Work Text:
“I’m only gonna ask once, and then we don’t hafta talk about it ever again.” Ian’s voice wavered but he pressed on, somehow proud of himself for not chickening out.
Mickey's only reply was a muffled noise of inquiry.
They were on the Milkovich porch, Ian seated on an upturned bucket in one corner, Mickey sitting gracefully on the balcony, leg draped, as they smoked. The sun had just barely dipped below the level of the houses surrounding them, but the streetlights had yet to kick on, so the time felt unusual. Precious.
Even though they did this practically every weekend Ian could manage to get away.
It was easier in the summer, to make time, even if the city was baking like stale bread. Or maybe like mold, sticky and hot and congealing at the edges.
Away from Trevor, who thought Ian smoking weed would be a gateway back to the speed or pills.
Which was a giant joke.
The good pills or the bad pills? The ones he was prescribed and Trevor still counted regularly, or the ones that actually made him feel better. For a little while, at least.
“I just-“ Ian hesitated. “I wanna know. If things were different. If Trevor wasn’t around. Would you want a guy like me?”
“A guy like you?” Mickey’s answer was a sheer echo and no more. No intonation, no hints of what he could possibly be thinking.
Ian hated when Mickey got like this, blank. Unreadable.
“Me, I guess. Would you wanna be with me, if things were different?” He rushed the last words, eager to add another layer of deniability, of obfuscation, to the question that had been plaguing him these many months.
Really, ever since Mickey had re-emerged in his life, without a wife and with a legal job. With a place of his own. And still a perverse, frustrating, awful, tempting willingness to talk to Ian. To hang out with him. Bust his chops and trash talk him in video games and never once did they cross the threshold of more.
No matter how desperately Ian wanted them to.
But always, there was a wall between them. A shiny gold wall with Ian and Trevor’s initials engraved on the band.
The marriage had made sense at the time. Ian was just coming out of a depressive cycle where Trevor had literally scraped him off the floor, gotten him cleaned up from the drugs, gotten him back on the job, turned him back into a person, really. And Ian was grateful. That was like love, wasn’t it? Maybe. Or maybe not enough. Maybe it was just some other type of relationship, some word he didn’t have, to fill a void that was shaped by the loss of another man a long time ago.
The silence from Mickey began to worry him.
Ian flashed back, suddenly, to Mickey’s own wedding. Or really the preamble. Those gray, empty days before. When Ian had begged Mickey to admit his feelings. Pleaded, bloody words falling from his lips. Was that just what he was doing again? Was he going to get his heart beaten this time instead of his body?
Maybe.
Ian could sense Mickey weighing what to say. How much to admit. What was safe and what wasn’t, no matter the many disclaimers Ian had offered.
Because, Ian realized, what was said could not be unsaid. That bell was rung and now Ian had to take the consequences of his curiosity, of his emotions.
Fuckin’ feelings.
They were putting it more in the open than it had ever been before, at least in adulthood.
If Mickey said yes or no, no matter what the outcome, how would they work around it? The answer would be a sullen gray lump in between them. Every time they spoke, forever. It would be on the phone, inserting static and dissension when they spoke. It would be on the couch between them when they played video games. It would sour the food they ate together and skunk the beer they drank.
He was on the verge of taking it back, taking it all back, making it into some pitiful joke, so they could laugh it off and both pretend it had never come up. When Mickey spoke.
Yes, or no? It would only take a single word for Ian’s pulse to calm. Either way, he’d know. Finally.
One little word. How could one little word start a wildfire inside of Ian? How was it possible that Mickey had so much power still ? Had his power, had their power over each other, ever really waned? Or had it just been thinned by distance and time?
Now, instead of the gray of the rooftop where he’d found Mickey, Ian thought of the van.
Of another summer day. The van with its aroma of old, cracked, fake leather. The thing had baked in the sun for generations, probably. The smell and funk of sweat, of men, of cigarettes, and crime. He could just see the way Mickey had jogged away, hitching up his pants, so proud, giving him the finger.
God, he missed Mickey. Even with the man right in front of him, offering him everything, and still he missed the Mickey of younger days. Before weddings and prisons.
“S‘not like it even matters,“ Mickey mumbled. “Fucking monogamy and shit.” He waved his hands vaguely in the direction of the west side where Ian and Trevor‘s comfortable apartment lay.
Ian flushed guiltily. He had spent quite a lot of time, expounding to Mickey about how monogamy was healing for him, about how being a true husband was meaningful, about the gift of fidelity, and he wanted to give it to Trevor. Or maybe just to himself.
Fuck, had Mickey really been listening that whole time? Ian knew he talked all the time, knew in fact that his friends, and husband, told him he never really shut up. But he didn’t actually expect anyone to listen. Let alone remember.
Mickey had been listening.
Would Ian cheat on his husband?
Would he give up that hard-won fidelity?
He didn’t know. But he wanted Mickey to ask him to.
So fuckin’ badly, he wanted Mickey to ask. To want as badly as he did. To go home at night to a full bed, or an empty one, and think, ‘This is not where I am supposed to be.’
Like Ian did every night.
So he stuck his chin out, voice firm, sneakily cheating, knowing Mickey would respond. “I wanna know.”
Mickey cut his eyes left, just enough to peep at Ian. Maybe checking his intentions, his sincerity, his-
“Yeah.”
In the sky, bright streamers of red shot through the wispy white clouds as darkness began to creep up.
The streetlights came on.