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Mickey never watches the needle go in.
He’s not a bitch, but after eighteen months of this shit, a guy learns not to look when the equivalent of 7-11 ICEE straw is being shoved into his arm.
Well, it’s not that big but it may as well be.
The second needle goes in, just below the first, and that one burns a little less. All the scar tissue has built up a good, thick skin that gives the dialysis techs hell, but eases the spear and burn that sears up Mickey’s arm before the needles are taped down flat against his bicep.
“That was a clean one,” Ian says from his little roller stool in front of Mickey. “No blood fountain today.”
“Your bedside manner is fuckin’ aces, man. Saline me already.”
Ian huffs a laugh, his face lowered to the small side table of needles and medical tape and alcohol wipes. His white lab coat is neat and flawless this morning, not a drop of blood on him. Sometimes Mickey’s arm squirts, and after they get past the blood everywhere and get his arm properly sorted, they have a good fucking laugh about that one.
“Do you want to do this or should I?” Ian asks as he flicks off the lid of the saline syringe. He clears each needle settled into Mickey’s arm and Mickey tastes the saline up in his throat, on his tongue, plastic and cold.
“I’d probably do it faster myself, anyway. You’re fuckin’ slow, Gallagher. Sheila is like a wizard. Barely know she’s stuck me before she’s got me hooked up.”
“Well, we can’t all be Sheila and her magic hands,” Ian says, unmoved by a good year of Mickey’s token complaints.
“Maybe yours are just too big to be magic.”
Ian glances up at him, already smiling as he comically wiggles his ginger eyebrows.
“Maybe my hands are more magical elsewhere.”
“Yeah?” Mickey licks his bottom lip as he considers Ian’s hands cleaning up the paper and plastic scraps of dialysis. Distracting hands. “The circus?”
“Fuck off,” Ian says, laughing about it anyway. “You had a good weekend?”
“Was alright.” Mickey settles back into the deep, cushioned recliner and pulls the lever to lift his feet. He can only ever get so comfortable in one of these things, since they’re manufactured out of some kind of plasticky leather material for easy cleaning and disinfecting. “Was my brother’s birthday, so the entire weekend was a wreck.”
Ian shoots Mickey a look that he’s very familiar with. Serious Warning Ian.
“That way you weighed in so high today?”
Mickey waves him off with the arm not attached to two needles and tubes attached to a waiting machine.
“Let me live, man. Just suck all the poison outta me, already.”
With one final look, Ian rolls on his little circular stool, assessing the dialysis machine and adjusting the blood draw settings. He snaps a few satisfying loud buttons.
“You rely a worrying amount on dialysis to cure your hangovers. Tell me if this hurts.”
“What hangover?” Mickey smiles, all teeth, daring Ian to give him shit. They’ve known each other more than a year and have swapped enough southside stories that Mickey can pull up dirt on Ian in a heartbeat if he desires. “I’m still half drunk. Slept two fuckin’ hours.”
Ian sputters a laugh and rolls his eyes.
“Of course you did.”
“Maybe you need to party more, Gallagher.”
“Where would I find the time?” Ian rolls back up beside Mickey’s chair and reaches out to lean in and smile, his hand landing on Mickey’s leg as he whispers, “I’m up at three thirty in the morning every day to take care of your ungrateful ass.”
Mickey swallows hard. Ian has only recently started touching him like that. It’s not anything, but it’s not nothing. Ian doesn’t seem to actively realize he’s doing it, and if he does know, he’s not acting like it’s important, so Mickey can’t call attention to it either.
“Jokes on you, I’m only here three times a week. What you doin’ with those other mornings?”
Ian’s smile scrunches into a disarmingly sweet, distasteful expression as he pushes off Mickey’s leg and rolls back.
“Still here.”
Mickey smirks and shrugs.
“Sucks to be you.”
“I dunno.” Ian glances aside, to where Sheila’s back is to them, chattering away at another patient, then sneaks back to Mickey. “Maybe I like being your magic hands man.”
Mickey’s tongue tucks into the corner of his mouth as he shrugs and desperately attempts to keep it cool, unaffected.
“Ain’t mine, and as far as I can tell, those magic hands don’t work on me.”
Ian spreads his hands in an exaggerated shrug, his shoulders coming up to his ears.
“Like I said—wrong setting.”
“Ian!” Sheila calls. “Kermit is waiting on you.”
Ian offers Mickey an apologetic smile for no reason whatsoever, considering this is his damn job.
“Get some sleep, Mickey.”
Mickey gives him a thumbs up.
“Gonna wake up shiny, new, and sober.”
“You always wake up crabby and dehydrated, but okay.”
“Fuck off already, Gallagher!”
***
Mickey doesn’t really think about the fact that he’s dying. He’s got shit to do.
Yes, he pops his pills, morning and night. Yes, he limits his liquid intake, even if Ian gives him shit for going a little heavy on the booze during the weekend. He doesn’t lift heavy stuff with his left arm, which has endured half a dozen surgeries and is mangled with needle and incision scars. He lays off the salt and eats his tasteless fucking food like a good little eternal patient. He lets Ian and Sheila and the rest of the needle jockeys run him hard about his phosphorus and iron levels, red blood cell count, creatinine, all that bullshit, and barely pushes back against it.
Okay, so maybe Mickey thinks a lot about the fact that he’s dying. Or, more accurately, he thinks about the never ending climb of actively staying alive that other motherfuckers don’t have to consider. Shit’s like running up and a downward escalator. The minute he stops taking steps, his body shuts down. A week of not taking care of himself? A week of ditching dialysis? Mickey would be laid up in the hospital, hooked to a steady morphine drip as he died.
So maybe Mickey doesn’t walk around thinking about dying. But he thinks a lot about living. He thinks about living a lot more than he ever has in his entire life. Maybe kidney failure is the worst thing that ever happened to him. Maybe it’s the best.
Maybe Mickey has been hanging out with Ian Gallagher too much. Sunshiney motherfucker.
Mickey watches Ian print out blood work and staple the sheets together. Frowns at them. Marks circles in red pen. He scratches at a ginger eyebrow with the cap end of the pen, sitting on his stupid little spinny stool with one long leg outstretched, slightly pushing himself from side to side.
Mickey wonders whose information he’s looking at. Ian cares a ridiculous amount about each patient here and doesn’t hesitate to show it. Express it. Express himself. Mickey’s stomach ties to knots every time Ian speaks to him in unnecessarily soft tones about his faltering blood levels, like they don’t do this every week, like Ian is suddenly expecting Mickey’s body to take a turn for the better instead of slowly declining.
Mickey knows he doesn’t look sick. Sometimes people stare at his arm; the long, thick line of needle marks running up the center. Knows that people think he’s a junkie, or a former one. He knows he looks vital and healthy and strong, so maybe even to Ian, it’s a surprise to get his blood work back every Friday and face the fact that Mickey is dying.
Sometimes, in between the pills and restrictions, Mickey has a completely average day, and he forgets too. Forgets that he’s not like everyone else.
Those good days where he forgets are sometimes the worst days after he remembers.
“Is this about pancakes again,” Ian says, suddenly rolling directly in front of him and holding out a familiar sheet of numbers and decimals that wouldn’t make sense to anyone but a dialysis tech, nephrologist, and people like Mickey. A red circle ominously encompasses Mickey’s phosphorus levels.
He rolls his eyes and places a hand on the paper, letting it fall to his lap.
“Dude, we have had this conversation,” Mickey says. “You’re not taking banana pancakes away from me. I suffer enough.”
Ian’s eyes go large and vaguely murderous in a way that shouldn’t do it for Mickey like it does.
“Bananas,” Ian whispers like he’s speaking fucking Voldemort’s name. “Please, Mickey, you’re killing me. You can’t—”
“Technically I’m killing me. You’re helping with the not killing.”
Ian sputters a laugh and runs an exasperated hand over his face and up through his hair.
“You’re unbelievable,” he mumbles, rubbing at scrunched eyes with thumb and forefinger, like he can feel an oncoming headache. “Such an asshole.”
Ian drops his hand and earnestly looks into Mickey’s eyes. Mickey stares back because he doesn’t have much choice. He’s stuck to this chair with giant needles hanging out of his arm.
“I know this is tough for you,” Ian starts, and Mickey groans loudly, dropping his head back to the recliner. Several patients glance at him, then quickly away. They’re used to these arguments by now. “I know this is tough for you,” Ian restarts, because he is fucking relentless. “But you have to be on your own side, Mickey. I’m on it, too. And once you get a kidney, I’ll take you out for banana pancakes myself. Hell, you can come over and I’ll make them for you.”
Mickey’s eyebrows fly up, his gaze darting away as he feels his face betray him with the heat rushing to his cheeks.
“You ask all your patients out as incentive to eat better?” he asks, trying to keep it light. He doesn’t need to go down this route. Not one so impossible for someone like him. Someone with baggage like him.
“No,” Ian says, exceptionally quiet. A lot of patients around them are sleeping and he probably just realized they were making a minor scene, as they often do. “No, I don’t. But maybe I make some damn good pancakes and I wanna show off for you.”
That gets a laugh out of Mickey, relief rushing through his loosening shoulders as he rolls his eyes.
“Yeah, alright man, whatever. I’m sure you got plenty’a dudes to show off your breakfast skills to. You know it’s gonna be years before I reach the top of the list, anyway.”
Ian gives him a dark, quelling look, but he doesn’t argue. He can’t. They both know how it goes. Mickey’s blood type is B+. B positive. Be positive! Fucking hilarious shit right there, considering it’s one of the least common types for a kidney match. The list moves at a glacial pace, and Mickey isn’t going anywhere fast.
“You can’t be sure of that,” Ian says anyway, because he’s just. Like that. An unstoppable force to Mickey’s immovable object. Briefly, Ian pats Mickey’s knee and pushes off from his stool, rolling backward and away, almost comically. He grins and holds up two fingers to his eyes, then points them at Mickey. “Get some sleep.”
Mickey shows off a choice finger in reply, but can’t help laughing.
***
Sometimes dialysis is disastrous. Mickey eats too much salt-laden food that week or whatever. Dialysis is a process of sucking out every liter of blood in a person’s body, filtering out the toxins, and feeding it back in.
But sometimes it can suck out too much, can demand too much of a body. There’s no way for Mickey to express in words what it feels like to have the moisture and blood sucked straight from his muscles, from head to toe, causing his entire body to cramp and seize, his blood pressure rapidly plummeting, his body going ice cold as the pain wracks through his body like a thousand suction cups over his muscles, pulling them tight as his body thrashes against the pain.
No use in whining about it. Spend enough time in dialysis and you see it happen on a weekly basis to one patient or another. Some people go through the muscle seizures more than others because they don’t care to control their salt and water intake as much as others.
Mickey tries to care. He tries. But he has never been good at advocating for himself through the shitty life he has already lived, so it’s kind of hard to start now, when he’s already fucking dying.
“You good?” Ian asks as he slips the second needle from Mickey’s arm. The pull out always feels so fucking good, like an itch beneath the skin finally scratched. He immediately pressed a thick mass of folded gauze over the open wound and Mickey replaces his fingers, pressing hard, hard, down on both huge needle holes to staunch the flood of blood that threatens to burst through the gauze if too light a pressure is involved.
Mickey feels like shit. Sore from head to toe, a familiar headache brewing and boiling in his skull, nausea slick in his stomach, and a bone-deep ache of exhaustion weighing him down.
“Fine,” he says, staring vaguely ahead.
The thought of heading to work after this is actually sickening. He loves his job, too. Enjoys the autobody shop, making things whole again, working with his hands. Running the books and using his brain on top of it all. But he already knows that today is going to be a shitshow.
That’s just how it goes. No point in complaining.
“I’m fine,” Mickey says again when he realizes Ian’s still sitting there on his silly stool, assessing him with concern in those wide, moody green eyes. “Don’t you got other people to pull needles from, Gallagher? We’re on a schedule here.”
Ian’s pretty mouth twists; goes pale and thin as he presses his lips together. Nods briefly and spins on his stool to scoot toward another waiting patient.
Mickey just sits there, holding the blood in his body with two fingers pressed firmly to the thick mound of gauze over his arm. After five minutes, he pulls back the gauze by the corner to check, and when masses of blood flow forth to soak the cloth, he immediately presses it back with a sigh and slumps back in his chair, playing the waiting game.
Eventually, the blood dries and his wounds crust over enough that he can wave down Ian, who has just finished sticking a new patient and setting them up for their own four hours of quiet hell. Ian nods at him and doesn’t speak as he quickly uncovers Mick’s needle holes and covers them, tapes them properly. His expression is drawn and silent and Mick doesn’t like it at all.
“It’s not a big deal, man,” he says, unsure why he feels the need to comfort a guy who lives through this every single day. It’s not like Ian isn’t well-versed in the bullshit of blood filtering. “I’m good. I’ll be better this week. Only boring, tasteless food, okay? I’ll go full suburban white soccer mom.”
This gets a short huff of laughter from Ian. His lowered gaze flicks up, copper eyelashes framing the mottled greens and grays.
“Yeah, alright,” he relents. He pats Mickey’s knee like he tends to do, and his giant hand lingers, like it sometimes does too. Mickey tries not to read into it. Ian Gallagher is one of those guys who can’t seem to stop caring. Soft as hell. “Take care of yourself, Mick. Don’t make me come over there.”
“Over where?” Mickey asks, grinning despite the headache swelling behind his eyes.
“Wherever I need to go to keep you in line,” Ian says with a pointed look. “Don’t think I won’t.”
“Uh huh, okay, tough guy.” Mickey shifts forward in the recliner to get ready to go, but Ian doesn’t roll back, so they’re suddenly way too close, both of Mickey’s knees snug between Ian’s spread ones. Mickey doesn’t startle but he breathes in sharply when he realizes their faces are close.
“What?” Mickey asks softly. Other patients and techs filter and chat around them. Mickey and his crew are done with their early morning shift and the late morning round of people are arriving. Someone needs his seat. He’s got to go. He doesn’t move.
Ian's mouth opens and closes. He pushes back in his chair and offers a tight smile, shaking his head faintly. An old lady that Mickey vaguely recognizes pops in and greets Ian loudly enough to break whatever is going on between them, and then Ian is all smiles again as abruptly stands and leads her to her recliner.
Mickey quickly gathers his things, weighs himself and fills out the form on the way out, and evacuates the center. The idea of catching the L right now is as appealing as a shit sandwich, so instead he skulks down the sidewalk until he reaches a Golden Nugget and slips inside.
It’s nearly nine-thirty in the morning, but the place is twenty-four hours and the waitress doesn’t bat an eye when he orders one of their giant strawberry milkshakes. They serve them in the old school metal cups, unhooked right from the mixer machine, jam packed with real strawberries and the thickest, most luxurious ice cream.
Mickey texts his boss that he’ll be late to work due to dialysis issues and it’s not a lie. He leans his temple against the blessedly cool window, straw to his mouth, and mindlessly drinks as he watches the bystanders rush through their lives.
Some days, everything about living feels worse.
But he’s still around to enjoy ice cream and get flutters in his chest over a pair of pretty green eyes going soft at him, so it could be worse. Mickey still thinks living is a lot better than the other option.
***
“This is gonna take longer than a week, man.” Mickey is getting real fucking tired of this stand-off with a douchebag who won’t take no for an answer.
“I don’t have more than a fucking week,” the guy, Phillip, if the paperwork’s accurate, grits out. He’s agitated and taut in his stance, but he’s the same height as Mickey, and Mickey’s willing to throw down if pushed. “You want more money or what?”
“Hey, I didn’t crash the fuckin’ car. That’s all on you. Now you gotta wait. You ain’t the only customer in this garage.”
“Lip, come the fuck on , the parking meter’s running and I’ve got—Mickey!”
“Gallagher?”
“Hi! I didn’t know this was the shop you worked at. You’re so close to my family’s house.”
Mickey doesn’t say, mine too, but it’s instinct to still call that hellhole on Trumbull his house, even after all these years apart.
Anyway, he’s more distracted by Ian, who looks fucking edible despite wearing nothing fancier than jeans, boots, and tee with burgundy hoodie zipped up. No one is allowed to look that good without trying, nor are they allowed to smile at Mickey while looking that way.
“You look good,” Ian says, shoving in to lay a hand on the counter separating them.
Mickey doesn’t look good. He’s wearing his blue coveralls, stripped to the waist with the arms tied, and a greasy white tank top. A mask hangs off one of his ears where he’d paused a patch-up paint job to handle this Phillip guy’s problem.
Mickey glances at the paperwork on the counter instead of reacting to the comment.
“Phillip Gallagher,” he reads. His brows pointed high, Mickey picks up the sheet and gestures between the two men with the paper. “Brothers?”
“Unfortunately,” Ian says, but he’s smiling and his dopey-eyed brother only heaves a sigh and places his hands on his hips, waiting.
“Congratulations on whatever reunion this is, but we need to actually discuss my car. This is still a place of business instead of the Tunnel of Love or something, right? I didn’t miss anything? Or are we all going to take turns eye fucking each other?”
Ian punches Phillip in the arm with the lightning fast accuracy and brutal confidence of a sibling who has done it a hundred times.
“Sorry about him,” Ian says cheerfully. “It’s always like this. Lip, this is Mickey, one of my patients at the center. Mickey, this is Lip, my older brother.”
Mickey doesn’t greet this Lip guy but he nods. Lip doesn’t even bother. He just looks to Ian and grins.
“Wait, Mickey-Mickey? Ian—“
“You wanna handle your car now or what?” Mickey cuts in. He can read the fucking tone in this room and wants no part in what’s making Ian’s neck flare up and climb red to his cheeks. There are feelings he simply doesn’t have the capacity to feed hope.
While Ian slouches in a plastic chair and thumbs around on his phone, sneaking Mickey glances that Mickey only notices because he’s also peeking looks, Mickey goes through repair and payment with a pissy Lip Gallagher and prays this ends sooner than later. The entire vibe in here so fucking weird and Mickey is not about this life.
“I’ll see you tomorrow?” Ian says as he unfolds his giant body from the small chair and Lip heads to the door. His smile falters and he runs a freckled hand through his hair as he huffs a laugh. “I mean, I’ll see you tomorrow. Obviously. I just—yeah. It was cool to see you. In, like, real life.”
Mickey’s eyebrows slowly climb during Ian’s ramble, but his heart warms in his chest, radiating through him like a hug or something equally mushy and gross. He smirks and folds his arms across his chest to keep himself from teaching out.
“Yeah, was alright to see you in real life too. Have a good day, red.”
***
“No plans this weekend?” Ian says, hopping in on the conversation Mickey has been having with Sheila as she’d hooked him up. Ian is at the recliner beside Mickey, taping down the needles of a really young kid in his late teens who ended up decimating his kidneys with three energy drinks a day for years upon years. Some chemical in it apparently eats away at kidneys like nobody’s business. The more you know.
“Nah.” Mickey settles back in his seat, pulling on the handle to prop his legs up. The weeks have felt longer the colder and darker it gets. Snow is on the horizon for the weekend and Mickey is glad that no one is dragging him anywhere. “My ass ain’t puttin’ on pants all weekend for nothin’. The pizza guy is gonna have to deal with it.”
“I’m sure he’ll be thrilled,” Ian says, throwing one of those crooked grins at Mickey. He turns back to the teen and checks in with him, looks over the dialysis machine humming and chugging and sucking at blood through long, thick tubes, and rolls away from him to settle in front of Mickey.
“No date?” Ian asks as he inspects Mickey’s dialysis machine, even though Sheila has already done it.
Mickey eyes him for a moment and Ian definitively does not look at him, just stares at the numbers on the machine, then checks the blood pressure cuff on Mickey’s arm. His fingertips are soft, but his hands are rough with weight-lifting calluses Mickey noticed months and months ago.
“Nope,” Mickey says, keeping his voice low and as even as possible. “Don’t do that shit. Not while I’m like this, y’know. Too many questions. Too much baggage. Too many ways to make it weird.”
Mickey isn’t going to mention that one time he was jacking off so hard that his bicep flexed and moved the wrong way and it reopened the scabs of his dialysis needle holes. He’d bled all over the fuckin’ sheets like a stab victim. Like hell he’s letting any dude go to pound town on him while he’s one wrong move away from becoming a frantic scene in a Saw movie.
“What, like at all?” Ian asks, now directly gaping at Mickey. He looks perplexed in that sweet kind of himbo way he gets about him. It’s sometimes amazing how this guy is a qualified medical professional.
“Like, at all,” Mickey repeats, unable to hide his grin at Ian’s shock. “Not that hard to figure out, man. I ain’t even about that dating bull on a normal day, let alone now, when I’m like this. Gonna wait ‘til I got a kidney before I look ahead. Life has fucked me enough these days without adding some big dick to fuck me extra.”
Ian’s pale, freckled face fries hot pink in seconds, something Mickey has never once witnessed and is both confused by and entertained as hell with the reaction.
Mickey’s eyebrows jolt upward, a grin cracking through as he tries and fails to keep it sober.
“Ya good there, big guy?”
“Uh, yeah, yup.” Ian nods once, twice, then like, half a dozen times more as he turns on his stupid stool and rolls away. “No dates,” he mumbles, or at least Mickey thinks so, because the guy is already gone.
***
The day Lip Gallagher arrives to pick up his car, Mickey is at least prepared to see Ian outside of the center. Still, it’s surreal to watch Ian bustle through the doors, rustling both hands through his hair as the first snow of the season fluffs away from all that dampened copper. Ian pauses at the threshold and beams at Mickey, who is doing his best not to return the smile like an absolute lunatic. This is getting seriously ridiculous.
“Move it, dude, come on.” Lip shoves at Ian from behind, trapped between the open door, swirling snow, and Ian’s back. “Gonna punch you in the spine.”
“Alright, alright, fuck.” Face all screwed up in the true show of a petulant little brother, Ian throws a glare over his shoulder and marches into the small waiting area and up to counter. Instantly, he’s all smiles again. “Hey, Mickey. How’re you?”
“Fuckin’ cold.” Mickey says as he glances past Ian where Lip stands and swipes snow off his coat onto the floor with the melting gray slush they’ve dragged in. “You wanna come ‘round back and check out the finished result? Don’t want you blamin’ me for shit after you bring it home just for some bullshit refund.”
Mickey knows how southside scams work. Anything and everything for a refund.
“Yeah, alright.” Lip wanders over and not so subtly shoulders Ian aside. Mickey valiantly holds back his amusement as he soberly watches Ian scrunch his cute nose and elbow Lip sharply in the side before offering Mickey the most angelic smile known to man. The guy is a fucking piece of work and the more Mickey sees of him, the more he wants to know how all the pieces fit together to make Ian Gallagher.
“I’ll wait here,” Ian says, his smile pleasant but his eyes hard and dark and darting to Lip and back to Mickey. “I was thinking that after this, you and me could—”
“Sit down, Ian,” Lip cuts in as he shoves his way past a smoldering Ian and places both hands on the counter to face Mickey. “Show me the fuckin’ car so I can leave and never return.”
Mickey smirks.
“If it means I’ll never see your ugly mug again, gladly.”
Lip is surprisingly mellow about the reveal of his car. For someone who seriously fucked up their hood and then made a big song and dance about getting what he wanted, when he wanted, immediately, he was pretty chill when the time came to inspect the repairs.
“Looks good,” Lip says.
“Act like I was gonna half-ass it or some shit,” Mickey mutters.
“Nah.” Lip shrugs and pulls out a cigarette, then seemingly realize he was around hazardous chemicals and whatever, tucks the smoke behind his ear, poking out from his winter hat. “Looked you up ahead of time to make sure you were legit.”
“Gee, thanks. Let’s—”
“You know my brother’s into you, right.” Not a question, but a statement.
Mickey, who had turned around to head back to the waiting room, stops and shifts to meet a pale, stony gaze. Never has Mickey let himself think those exact words in his head, and hearing them out loud is doing something to his chest that’s both uncomfortable as it is invigorating. Like a defibrillator. An electric shock, jolting something back to life that’s been long dead.
“You his fuckin’ keeper?” Mickey smiles and it’s not kind. He hates this kind of shit. People speaking for others. Hates it when Mandy does it with good intentions. Hated it when Terry did it with the worst.
“Someone has to be.” Lip’s answer is strange and unnerving. Mickey doesn’t know what to make of it and isn’t interested in pursuing the conversation. Before he can turn away, though, Lip soldiers onward. “All I’m saying is he’s got a hero complex bigger than Superman and I don’t want him wasting his life thinking you’re his ideal damsel because it can fix you.”
“Fix me?” Mickey rounds on Lip in full now, stalking forward to jam into his space, teeth bared, face angling to shove into Lip’s impassive one. “Bitch, who the fuck d’you think you’re talkin’ to? Ain’t no fixin’ me, unless he’s got an extra kidney lyin’ around somewhere. I don’t know what the fuck you think you’re sayin’, but you’re sayin’ it to the wrong guy. You got a problem with Ian doin’ his fuckin’ job every day, then take it up with him. I’m living my life and you’re, what, running other peoples’ ‘cause yours is too fucked up to save?” Mickey barks a harsh laugh and shoves at Lips shoulder. “Please. Go fuck yourself, Phillip.”
Lip takes the shove, but doesn’t go far. His expression is now altogether different. Not even threatened, unfortunately, but more shocked, lax and loose.
“You don’t know,” Lip says. Again, not a question, but fact. “You don’t—he didn’t tell you yet. Christ, Ian.”
Tell him what? That Ian likes him? Surely Lip can’t be making such a song and dance about something so high school. Mickey just glares and feels like he’s missing something.
“Whatever,” Mickey snaps, turning back to the office. “Let’s get the fuckin’ score settled before I blacklist you from the shop forever.”
Ian looks up from his phone the moment the two of them stiffly enter the room. His smile drops like a stone, his deep green gaze darting between Mickey and Lip before settling and narrowing on Lip. His lips part to speak, but Mickey makes a show of rustling papers and loudly typing on the computer behind the counter.
“Debit, credit, cash,” he says, efficiently cutting off any more Gallagher bullshit that might threaten the peace of his precious place of work.
Afterward, Lip drags Ian out of the shop, but they stand in front of the glass-paned wall facing the street, so Mickey is forced to watch the entire scene play out as Lip appears to immediately begin busting Ian’s balls. Ian’s pale skin immediately fires up, and so does his demeanor, by the looks up it as the Gallagher brothers throw their arms around, wildly hand-gesturing like fucking Italians in the middle of the sidewalk.
Eventually, Lip practically throws his body aside in the world’s biggest shrug and stalks back to the shop, walks around the side of the building where his car is parked in the adjacent lot. Meanwhile, Ian stomps back inside with the bearing of a beautiful, wrathful god, and approaches Mickey, who is vaguely glad there’s a counter between them.
“You should go to lunch with me,” Ian says firmly, his voice hard and stubborn as he meets Mickey’s widening eyes. “When is your break? I’ll wait. I don’t care.”
“Uhhh.” Mickey looks around, trying to gauge his known reality versus this one. Food with a guy whose company he actually enjoys, like an actual friend, sounds too good to be true. “I can—I can probably head out any time, long as I’m back in forty-five minutes. Why you wanna go to lunch with me?”
For a moment, Ian just stares at him, a handful of seconds too long for the silence to be normal or comfortable.
“Because I’m hungry and you’re probably hungry too,” Ian finally says. It sounds reasonable. “And because I like real life you. Kinda gets tiring stabbing you until you bleed every time we see each other.”
Mickey surprises himself with his sudden laugh. Shaking his head, he places hands on his hips and leans back, glancing through the square window in the door that leads to the vast repair garage. Both of his main boys are working hard and won’t care if he disappears for a while. They’ll know it’s for lunch.
“Yeah, alright, tough guy.” Mickey ducks into the office just behind him and hollers, “Lemme just get outta this oily jumpsuit and into my coat, a’ight?”
“Really?” Ian says, sounding surprised, even though Mickey isn’t in the room to see him. “I mean, yes, great! Good. Cool.”
Mickey strips out of his coveralls and shrugs at his usual uniform of ragged jeans and a tank top. Throws a navy crewneck sweater over the lot, printed with the name of their autobody shop on the chest, and stuffs himself into his giant puffer coat.
“Let’s bounce,” he says as he reappears. “You got a specific place in mind? There’s a Mr Beefy’s around the corner with the cheapest hot dog combo deals around.”
“Anything, that’s fine.” Ian smiles as he holds the door open for Mickey, who scowls as he passes and eyes the door with unrestrained annoyance.
“You know I can hold my own door open, even with my shitty arm, right?”
“Your arm? I—oh.” Ian’s smile falters as they hunch their shoulders against the vicious wind and whipping snowfall. “I wasn’t actually thinking of—I mean, yeah. Sorry. How’re you today, anyway? No kidney talk. I mean your actual day.”
“Man, can we fuckin’ chit-chat when I’m indoors?” Mickey tucks his chin into his cut and squints his eyes against the snow. “I ain’t much for conversation during Armageddon.”
“I feel like Armageddon would be much hotter.”
“Don’t be fooled, man. Hell’s cold.”
Ian scoffs a laugh and bumps at Mickey, but doesn't step away, their arms pressed together despite the layers of winterwear keeping them technically apart.
“And you know this, how?”
“Your heat ever get cut during one of these winters?”
Ian is silent for a moment, his nose gone a bright, frozen pink as he stares straight ahead, maneuvering around pedestrians.
“Yeah,” he says quietly.
Mickey nods.
“Then you know.”
Mr Beefy’s absolutely bowls them over with savory heat. Mickey’s almost immediately sweating as he strips off his coat and holds it one arm, gazing up at the off-white, dirty menu boards and tacky red letters that spell out the specials. Ian is a tall, steady force beside him in line, his jaw sharp and his throat distracting as he too raises his face to read the high boards. Mickey forces himself to look away and concentrate on food.
They both end up ordering the double hot dog and fries special. Both of them get a full Chicago on their dogs, although Ian forgoes the sport peppers like a pussy and Mickey ribs him over it.
They settle into sticky booths with a sticky table, the cold, tinted window displaying a blue, busy street for their view.
But Mickey is looking at Ian. How can he not?
“So,” Mickey says with a full mouth as they both dive in to eat. “Your brother thinks you’re tryin’ t’fix me. Anything behind that?”
Ian nearly chokes, coughing hard as he works to chew and swallow, his eyes watering.
“What? No.” His eyes flick to Mickey, to the window, back, and away again. “What? No, I mean—he just sees shit all backwards. He—he just thinks I get too invested in. . .certain people.”
Suddenly, Ian is leaning in and looking at him, no holds barred, intense. His eyes are brighter, clearer in the harsh lighting of the restaurant, full of hazel flickers swimming in the deep water green.
“Mickey,” he says, voice low and assured. Mickey slowly chews and swallows, nodding, even when he doesn’t know what he’s agreeing to. Ian takes a breath. “I don’t think there’s anything about you that needs fixing. I don’t think you need to be fixed. You’re not broken. You’re you.
“Kidney failure is a thing that happened to you, but it’s not who you are. It’s a thing you manage. You put on your shoes every day, you take your pills, you do dialysis. They’re all things you do, not things you are.”
Mickey’s lungs search for air that has apparently evacuated the room. The periphery of the world seems to narrow in and tighten on this one person who is looking at him and seeing.
Seeing Mickey. Not the shit that’s wrong with him, but him.
“Where did that come from?” Mickey manages, once he remembers how to speak. His mouth is so fucking dry, he guzzles his pop like a man emerging from the desert.
Ian shrugs and leans back in the booth. Plucks a fry and chews, thinking.
“Me,” he says simply. His gaze falls to his food, then back to Mickey. He exhales. “I mean. I’m just, uh, used to people treating me like I’m someone that needs saving or whatever. I’ve got some, like, mental issues or whatever. Bipolar. It’s fine, it’s managed. I manage. It’s not me, just a thing that happens to me. But I hate—”
Ian licks his lips and seems to be thinking on his words, his gaze distant, lingering on Mickey but blurred. Then his attention snaps back to Mickey and he smiles. A little small, a little tight, and already Mickey misses the full breadth of his usual joy.
“I hate seeing people held back by their loved ones out of some perceived weakness. And I hate seeing people believe that about themselves—that they can’t surpass whatever it is that threatens to control their lives. Y’know?” Ian grins then, boyish and disarmingly sweet despite his handsome, deeply masculine self. “I mean, yeah, I got a little hero streak, but it’s not aimed at you, alright? I like you, Mickey. Doing this, seeing you during my week, getting to know you these past years. I like it. Doesn’t have anything to do with wanting to save you from anything.”
Mickey considers Ian for a moment. Absorbs everything he has said as best he can. And he can’t help but smile—doesn’t want to hold it back, not after everything Ian has shared with him.
“Man, you talk a lot,” Mickey says instead of absolutely everything he’s bursting to say instead. His heart is doing that jump start thing again, new life revving through his veins. Nothing to do with needles at all. “You’re alright to hang with too, Gallagher. Might let you do it more often.”
“Oooh, let me?” Ian leans in and obnoxiously chews on a fry as he grins. “I’m fucking honored, Mickey, truly. Feels like I’m moving up in life.”
“Yeah yeah.” Mickey picks up his loaded hot dog and bites, chewing even as his lips curve, unable to fully stop smiling even while he eats. He meets Ian’s eyes over the table and yeah, a kick start right to the heart, the motherfucker. “Eat your food, asshole. I got places to be and I can’t listen to your TED talk all fuckin’ afternoon.”
Ian’s rolling, dorky laugh is one of the best things Mickey has heard in a lifetime.
***
The cold is a bitch when you spend three days a week, four hours a pop, having the blood drained out of your body and put back in. Hard to keep warm and shit.
Mickey shoves into the entryway of the dialysis center and stomps the snow from his boots. Pushes through the inner glass door and sighs when warmth washes over him through the puffy layers of his coat and clothes. The vast, sterilized room of cushy recliners and humming machinery is still and soothing in a way Mickey feels like is something Stockholm Syndrome adjacent, but whatever.
“Good morning, Mickey,” Sheila greets him from her own little rolling stool, where she’s sat before a big old guy who always yells too early in the morning and complains he needs to pee halfway through dialysis, every single time.
“‘ey,” Mickey says quietly, hesitant to break the drowsy, early morning mood in the center. He shrugs out of his coat and looks around. “Where m’I sittin’?”
“I’ve got you today,” Ian’s voice comes from behind and Mickey nearly jumps out of his skin.
“Motherfucker.” Mickey feels his face burn as he retreats a step back, because Ian is absolutely way too close this early in the morning, when Mickey is soft and weak and without the armor of caffeine and anxiety to punch him up. “Too early for this shit.”
Ian, the absolute asshole, just smiles at him and takes Mickey’s coat from him, his large, hot hands briefly moving over Mickey’s cold ones.
“I’ll put these in your chair. You sign in.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Mickey steps on the back of one heavy boot to tug his foot out and then the other, errantly kicking them aside as he goes to the scale to pre-weigh himself. He signs in and takes a piss and when he returns, Ian is already waiting. He looks unreasonably bright eyed and bushy tailed for this morning. So does Sheila, though. There’s something in the fucking water here with the techs.
“What’s got you so damn happy,” Mickey says as he flops back in the recliner. He shifts a little to get comfortable, which is harder because he’s wearing a puffer vest over his henley and t-shirt combo and he feels vaguely like a walking marshmallow.
“Got some good news yesterday,” Ian replies as he strips the thick dialysis needles from their plastic and paper wrappers. His hands are gloved, his fingers so long they stretch the material thin at the fingertips. Mickey pointedly does not think thoughts about this.
“Oh yeah?” Mickey eyes Ian, trying to gauge the level of giddiness he realizes is vibrating off Ian’s demeanor. He doesn’t know how far to press. How much is too much, too obvious.
Ian just beams at him and glances away, then back and away, like he’s fucking seventeen and has a secret he’s bursting to tell. Mickey’s brows shoot up, but he glances down instead of speaking; concentrates on neatly rolling his sleeve up and up to reveal the bruised and raw stick marks riddling his bicep.
Mickey barely notices the needle sticks, the saline shooting into his throat. He’s too intent on Ian’s demeanor, the pleased curve of his mouth and the distracting cupid’s bow of his top lip. The sunset gleam of his hair against the harsh fluorescent lights, the amber freckles on his eyelids as he keeps his gaze lowered to his work.
Mickey does, however, notice the way Ian’s touch lingers on Mickey’s arm. Almost two years ago now, he’d begun to notice the way Ian’s attention remains longer than any other tech. The way he’d started to settle between Mickey’s open thighs when pulling him off the machine. The way he’d do rounds of the room, checking in with each patient around the two hour mark, friendly but brief. And the way he’d stick with Mickey the longest, every damn time.
Mickey isn’t fucking stupid, but he also doesn’t get it. Doesn’t get what’s in it for Ian. The guy must have dudes tripping over themselves for his attention. Ian could probably walk into a room and simply point and beckon to have any man, gay or otherwise, head over heels.
So why even waste his energy on someone like Mickey? They’re not close, but they’re not not friendly. They know each other. Know each other’s business. Kind of hard to avoid after two years, three days a week, trapped in a chair with nothing to do but watch television, sleep, or talk.
But Ian should know. He should know better than anyone. Mickey is fucked up, in and out. Dying, for fuck’s sake. Full of holes, drained. No further explanation needed.
Still, Mickey can’t help but lean into it. All of it. Lean into Ian, who patches up the holes and doesn’t leave him feeling drained at all.
Maybe all of this dying shit is making Mickey weaker than he ever imagined, because he never pushes Ian’s touch away. Not once.
“So, you gonna share with the class or what?” Mickey finally relents to badgering Ian. “Ain’t seen you so happy since your brother had a kid.”
“I—” Ian frowns sharply and glances over his shoulder as Sheila calls for him across the room. His next patient has arrived. “Shit.” Ian offers Mickey an apologetic smile and squeezes his knee once. He never touches anyone else’s leg, ever. “I’ll tell you later. Promise. It’s good news, okay? The best news.”
“The fuck—” Mickey watches Ian roll away like an idiot, all smiles for his patient as he gestures toward an empty recliner. Ian must feel him staring, because he shoots Mickey a quick, boyish smile that has Mickey’s chest fluttering, and turns back to work.
What the hell has Ian in such a good mood? The way he keeps sneaking glances at Mickey through the first half of the morning as Mickey itching under the skin, restless, or maybe sharing in Ian’s mysterious giddiness for no other reason than it’s unreasonably nice to see Ian happy.
With his free hand, Mickey pulls a fleece blanket out of the shopping bag he brought with, and lays it over himself, falling asleep beneath its warmth before he can even turn on the chair’s installed television. When he wakes, the four hours have flown and Mickey feels both rested but physically drained; always the work kind of combination.
Ian is already at his side, and it must have been Ian’s hand on his ankle above the blankets that woke him, because when Mickey cracks his eyes open, Ian’s watching him with a muted, still expression that is so very serious compared to his smiley self from behind. When Mickey wordlessly raises his eyebrows in question, Ian melts into a slow, small smile.
“Your eyebrows wake up before you,” Ian says quietly.
Mickey scowls on automatic and rubs the grit out of his eyes with one hand.
“The fuck’s that mean?”
“Nothing. I’m gonna take you off and then we can talk.”
“Talk?” Okay, now Mickey can’t begin to imagine what Ian is thinking. As he’s about to pose a question, his phone buzzes with a call on the small side table attached to the chair.
Frowning, Mickey sees it’s his Rush University Hospital. His transplant hospital.
“Gotta get this,” Mickey says as he obediently holds his arm to the side for Ian to deal with. “Yeah, this is Mickey.”
“Good morning, Mickey,” sounds a familiar voice on the line. “This is Katie, your care coordinator. Do you have a moment?”
“Sure, I’m listening.”
“I just wanted to reach out and congratulate you on the blood match with your voluntary donor. Mr Gallagher’s blood was completely compatible with your own and he passed the psychiatric and wellness assessment, so all we need to do is schedule your transplant surgery.”
The bottom Mickey’s gut plunges, tearing a gasp out. His lungs punch hollow and painful, a solid shockwave wracking through him as he grips the phone hard and gawks into nothing.
“Mickey?” Katie says over the phone. “Are you there? Are you busy right now? You can always call back if you’re not—”
“I’ll call you back,” Mickey says, already hanging up.
Reeling and dizzy with it, Mickey numbly glances over, distantly watches as Ian’s large, freckled hands deftly work with the first needle out.
“Hold,” Ian says in that soothing, easy way of his. Mickey dully complies, pressing down on the gauze, holding his blood in his body as Ian slides out the needle, satisfying that under the skin itch. “Hold,” he repeats gently, his own two fingers keeping the mound of gauze in place until Mickey vaguely recalls to bring all four fingers forward to clot the blood down. “Good.”
Something slowly, insidiously rises in Mickey as he stares at Ian’s ignorantly relaxed profile, intent on going about his business. At first, Mickey doesn’t recognize the nauseous, burning creep that burns through his veins and stains his cheeks with hot, rushing blood. Mickey’s back teeth grind as Ian throws away his his trash and turns to Mickey—
Ian’s eyes go large and frantic almost instantly, his gaze traveling Mickey’s arm, his body, and back to his face, assessing, searching.
“Mickey?” Ian asks, leaning in, all cloying concern that makes Mickey automatically recoil back into his seat. Blinking at Mickey’s reaction, Ian startles back a little, but his hand reaches out. “Mickey, what’s wrong? What’s wrong? Are you okay? You—”
“That was the hospital,” Mickey rasps out, distantly shocked at how hoarse and raw he sounds. “Congratulating me on my fucking blood match with you, Ian. I assume Mr Gallagher is you, right? Unless your shitty fuckin’ brother decided to play at Superman for a day. Because that’s what you’re doing right now, isn’t it? Just like your brother told me you would and you promised you wouldn’t.”
Ian’s gaze grows more panicked as Mickey rants, working himself up until he realizes his arm hurts for how hard he’s pushing into his skin. The gauze around his fingers is blooming red.
“Fuck,” Mickey snaps, holding out his arm. “Replace this shit. Gonna bleed all over the goddamn floor.”
“Mickey,” Ian rasps out, looking around as several nearby patients eye them while Sheila casts them a concerned frown, but continues to lead an elderly woman to her seat. Ian’s fingers tremble on the gauze packets as he rips them open and stacks them, his voice low and shaky as he quickly swaps the soaked, bloodied squares with the fresh ones. “Mick, no, it’s not—it was never like that. I wanted—I wanted to—”
“Save me?” Their faces are close with Ian bent to help at his arm. Their gazes snap and lock, narrowed and wet to wide and wavering. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Ian? I’m on a list. I’m on dialysis. I’m not fuckin’ dead. I’m not going anywhere. The fuck was your plan, sneakin’ behind my back with this shit? You want me to owe you something? You want—”
“What?” Ian’s hand finds Mickey’s wrist and holds tight. His palms are hot and sweaty and his grip unrelenting as their eyes continue to clash and hold, neither of them the first to give up. “No! No. Shit. I wanted—I wanted to see if I was a match and then ask you if I could. I’m O+, so I knew we had a good chance of being compatible, but I didn’t want to get your hopes up—”
“Why are you doing this?” Mickey demands, his voice rising. He doesn’t give a fuck who hears. His face is so close to Ian’s and the world is swelling and thundering around him and in his ears like a racing, rising heartbeat. “I don’t trust a guy to spot me five bucks without an motive, so you—”
“A date,” Ian breathes out, his entire face blooming in a bright blush that goes right up to his bright green eyes. “I—fuck, this isn’t how I wanted it to go. You—you said you wouldn’t date again until you were—you were better. So you’re gonna get better, Mick. And yeah, maybe I do fuckin’ want something from you. A date. But not if you think you owe it to me. Just because you're free to.”
For the second time in a few short minutes, Mickey’s mind blanks out and his stomach dips. But this time it’s different. Heat rushes to his cheeks, his lips working around a reply he can’t craft, his heart jump-starting again, surging life through him at a terrifying, rampant rate.
“What?” Mickey croaks.
Ian’s grip on Mickey’s wrist loosens. The pad of his thumb whispering over Mickey’s racing pulse point. A small, hesitant smile curves just the corners of his pink lips.
“Mickey,” Ian says in that way he rarely does, but only when no one is listening. Now, Mickey is fairly certain that everyone is listening, and Ian doesn’t seem to care. “Mickey, it’s not about saving you. It’s about giving you the life you deserve, whether I’m in or not. I’m just asking for one date afterward. One. You can stomp my ass to the curb afterward, if you want.”
A laughs sputters out, shocking Mickey before he can even gather himself to hold it in.
“What the fuck?” Mickey manages, his voice thick and wet. “What the fuck? You’re so goddamn stupid. Holy shit. A date? You—”
“Boys.” Sheila’s voice has them jumping and pulling back from each other. They look up and Sheila looms over them, arms folded across her immaculately white lab coat. “As sweet as this all is and as much as I believe in the overall mental health surrounding self-expression and grand gestures of love, this is not the place. Ian, you have patients waiting. Mickey, you’re loud.”
She steps away and, as if she had never been, Ian looks to Mickey with large, pleading eyes.
“Mickey—”
“Can you tape these bitches down or what?” Mickey asks, gesturing to his arm.
“Oh.” Ian’s expression tightens and cools as he shifts away to grab the surgical tape and rip off long strips to fix tightly over the gauze.
“And when you’re done,” Mickey murmurs, keeping quiet now that he knows better, “you’re gonna take me ‘round to your little back rooms so I can kiss the fuck outta you before I go.”
Ian looks up sharply and nearly blinds Mickey with his smile.
“Really?” he asks, breathless. If he had a tail, it would be wagging. “Does that mean—”
“Yeah, red.” Mickey’s already reaching out, unable to help himself as the relief and the joy flow through him so freely. His hand wraps around the nape of Ian’s neck to pull him in. “Means we both get what we want, and what we want for each other, I guess. Hope you know what you’re gettin’ into.”
Ian’s forehead knocks against Mickey’s and rests there, solid, real. Dependable, even when he was enacting absolutely ludicrous plans to get near Mickey.
“You know,” Mickey says as they separate enough to look into each other’s eyes. “You could have just asked to get inside me, Gallagher. Didn’t have to go the surgical route.”
“Oh, fuck you, Milkovich.”
But Ian’s laughing again, and Mickey thinks this may just be okay.
***
Mickey rips into consciousness through the pure hell of pain.
He’s almost positive he cries, and he’s definitely sure he begs like a little bitch for relief from the raw, red evisceration ripping through his guts. His whole body wracks with sharp, jagged misery, his hands fisting the sheets as a machine shrieks at his side.
There’s a voice, unintelligible to him, an encompassing static in his periphery, and yeah, he’s fucking crying—
And then the clouds converge overhead, thick and muffled and white, white.
Day one dips in and out like that. Agony shooting violently into newer, sharper pain, and the cloud cover that cushions the blows. Black, red, white, repeat.
Day two, Mickey resurfaces, and Ian is lounging in the chair beside him, his feet propped up on a second chair as he flips through a Men’s Health magazine. The curtains of the cramped room are flung open, casting beams of light across the floor and Mickey’s blanketed feet. Ian is exceptionally pale, freckles stark across his face, the moody green of his puffy, sleep-sunken eyes shining too dark against his pallid features. He’s dressed in loose, bland gray sweats that still make him look vaguely like a model. Asshole.
Ian looks up, his ginger eyebrows rising as he grins.
“Asshole?” he says, cocking his head as he abandons the magazine on a side table. “That’s the first thing you say to me after I save your life?”
Mickey rolls his eyes and finds that’s about the only part of him that doesn’t hurt. Shit doesn’t make sense. His entire body shouldn’t feel like some pulsing open wound when it’s only his gut they sliced and diced.
Realizing he hasn’t answered and has been only floating through the thick fog of pain relief, Mickey offers a faint, tired curve of lips.
“You alright?” he manages to ask. “Ain’t in a fuckin’ dress like me.”
“It’s a hospital gown, Mickey, not the next episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race.” Ian’s still smiling, his gaze appraising Mickey with an overt warmth and affection that Mickey can barely comprehend, with or without the drugs. “I got released this morning. I told you it wouldn’t be bad for me. I’m still gonna be off work for the next three weeks, but I figure I can bug your ass while you’re too weak to fight me off during that time.”
“Like hell you’re taking care of me.” Mickey intends to sound more harsh than he does, but everything feels underwater and distant, slowly drifting down, and Ian is the light sparkling across the rippling water above him. “Mandy’s gonna help.”
“Ian is also gonna help,” Ian says, the stubborn shit. “You won’t be able to kick me out because you’re laid up as hell and I plan on taking advantage of that.”
Ian’s big, sneakered feet drop to the floor and Mickey catches Ian’s wince as he has to sit up straighter. Before Mickey can muddle out his concern, Ian’s big, familiar hand squeezes Mickey’s knee through the blanket and rests over Mickey’s smaller hand. Mickey looks down and vaguely marvels how his entire hand simply disappears beneath Ian’s.
“Like your hands,” Mickey mumbles, turning his palm up without thought. He’s tired. Hungry. Doesn’t need to piss, though. Probably still got that fucking tube in his poor dick.
Ian’s laugh fills the room and Mickey looks up in wonder at the sight and sound. He’s high as fuck as Ian’s laugh and smile are like witnessing some kind of astonishing, life-altering altering event. Big Bang kind of shit.
“Yeah, your poor dick,” Ian says, his shoulders still shaking with the tail end of humor. He squeezes Mickey’s hand and Mickey hums and lets his eyes fall shut over a feeling that isn’t pain. “Don’t worry, they’re pulling it out today. They want you to stand and walk down the hall already. I told them to fuck off and die on your behalf, but that head nurse is scary as hell and I don’t want her to make me leave.”
“Walk?” Mickey feels his face scrunch as he tries to wrap his mind around this bullshit. “Like fuck. They cut me open! Yesterday!”
“They need to make sure your blood is flowing everywhere it should be.” Ian pauses, then: “And they’re short on rooms. Kicking you out at the end of day three.”
“I’m gonna smash some fuckin’ skulls on day three is what’s gonna happen,” Mickey slurs. He’s mildly conscious of how drunk he sounds. A familiar cloud cover is casting over him; soft, white, sleep. Ian.
***
“Just for the record,” Mickey says, drugged to the gills and supported by three fluffy pillows in every direction as he lounges, motionless, on the recliner in his living room, “I hate everything about this.”
“You love this,” Ian replies, laid out on the couch in purple plaid pajama pants and an ICP shirt he found in Mickey’s drawers. “You’re just pissy because it’s my turn to choose the show and I want to watch HGTV.”
“I hate House Hunters!” Mickey flails a hand vehemently toward the television. “They suck, Ian! This is boring! All these dumb fuckin’ WASP bitches and their pansy-ass rich husbands who probably fuckin’ breastfeed from their mom, all hemming and hawing over the goddamn en suite tiles! Ain’t ever made an important decision in their lives and now they’re gonna own property? Fuck me.”
Ian has tilted his head back to better watch Mickey rant himself ragged. Mickey licks his lips and flops back into the pillowy haven of his seat and aims a narrow, unblinking stare back at Ian.
“I think you need a snack,” Ian says, and there’s that smile. Obnoxious as hell. Too handsome. Even worse—too unattainable. Like, literally. Ian is so far away and Mickey’s body is this giant throbbing wound, plastered together with liquid stitches that itch and burn, the skin swollen, angry, and bruised black beneath.
The thing Mickey actually hates about all this, is how he can only look, knowing that Ian wants him, that he did this for him, but he can’t touch.
It’s been seven days since Mandy drove them both to Mickey’s apartment and the lot of them cursed the fact that Mickey lived on the third floor. By the time they reached the top on that first day, Mickey was using the wall for balance as he waited out the searing lighting that tore through his core with every final step toward his door. Ian hadn’t even been able to help because, like the optimistic little liar he was, he was obviously winded as hell, pale, and broken out in a sweat from the climb.
Thank fuck for Mandy. Even a week in, with Ian insisting he is more than well enough to drive, shop, and carry groceries back upstairs, Mandy is the one hauling the food and survival supplies into the apartment when they need it.
She’s also the one who drives Mickey back to Rush University Hospital every single day, because no one fucking tells a guy that after a kidney transplant, you gotta go back every single day for two weeks. After that, it’s two weeks of every other day. Then tapers to every week, every two weeks, every month. Mickey’s going to be a goddamn regular at Rush for the next two years before they even consider letting him stretch out his check ups to quarterly or, hopefully, biannually.
Shit sucks, but at least Mickey’s alive. He’s not complaining that much. Kind of.
“Here.” Ian places a bowl on Mickey’s blanketed lap where several ice packs hide beneath, soothing the tender, deeply abused incision on his lower right pelvis. Mickey frowns down at the bowl of chopped strawberries, bananas, and raspberries. He opens his mouth, but Ian cuts in with, “You can have a baby Snickers after you eat that.”
Then, he leans down to press one, two, three kisses to Mickey’s head, temple, and ear, before he settles back on the couch. Mickey watches in a mellowed, drugged state of wonder as Ian settles back against the sofa and props his feet up on the cluttered coffee table.
“Don’t call ‘em baby Snickers.” Mickey says as he stabs at several pieces of fruit at once and shoves them in his mouth. “I ain’t a baby.”
Ian merely replies with that weird, small, enigmatic smile Mickey is learning to hate, because it always means he’s thinking something that he doesn’t plan on sharing. Mickey just knows it’s something about him, but he never pushes because he also knows it’s probably something horrifically adoring that will give him hives to hear out loud. Ian already made the mistake early in their forced cohabitation by being excessively sweet and doting on Mickey before he hurled a full water bottle at Ian from across the room.
“What if we watch Too Hot To Handle?” Ian asks, scrolling through Netflix and bringing Mickey back from his fruit and drug induced haze. “That’s the one where a bunch of hot, slutty people get paid thousands of dollars and all they have to do is not kiss, mess around, or fuck. I never got to watch when it came out, but I heard it’s a disaster.”
Mickey is interested because the preview flashes across the screen with hot guys. None of them are as hot as Ian, though. Wonderbread, beige motherfuckers with glaring, white smiles. Some good abs, though. Tiny bathing suits.
“Yeah, alright,” Mickey agrees as he shoves banana into his mouth.
They watch several episodes back to back, the both of them losing their shit every five minutes, laughing enough that Mickey is genuinely in fucking pain and has to deep breathe through the laughter instead. They critique hot guys and crumple a little at all the titties bouncing around, and as much as Mickey wants Ian to fuck him within an inch of his brand new life, he hasn’t realized how much of this he has been missing in his life. Just this.
“Think you’d make it to the end?” Ian asks, flashing Mickey a grin. His hair is a fireball riot of curls that Mickey never really realized he had, always brushed out and tamed back. He’s wearing an ugly-ass shirt with murder clowns all over it and a whiskey gold haze of stubble is growing from his slightly crooked jaw.
He’s more imperfect than Mickey has ever seen in the two years they’ve known each other, and Mickey wants him so fucking badly. In every way he can get him.
“Depends,” Mickey says. He shrugs and glances back to the screen where these idiots are sharing beds and whispering at each other like they aren’t doing some kind of shit beneath those blankets.
“On what?” Ian looks at him with that curious puppy head tilt.
“Are you there too?” Mickey murmurs, low and hesitant. He glances away, but not before he catches Ian’s face light up. Might be the first time Mickey has flirted with Ian in earnest since they met. His heart is beating too hard for his own good.
“Mickey,” Ian says quietly, reverent. Mickey feels his cheeks heat and looks down to his bowl; blindly stabs at too much fruit and stuffs it in his mouth as he grunts in acknowledgment. “Swallow that,” Ian says, abruptly standing and heading over with a glint in his eye. “I need to kiss you like yesterday.”
“You did kiss me yesterday,” Mickey mumbles around his food. But he’s chewing and swallowing quickly now, because Ian is already nipping the bowl from his hands and setting it aside. Looming in, large hands on either arm rest as Ian cages in Mickey with a slow, growing smile that burns slow, sticky, molten in Mickey’s gut.
Mickey knows he looks an exhausted mess. He can manage a shower now without having to sit down halfway through, and he sleeps like the dead thanks to the drugs, and to Ian in bed beside him while Mickey is propped up against the headboard, surrounded by a moat of pillows. But he still had life-altering surgery and looks like he’s run the gamut.
Still, he feels hot as fuck when Ian looks at him like that. Looks at him like he’s worth waiting for, worth caring for, worth giving up a piece of himself for.
“You have no idea how fucking much I can’t wait to have you,” Ian murmurs as he leans in and fits his lips to Mickey’s. Licks at Mickey’s bottom lip and thrusts inside Mickey’s mouth at the smallest hint of a gasp. Starts slow and searching, confident and controlling of the kiss, before Mickey fists his hand in Ian’s collar and drags him in further. Sucks at Ian’s tongue and savors the low, deep sound Ian utters at the back of his throat.
Ian sighs against Mickey’s mouth and it’s so surprisingly sweet that Mickey pulls back enough to gaze up at him, awed and dizzy that he’d ever find a person who would be soft for him. Never expected or thought he wanted it. But here they were anyway.
“I’m a hot fuckin’ mess,” Mickey says, instead of any of the options that threaten his heart.
Ian hums in some essence of muted agreement, his lips curved as they meet Mickey’s in several simple, lingering kisses.
“Same,” Ian murmurs against Mickey’s mouth. “But I kinda think you like me anyway.”
Mickey scoffs, but smooths his palm over the wrinkled front of Ian’s shirt and slides his hand up to cup the back of Ian’s neck. Kisses up Ian’s jaw, presses their stubbly cheeks together, and just breathes.
The harsh, blaring buzz of the call button beside the front door has them both jolting back and lightly laughing.
“That’ll be your daily Rush ride,” Ian says, sounding a little hoarse.
Ian rubs the back of his neck and turns toward the door to buzz Mandy up, and as Mickey looks after him, he relishes the fact that Ian’s nape is bright red. As if they haven’t been sneaking kisses and whispering promises for what’s to come since Mickey has been conscious enough to do so.
“‘ey,” Mickey calls out for Ian’s attention, rushing to get it all out before Mandy makes it upstairs. “Me too. Want you too. Soon as I fuckin’ can.”
Ian’s deep forest eyes heat and intensify on Mickey, so dark against his pallor and disarming freckles. He looks like he’s going to say something, his lips silently shifting, and then the expression washes away to a crooked, easy grin.
“We’ll keep taking it slow. Can’t have you popping a stitch, can we?”
“Bitch, they’re liquid stitches! If anything, you’ll be balls deep and my entire damn kidney will just bust right out like Alien.”
It’s on that sentence when Mandy storms into the apartment without knocking, her slim arms laden with plastic Jewel bags. Her entire face collapses in disgust.
“Ew, what the actual fuck did I just walk in on? Shit, remind a girl not to enter her own brother’s apartment unless she wants to be scarred for fuckin’ life.”
“Uh, in case you didn’t notice, he’s not actually railing the kidney out of me right now, so you can calm your tiny fuckin’ tits.”
“You support this kind of talk?” Mandy asks Ian as the two of them crowd the cramped kitchenette and put away groceries in tandem. Ian has already gone off any kind of general pain medication, but his small wince as he bends toward the open fridge is not lost on Mickey.
“In what world do you think I have control over his mouth?” Ian asks, sounding altogether too happy about Mickey’s unhinged conversational skills.
Mickey is actually proud that, despite the drugs, he manages not to blurt out Ian can have control over his mouth any day.
Mandy shoots Ian a look like she knows too much and punches him in the arm. He laughs and shoves at her lightly, and Mickey realizes that he hasn’t felt so alive as being laid up, surrounded by pillows, watching his two favorite people horse around in his kitchen.
***
“Is it weird that I’m nervous?” Ian asks as he sets down plates of banana pancakes littered with bright blueberries at his round kitchen table. A mountain of bacon on a single plate sits between them, a carton of the fancy kind of orange juice, and plenty of coffee on hand.
“Nah.” Mickey grabs the syrup—also a fancy kind, in a glass bottle and everything—and proceeds to unceremoniously dump it over his food. Ian settles in across from him and smiles in obvious affection as Mickey drowns his plate. “All this shit’s backwards anyway. Why not go on our first date after we lived together for like six weeks?”
Ian laughs, but it’s still a little tight, like he actually cares about them fully dressing to eat breakfast for dinner after Mickey got off work and lugged his ass over here for the weekend. Mickey is tentatively back at the shop, but only to work the books, take payments, and work the counter. He’s not thrilled about it, but the old boys there won’t let him overdo it, and that in itself is kind of a nice gesture.
“I mean, you do owe me,” Ian says, smiling as he chews.
“Don’t owe you shit,” Mickey says, not believing that at all, even when he knows Ian is joking. Ian hasn’t forced him to do a goddamn thing. It’s almost getting on his nerves how careful Ian has been with him.
“Well, you promised to date me and I promised you pancakes one day.”
Mickey points his fork at Ian and, with his free hand, crunches on salty, crisp bacon.
“And I keep my promises.”
Ian snorts puts down his own fork in favor of folding his arms upon the table and leaning in to watch Mickey. He does that a lot. Mickey’s not really sure he’s used to it yet, or if he’ll ever be used to it. Being admired like he’s something important.
“You sound straight out of Goodfellas.”
Mickey’s flicks him off, still chewing.
“That better not be a Joe fuckin’ Pesci reference.”
“Awww.” Ian places a hand on Mickey’s arm, his expression exaggerated and mournful. “Been burned before, huh?”
“Man, fuck you.”
“Nah, you’re all Ray Liotta.” Ian looks Mickey up and down, like him sitting there eating bacon is the hottest thing he’s ever seen. Freak. “Those eyes and that swagger, y’know.”
“Man, I’d run shit better than those bozos.” Mickey cuts more pancakes and yeah, they’re fucking delicious. Ian knows how to cook. Mickey waves his fork around, syrup dripping on the table. “Practically woulda if I’d stuck around the Milkoviches like my pops had planned.”
“I could see it.” Ian casts a dreamy gaze at Mickey and okay, this is getting embarrassing. Mickey is actually embarrassed for Ian. “I’d have been so hot for you back then. It’s probably a good thing you were in juvie all that time.”
“Gee, thanks, ya fuck.”
They both grin at each other like idiots and keep eating. Mickey complains about his day and Ian talks about getting bled on, which is unfortunately just a part of the job. Mickey would rather get motor oil all over himself, but as someone who has bled on Ian like a dozen times in their relationship, he’s got a better understanding of what Ian goes through than most.
“So, what now?” Ian asks as they pick up their plates and bring them to the sink. Ian has an actual kitchen that’s separate from the living, and is big enough to have its own table for eating. Fancy shit.
“For what?” Mickey leans against the counter, arms folded across his chest as he watches Ian dutifully wash the dishes. The guy is a dream. Unlike Mickey, Ian washes his dishes on time instead of letting them ‘soak’ for days.
“Anything.” Ian’s staring into the sink, but his question hits hard, and he probably knows it does, which is why he’s bringing it up like this. “The future.”
“Haven’t thought that far,” Mickey replies. He hasn’t let himself. Not until recently.
“I’ve thought about it,” Ian quietly admits. He leaves the sink running and approaches Mickey. Runs wet hands up he thighs of Mickey’s jeans, squeezing and appreciating. Brushes Mickey’s nose with his own and smiles against Mickey’s cheek when Mickey’s breath hiccups and skips. “You’re there,” Ian whispers, deep and velvety.
“Oh yeah?” Mickey turns his face to nuzzle at Ian’s jaw, tucking his face into the warm curve of his neck and shoulder. “I look good?”
Mickey can feel Ian’s laugh right through their touching chest. Can feel Ian’s heart beat steady.
“Better than Ray Liotta.”
***
The first time they finally fuck, Ian calls it making love, which earns a solid punch to his arm on account of Mickey making actually die from embarrassment. Who the hell does this guy think he is?
They’ve known each other for about two years and three months, the latter of which they’ve lived in and out of each other’s pockets, even after Ian returns to his apartment and hellish working hours. Ian doesn’t necessarily complain about going to bed at eight and waking up at three in the morning, but he does whine over the phone about how much he misses Mickey on the days and nights they aren’t together, and Mickey barely even gives him a hard time about it.
That’s how fucked up he is over Ian Gallagher. Shit, man.
Anyway, the first time they fuck, Ian is too gentle and Mickey is too desperate after three months of teasing, torture, and a traumatized, healing libido that didn’t fully get with the program until very recently.
Overwhelmed and shaking with it, Mickey laid in Ian’s giant, lush bed, hands gripping the rungs of the squeaking headboard, and let Ian take him apart, piece by piece. Mouth smoothing and kissing over every plain of his body, sucking and licking at the dips and shadows, gently biting without marking at the tender, sensitive spans of skin that goosebump and shiver at the touch. Loved on Mickey’s nipples with tongue and teeth and pinching, pulling fingertips, over and over, until Mickey was sweating, swallowing hard, begging for more of anything, everything.
Ian had been careful to avoid Mickey’s hip, despite the liquid stitches having scrubbed off and the vibrant scar having settled into Mickey’s skin in a long, clean gash that only aches and smarts when he overdoes it. Mickey had let Ian spread him open, tucking pillows beneath his body as Ian loomed over him, all hot, hungry eyes and shallow breathing, quiet moans as his greedy fingers stretched and filled and fucked into Mickey’s trembling body, one of his legs vibrating hard and harder the more Ian worked him wider, pushing at his prostate with rhythmic thrusts of fingertips.
Mickey had crumbled, had begged, had grabbed at Ian until he’d covered him but hadn’t crushed him. Urged Ian’s cock inside him with heels against Ian’s ass, goading him to fuck Mickey stupid, like he wanted.
But Ian had gone slow. Had waited out Mickey’s frantic hunger with long, deep kisses, delving into Mickey’s mouth and taking control, fucking his tongue into Mickey’s mouth in lazy, solid sweeps until Mickey was forced to keep his lips parted to accept whatever Ian gave him.
Only after that did Ian fuck him, and oh god, oh fuck, that dick felt even bigger than it looked. Stretched and filled every empty place Mickey ever secreted away and fit him to burst, every stroke and thrust shoving right through him, right up between his lungs to steal his breath and into his throat, where he choked on every quickening slap of Ian’s hips to Mickey’s ass.
After Mickey fell spectacularly apart, probably crying, because Ian has turned him into a little bitch or something—after Ian fills him with a dark, deep groan, and fuck condoms, because the two of them have been obsessed with each other way too long to have slept with anyone else in practically forever—they lay there, Mickey rolled atop Ian and breathing in the salty, masculine scent of him just at the throat.
“Fuck me harder next time,” Mickey murmurs against Ian’s neck, punctuating the demand with a solid, lingering bite that he doesn’t release until Ian laughs and yells, OW, for good measure. “Not gonna break,” Mickey mutters darkly, even as he basks in the pleasure washing through his limbs in warm, lapping waves.
“How soon is next time?” Ian asks. He sounds half-drunk and so fucking pleased with himself that Mickey as to sit up, his elbow settled beside Ian’s head as Mickey grins down at him.
Mickey makes a show of checking his other wrist, frowning thoughtfully at the nonexistent watch.
“Like, seven minutes.”
“Damn,” Ian says with hefty sigh. Then, “Gettin’ old, huh?”
“You little shit!”
Mickey tackles him, fully prepared to play dirty, and they end up fucking a lot sooner than the seven minute mark. Ian flips Mickey on his belly with more strength than one ginger should have, pulls his hips up to lick the cum out of Mickey’s hole, spreading it around his rim before Ian fucks fingers back into him, sloppy and wet and loud. Mickey barely has time to catch his breath before Ian’s railing him into the goddamn mattress, bruising hands on his waist, keeping him lifted just high enough that his sensitive scar doesn’t rub against the sheets.
Mickey comes almost embarrassingly fast for someone who just had his world rocked, decimated, and rebuilt for long hours, less than seven minutes ago. He has probably been saving up for three fucking months for this, dammit.
This time, Mickey splays out on his back, catching his breath as Ian snuggles up against him with a happy hum. He’s all sweet and cuddly after he has apparently brutally exorcised the demonic porn star out of his system for the time being.
Mickey doesn’t realize he’s smiling at the ceiling until the reality of his aching jaw hits him. He must make a sound about it, because Ian murmurs a questioning puppy sound, his head pillowed warm and heavy on Mickey’s chest. Ian can probably hear Mickey’s heart beat.
“S’weird,” Mickey manages around a suddenly tight throat. Doesn’t know from where this feeling has emerged or what it signifies.
“What?”
“This.” Mickey waves his hand at nothing, then settles it in Ian’s hair. His nails scritch at Ian’s scalp and Ian sighs before Mickey continues on. “Living. Didn’t really expect to be doin’ it. Didn’t let myself hope or whatever.”
Ian kisses the center of Mickey’s chest and lifts up to regard him in the soothing shadows of the dark room. Even like this, Mickey can feel the warmth of Ian’s gaze.
“The thing about living is you’re always doing it, Mick,” Ian says quietly. His big palm smooths down Mickey’s naked side to settle gently over Mickey’s scar. “Just depends on what and who you’re doing it with.”
Mickey smiles all cocky as he reaches around and delivers a solid smack to Ian’s bare ass.
“Guess I’m doin’ pretty fuckin’ well, then, eh?”
Ian laughs his dorky laugh and kisses Mickey solidly on the mouth with his smile.
“Not bad. Not bad at all.”
