Chapter Text
Ian had a pretty normal life when it comes to living on the Southside of Chicago, his family was huge and hectic, his father was an alcoholic, his mother had bailed and they were short on cash. Most families he knew were like that or at least some variation of that. Perfect families weren't the norm in Southside.
Perfect families were usually categorised as a mum and a dad, both soulmates and 2.5 perfect children. Soulmates were quite rare in Ian's neighbourhood, no one had the resources or money to search their soul mate out, most just got stuck with someone they got pregnant or someone they actually liked but weren't destined for.
You could easily tell when someone had met their soulmate, all you had to do was look at their eyes. When someone meets their soulmate the eye colour of each person mixes together and forms and new, bright colour. Even if your soulmate has the same colour eyes as you it still mixes and becomes more vibrant, almost glowing.
Ian knew two couples who were perfect matches and he hoped he would get to have that love and devotion himself. His neighbours Kev and Vee were perfect for each other. Their eyes were a quite dark brown as both had brown eyes, Kev's were lighter than Vee's originally. But together they complimented each other and seemed to be as perfect a couple as you could get on the Southside.
The other couple involved his sister Fiona, it was a new thing so Ian couldn't really answer if it was perfect yet. Fiona had gone out clubbing and met Jimmy and her eyes lightened considerably from their usual warming brown to almost a murky grey/blue but still brighter than they'd ever been.
Ian didn't really expect to meet his soulmate, it was rare enough but to add the factor that he was gay into it did not improve his chances, it decreased it. Only his best friends Mandy and Karen and his brother Lip knew that he was gay and he hoped it would stay that way until he got out of the Southside so he didn't get his ass handed to him by the likes of Mickey Milkovich and his group of thugs.
It was a normal school morning so Ian woke up around 7am to get ready. His day usually started with a battle for the bathroom, the winner got to have a shower with hot water. Then the Gallagher clan sat down to breakfast which normally consisted of pop tarts or stale cereal although since Jimmy came into their lives he brought freshly bought coffee and pastries.
Ian could see how happy Jimmy made his sister when they looked at each other, their little smiles and glances.
"I want to meet my soulmate!" Debbie said after looking at the happy couple.
"Debs you're only thirteen, you have plenty of time to meet your soulmate and I'm sure you will." Ian replied to make his little sister happy.
"I know but they just look so happy and Fiona's eyes look really cool." Debbie whined before taking another spoonful of cereal.
"What if your soulmate doesn't have eyes?" Carl questioned from his chair next to the back door.
"Everyone has eyes you idiot." Debbie shot back.
"What if they lost them in a mad throwing star accident?" Carl said.
"Well then they would have still had eyes in the first place, so their soulmate would get their eye colour before they lost their eyes." Debbie explained.
"Shut up." Carl said before kicking Debbie under the table.
Ian smiled at his younger siblings, Lip hadn't seemed to notice the argument as he was reading some overly advanced book for some quiz he had at college later on in the day. Ian didn't want to go to college like Lip, he wanted to go to West Point and become an officer much to his families' distaste.
He was part of the ROTC and excelled in that, his grades were high thanks to the help of Lip so his chances of getting into West Point looked quite good. It was Ian's last year of high school and he just wanted it over as quickly as possible.
He usually kept to himself at school, with only a small group of friends which consisted of Mandy and Karen. Both girls were cheerleaders and quite popular but still hung around with Ian. Ian and Mandy had become friends after he had tripped some pervert teacher over for sticking his boner near her face, then she tried to have sex with Ian and his big reveal of his sexuality came out.
They became friends with Karen after Lip had pretty much got bored of her and moved on. Ian shouted at his brother for that and became friends with Karen soon after.
He met Karen on the way to school every morning and sometimes Mandy depending on if she had stayed out the night before. This morning it was all three of them, Ian listened to the steady flow of information from both girls on who was hot and sometimes stuff about school.
Before their first class the trio stood in front of the lockers talking, then the group of lads walked down the corridor, Ian had learned to avoid them at all costs and if he couldn't just keep his head down. Mickey was the leader of said gang of boys, although Mickey was Mandy's brother they had never formally met considering Mickey was hardly ever at the Milkovich house and preferred to spend his time getting high or hanging around with his group of goons.
Some of Mickey's group stopped to check out Mandy or Karen, mostly Karen because they were scared of what Mickey would do if any of them ever looked at Mandy wrong. The two dark haired Milkoviches didn't seem close at all on the outside but Ian knew they were fiercely protective of each other and wouldn't let anything bad happen. He knew this from the time Mandy had set Mickey and her other brothers on his for 'raping' her. It shortly got resolved without any bloodshed (well except for Lip).
Ian just grabbed his books from his locker and went with Karen to class. He hated trig, no matter how much tutoring from Lip he got he just couldn't comprehend it. As boring and difficult as it was he had to listen so he would get good enough grades for Westpoint.
After more classes in the morning he met up with Mandy and Karen and they sat together for lunch, sometimes at lunch girls would come up to him and touch his arm or some kind of contact. Ian knew he wasn't bad looking at all but some of these girls were so desperate for their soulmates it made Ian insane. They all hunted for the colour of eye they wanted to merge with theirs, as Ian had vibrant green eyes he was a clear competitor for the brightest and most desirable colour.
"What colour eyes do you want your soulmate to have?" Karen asked Mandy.
"I wouldn't mind either blue or green but obviously bright ones. Oh maybe dark blue with my light blue would look good. I don't know. What about you guys?" Mandy asked looking at the both of them.
"I don't care as long as I look hot." Karen said. The two girls then turned and looked at Ian.
"Not bothered." Ian answered.
"Come on you have to have a preference!" Mandy said.
"I like blue eyes." Ian simply answered and took another bite of his food.
"You're boring." Karen replied.
"Fuck off. I just don't really care." Ian mumbled.
After he had finished eating and being harassed by girls he went to the library, it wasn't uncommon to find Ian in the library looking for books to help him in English or going on the school computers to look up things that he didn't have access to on his home laptop which ran so slow he could hardly get on Facebook.
Today though he was there for a book to help him with trig, Lip had recommended it and told him to find the copy with the least penises drawn on it. He eventually found the book and it probably had the average of 1.5 penises per page so that wasn't so bad.
Just as he sat down to get started his book was being rudely taken from him. He was about to confront whoever took the book before he realised it was Mickey Milkovich. He may be intimidated by the older boy but he needed that book.
"Hey you mind getting your own?" Ian called which made Mickey stop in his tracks.
"Not really no." Mickey said along with a smirk and then turned back around to walk off.
Usually Ian would just leave it and let him have it and get another but today he wasn't in the mood to get walked all over.
"Give it back Mickey." Ian shouted which earned him some menacing looks from the librarians and a down right evil look from Mickey.
Mickey walked over to him and Ian regretted calling him out straight away. He slowly stepped back into the more private area because if he was going to get beat up he didn't want the whole school to see it.
"So you think you're a tough guy huh?" Mickey said getting closer to Ian.
"I just need the book because I actually want to learn." Ian shot back, he didn't want Mickey to see that he was actually terrified inside.
"Just cos I've been kept behind two years don't mean I want to be here another. So fuck you!" Mickey said back.
"You could have got your own book you know!" Ian whisper shouted back.
"You're really asking for it aren't you Gallagher. I'm not gonna go easy on you either because you're Mandy's friend." Mickey threatened.
Ian just closed his eyes and waited for the inevitable punch that was going to come his way. Then he remembered he wasn't some thug's punching bag and just as Mickey's arm was on it's way to his face he grabbed it and stopped it.
What came next he didn't expect. First came the millisecond of searing pain in his eyes which Mickey must have gotten too considering his arm went limp. Then they looked up to each other and looked into each other's turquoise eyes.
They were soulmates.
As soon as Ian was going to say something, Mickey grabbed him by the collar of his t-shirt. "Don't say a fucking word to anyone." Then he bolted out of the library.
Ian just stood there in shock and as he couldn't exactly hide his eyes all day he ran out of school too and hoped to bump into Mickey so they could actually sort things out and what the hell they were going to do to hide this.