Work Text:
Ian was a goddamn idiot.
He was a stupid fucking idiot that had let Mickey Milkovich get too close and now he was paying for it.
“We can’t do this anymore,” Mickey said, skittish, not even making eye contact, and Ian could feel his heart splintering, because he knew this was always gonna happen but some small part of him had held onto hope that it wouldn’t. And that’s what really fucked him over.
“Mickey,” Ian said softly, and then louder. “Mickey.”
He didn’t look up. He grabbed a salad and bolted out of the cafeteria, leaving Ian to watch the gentle curve of his back as he left. Not much about Mickey was gentle, but he’d shown those parts of himself to Ian, slowly, in the way their hands brushed under the sleek cafeteria tables and how he touched Ian’s hair sometimes, after they fucked, and the way he smiled at Debbie and Carl and Liam when he came over after work.
Ian sat down at one of the tables. Alone. The florescent lights seemed brighter and harsher than usual and he couldn’t bring himself to eat his sandwich. His stupid fucking sandwich. That’s what started this whole thing. It had only been about a week after he first started working at the law firm, after he’d turned down a job at the Kash and Grab to work on the fucking Northside, of all places. It had been an accident, at first, Ian had just grabbed the one that looked the best, but he caught on to Mickey’s little annoyance pretty quickly. Then it became a game and then something else entirely, when they had kissed in that poorly lit hallway, and Ian was so goddamn stupid for letting it go further. For letting himself forget that just because they shared sandwiches and laughs and kisses when no one was looking, it didn’t mean that Mickey cared about him, it didn’t mean that he’d found something that was supposed to last.
Except, Mickey had been jealous. And he had whispered sweet things into Ian’s neck in the darkness, in those moments when nothing else mattered except for the two of them moving together, when Ian could pretend that their lives were different and they weren’t afraid of anything and they wouldn’t be killed for holding hands in the middle of the day. That’s why Ian held onto the tiniest sliver of hope, why he didn’t let himself crumble and crack, because he was stubborn when it came to his heart, and Mickey Milkovich was worth being stubborn for.
Ian didn’t see Mickey the rest of the day. He went home and he pretended to smile at his family, faked a laugh when he told them the story about one of the other interns who had accidently made three-hundred copies instead of thirty, and tried not to think about dark hair and secret smiles and peanut butter and fucking nutella sandwiches.
---
He was doing his calculus homework when Lip came into the bedroom, shooting Ian questioning looks every five seconds. Ian ignored him and kept pounding the buttons on his calculator, like if he hit them hard enough the right answer would magically appear on his screen.
Lip - because he had a really fucking hard time keeping his mouth shut - broke the silence.
“Something happen at work?” he asked, in that annoying older-brothers-have-a-sixth-sense way, and Ian kept staring down at his homework, furiously scribbling answers on his notebook page.
“No,” he said.
Lip sighed. “Ian.” His voice was firm, like he wasn’t gonna take no for an answer, and Lip could be really infuriating sometimes, but talking to him always made Ian feel a little bit better.
“Fine.” Ian took a breath. “Was seeing this guy at work. Now I’m not.”
Lip laughed and Ian looked up sharply. He didn’t think what he’d said was particularly funny, but Lip was always kind of a douchebag, no matter how much Ian loved him. He stopped short when he saw the look on Ian’s face, and Ian wasn’t gonna cry in front of his older brother, he wasn’t gonna fucking cry over Mickey. That would make this whole thing too real.
“You mean Mickey Milkovich?”
Ian narrowed his eyes, his heart pounding in his chest. “What?”
“Mandy told me that you guys worked together. And he’s always over here, glaring at everyone except you.” Lip paused, raising his eyebrows at the shocked look on Ian’s face. “It wasn’t that hard to figure out, dumbass.”
He looked back down at his notebook. Lip wasn’t gonna tell anyone, he was loyal and he wasn’t stupid, and Ian really just wanted to talk to someone.
“He was gonna kill me for taking the last sandwich in the cafeteria and then we kinda - kissed. And then,” Ian waved his hand vaguely, “other stuff. But then he fuckin’ broke it off. Without a reason.”
(I really like him, Ian wanted to say, Lip, I think something happened, I think he’s scared and I don’t know what to say, I don’t know how to show him not be afraid, but he didn’t say that, because he was probably more like Mickey than he wanted to admit, choking on his words like they were bullets and Ian didn’t know how to pull the trigger.)
Lip took a seat next to Ian on the bed, the old springs creaking in protest. He pulled an arm around Ian’s shoulders, shaking him gently.
“Ian,” he said. “I saw the way that dude looked at you. I don’t think he would’ve ended it without a reason. Go talk to him or some shit.”
Ian sighed. “He just ignores me. I mean, I thought -,” (I thought we meant something to each other). He stopped and took a deep breath. “Nevermind. I was just really fucking stupid.”
Lip squeezed his shoulders. “Guy doesn’t know what he’s missing out on. C’mon.” He gestured towards the bedroom door. “I think there’s still some ice cream in the freezer.”
Ian gave Lip a small smile. It felt like a fucking knife to his chest, every time he had to pretend that Mickey’s words, and the way his eyes darted around the cafeteria, looking at everything except Ian, wasn’t splitting him open, but he had to keep pretending or the pain was gonna drive him nuts.
He followed his brother downstairs and into the kitchen. Ian ate the ice cream and it numbed his tongue and his cheeks and his mouth, but it didn’t do anything for his heart.
---
Ian found Mickey, two days later, in that same fucking hallway where they had first kissed. He was slouched against the wall, eating lunch out of a paper bag. Mickey looked tired and angry and Ian just wanted to touch him, wanted to wrap him up in his arms and tell him that everything was gonna be okay, that he didn’t have to be afraid of anything anymore. But he couldn’t do that.
“Hey,” Ian said softly.
Mickey was startled, for a second, but his face went blank again pretty quickly. “Fuck off.”
“Brought you a sandwich,” Ian murmured, holding out half of it towards Mickey. Mickey didn’t take it.
“Already have a sandwich, Gallagher.” He was still staring straight across the hallway, too fucking chickenshit to look Ian in the eye, and that made Ian angry, but it also scared him the most, because Mickey usually faced problems head-on, with harsh words and glares, but this was different.
Ian pulled the sandwich back. “Fine. You gonna tell me what the fucking problem is then? Why you thought it would be okay to end it, just like that?”
“You’re my fucking problem,” Mickey said. He finally looked up at Ian, and his eyes were dark. “You get under my skin, you know that? Fuck.”
Mickey was angry, Ian could tell, and whether he was angry at Ian or himself or the world in general, he didn’t know. He continued and Ian felt his heart catapult into his throat. “And if I let it go any further, there won’t be any turning back.”
“Mickey,” Ian said, voice shaking, miraculously pulling the words from somewhere, because Mickey had to know, he had to realize what he was doing, what he was throwing away. “It’s too late.” Ian took a breath. “It’s too late for me. I can’t turn back. Don’t you fucking get that?”
Mickey shook his head. “That’s not my fucking problem.”
The sandwich fell from Ian’s hand. Mickey looked away and his face fell back into the shadows.
Ian’s heart finally shattered.