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Ian had never been that big on nicknames. Maybe it was because he had too many of his own growing up, and not all of them good.
He was Fiona’s “sweetface”, sure, and Lip’s “little brother”; he was “kid”, and he was “red”, and he was on occasion, from Liam, just “E”.
But he was also “that fucking Gallagher boy”. He was “the coked-out lap-dancing whore”. He was “carrot-boy”, he was Frank’s “redheaded cocksucking bastard”, he was “the crazy one”, and “the gay one”, and “the one with all the problems”.
Fuck; he was “Gay Jesus”. Like he wasn’t even worth his own name.
With Mickey, it had always been different. Mickey’s “tough guy” sounded more like admiration than a challenge; “Gallagher” sounded like a prayer. “Army” was for teasing, not for judging, and even “you fucking moron” was lighter than air.
He had missed that, while Mickey was gone. Missed the easy way they spoke; missed the names, and the way they sounded in Mickey’s mouth. With Mickey, he didn’t care that it wasn’t his real name—his name was carved into Mickey’s very chest, after all, never to be forgotten. He just cared that Mickey was with him, and that each nickname sounded like love.
He basked in Mickey’s “move over, princess,” in the rec room, when he forced himself onto the sofa at Ian’s side. He reveled in the quiet “you good, doc?” when he returned from working the infirmary and climbed into his bunk with a sigh. He breathed in “that’s it, beautiful” in the middle of the night, too quiet for anyone else to hear, and he bit his lip at “nice try, asshole,” in the cafeteria the next morning when he reached for Mickey’s dessert.
Still, he never offered his own monikers. Never whispered “lover” in Mickey’s ear, or called him “sweetheart”, or called him “dear”. He wanted to, wanted to offer his own comforts, his own affection, but years of suppression were hard to overcome.
Once a man told you that calling him sugar would result in your bones being ground down to dust and sprinkled on pastries like so much of the same, you tended to stick to his name.
But more and more, Mickey’s name didn’t feel like enough. And in his head, Ian started calling him other things, better things: things like “darling”, and “beloved”. Things like “mine”.
Only in his head, though. Only where it was safe. Where Mickey couldn’t hear it, and where no one else could care.
Until he slipped.
They were in the cafeteria when it happened. Side by side, as always, feet touching beneath the table by excuse of overcrowding. The yellow of their prison uniforms wrinkled with the closeness of their arms, their hips, and their forearms brushed with every bite of nutritional slop.
“So I was tellin’ ‘im,” Mickey was saying, gesturing with his spoon—the unsharpened one in his hand, not the one in his shoe, “that if he really thought he could take me, he was welcome to find me at rec time.”
The man across from them laughed.
“No way,” he said, disbelieving. “I know you got balls, Milkovich, but taking on Crazy Cal? You’d be lucky if that fucker left enough of you to patch up.”
“Please,” Mickey snorted, dropping his spoon to push the mush around on his tray. “That guy’s all talk. I could take ‘im.”
“Take him where?” another guy asked. “Out to dinner? Cause you’d be on the menu.”
Ian could feel Mickey bristling beside him. It had started in good fun, perhaps, but he was going to take it personally. His hand was tensing on his spoon, holding it more like the knife it wasn’t, and his thigh tensed as he half-rose.
Ian stopped him with a hand on his arm. No pressure, just a solid weight.
“Calm down,” he said, his tone joking, the thread of warning something only Mickey would hear. “They’re just kidding, baby.”
And Mickey froze, and quieted.
But so did everything else.
“Did you just call Milkovich a baby?” someone asked down the line of the table, choking on laughter.
“Nah, he didn’t say a baby,” someone else corrected, even as Ian closed his eyes in horror. “He just called him baby. Like, his baby.”
Laughs went around the table. Mickey was tenser than ever under his hand, and then he wasn’t—not because he had relaxed, but because he had pulled away.
“That right Milkovich?” came the first taunt, the first of many. “You such a girl you need pretty names to make you feel better?”
“Knew you took it Milkovich, you scream like a goddamn banshee about it,” came the next, “but you really that much of a bitch?”
“Hey now, Murphy,” someone called out, “he said baby, not bitch. Milkovich just needs a good daddy to—”
His head crashed into the table before he could finish.
“What was that, Jackson?” Mickey asked pleasantly, as if he hadn’t nearly knocked Ian on his ass and sent three other inmates face-first into their slop just to interrupt. “Afraid I didn’t catch that last bit.”
“Yo, Milkovich,” another man said, “what the fuck?”
“Oh, you confused, Jefferson?” Mickey asked. He lifted his gaze to the man across the table, still holding the first one down. The head in his hand slid a bit against the plastic table, wet with blood from his split lip, but Mickey tugged harshly back into place.
“See, Jackson here,” Mickey shook the hair in his fist for effect, “thought it would be appropriate to comment on what my friend Gallagher just called me. But I,” he raised his eyebrows, not a challenge, just a statement, “I think that’s none of his fucking business.”
He released his captive suddenly, letting him slide half-conscious out of his seat.
“Who do you agree with?” Mickey asked, addressing the room at large. “Me, or the fucker I just put on the floor?”
“You,” came the quick reassurance.
“Good,” Mickey said, backing away. “That’s good.” He walked all the way down the table, past Ian even, eying each and every one of them. “Now don’t fucking forget it,” he ordered. “Cause he might have called me baby, but I ain’t nobody’s bitch.”
Then he was turning, and leaving, and Ian was still sitting there, and fuck—he had just done the one thing Mickey hadn’t wanted, and he had ruined his cred in front of everyone, and he was going to be so mad—
Ian didn’t even look as he jumped up from the long table, sending his own tray and someone else’s clattering. He didn’t look at the eyes on him, didn’t care except for what it might mean to Mickey, who was already almost out of the room.
“Mickey,” Ian gasped out, chasing after him through the cafeteria. A few guards looked askance at them, but if they hadn’t responded to the fight, they weren’t going to stop them now.
“Mickey wait,” Ian tried, his long legs allowing him to catch up easily. He reached out, snagged Mickey’s elbow. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—”
Mickey turned around. And there was no anger on his face.
“Sorry for what?” he asked nonchalantly, still backing toward the doors. “Come on, let’s head back to our bunk.”
Ian gaped at him, then shut his mouth with a click of teeth when Mickey’s lips spread in a slow, wicked smile.
“Come on,” he said again, then, “baby.”
And laughed when Ian passed him to take the lead.