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It’s cold. Like, really fucking cold. Mickey should be huddled up at home with a beer and a blanket, watching the big fight on a pirated stream while his brothers reenact it blow for blow one room away, waiting for them to knock each other out so he can sleep in peace.
Instead, he’s standing outside a ritzy building downtown, squinting against the reflection of bright lights bouncing off his own puffy plastic coat. The black fabric turns tasteful white lights into an oil slick, a rainbow puddle pooling around him like a spotlight.
As if it isn’t obvious enough that he’s out of place.
His hands twitch in his pockets. The worn denim does little against the cold, but at least it hides his restless fingers: scraping at his thigh through the hole made by his keys, picking at threads, rolling a spare quarter along his knuckles. If he can’t keep warm, at least he can keep occupied.
A door opens behind him, light and laughter spilling out into the street. A giggle, shushed whispers—the kind drunks think are discreet.
“But the paaarty,” a girl whines, clinging to the man she walks with. “He isn’t even here yet!”
“It’s fine, I left a huge donation,” her partner reassures. “He won’t even notice.”
They stop next to Mickey. Two pillars of bespoke finery, all crystals and silk and old, old money, next to his southside hand-me-downs.
“The Mercedes,” the man says curtly, eying Mickey from head to toe. He almost stumbles when he raises his eyes back to Mickey’s, but catches himself on his girlfriend’s shoulder. She scowls at him, adjusting her shawl, as he adds, “and it better not have a scratch.”
Mickey looks at him. Raises an eyebrow.
“Not the valet, moneybags,” he answers. “But the way you’re swayin’ right now, wouldn’t give you the car if I was.”
The man gapes. Like that goldfish Mandy won at the fair in third grade, before Colin decided to see if it could swim back up the u-bend. His popped collar even bobbles like its little fins had, albeit even less usefully.
“Now see here,” he starts, and Mickey clenches his hand around the coin in his pocket to keep himself from socking that snooty face. “I could have your—“
“Benny baby, over there! He’s here!” his girlfriend squeals, pointing with a manicured finger to the street just ahead. The street where, conveniently enough, the actual valet is opening the door of some fancy-ass car so the driver doesn’t hurt his prissy arms by doing it himself.
And the man that gets out is one that Mickey recognizes all too easily, from grey hair to fitted suit to shiny black shoes. A regular Mickey is never happy to see, and the man of honor for tonight’s stupid, elaborate event.
Dr. Lloyd Lishman, pervert extraordinare.
He watches as the dumb drunks fumble their way over, literally falling over themselves to reach a man that probably didn’t know their names. Lishman shakes their hands, pats their shoulders, his fake white smile never wavering—then holds them back with one outstretched hand while he opens the passenger door with the other. He offers a hand to whoever waits inside, the newest of an endless string of barely-legal boys that he’s somehow drawn into his net.
Mickey looks away as the victim emerges. Reaches for the box of cigs and lighter in his back pocket. He faces the building to light up, ignoring the happy voices coming from the car; he can’t stand to see whatever kid Lishman brought making star-eyes at his date’s rich friends as he’s introduced.
He’d tried to help one of them out, once. Told them what was what, threatened hell if Lishman gave them trouble. All he’d gotten for the effort was a sore instep from the kid’s heeled boots and a warning from his boss not to mess with the clientèle.
He hadn’t made the same mistake again.
The voices behind him come to a halt, replaced by the click-clack of hard-soled shoes on concrete. Mickey sighs, stubs out his cigarette with the toe of his shoe, and raises his eyes to look at the smarmy old fuck striding toward him.
And at the redhead on his arm.
They’re as put together as always, both of the bastards. Complementary waistcoats, matching ties--even their damn shoes are shinier than the change rattling in Mickey’s threadbare pockets. Rich, perfect. Fucking disgusting.
Then the younger one raises a hand to smooth back his shock of red-orange hair, and the bulky, scratched watch on his wrist gives away the game.
He’s new, this one, and not just to Lishman.
Mickey tells himself it doesn’t matter. That the trace of nerves showing on the kid’s face are just because he isn’t used to the ridiculous frippery that trails Lishman everywhere he goes. He nods at the fucker, steps to the side.
Then grabs him by the arm as he walks past.
“Can I see some ID?” he asks the most well-known man of the elite party scene, hating himself with every word for not being able to let things go.
Lishman smiles.
“Mickey my boy,” he says, stepping back to put them face to face. “A pleasure as always.”
He makes a show of reaching into his suit jacket, drawing out a wallet that holds more wealth in spare bills than Mickey will ever be able to bury in the hole in his mattress back home.
“I must applaud your dedication to the job,” Lishman remarks as he flips it open to the see-through sleeve that holds his license. “Not many bouncers would be so thorough.”
“Yeah, well,” Mickey mumbles, giving the card a cursory glance. His eyes skid over the redhead on return, catching on the faint frown that mars a freckled face. “The one time you don’t, right?”
“Indeed.” Lishman’s smile is wearing thin as he tucks his wallet away. He reaches back for his date’s hand, leads him forward. “Well, I’ll make sure to have it ready next week,” he promises, stepping toward the door.
Mickey grabs him again, callused fingers catching on smooth silk. Lishman stops, his date colliding with his back.
“Need his too,” Mickey says, and watches Lishman’s cool facade turn stony.
“Oh, of course,” the redhead says immediately, letting go of Lishman’s hand to fumbles in tight pockets. “Sorry, I didn’t know it would—”
“Really, Mikhailo,” Lishman cuts him off with a put-upon sigh, shaking Mickey’s grip loose. “You know me, and Ian here is my guest.”
Mickey shrugs. Bites his lip, shakes his head, and keeps on being an idiot.
“And is your guest legal?”
Lishman’s eyes narrow.
“Aren’t they always?” he answers, and it would be biting if not for his forced nonchalance.
Mickey narrows his eyes right back. Maintains eye contact while he cracks his neck.
“It’s okay Lloyd, really,” the redhead—Ian—interjects. He reaches past Lishman, holds out a worn plastic rectangle with yellow-stained edges. “Here it is, Mikhailo.”
Mickey grabs it on autopilot, Ian’s warm fingers sending a jolt along his own cold ones as they brush.
“Don’t call me that,” he mutters absently as he looks down at the ID. “Name’s Mickey.”
And Ian’s name really was Ian, according to his license. He was also old enough to make his own bad decisions.
“Fine,” Mickey says, offering the ID back to its owner. “Head on in.”
Ian reaches out, grabs the offered edge. And lingers.
“Thanks, Mickey,” he says with a smile, teeth flashing. They’re as perfectly put-together as the rest of him, except for a tiny chip in one cuspid. Next to Lishman’s own sparkling veneers, it makes Ian seem more real.
“You know,” Ian says slowly, still not letting go of the card, “you remind me of somebody I—”
The ID, and Ian, are ripped from Mickey’s grasp. A rough edge scrapes Mickey’s thumb, a minor abrasion, and he shakes the feeling loose as he meets Lishman’s hard gaze.
“Come along, Ian,” Lishman orders, eyes never leaving Mickey’s. “Mildred is waiting for us.” He flips Ian’s ID over in his hand, reaches around the other man to slide it into his front pocket. Uses the momentum to tug Ian into his side, mindless of the stumble he causes, and leaves his hand where it is in dark suit pants.
They’re so tight his fingers barely fit inside against Ian’s thigh, and Mickey can clearly see the way his grip tightens and releases. He can also see Ian’s eyes—green as fucking grass—flit from Lishman’s face to Mickey’s as he’s led away.
Mickey catches them long enough to mouth Mildred? with a smirk and raised brows, and he’s pretty sure Ian turns a laugh into a cough as he shrugs out of Lishman’s hold to follow him in.
Mickey watches him go. Tucks the scratched skin of his thumb into his mouth as the door to the venue closes, replacing red hair and tight pants with gilded wood.
“You know you need to leave him alone,” a voice comes from a few feet away. “Gonna get yourself canned if you don’t.”
Mickey scowls, ripping his hand from his mouth and half-turning to face a man leaning up against the wall.
“I know,” he tells Richard, his security partner for the night. “Go back to your own door, Dick.”
Richard shrugs. Taps the wall twice before pushing off it to wander away. Mickey doesn’t bother watching to make sure he does as he’s told.
He turns back to the street, pointedly ignoring the door. Doesn’t matter what’s going on behind it—doesn’t matter what he can’t see. A toothy smile and choked laughter didn’t change that Lishman’s new toy had made his choice.
And no matter how much Mickey wanted to do something about it, it was none of his fucking business.
He’s never been real good at minding his own business.
He pretends to be, sure. Pretends not to notice things happening under his nose, pretends not to care. It’s what’s helped him survive this long in a family like his, in a world like his. It’s what got him this job playing trumped-up bouncer to the elite, guarding a world he didn’t belong to. But for all his uncaring demeanor, for all the nods and waves and carefully averted eyes as people come and go, he can’t stop thinking about it.
An older woman with bleached blond hair enters the building, and he thinks about slicked-back strands, red, bright. So similar yet so different to the men before him, the lights of the entrance catching a million different colors that couldn’t have come from a box.
A man leaves with eyes glazed over by drink, and he thinks about pools of green, cautious at first but open when they met. Something in them that spoke of an age he didn’t have, that was more comfortable with Mickey’s low-brow appearance than Lishman’s finery.
A couple stumbles down the sidewalk, holding each other up with wandering hands, and he thinks about that possessive grip when he tried to linger, about curt words when he tried to speak.
He thinks about that cheap, old watch when he slips a Rolex free from the wrist of a trust-funder who pre-gamed too hard, about the worn ID when he checks another glitter-encrusted card sleeve. The fake crystals catch the scratch on his thumb, and he all but throws it back in the face of the debutante it belongs to before waving the rest of the group through unchecked just so he can have a smoke.
The sounds of celebration inside are muted by the door he leans up next to, nothing but a wordless murmur as he flicks open his lighter. He takes a drag, feels himself settle, and tries to put it all properly out of his mind before he does something really fucking stupid.
He takes another pull, relaxes as the nicotine dulls his mind. Stares up at where the stars would be if not for the pollution of city lights, and breathes.
The filthy air grounds him. Smoke like home, where his sister is sleeping. She’d kill him if she knew he almost risked this job again, his latest chance to go legit. The smell of grease from the restaurant down the block, the kind of hole-in-the-wall that clung to life despite all best efforts to put it out of business. The faintest trace of gasoline and oil, leaking from a beat-up Ford truck parked on the corner between a BMW and Lexus.
It still smells like his world, here in the midst of this nonsense. A world where rich fucks and their boytoys don’t dare tread.
The door opens.
And a voice brings everything crashing back.
“Can I bum one of those?” it asks. Deep, smooth. Already familiar.
“Sugar daddy ain’t rich enough to buy his own smokes?” Mickey answers as he glances over, fingers clenched around his own cigarette to keep them from doing anything else.
“More like he only smokes menthols,” Ian says with a grimace that Mickey returns. Then he holds his arms out, does a little half twirl. “And there’s nowhere in this suit to hide a pack.”
Nowhere indeed. And now, without Lishman by his side as a counterpoint, the tightness of the suit doesn’t look so polished anymore. It just looks…
A little wrong. A little bit like a kid playing dress-up, all those long, gangly limbs wrapped up in expensive silk like the drape of fine fabric can do anything to hide the dirt under his nails as he holds a hand out in request.
A little bit like Mickey feels as he fishes out another smoke and drops it into a surprisingly callused palm.
“Shame,” he mutters as Ian takes it, gesturing at the snug fit of the other man’s clothes, and counts on the cold to hide his flush when Ian grins.
Ian holds the unlit cigarette between two fingers, rotates it idly for a moment while Mickey digs out his lighter. Then he puts it in his mouth and leans abruptly forward, toward Mickey’s face instead of his hand, and lights it from the burning end hanging out of Mickey’s mouth.
“Thanks,” he breathes out, still close, breath filled with smoke.
Mickey blinks. Stays put as Ian shifts back again, taking up position next to him against the wall. The cigarette looks right in Ian’s mouth, in his hand when he lets it drop. He taps ash from the end, not caring as it lands against the perfect polish of his shoes, and blows smoke up to the sky.
“Where’d he find you, anyway?” Mickey asks absently, eyes trailing the long line of Ian’s pale neck. His own cig is forgotten in his hand, burning perilously close to his fingers, not worth his attention.
“Little corner store down south,” Ian answers, eyes flicking to Mickey’s face and back to the smog-filled sky. “Back of the yards.”
Mickey blinks again.
“No shit,” he says. Takes another look at him. Darkened skin around his knuckles when he raises his cigarette, not enough to call a bruise. A red scratch at his temple, blending in with his hair. The ease with which he presses back against the brick behind them, one foot raised, surely ruining the suit coat someone else must have bought.
Mickey looks away.
“A southside boy lettin’ some rich asshole use him for fuckin’ arm candy?” he questions, still not quite believing it.
Ian just shrugs.
“Among other things.”
And Mickey can’t take it. Can’t take the implication, offered so casually. Knows people do it, hell his own sister did for a while, but…
“Why you really with him?” he asks, pointedly not looking at Ian when he does. “If you’re really southside, why not knock him out and be done with it?”
“He’s a good guy,” Ian offers, rolling his head to the side to look at Mickey’s profile. “He takes care of me.”
Mickey snorts.
“A good guy, huh?” he parrots. “Please. He’s got a kid like you on his arm every week, never the same one twice.” He doesn’t look to see if that blow hits. “He’s usin’ you, man.”
Ian looks away again; Mickey can see it from the corner of his eye.
“And I’m using him,” comes the stilted reply, “so why do you care?”
He sounds angry. Shit. That wasn’t what Mickey was going for.
“Look, I just meant…” Mickey stops. Pushes off the wall, turns to lean sideways instead, facing Ian. “You don’t seem like the other ones, okay?”
Ian laughs, but it’s humorless. Nothing like the choked sound he’d made earlier, the one that had Mickey grinning in spite of himself.
“Why not?” he bites out. “Cause I’m not some Northside pretty boy?”
“What?” Mickey stands straight. “No, I—”
“Thanks for the smoke,” Ian says flatly, crushing his cigarette against the wall to put it out. “Better be gettin’ back before Lloyd finds another kid just like me but better, right?”
Mickey grabs at his arm. Misses.
“Ian—”
“If you see me around town,” Ian says as he opens the door, his words almost lost in the cacophony it releases. “You didn’t.”
Mickey stands there as it closes. Again. Hisses when the burning filter of his own cigarette burns his fingers.
“Nice goin’,” Richard says from right around the corner, by the side door. “You sure helped that one.”
“Shut it, Dick,” Mickey orders, and faces the street with crossed arms.
The night doesn’t get any better. It just drags on, and on, and endless stream of faceless elite brushing past him without even looking. He breaks up one drunken fight, keeps a guy from bashing his own head in on the curb, and stops a couple of party-crashers from entering while subtly pointing them toward the service entrance out back instead.
He doesn’t see Ian again, or Lishman. That’s probably good. He’s gotten himself in enough trouble for the night, with both of them, and figures it’s good riddance.
A crash comes from inside.
Mickey starts, his eyes opening before he realizes they had drifted closed. Voices get louder, loud enough to heard through the wall. Mickey ignores it, even as he hears the side door open as Richard dashes through. His job is outside, and outside he’ll stay. Away from a world that isn’t meant for him.
Then his own door opens, Richard’s head popping out.
“Get the fuck in here, Milkovich,” he demands, tugging ineffectively at the sleeve of Mickey’s coat. “Got us a situation.”
“Handle it yourself,” Mickey grumbles, pulling away. “Not my job.”
“It is if you want to have a job,” he’s told. “Your favorite creep just called the boss.”
“Well fuck,” Mickey mutters, and follows his coworker through the heavy, ornate door.
He’s always made a point of not entering the establishments he works at. Gotta keep shit separate to keep his cool. It’s one thing to see all the moneyed morons come and go, but witnessing the ridiculous extravagance of their lives when he has to go back home to a house that should have been condemned before he was fucking born?
Yeah, that wasn’t a good idea.
The lights hit him first, then the sound. Classical music played so loud it might as well be metal, interspersed with high voices and the click of heels on polished floors. Floors so smooth he nearly slips on them in his worn, traction-less sneakers, catching himself on a rail along the wall that belongs in some kind of period film.
The whole place looked like something out of a movie, and not the kind that Mickey used to sneak into at the cheap mall theater. It’s too big, and too bright, and too fucking everything. The fucking coat room is bigger than his bedroom at home, and decked out like some kind of high-end boutique instead of the glorified closet it is. Mickey wants to take every single thing in there and throw it out into the street, and he’s barely even made it past the front door.
“Come on,” Richard urges, making his way deeper into the building. “Hurry up.”
Mickey glares at the opulence around him, and obeys.
“I want him arrested!” he hears in Lishman’s obnoxious whine as they push through a throng of partygoers further in. “For assault and theft!”
Mickey rolls his eyes without even knowing what its at, an ingrained response to anything that man complains about. Probably a server that dumped wine on him or something, something completely normal that he just has to turn into something bigger. Bigger like this place, bigger like these people, these people that block Mickey’s every step with their skirts and their bags and their weird-ass canes of all things. So rich and lazy they can’t even stand still without making a big deal out of it.
“Sir, he’s gone,” one of the bartenders is trying to explain as Mickey forges his way closer to the center of the crowd, just visible through bodies that might as well be mannequins. His white shirt is covered in the pale pink of what Mickey is ashamed to know used to be a nice rose, according to some of the guests that already left.
“There’s nothing I can do,” he says, twisting a napkin between his hands. “He isn’t—”
“Then find him, damn it!” Lishman demands, just out of sight.
Mickey shoves past a woman in a dress so frosted with glitter he can’t see straight, and stops hard when there’s no one else in front of her. He blinks stars from his eyes, and stares as Richard keeps moving ahead of him, the other man kneeling down in the middle of the commotion.
Kneeling, because Lishman is on the ground. Grey hair smeared with some fruity drink, leg twisted beneath him, and an impressive bruise already purpling his otherwise perfect face.
It’s the loveliest sight of Mickey’s night.
“I’ll have that little bastard’s balls for this!” Lishman seethes, wincing as he touches his own face. He swats aside the hands that reach for him, chooses to stay on the floor, fingers clenching and unclenching in the fabric of his suit pants.
“Looks like his balls are pretty big to me,” Mickey says under his breath, taking it in from the edge of the circle. There’s glass smashed on the floor next to Lishman, a scattering of hors d'oeuvres falling apart all around. The cloth from the buffet behind them lies half puddled on the slick tiles, a floral arrangment balanced precariously on the table’s edge.
“Balls of fucking steel,” Mickey amends when he notices that in addition to the wanton destruction, Lishmans’ pockets are turned out.
The woman next to him gasps, and he shuts his mouth. But the sound is enough to have Lishman looking up to find him, pale eyes locking onto Mickey’s immediately.
“You,” he growls, sitting there in a pool of filth. “It’s your job to keep this from happening.”
Mickey sighs. Steps forward, putting some space between himself and the idiots around him. He’s not actually sure which of them are bigger idiots, though, when he decides to open his mouth.
“I’d tell you it’s not,” Mickey drawls, thumbing his nose, “but since I don’t actually know what happened here, I guess I’m not sure.”
“Mickey,” Richard hisses, glancing up from where he’s rolling ice into a napkin for Lishman’s bruise.
“What?” Mickey returns with a single-shoulder shrug, letting his gaze wander again. “Just tryin’ to figure out next steps, here.”
“Your next step,” Lishman orders, “is to find the boy that just spit in my face and stole my wallet!”
Mickey shouldn’t want to smile at that. He really, really shouldn’t.
He does anyway, tries to hide it behind his hand as he rubs at his upper lip.
“Now why’d he do that?” he can’t help but poke, mind running a mile a minute. “Thought he was your guest.”
“I don’t care what you think.” Lishman sat forward, knocking Richard away without a glance. “If you want to keep your pathetic job, you’ll do what I say and bring him back.”
“Sure,” Mickey agrees, already eying the exit. “I can do that.”
“And if he so much as—”
Mickey wanders off before Lishman can finish, passing right by him. He kicks a piece a glass out of the way, keeps going, and the crowd splits apart for him easily this time.
There’s a rustle behind him, a few quick steps.
“I’ll come with you,” Richard offers quietly at his shoulder, still holding his dripping, makeshift ice pack. “We can cover more ground.”
Mickey looks back, and shakes his head.
“Nah,” he says. “I’m on it. You stay here and get that asshole cleaned up, and we’ll both still have jobs in the morning.”
Richard hesitates.
“You sure?”
“Do I look unsure?” Mickey asks, spreading his arms. Richard doesn’t seem convinced.
“Look, I’ve chased down scarier fuckers than that guy as a damn toddler,” Mickey pushes. “That’s why I got this job, right?” He steps forward pokes his coworker in the chest.
“I’m the muscle, Dick,” he reminds him. “And you’re the face. So put that face to good use and keep our asses outta the fire while I do the dirty work, okay?”
“Right,” Richard says, faint but sure. “Okay.”
Mickey nods. Steps back. Turns toward the exit again, takes a step, and pauses at Richard’s voice.
“Just…bring him back, yeah?” Richard pleads. Like he thinks he has to. “Lishman wants to press charges.”
“Sure thing, Dick,” Mickey lies, and snags a bottle of Jack from the bar on his way out. “Be back soon.”
He loops back around through the back hallway, stops by the coat room. Grabs a cashmere scarf and and hand-knit hat worth more than his entire outfit, tucks them into the cavernous pocket of his own bulky coat. Hugs the coat tighter to his chest, bottle tucked neatly inside, and leaves the same way he never should have come in.
He’s pretty sure Ian can’t have made it too far. Far from home, no ride, and not exactly dressed for walking.
It still takes him twenty minutes to find him, wandering down the street in the vague direction of home.
“Hey!” he shouts when he finally catches sight of bright hair bobbing along across the street, winding a path directed south. He picks up his own pace, cursing as the bottle of whiskey tucked inside his coat jams into ribs. “Ian!”
That red head keeps moving. Doesn’t even hesitate as it turns a corner, long legs moving too quick for Mickey to match.
“Dammit Ian,” he pants, nearly tripping over a homeless man on the sidewalk as he tries to catch up. “Slow the fuck down!”
He doesn’t. And when Mickey reaches the corner, no one is there.
“Fuck,” he bites out, then “Fuck!” a little louder. He kicks the wall of the building next to him, curses again when it sends sharp pain shooting up his frozen leg.
“Goddamit,” he curses, shaking off the pain until it makes the bottle inside his coat start to slip. He jams a hand up from the hem just in time to catch it, dancing a little to shift it back into place.
“What are you doing?” the homeless guy asks from behind him, voice a bit too amused and oddly familiar, and oh.
Wait.
“The fuck are you doing?” Mickey returns, looking over his shoulder and into green eyes. “Just chillin’ on the damn sidewalk after you beat your date half to death on my watch?”
Ian snorts. Stretches his legs out, feet nearly reaching the curb even with his back flat against the wall.
“Please,” he huffs. “I barely touched him.”
“Huh.” Mickey moves closer. Stands at the other man’s hip, one hand in his pocket and the other still wrapped in his coat. “Sure looked like you did more than that.”
Ian looks away, down.
“Didn’t mean to,” he says more quietly. “But he couldn’t take a punch, hit his head on the way down.”
Mickey hums.
“Lot of property damage for a fall,” he points out.
Ian doesn’t answer, at first. Sits silent on the sidewalk as a lone car drives past, headlights flashing over his face.
Mickey can’t quite make out the expression there. Troubled, proud. Hesitant, sure. He thinks he’s probably worn it himself once or twice, but it’s odd to see the dichotomy on someone else’s face.
“They send you after me?” Ian finally asks, when the street goes quiet again.
It’s Mickey’s turn not to answer, but Ian doesn’t need him to.
“Figures,” he mutters, shaking his head. “Can’t even do that himself.”
Mickey frowns. Taps at Ian’s hip with the tip of his dirty shoe, leaving behind a smudge on still-clean fabric.
“What’s your deal?” he asks. “Thought he was a good guy?”
Ian chuckles, a low, sad thing.
“Me too,” he agrees. Looks up, away again. “Then he tried to offer me to some guy.” He leans his head back against the wall, stares blindly at the night sky. “As a reward for his generous donation,” he adds bitterly, and Mickey doesn’t even have it in him to say he told him so.
“Shit,” he says instead, and Ian’s lips turn up just a smidge.
“Yeah,” he sighs. “Shit.”’
They stay quiet for a moment. Then:
“So what, you decided to sock ‘em?”
This time, when Ian looks up, he meets Mickey’s eyes and holds them.
“I just did what you said,” he corrects. “Went the southside route—clocked him and said hell with it.”
Mickey can’t help it. He laughs. Hard enough that he has to grip the whiskey bottle again to keep it from falling, hard enough that he ends up letting himself slide down the wall to sit next to Ian, bottle hidden in his lap. Their shoulders brush, plastic against silk, and he’d knock their feet together if not for the fact that his legs only reached to Ian’s calves.
“Heard you stole his shit, too,” he says when he gets his breath. “Bold fucking move, tough guy.”
He can feel Ian’s shrug, can hear the scrape of his suit against brick.
“You here to take me back?” Ian asks, casual, light, and Mickey shrugs too.
“Nah.”
Ian pulls away enough to face him.
“What?” he asks, surprised. Mickey feels like he should be offended.
“I said nah,” he repeats. “Not my problem.”
Ian raises an eyebrow. Scans him head to toe.
“But you’re…”
“They hire me to keep people out, not the other way round,” Mickey elaborates. Grins. “Figure I’d be doin’ a disservice by takin’ you back in.”
It startles a laugh out of Ian, his shoulders softening. He settles back again, even closer, and eyes Mickey without turning his head.
“Why’d you follow me, then?” he asks. Not accusing, not angry. Just curious.
Mickey answers by digging in his coat pocket, pulling out the scarf and hat he had nicked.
“Thought you might be cold,” he says, offering them.
Ian hesitates.
“Um,” he says, then reaches out, takes them. “Thanks.”
“No problem.”
Mickey slouches further, lets his head fall back. Feels Ian’s eyes on him.
“You gonna put ‘em on,” he asks without looking, “or do you need a fuckin’ invitation?”
“Don’t you need it?” Ian counters, and Mickey shakes his head.
“Nah,” he says, and moves the hand that still rests inside his coat, poking the lip of the whiskey bottle against the fabric to tent it. “Got somethin’ else to keep me warm.”
“The fuck?” Ian asks, eyes wide and scarf halfway around his neck, and Mickey realizes abruptly what it must look like.
“Whiskey,” Mickey spits out, tugging down his coat zipper to reveal the bottle. “It’s whiskey.”
“Oh.” Ian laughs. It’s a good laugh, like the very first one Mickey had heard, back at the start of the night.
“I mean, I wouldn’t,” Mickey blabbers anyway, and Ian’s face twitches. “Not after what that asshole just did,” he adds, and the other man’s face smoothes out again.
“You know,” Ian says, pulling his legs up in preparation to climb to his feet, “I’ve got a better idea.”
He stands, reaches down a hand. Mickey takes it, lets himself be pulled up, waits awkwardly for Ian to explain.
He’s rewarded handsomely.
“You could come back to my place,” Ian offers, reaching into his pocket to pull out a handful of bills that definitely hadn’t been there are the start of the night. “Got enough to turn on the heat.”
Mickey grins so wide his teeth get cold.
“Yeah?” he says, stepping right into Ian’s space. He looks up into green eyes, doesn’t blink. “Ain’t I a little young for you?”
“What can I say,” Ian murmurs, bending down. “It’s a night for change.”
And in no world would Mickey turn that down.