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Ian gave the performance of his life that day. The day that, for the first time, he left first before he got to be the one who was left behind. The day he hurt before he could be the one to get hurt. The day he did what he thought he deserved all this time - he got out.
And he gave one hell of a performance - no one had a fucking clue.
Except Mickey and Mandy. But even they didn’t see it coming.
Because no one would ever expect Ian Gallagher to be the one to leave first.
He gave the sincerest goodbyes, with the fakest smiles.
It was one hell of a performance.
They cut his hair as soon as he arrived at Basic. He remembers the feeling of running his hands over the smooth buzzcut - making it easier to forget inked hands that gripped what was no longer there, the hands that held on tight not barely two weeks prior.
It was easy to forget in Basic. They stripped him of who he was, and it helped that Ian wasn’t Ian there, nor was he Philip…he was just…Gallagher.
And even then he couldn’t escape the intonation, the timbre he never wanted to hear again whenever his surname was said. He wasn’t Ian, but whenever a “Gallagher” was uttered, Ian could not shake the voice he loved to hear it come from so deeply, and the face that voice belonged to.
He faked it for months, pretending it didn’t bother him. Pretending the phantom fingers on his scalp, pulling at his nonexistent strands - pretending they weren’t there. Pretending “fuck-u-up” wasn’t the first image that appeared on the backsides of his lids when he closed his eyes to sleep every night. Soft pale face, often bruised and broken, but smiling whenever Ian was around, always looking back at him whenever he closed his eyes.
Ian wondered if that face had smiled since he left.
And so, he pretended and pretended, soon to find that faking it didn’t make the pain go away.
Soon, it felt like a hangover he couldn’t quite get over.
Soon, his hair grew because he refused to get it buzzed.
Soon, it was a hangover that he couldn’t quite escape even after he snapped the blade on the helicopter.
Soon, he was out on the streets, back in Chicago, being everywhere and anywhere, but home.
And all the while, his hair grew and grew.
“You know, it’s been a year,” Ian mumbles against the back of Mickey’s neck.
They’re both in Mickey’s bed, Mickey's room, Mickey's home (and all of it is Ian’s now too). Ian’s naked limbs are wrapped around Mickey, chasing the warmth that’s so hardly found in the cold of Chicago winters, trapping it between and around the both of them.
Mickey stirs at Ian’s cryptic words.
“The fuck you talkin’ ‘bout, Gallagher?” Mickey replies, feigning annoyance though Ian knows his thug is a sucker for pillow talk.
Mickey stretches as much as Ian’s embrace allows, tired sounds etching their way out of Mickey’s pale throat. It makes Ian inch closer to the sound, close enough to his nose falls just behind Mickey’s ear and his lips graze the curve of his neck, bringing his limbs to wrap tighter around his little spoon.
“A year,” Ian repeats, this time so his breath ghosts over the back of Mickey’s ear as he runs his left hand over Mickey’s side. “A year since you came out. A year since you brought a bottle to your dad’s head - how long had you wanted to do that anyway?”
“Since the womb, probably.” Mickey chuckles sleepily. Ian hears the smile Mickey’s hiding into his pillow, though it’s most definitely for naught, because there’s nothing Mickey can hide from Ian anymore.
Because it’s been a year, after all. A year of being all out, all out, all out - for Ian.
“Mmm,” Ian whispers, all sultry it causes goosebumps to rise all over Mickey’s skin; Ian feels them as he presses his body closer to Mickey’s backside. “One year since you humped that car in pure abandon, one year since you told the whole fucking world that this is the one you live in - this is where you exist. And you’re not going anywhere.”
Mickey laughs, a low rumble from deep in his throat. Ian finds it flirtatious, seducing, beckoning. “You sure got a way with words after the clock strikes twelve, Gallagher."
Gallagher.
Ian smiles against the back of Mickey’s neck, reminded that he’s hearing his name come from the only mouth he wants to hear it from. The voice he knows so well. The voice he loves so much.
“I got other ways too, you know,” he says, mind out of Basic, mind completely immersed in the boy he’s wrapped around now, not disconnecting his lips from the nape of his lover’s neck.
“Mmm,” is the only thing Mickey says before he turns around and faces Ian, eyelids droopy, but they soon gain life as Mickey begins to drink Ian in.
Mickey sees how the moonlight filters in from the window, and the way it makes Ian’s hair shine is breathtaking, even more, his eyes are pooling with sincerity, it makes his own gut pool with emotion.
It reminds him of that first summer night in the dugouts.
This Ian is different, though. He’s buffer, taller. He’s sick. And he’s Mickey's now. Not behind closed freezer doors, not only in the dark of nights, in abandoned homes and buildings and secret alleyways.
Ian is Mickey’s in every way, shape, and form. Here, out there, anywhere and everywhere.
Ian is Mickey’s.
And his hair is longer.
Mickey finds himself reaching forward without a second thought, and soon his fingers are wrapped softly in Ian’s hair, intertwining with red strands, massaging gently so that Ian leans into the touch with a low content moan.
He doesn’t look at Ian’s replete, goofy smile, he just stares at how much darker Ian’s hair has become since all those years ago. And it’s never been this long in his fingers. Makes his grip firmer; can’t let go as easy.
“You ever gonna cut it? It’s been awhile since you’ve had it short.” Mickey questions, out of pure curiosity.
Ian’s eyes grow wide and he reaches with one hand to grasp Mickey’s wrist; stops his ministrations. The sudden movements startle Mickey. He finally tears his eyes from Ian’s soft hair and looks into Ian’s eyes - no longer as happy, but just as sincere.
Ian’s grasp softens and he brings Mickey’s palm to his lips. He breathes deeply, closing his eyes, and Mickey bites his lips to keep from giggling; the touch tickles.
Ian refuses to open his eyes and let them meet Mickey’s.
But he can’t hide from Mickey anymore anyway.
“It’s just…it’s such a reminder to me…” Ian confesses against Mickey’s skin, dragging his lips down the inside of the Mickey’s forearm, stretching the boy’s arm past his head as he moves his way down his arm.
Mickey looks on, lets the quiet intensify the feeling of Ian’s kisses on his skin. He closes his eyes, breathes deep.
“A reminder of what, Ian?” Mickey whispers, finally.
Ian opens his eyes, a green ocean with how they water. Lets Mickey in on all of their woes, no words needed.
The hangover kept even when he first saw his mother again. He felt like throwing up every time she had that look in her eye when he’d come home - “home” - the look that said ‘I’m sorry,’ but that disappeared as soon as the needle came out every night.
The hangover kept on even when he found himself surrounded by flashing lights, and he looked down and saw himself in nothing but golden shorts. The hangover wasn’t cured by the drugs shoved into his mouth, or the bills shoved into his crotch, or the blistering cold that he’d meet every night when he ended his shift.
And all the while, his hair grew and grew.
“You thought what you saw was bad,” Ian says now, lying on his back, eyes towards the ceiling but Mickey knows he’s looking past it, right into his own past.
“But you didn’t see me then, Mick,” Ian finishes, tilting his head to face Mickey who’s still lying on his side, running an idle hand down Ian’s right arm. When Ian meets Mickey’s eye, the brunette immediately looks away; follows the trail of goosebumps his fingertips leave behind on Ian’s skin.
I was bad too, Ian, Mickey thinks to himself. But he doesn't let the thought linger, because this is about Ian. It's always been about Ian.
“Everything I did, I thought it was just me trying to get over it.” He pauses, because how often do they so directly talk about it? Never, not until this seemingly ordinary winter night.
“Your wedding, Svetlana...fuck - just you.... For a while I really thought you fucked me up for good.... Turns out I’ve been fucked this entire time,” Ian huffs a rueful sigh.
“Ian...”
“No, Mickey,” Ian interrupts; the words couldn’t stop spilling out of his mouth. “I was fucked. I was delusional, and I still fucking am. I blamed everybody but myself for my faults. It’s all me.”
“No, Ian,” Mickey bites back. He pushes forward, lets his hand fall on Ian’s bare chest as he scooches closer, wrapping his legs so as to anchor Ian down and to keep him from spiraling into guilt.
Mickey says quite simply what’s been true this entire time. “You got dealt the shittiest card, and you are the least deserving of them. It’s not fucking fair, but it’s not your fucking fault. And it never will be.”
And he says what’s been true but has never uttered between them this entire time.
“And you have to know that...I will never blame you. And I’m not going anywhere.”
A few minutes of silence pass; Mickey's confession needing the buffer so it can sink into the both of them. And it sinks as easy as a rock in the ocean.
Finally, Ian smiles, small, bringing his hand to run down Mickey’s spine. “One year,” he says, voice so fond it warms Mickey down to his toes.
Mickey can’t deal with how far into the painful past they’ve gone tonight, he wants to come out of it. They didn't talk about the best of times - the summer he got out of juvie, anything but romance but the entire promise of it blossoming before his eyes before he even knew it.
No, they didn't talk about those times. They talked about the worst of times. And Mickey can’t talk about it anymore.
Mickey chuckles, bringing his right hand to run through Ian’s hair, making the redhead practically purr, close his eyes, and tilt his head up.
“So that’s why,” Mickey says, slowly trying to change the direction of the conversation.“That’s why you won’t cut it,” Mickey says thoughtfully, letting his fingers gently massage Ian’s scalp. He smiles at how easily Ian is lost in the sensation, purring deep in his chest and a dorky smile spreading and lighting up his entire face.
“My redheaded Samson,” Mickey says softly.
“Didn’t peg you for the religious type, Mick,” Ian teases.
Mickey laughs and yawns sleepily. “Yeah, I’m all holy and pure, feel myself reborn every time you stick your dick up my ass. Quite a spiritual experience.”
At that, Ian cackles. He sobers quickly though, a thought dangling over his pretty little red head. Mickey practically sees the question forming as Ian’s expression sombers once more.
“What if I leave again, Mick?” He asks finally.
Mickey sighs. “You won’t.”
“How do you know, Mick?” Ian asks, a tremble just barely showing as he utters Mickey’s name.
Mickey sighs again, bringing his head down to rest on Ian’s chest, cheek warmed by Ian’s racing heartbeat. Or it may be his own.
“Because I love you, Ian,” Mickey says simply.
Mickey blames the confession on the late night mood, the pillow talk he’s always been such a sucker for. But he keeps on. No need to hide from Ian anyway.
“Because you love me. Because you love your family, and you love Yev, and for some reason you love his fucking mother too.”
Mickey hears Ian’s breath catch at all of this.
And Ian thinks back.
Waking up in the Milkovich home, not remembering how he got there. Head pounding, the whore looking onto him. He knows some Russian, speaks it. Gets up, strips, gets into the shower, remembers how to use it, he’s been in here before - before it all happened. Before, when Ian fell so far in love. Before he fell so far off from his mind, before he ran so far away from everything.
And that day he was back in the house where it all began. Where it all came crashing down.
And here they both are now, picking up the pieces.
“You won’t leave,” Mickey says again. “You’ll stay, you’ll prove yourself wrong, and you’ll feel on top of the fucking world when things get better.”
Ian grins, using his index finger to tilt Mickey’s chin so that he staring into Ian’s eyes. “Redemption tale,” he says.
Mickey smiles, replete. “Redemption tale,” he echoes before he brings his head back to lie on Ian’s chest, leaving a chaste kiss onto Ian’s ribs before falling slowly back to sleep.
One year ago, Mickey had his redemption. Now it’s time for Ian to have his.