too now.
She’s bundled up in a coat and she struggles with unravelling her scarf for a moment as she sits down. He just watches her, picking at the thin scratch marks on his arm Ollie had made the previous day.
They’re still working on the proper rules of play and it doesn’t help that Mickey just keeps teaching him bad manners.
Still, it’s exactly how Ian always imagined parenting with Mickey would go. He loves it.
Even though Mickey does look at him like he’s officially lost it whenever Ian chides him about his language. “It’s a fucking cat, Gallagher!” “Yeah and when they rise up and learn how to speak, do you really want his first word to be fuck.” “If he even has a first word I’m fucking out of here, so I really don’t give a shit.”
“Hey,” he says finally, hands wrapped around his mug of coffee like it’s his lifeline.
They’re at the coffee shop just down the block from his apartment, which Fiona doesn’t need to know, but it’s convenient. Plus, Mickey loves the hot chocolates from here and he’s coming down with a cold. Ian can’t wait to see that soft look on his face when he brings him one up and even more so, he can’t wait to lick the taste of it out of Mickey’s mouth.
Mickey always tastes best when combined with chocolate.
“How’ve you been?” Fiona asks.
It’s a loaded question.
Recently, or in the last few years? Either way the answer is pretty much the same.
“Good,” he says.
He pushes a hand through his hair, trying to get that one bit of hair that always flops in front of his eyes to stick back. It won’t and he knows it.
“You?”
“I’ve been okay,” she says, which Ian knows is a lie.
It’s awkward, because neither of them are quite willing to hash out the issues they have just yet. Not in public like this. Not so soon after sitting down. They’ll probably get to it in a moment, but Ian’s quite content to just sip his coffee and let Fiona stare at him like he’s a puzzle from across the tiny table.
“You look good,” Fiona says.
“Thanks.”
“How’s Mickey?”
He can tell it costs her something to ask that. Still, he appreciates it, that she’s trying at least. “Ill,” he says. “Or… he will be in the next few days. He always gets cranky as fuck right before he gets a cold so…” He shrugs.
Fiona half smiles.
“How’s Liam?” Ian asks, still opting for the neutral ground.
Fiona lights up slightly, which all issues aside is good to see. She’s still his sister. He still loves thee, they just got a little lost on their separate paths a while ago. Or maybe lost is the wrong word, because Ian doesn’t feel like he is.
He just feels like Fiona thinks he might be.
“He’s good, great even,” she says. She’s not orders anything yet, so her hands twist her scarf between them nervously. “He misses you.”
That’s something Ian doubts.
Liam doesn’t really know him. Through no fault of either of theirs. Liam was born and they were all immediately thrust back into foster care. Fourteen – is it really fourteen years? – between them feels like so long and it is when you’re not in the same house.
They’ll always be siblings, they’ll always be cordial to each other. And it’s sad, in a way that Ian wishes he could go back in time and fix where it went wrong, get to know his little brother, but he knows they’re past that. He could try now and maybe he will, but they won’t ever be particularly close.
Too much time has passed for that.
To Liam, Ian knows he’s the brother that’s tacked on when you count your siblings up. But he’s not the one he’ll bring up in conversation otherwise.
They’re strangers with the same DNA running through their veins.
It’s just another thing that Fiona has decided to be blind too though apparently.
Ian hums lowly and stands. He doesn’t miss the look on panic that crosses Fiona’s face, but he chooses to ignore it. “What do you want to drink?” he asks her and she relaxes back into her seat.
He orders Fiona’s coffee from a slightly stressed looking girl with a nose ring who reminds Ian of Mandy when he first met her. She smiles at Ian, calls him by name and asks how the client base is going.
“Slowly expanding, Tasha,” he says. “Slowly expanding.”
He can feel the weight of Fiona’s gaze on his back, but he doesn’t let it bother him as he asks Tasha about her photography course.
He likes this little world he’s built, where everything is still shitty enough to be Southside, but he has an apartment and a cat and a regular coffee order placed with a girl who knows what he does for a living. He likes this world he’s living in right now and he doesn’t want Fiona to shatter it, doesn’t want the whole Gallagher obligations of being so involved in each other’s lives it’s stifling to break all this he’s built.
Maybe that’s the thing he’s always been so scared of.
“Gonna need a hot chocolate for Mick when I go,” he says. “Shaun in?”
Tasha laughs. “He still not trust me to make it?”
Ian shrugs. “Tried lying to him once, he can tell the difference. Has to be Shaun!”
She just laughs again and tells him Shaun’s in the back and she’ll make sure he comes out to do it for him when he leaves.
It’s all comfortable and familiar and then it suddenly really isn’t because Ian’s paid for the drink and is turning back to his sister.
“You’re really doing good, Ian,” she says and even though he hates the surprised edge to her voice, he smiles.
“I know. Wouldn’t be here without Mickey though.”
He can’t stop himself from saying it. He wants her to understand that much.
“Ian– ”
“No, Fi,” he says. “Just admit you were wrong. About him, about us. That’s all I’ve wanted you to do, just admit that you didn’t know what was best for me.”
Because Mickey was what was best for him. Always had been.
“Ian…” she says slowly and her face is flushed like she’s embarrassed, but Ian knows he’s just put her on the spot. “I just don’t think you’ve considered all your options. I want you to be sure you’re not just settling.” She holds up her hand to cut off whatever he was going to say next. Honestly, Ian’s not sure what it would be, because there’s nothing but white noise in his head. “I’m not trying to pick a fight with you, Ian. I just want to hear you say it and then I’ll leave it alone.”
She probably wouldn’t, but he appreciated her trying.
He takes a deep breath, swirling the remains of his coffee around in the bottom of his mug. He can’t remember drinking much of it. The next sip he takes is almost cold, but he can’t taste much on his tongue. He’s too distracted for that.
He’s too focussed on Fiona, on this conversation.
“When you were with Jimmy or your husband, what was it that you felt?” he asks. He leans across the table slightly. He’s genuinely interested in this answer and he knows that whatever she’s about to say won’t be shocking to him.
“I loved them,” she says without hesitation. “Yeah it wasn’t good, or particularly long lasting in some cases, but I loved them.”
“What did you love?”
Her mouth opens and stays like that for a second. A small frown starts to crease in between her eyebrows and she huffs out a breath, defeated.
“I love the way Mickey smells,” Ian tells her. “In the morning, before I’ve even opened my eyes, without even needing to reach out and touch him, I know I’m just as in love with him as I’ve ever been, because of the way he smells. Morning breath, cigarettes and ball sweat is a fucking horrible combination, but on Mickey I love it. It’s the only thing I want to wake up to. Just him and that smell every day for the rest of my life.”
She’s looking at him like she hasn’t seen him before and he knows she doesn’t get it. Why would she? She hasn’t felt it yet.
She hasn’t felt what it means to love every part of someone, even the parts you want to rip out and shred because they aggravate you.
A husband and a handful of serious boyfriends later and Fiona still doesn’t know just what feeling she’s chasing. Maybe nobody does.
Maybe Ian just got lucky. Probably.
“This isn’t going to be magically fixed,” he warns her, because it can’t be. There’s too many bad words and too much time between them for that.
She nods, “I know.”
“We can do this though occasionally,” he says, motioning between them, at his empty cup. He feels like being the bigger person, which is ironic since Fiona’s always been the one monopolising the role model position.
“Coffee?”
He almost smiles. “No just… talking. Coffee, lunch, whatever.”
The look on her face is painful in a lot of ways. In a lot of ways though, it also feels like he’s reached some sort of retribution just seeing it.
His phone rings, cutting off the weird silence they have stretching between them.
He wants to go now the rest of his coffee is done. He’s not ashamed to say it’s running, but it’s not so much running from Fiona as it is running to Mickey. Running to Mickey and their apartment and the idea of being bundled up under blankets and cuddling his boyfriend close.
He’d rather be there over anything else, it isn’t personal.
Well… it’s not completely personal.
“Yeah?” he asks, not bothering to check the caller ID. Not enough people have his number for him to be concerned about avoiding anyone.
“Hey, brother,” Iggy says. “You good?”
It’s how Iggy always starts their conversations recently. Those same four words. It’s sort of comforting in a strange way Ian didn’t think he’d ever get to feel.
He and Iggy had formed a weird sort of friendship since Ian had gotten him the job at the gym. They eat lunch together sometimes, go out for drinks with Mickey and sometimes just the two of them. It’s easy, it’s family in the way that only the Milkovichs are capable of. A lot of swearing and jibes, but unwavering loyalty in the face of it.
“Yeah,” Ian says, wondering if it’s completely true and supposing for once, it is. “You?”
“I’m all good,” Iggy says. Someone’s yelling in the background and Ian can hear Iggy pull the phone away from his ear to yell back at them to shut the fuck up. It’s nothing new or surprising. “Just checking we’re still on for Thursday.”
“’Course,” Ian says. “You bringing him to the gym or am I picking him up?”
“Your shift ends at 2, yeah?”
Ian laughs lowly, “You been memorising my schedule, Ig?”
“Don’t flatter yourself, Princess,” he replies and Ian wonders if it’s possible to hear someone’s eyes roll in their skull. “I start at like half past, but I don’t mind goin’ in early. I’ll bring him to you.”
“Alright.”
“Cool,” Iggy says and he shouts at someone in the background again. “Gotta go. Thanks man.”
“Anytime, brother,” Ian says. The label almost feels natural now, after so long. It’s the closest thing to truth anyway.
Fiona’s looking at him curiously from across the table, but he doesn’t bother to answer the questions in her eyes. They’re not there yet.
“I’ve gotta go,” he says, even though it isn’t strictly true. He doesn’t work on Tuesdays.
She looks put out, especially when she makes a move as if to hug him and Ian just shakes his head. “I’ll see you around, Fi,” he says as she drains the rest of her cup.
He waves at Tasha and she nods, yelling for Shaun to get his ass out of the back room.
“I’m on my break!”
“It’s for Ian!”
“Tell him to hang on!”
“Get out here and tell him yourself. And while you’re here, make him a damn hot chocolate!”
Shaun does it, emerging grumbling from the back. He’s tying an apron around his waist and he just rolls his eyes at Ian when they make eye contact.
Ian laughs, checking his pockets for the right change.
“You really have got it all together, haven’t you?” Fiona asks, watching the whole exchange.
“Yeah, yeah I have,” he says and the words seems to take something out of her.
“Okay,” she says and ducks out with a small wave.
It feels like they’ve achieved something. Or at least smoothed the way for some new foundations to be built in this relationship. It’s a fresh start after they both razed the old relationship to the ground.
It’s something at the very least.
*****
He gets home to the apartment being stiflingly warm, their heating bill probably going through the roof. It doesn’t matter though, because Mickey’s there on the couch, swaddled in every blanket they have, just his head visible.
He’ll deny he’s getting ill, but the proof is all there. And even if it’ll suck in the next few days, Ian loves this bit.
“Hey,” he says when Mickey’s eyes turn to him.
He holds up the hot chocolate like a peace offering and from somewhere beneath the blankets two hands emerge, making grabbing motions towards him. Or at least towards the hot beverage.
“Shaun make it?” Mickey asks.
“Obviously.”
He nods, pleased, but looks even more so when Ian toes off his shoes and slides underneath the blankets. He has to fight to find Mickey somewhere in their midst, but once he does it’s so worth it.
“Are you naked under here?” he asks, eyebrows rising in surprise.
Mickey shakes his head, making a small pleased noise as he takes a sip of the drink clutched in his hands. He lifts his arms up a little higher and Ian can just about make out the cuffs of his hoodie. The old beige coloured one that’s his favourite.
“Everything else was itchy,” Mickey says by way of explanation.
Ian grins like a fool.
He slips his hands around Mickey, fingers scratching against the coarse hair on Mickey’s thighs and up under the edge of the hoodie to cup Mickey’s hip. It’s not sexual, this moment isn’t for that.
It’s worth so much more than that just to feel Mickey press them together. He hitches his legs up over Ian’s lap and Ian’s palms slides between his thighs, Mickey’s soft cock and balls resting against the back of his hand.
Mickey tucks his head underneath Ian’s chin, the sound of him slurping at his hot chocolate drowning out the drone of the television. Ian couldn’t even tell you what was playing, it doesn’t matter.
“It go okay?” Mickey asks eventually, words forming against the curve of Ian’s throat.
Ian hums. “Better than expected.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he says and presses a kiss to Mickey’s soft hair. “Prefer being here though.”
Mickey snorts and Ian knows that it won’t be five minutes before they’re asleep against one another, roasting to death in their little blanket cocoon. “Obviously,” he says and Ian laughs, rubbing his nose up behind Mickey’s ear.
He breathes in deep, for longer than is probably normal. It’s confirmed when Mickey makes an affronted noise and wriggles a little against him. “You sniffing me, Gallagher?” he asks.
Ian hums and pulls him in closer slides the hand not between Mickey’s thighs up the back of his hoodie slowly, counting his ribs. “I like the way you smell.”