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“Shit,” Ian breathed out, dropping to sit on the edge of his new bed. Taking in the room around him, all he could see was space. Sure, soon enough there would be someone else in the room, some random guy he’d never met, but in this moment, it was… quiet.
Ok, it wasn’t quiet. It was move-in day for the dorms, so there was a constant racket in the hall, in the room next door, even from the floor above. People shouting, music blasting, the building apparently full of klutzes based on the number of crashes and frustrated curses he was hearing.
But in this room, there was… just him. And hell, even sharing the room with one other person sounded amazing considering he’d never had a bedroom with less than two of his brothers in it.
Taking one last look around, he slapped his thighs and stood, grabbing the one box of belongings he’d brought with him and looking around to find places for his stuff. He shoved his clothing into a couple of drawers, dropped his crappy laptop on the nearest desk, and made the bed in about twenty minutes and then found himself at a loss.
Ironically, the space and solitude that had seemed so attractive just a short time ago now seemed overwhelming. He wasn’t used to being alone. At all. Sticking his head into the hallway, he welcomed the noise and chaos. It was like home, just on a slightly larger scale.
Leaving the door propped open, he returned to his seat on his bed, pulling out his phone to snap a few pictures and send them to the family group chat, tapping his thumbs on the sides of the phone as he waited to see if anyone would respond. He got a heart from Liam, but gave up on any actual messages after a few minutes.
Luckily, before he could get too freaked out by the whole situation, a cursing form loaded down with bags shoved through the crowd and stumbled into the room. The guy could clearly see better than he could be seen as he made a beeline for the empty bed across the room and heaved most of his burden onto it before turning around.
And… holy fuck. It was Mickey. Mickey Milkovich.
Mickey’s eyes flicked over Ian, lingering on his hair for a brief moment before he spoke. “‘Ey. Name’s Mickey.”
Shit. Did Mickey not recognize him? What do you do when the guy you’ve been crushing on for years apparently doesn’t even know who you are?
“Hey, Ian.” He replied.
Apparently, you pretend you have no idea who they are either.
“Why the fuck are you sitting here with the door open?” Mickey asked. Which, fair enough, probably did seem weird. But it was a good thing Ian was used to his particular form of brash attitude, because most people would have been offended by the question and tone.
“Trying to decide if I want to bolt,” Ian told him with a shrug. Despite what Lip thought, he could play it cool when he wanted to.
Snorting, Mickey turned back to unpack the half-dozen or so backpacks he’d brought, tossing things into drawers at random.
Ian opened his mouth a couple of times, trying to come up with something to say. But instead, he ended up sitting there in complete silence. Making small talk with someone you have a crush on is hard enough. When that person has no clue who you are, it seemed to be impossible.
Mickey finished up with his unpacking, turned back to face Ian, studied him again for a minute, and then gave a brief nod before saying “Later,” and strolling back out of the room.
And, well. Shit.
That was how most of their conversations went for the next couple of weeks. Brief exchange of a couple of sentences before one or the other of them headed out of the room. It wasn’t like one or the other of them was away from the room a lot, either. Both of them spent most of their evenings in there, either studying or playing games on their phones or laptops. But somehow they just never spoke to each other.
Mickey had a pretty constant stream of ‘vistors’ that would show up at the door, make a quick exchange, and then leave. The first couple of times it had happened, he’d watched Ian carefully, clearly looking for signs that he either knew what was going on or that he cared.
Obviously, Ian knew what was going on. He was South Side, after all. But he sure as fuck didn’t care, as long as Mickey kept it discreet and didn’t get him in shit for it. Hell, having an easy source when his own stash ran out was definitely a blessing he hadn’t counted on.
Now, Mickey seemed calmer with the situation, not even flinching if Ian was the one to answer the door when someone knocked.
“Fuck,” Ian swore, tossing the textbook he’d been staring at for the last hour down onto his bed in frustration. Mickey glanced in his direction but didn’t say anything, turning back to whatever he was doing.
Deciding that he needed a distraction, and that breaking this weird silence they had going was as good of a choice as anything else, Ian turned and sat with his back to the wall so he was facing Mickey.
“What are you studying, anyway?” He asked, figuring it was an easy enough question to maybe open a conversation with.
“Uh… Criminology,” Mickey replied distractedly.
“Oh, cool,” Ian said, trying to keep him talking. “I’m technically undeclared right now, but I think I’m gonna go for Kinesiology. Maybe Sports Medicine.”
“The fuck’s the difference?” Mickey asked, putting his book down and giving Ian a puzzled look.
“Well…” Ian started, stopping and thinking for a minute. “Ok, I’m not completely clear on exactly all the differences yet. But like, Kinesiology is about improving movement and flexibility, and Sports Medicine is more about like, healing and recovery from injuries. I think.”
“Huh,” Mickey muttered. “Makes sense, I guess.”
“It does?” Ian asked, surprised. “My family always looks at me like I’m crazy when I try to explain it to them.”
“Yeah, um, I mean, there must be a difference, guess that’s it,” Mickey told him. Scratching his eyebrow distractedly, Mickey seemed to make a decision.
“What’s got you so frustrated?”
“Fucking… anatomy,” Ian told him with a sigh. “And this is the easy stuff. I just can’t keep the bones of the hands straight.”
“Yeah, that sounds annoying,” Mickey agreed. “Good luck with that.” And with that, he turned back to his laptop, conversation clearly over.
Well… it was a start, right?
By the time Halloween came around, they were almost friends. Kind of. If you squinted just right.
Unfortunately for Ian, this living in close quarters thing was doing nothing to help cure him of his long-standing crush. Before, he’d been crushing on a hot guy with a swagger and a tough-guy attitude that was irresistible to a mostly-closeted gay teenager on the South Side.
Now he was crushing on Mickey. A whole-ass person who was still hot, still mostly had that tough-guy attitude, but had also turned out to be smart, and funny, and surprisingly generous with his weed.
“Don’t worry about it,” he’d told Ian when he offered to pay for his share when Mickey handed over a joint. “I’ll just charge the rich assholes a bit more to cover it. They’ll never notice the difference.”
Ok, so maybe generous wasn’t quite the word. But he’d obviously figured out that Ian was poor and didn’t mind making his other customers pay more so he could save a few bucks.
Along with having gotten more comfortable talking to Ian, Mickey had also gotten more comfortable with a level of casual undress that would have been fine if it wasn’t so goddam distracting.
Ian wasn’t a creep, he was used to being around semi-nude or even fully nude guys on a regular basis. Most of the time he seriously didn’t care. But Mickey was perfect. And he was Mickey. And there he was, again, stretched out on his bed in nothing but a pair of boxer briefs that were just slightly askew.
“That what you’re wearing to the party?” Ian asked, ever-so-casually.
“Yep,” Mickey replied, not taking his eyes off his phone.
“Wait, seriously?” Ian’s brain short-circuited.
“No, dumbass,” Mickey snorted, turning his head to give Ian a withering look. “I’m not going to the party. This is what I’m wearing to lie here, get high, and watch stupid videos while everyone else goes to the party.”
“Oh,” Ian replied sheepishly. “You sure you don’t wanna come, though? It could be fun. Or I can stay here and hang out if you’d rather.”
“Fuck no, I don’t want to go. And I ain’t asking you to miss it. I can handle being alone for a few hours, man,” Mickey told him, turning back to his phone. “What, uh, what are you wearing?” He asked a minute later.
Ian shrugged. “Went home this afternoon and got my old ROTC uniform,” he hitched his shoulder, drawing attention to the backpack hanging off it. “Figured that’s good enough.”
“Hmmm,” Mickey agreed. “Man in uniform is always a good bet if you’re looking to get laid.”
“Yeah, I suppose,” Ian forced a chuckle. He wasn’t exactly in the closet any more, but they’d never had that particular conversation. He wasn’t sure if Mickey knew he was gay, and while it had never been explicitly stated, he was pretty sure Mickey was straight. Which really didn’t make his stupid crush any easier.
They’d also somehow never actually talked about exactly where either of them grew up. They both knew that they were both from Chicago. And Ian knew that they’d grown up just blocks from each other, gone to the same schools, known each others families, all of that. But since the topic had never come up in conversation, Mickey apparently still didn’t know.
And it was definitely starting to feel weird. But how do you tell someone you’ve been sharing a room with for two months that you’ve actually known who they are for practically your whole life?
Three weeks later, everyone on campus was breathing a sigh of relief because it was almost Thanksgiving, almost time for a break. Most of the students would be clearing out, going home, or going home with friends. A few would be around, students from other countries who didn’t see any reason to celebrate, or a few like Ian who didn’t want to celebrate for personal reasons.
And Ian had been trying for a few days to come up with a way to ask Mickey about his plans without saying “Hey, does your family get together, you know, since your dad died?” That might give things away.
Two days before everyone was leaving, he finally asked.
“Hey, when are you heading home?”
“‘M not,” Mickey told him. “My family ain’t really around for the holiday.”
“Oh,” Ian said softly. “I’m not either. We don’t do Thanksgiving any more.”
“Don’t want to go home and spend a few days with them anyway?” Mickey asked. “Thought you were pretty close with them or whatever.”
“Nah, this one we all kinda just avoid. I’ll just hang out here and get some sleep. Quieter here anyway,” Ian said with a shrug.
“Dorm’s gonna be pretty much empty, and the fucking food halls are closed,” Mickey pointed out. “You got plans to feed yourself?”
“Yeah, gonna stock up on bread and peanut butter tomorrow. Probably order a pizza or something.”
“‘K, tell you what,” Mickey offered. “You share your bread and PB, and I’ll share the mac and cheese and spaghetti-o’s I’ve got stashed under my bed.”
“Deal!” Ian agreed. Maybe this would be a pretty decent break from school after all.
He’d gone out the next day as promised and came back with bread, a giant tub of peanut butter, a bag of apples, and enough snacks to feed a small army. Or two very stoned boys, whichever one he came across first.
Maybe he’d gone overboard on the snacks, he admitted to himself when Mickey stared at the pile of food with a look of incredulity.
“Plan on being stuck in here for a month?”
“Nah,” Ian said sheepishly. “Just kinda got carried away. Got most of it at the Dollar General though, so it was cheap.”
That night, they ordered a pizza and decided to eat it in the dorm lounge and watch a movie since they seemed to be the only people around. The lounge was usually full, and noisy, and neither one of them spent much time down there. Getting the big screen to themselves was too good an opportunity to pass up.
In an attempt to make their food last, Ian closed up the pizza box and put it in the fridge in the kitchenette before taking a trip back to their room to gather up an armful of snacks. They settled in to watch a movie, Ian on a huge overstuffed sofa, Mickey in a recliner a few feet away. Mickey lit a joint for himself, and passed another one over for Ian, and they sat in silence as they watched.
Half an hour or so later, Ian was digging into his pile of snacks, eyes latched onto the TV as his brain tried to process what it was seeing. He might have been a little bit higher than he’d been in awhile because he was pretty sure he’d seen this movie before. But right now he was floating a bit too much to care.
He felt a thud on the sofa beside him and slowly turned his head in that direction, finding that Mickey had moved from his recliner to sit beside him.
“You’re hogging the snacks,” Mickey told him, reaching into the bag of chips he was holding and extracting a handful.
“So why don’t you celebrate Thanksgiving?” Mickey asked him after a few minutes of determined snacking.
“Hmmm, my mother slit her wrists in the kitchen on Thanksgiving a couple years ago,” Ian muttered sleepily, defenses lowered just enough to both make him honest and make him forget he needed to be careful what he revealed.
“Kinda ruined the holiday for all of us.”
“Shit,” Mickey said quietly. “I never knew that. Sorry.”
“How would you have?” Ian was a bit puzzled. “I don’t really talk about it.”
“Just kinda figured Mandy would have mentioned it.”
“Oh,” Ian agreed, turning back to the movie.
“Wait,” he turned back to Mickey a few minutes and a few more handfuls of snacks later. “You know who I am?”
“Shit,” Mickey replied. “Didn’t mean to say that.”
“No, no, wait,” Ian sat up a bit straighter, grabbing the remote to pause the movie. “Have you known all along?”
“You’re kinda hard to miss, man,” Mickey told him. “Six foot ginger kinda stands out on the South Side.”
“But you’ve been acting like you had no idea who I was this whole time,” Ian shook his head. “Like seriously, I thought you didn’t recognize me at all.”
“Thought you didn’t recognize me when you didn’t say anything on the first day,” Mickey told him, eyes on his lap.
“How the hell could anyone from our neighborhood not recognize Mickey Milkovich?” Ian asked him with a laugh.
“I dunno man, thought maybe you were trying to pretend you were someone else, or maybe you were embarrassed after spending two years trying to fuck my sister and striking out,” Mickey said seriously.
“Gross,” Ian mumbled.
“Did you just call my sister gross?” Mickey turned and met his eyes, one eyebrow arched menacingly.
“No!” Ian scrambled to answer, turning slightly in his seat so he was facing Mickey more directly. “I mean, yes. But not like, Mandy herself. I loved Mandy! But I was not trying to fuck her. She is one hundred percent not my type.”
“What’s wrong with Mandy?” Mickey’s eyebrow had lowered, but he still seemed pretty offended on his sister’s behalf.
“Too much boobs,” Ian blurted out.
“Mandy has like… no boobs,” Mickey told him. “I’ve seen them.”
“Not enough dick?” Ian attempted to clarify before clapping a hand over his mouth, eyes going wide. Shit. He was really too high to be having this conversation. Grabbing the remote, he unpaused the movie and quickly turned back to face the TV.
The movie played for a minute or so before Mickey picked up the remote and paused it again.
“So you weren’t trying to fuck my sister. So why were you always hanging around our house? Nobody hangs around our house. And nobody likes Mandy enough to come to our house unless they’re trying to fuck.” He asked, eyes on the side of Ian’s face.
“I like Mandy!” Ian insisted.
“Sure,” Mickey drawled. “Gay bestie or whatever. But nobody comes to our house just to hang out except my cousins. So why were you there?”
“Fuck,” Ian muttered. “Fine. I had a crush on you. Told Mandy I wanted to come over to study because I was hoping you’d be there. You never spoke to me or anything, but especially after you dropped out, I wanted to see you.”
“So you used to have a crush on me, and then you come here to College, and suddenly I show up and we’re roommates, and you pretend you don’t remember me,” Mickey said, confused. “Were you embarrassed about it or something?”
“No!” Ian insisted, eyes still on the TV. “Told you, I didn’t think you remembered me, and I thought it would be weird to remind you that we knew each other, and then, I dunno, I just couldn’t figure out a good time to mention it.”
“Besides,” he continued. “You were doing the same thing. Pretending you didn’t know who I was.”
“Ok, fine,” Mickey agreed. “But I had a way better reason. I thought you were hot for my sister. And…” he paused and poked at Ian’s leg until he finally turned and looked at him.
“And it was weird that I still had this huge crush on a guy that was chasing my sister.”
A slow smile spread across Ian’s face as his brain caught up to the conversation. “Yeah?”
“Uh, yeah,” Mickey mumbled, eyes dropping. “Sorry if that’s weird or whatever.”
“Mickey,” Ian whispered, reaching over and tilting his head back upwards before leaning in and pressing a gentle kiss to his lips. “It’s so, so, ok.”
Mickey’s face lit up with a smile, and a slight blush spread across his face. “Cool.”
Grabbing the remote, he unpaused the movie again. “Now watch the movie, Gallagher. And pass me the twinkies.”