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Mickey’s had enough of those goddamn tamales.
He decides this on a Friday, lying in bed for lack of anything better to do, when his stomach is actively letting him know it’s time for dinner but the smell of corn husk and spicy meat is only making him wrinkle his nose. It’s been three weeks of basically non-stop tamales, with a side of a dozen-or-so Mexicans taking up every corner of the house.
Fucking Carl and his seemingly perpetual need to jump through hoops in order to get his dick wet.
Mickey’s had enough of tamales and, honestly, he’s had enough of the fucking crowd that seems to be taking up the Gallagher house at every second—the usual bunch, plus the Mexicans, plus Lip’s baby mama and subsequent baby.
He didn’t unsuccessfully try to bust out of prison, and then get released, for this.
He’s barely had a moment alone with Ian since he got out. They had more privacy in prison.
It sucks, and he’s tired of it.
So when Ian walks into the room a few minutes later--out of breath from a run--Mickey slaps his hands down on each side of himself on the bed and announces, “We’re goin’ out,” in a tone that says ‘it’s not up for debate. ’
Ian stops, frowning and scrunching his brow in that way he always does. It’s one of Mickey’s favorite Ian-quirks, one that always threatens to make him smile.
“Out? Out where?” Ian asks, starting to take off his sweaty shirt, mussing up his hair in the process.
“I don’t fuckin’ know, somewhere. I need to eat somethin’ other than goddamn tamales or I’m gonna shoot somebody. Maybe myself.”
Ian chuckles, at his dramatics, presumably, and walks up to Mickey with a smile on his face. “Are you takin’ me out on a date?” he teases and kicks the side of the bed, prompting Mickey to sit up.
Mickey rolls his eyes. “I’m askin’ you to get me out of this shithole in order to prevent one or multiple deaths,” he grumbles, reaching out and tugging Ian closer by the shorts he’s still wearing.
“Same difference,” Ian says lightly and pats him on the cheek, bending down to kiss him briefly. “Where d’you wanna go?” he asks, stepping back again and rooting around the room until he pulls a towel from the closet.
Mickey sighs. “Dunno. You decide.”
Ian smirks, his voice lilted with teasing when he says, “Are you asking me to take you on a date?”
There’s some loud Spanish yelling, mixing with baby Freddie’s screams and Lip’s annoying-ass voice, coming from downstairs.
“If that means we’re goin’, then yes, I’m askin’ you to take me on a date. Please. Jesus fuck.”
“Awesome,” Ian says with a nose-scrunchy smile and pats Mickey’s head like he’s five.
They’ve settled into this...domesticity or whatever, far quicker than Mickey anticipated.
In prison, it was forced, them literally being required by law to share the same space, have the same routines. But now, it’s...well, it’s homey. They sleep in the same bed, they sit next to each other at the kitchen table and they help each other with the dishes after dinner.
It’s nice. He remembers almost sort of having that with Ian once before, during a time he doesn’t want to think about too much.
The point is, they have a rhythm of sorts and it’s surreal and...comforting, in a way; Mickey knows Ian’ll be there when he wakes up in the morning, and that the first things he’ll hear and see won’t be loud buzzing and yellow jumpsuits, but Ian’s sleepy breaths and his arm around Mickey.
Which is why he wants some goddamn alone time with him—to celebrate, maybe—as well as a chance to eat something other than home-cooked Mexican food.
--
After Ian’s stepped out and gone into the shower, Mickey starts looking around for something to wear. It’s not like they’re going anywhere fancy, but he has a feeling he can’t leave the house in boxers and a tank top. Unfortunately.
He basically has none of his shit at the house yet, only the clothes he got released with and a few shirts he bought, so he decides to turn to Ian’s drawers. He wouldn’t mind wearing something that smells like Ian, if he’s being honest.
He starts to go through Ian’s top drawer where he keeps his shirts, but everything seems to either be gi-fucking-normous--big enough to look stupid on Mickey--or dirty. There’s not a whole lot to choose from.
Desperately, he opens up the rest of the drawers, finding socks and underwear—which they’ve been sharing, gross as it may sound—until he reaches the very bottom one.
When he opens it, his brow automatically furrows, hands stilling. It’s just...boxes. Three of them. There’s no writing on any of them.
Curious and a little nosy, maybe, he glances at the door and peeks one box open to find CDs, ones he remembers Ian talking about way back when. Rock bands, angsty teenage shit.
The second box has pictures that Mickey doesn’t bother looking through; based on the first one—an old one of Frank and who he assumes is Monica, smiling and holding a baby in a gown with pink ribbon—they’re all depressing and shit, and Ian’s probably the only one who’s bothered saving them, the sap that he is.
The third one, when he opens it, seems at first glance to be some old clothes of Ian's, maybe ones that don’t fit him anymore. Ones that would probably fit Mickey, annoyingly.
When he pulls some out though, he realizes.
The first shirt he pulls out is black with writing on the front.
YOU’LL GO TO HELL FOR WHAT YOUR DIRTY MIND IS THINKING
Mickey’s stomach gets a weird pit in it. He knows that shirt. He stole it himself, from a Hot Topic when he was fifteen. He’d forgotten all about it.
He blinks in confusion and swallows. Curiosity growing, he pulls out another one.
A tank top, messy gray with red trim around the collar. That one was passed down to him from Iggy, or more accurately, Mickey swiped it from him during one of his longer stints in juvie.
It looks worse for wear now than it did then, which is confusing. It should be the same, if it’s been in a box all this time. He brings it up to sniff it for no reason and becomes even more confused. It doesn’t smell like him, or like old, musty clothes. It smells like...Ian.
He sniffs once more and sets the shirt down, going back to the box.
The rest are more of the same: shirts Mickey remembers from back then. Back before everything got royally fucked up.
He hears the bathroom door open and his heart jumps like he’s elbow-deep in the cookie jar.
Then he relaxes. It’s Ian—he’s not gonna go ballistic to see Mickey going through his shit. Even if the shit in question is fucking weird and sappy and confusing.
Plus, Mickey wants answers.
He waits, kneeling on the floor, until the accordion door to the room opens and Ian’s there, clad in a towel, immediately freezing and looking wide-eyed at Mickey and the contents of the box in front of him.
“What are you doing?” he asks. He doesn’t sound mad, really. It’s something else. Embarrassment? Wariness?
Mickey looks away, then back. “Uh, I was lookin’ for a shirt.” Then, gauging Ian’s reaction, “Found a few.”
Ian nods, moving further into the room and closing the door behind him. “Looks like it,” he says quietly, his voice odd.
Mickey studies him for a moment, the way he seems to be avoiding Mickey’s eyes.
Then he decides to bite the bullet, tactful as ever. “What’s up with all this shit? This is like, my shit. Old shit,” he says, lifting and dropping each shirt individually while he speaks. “Why do you have this?”
He hears Ian take a breath and watches as he sits down on the bed, quiet. He’s got his eyes cast down, still not looking directly at Mickey, more at the shirts.
“Yo.” Mickey snaps his fingers in front of Ian’s face.
Ian inhales and lifts his head. “I, uh.” A pause. “Well, most of ‘em are ones you left here at some point and I...I just put ‘em away, y’know.” He licks his lip and looks away. Adds quietly, “Just in case.”
Mickey feels his chest get tight.
“Oh.”
Just in case?
His mind does a million loops, trying to catch up.
Those shirts are from a long time ago. From before. Before Ian dumped him that first time. Some even older than that.
Ian has had them the whole time. Through mania, depression, the break-up, prison. Through Mexico and after.
His mouth feels dry and he’s having a hard time understanding any of it.
“But...why?” he asks, because fucking why? “I mean, I don’t think it’s complimentary to keep someone’s shit after you dump ‘em,” he tries to joke but doesn’t really succeed, his voice hoarse and tone forced.
Ian huffs a weak laugh. “Guess not, yeah.”
Mickey looks at the shirts again. The tank top catches his eye and he picks it up, examining the way the color’s faded more than it should have, not being worn for years.
He hates this heavy, deep-talking shit, especially right before they’re supposed to go out. He wants to lighten the mood.
“Why’s this one look like shit?” he turns the shirt around in his hands and waves it in Ian’s face. “The fuck’d you do to it? I loved this one,” he complains with fake annoyance.
Ian’s cheeks tinge a little, reddening, but he still looks kind of lost in thought.
“Might’a worn it a time or two,” he says.
Mickey eyes him, raises his brows. “That all? You didn’t jerk off to it, did ya?”
Ian finally huffs and rolls his eyes, then snatches the shirt from Mickey’s hands, studying it. “No, I didn’t fucking jerk off to it.” He holds eye-contact for a few seconds before sighing, dropping his demeanor. “I’ll tell you but you can’t make fun of me.”
“Oh, no promises, man,” Mickey grins, glad that the emotional turn the moment had been threatening to take has been thwarted, at least for now.
Ian throws the shirt at his head, face red. “I...kinda used to sleep with it.”
Mickey furrows his brow and almost throws out a teasing comment, a ‘what the fuck?’ but stops.
He remembers clinging to Ian’s uniform jacket on nights when he didn’t come home and Mickey’d been drinking him away; back when shit was right in the middle of being royally fucked.
He remembers smelling it, smelling Ian, and closing his eyes. Wishing for things to just fucking be okay.
He remembers that—the pain and the way he missed him —so, instead of teasing Ian about it, he just asks, “When?”
Ian knits his brow briefly like he’s thinking. He’s still wearing only a towel, and it’s kind of ridiculous having a serious conversation with him wet and basically naked. Mickey ignores it.
“I guess the first time was right around, uh.” He swallows and Mickey hears it. “Svetlana.”
Mickey looks away at the name, grits his teeth briefly, very briefly before schooling himself. He nods. “How’d you get it?”
“What d’you mean?”
“Like, how’d you get the shirt. I mean, ‘s’not like I was sleepin’ over here on the reg back then.”
“Oh, yeah,” Ian says, smiling briefly, an embarrassed thing, maybe. “I sorta...took it. When I slept over.”
When he slept over.
So, not just right around Svetlana, but the same fucking 24-hour period.
“Why?”
Ian sighs. “You were so...I just...I wanted to have somethin’, y’know? In case you...well. In case you didn’t want anything to do with me.” He seems to force out a chuckle at the end, there.
Mickey swallows around the sting. Fair. Accurate.
Ian continues, “And then I just...It became a habit, y’know?”
Mickey does know. He can still imagine in detail what the stiff material of Ian’s jacket would feel like under his cheek, squeezed in his hand.
“Yeah,” he says, scratchier than he’d like, nodding.
Ian looks at him, searches his face, and smiles slightly. Not a happy smile, necessarily. An ‘I think I know what you’re thinking about, and it’s okay now’ kind of smile.
“I…” Mickey starts. “I had no fuckin’ idea.” He feels a prickle behind his eyes and he blinks.
Ian seems to sense it, that he’s on the brink of something, and he says, “You can have ‘em back if you want. I mean, not like I’ll need ‘em anymore, right?”
It’s in his face, in-between the words. We won’t be apart anymore. Ever.
Right?
Mickey swallows hard. “Um. Yeah,” he says, and he means it. Then he shakes off the emotions, sniffing, and chuckles, “Sappy mothefucker,” knocking his elbow into Ian’s leg. He means that too.
“Maybe,” Ian amends, one corner of his mouth pulling up into a smile. He reaches out and grabs onto Mickey’s shoulder, pulling him up until he has to sit on the bed next to him.
Mickey grumbles a little, just because he has to, but smiles, letting Ian pull him in and press a kiss onto his hair, then onto his mouth.
When their lips break apart, Mickey pulls back to look into Ian’s face. He studies his eyes. There’s so much there. So much everything.
They’ve never been the type to talk shit out, to have long, extensive conversations about the past, the future, anything in between. They might be, someday, maybe. But they haven’t been, and they still aren’t.
But Mickey doesn’t think they’re lesser for it, especially not when anything and everything they could ever say is written plain-as-day on Ian’s face, in his eyes, always.
He turns and rests his cheek on Ian’s bare shoulder, still a little water-wet but he doesn’t mind.
Ian lifts a hand and strokes it through Mickey’s hair, once, twice.
There is so much everything, love, affection, pain that’s healed over but not quite, in the air between them, Mickey feels like he’s drowning in all of it.
None of it needs to be said out loud, not right now. They know.
He turns his face a little so his nose is half-pressed into Ian’s skin, warm, and he breathes it in.
Ian doesn’t smell like much of anything, fresh out of the shower, but there’s the familiarity of his soap, of his skin, and there’s the knowledge that it’s Ian, the kind of overwhelming feeling of finally, finally I get this, that makes Mickey feel like he’s breathing in everything and everything and everything.
Everything, the whole world, under his cheek.