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Yevgeny hesitates with his knuckles hovering an inch from the door, suddenly all he can feel is the clamminess of his palms and the twist in his gut. He’s been so determined, for days now, not hesitating for a second. Being struck dumb with nerves now, at the very literal threshold of his goal, is not an option. Still.
He glances down at the dymo-printed name stuck to the scratched wood over the mail slot. It’s the most familiar thing to him, that name, yet it’s so very strange to see it labeling someone else’s home. With a quick intake of breath he closes his eyes and knocks hard on the door. It would be beyond stupid to turn around now.
For a full minute, Yevgeny’s convinced no one’s home, but then he hears a muffled sound on the other side. He wills himself to meet the blank peephole head on, staring it down. After a couple of seconds of silence, there’s the sound of the lock turning and the door finally opens.
Whoever the guy on the other side is, he most definitely isn’t what Yevgeny expected.
”Yeah?” the guy asks, warily, leaning an elbow against the open door and peering out at him. Yevgeny swallows heavily and can’t help a quick glance down the corridor, left and right. It doesn’t help him figure out whether he has the right door, but the name, he reminds himself. The name, the name is right.
”Mr Milkovich?” he asks, hating the slight crack in his voice.
”Yeah?” the guy frowns a little now, and bends his head forward to glance down the corridor as well, and somehow that calms Yevgeny down some. The guy might not be as nervous as he is, but they certainly seem to be equal in confusion.
”Mickey Milkovich?” Yevgeny clarifies, because the photo had been old, and his old man had been pretty banged up, but there was no way. He straightens his back a little, rolling his shoulders to hopefully seem more confident than how he’s currently feeling.
”He’s not-” the guy stops, mid-sentence, face and whole body freezing for a second almost comically, as he stares at Yevgeny.
”Will he be in soon?” Yevgeny asks, the guy’s eyes snapping back to his face.
”Yeah,” he says, the intensity of his staring slowly itching away at the part of Yevgeny’s brain that remembers his mom telling him about stranger danger as a kid.
”Yev?” the guy then says, voice almost a whisper it’s so uncertain. Yevgeny’s halfway to convincing himself he hadn’t said anything at all, especially not his name, when he clears his throat and there is no mistake; ”Yevgeny?”
”You know me?” Yevgeny frowns and tries to remember; the red hair, the strong face, but comes up with nothing.
”Jesus,” the stranger in his dad’s apartment says, an amazed smile flashing across his face before he looks concerned once more, ”fuck- shit. Sorry. Fuck. Would you- ehm. Come in? Mick- your, I mean. Mickey should be here soon. You wanna come inside, wait?”
Yevgeny knows it’s a very dumb thing to think, but the guy seems nice, and his nervous rambling somehow makes it really difficult to imagine him being some perverted predator.
”Who are you?” he decides to ask before accepting the invitation.
”Fuck, yes, sure- sorry,” he mumbles, pulling a hand through his hair, ”I need to stop swearing so much, huh, you’re like twelve now?”
”Thirteen next month.”
”Fuck,” the guy silences himself for a second with a hand over his mouth. He’s looking at Yevgeny in that way again, eyes searching, but this time he’s smiling, corner of his mouth tugging out from beneath his hand. ”I’m Ian. And never ever fucking trust strangers inviting you to their homes, alright? You have no idea the kinda assholes are out there.”
”You want me to leave?” Yevgeny asks, confused by the sudden, and very parental, advice.
”No,” Ian pulls his fingers through his hair again, combing it back to his neck, ”no, no. Please come in. I know you don’t remember me, but I knew you a long time ago, when you were born. Might seem like it, but I’m not a stranger.”
Yevgeny takes a moment, and another deep breath for strength, and then he steps past Ian and inside the apartment. It’s small, hallway leading into a living room; sofa, TV, books in bookcases, and cornered off but still pretty much the same room he sees a small kitchen; mostly just a large table with a kitchen crammed in around it. There’s a balcony door straight ahead and three windows, two to the left of it, and one to the right, practically in the kitchen. Turning around to look at Ian locking the door behind them, he notes two doors in the small hallway, and guesses they lead to a bedroom and a toilet respectively.
”You live here?” he asks, mostly to have something to say.
”Yeah,” Ian walks past him, towards the kitchen, ”shoes off.”
Yevgeny looks down at his sneakers and feels himself repress the last gust of some primal instinct to run away. If Ian turned out to be a serial killer, running away in his socks would make for a pretty undignified death, but then getting gruesomely murdered with your shoes on wouldn’t be all that much better. The guy looks fast, so if he wanted to kill him, shoes or no shoes would make very little difference. He toes off his sneakers and carefully ventures further into the apartment, circling the small living room and sweeping his eyes over the bookcases, noting a few titles he vaguely recognizes. His eyes fall on the two-seater couch and he wonders for a second if it folds out into a bed.
”You want anything?” Ian asks behind him, making Yevgeny forget about sleeping arrangements and turn around to look at him. He seems very nervous again, standing in the small kitchen, one hand scratching at the opposite shoulder, almost like he’s comforting himself. ”Got some- eh, got some pop? Water? I could make uhm- make some tea, if you’d like that?”
”Tea would be nice?” Yevgeny doesn’t want it to sound so much like a question, but he’s suddenly very aware of that he’s in this guy’s home, and somehow he’s the one who seems the most comfortable at the moment.
”Yeah?” Ian smiles again, turning around to pick up the kettle and fill it with water. ”I don’t have much, in terms of variety, got some green and some herbal stuff, mint?”
”Mint is fine,” Yevgeny moves into the kitchen and pulls out a chair to sit down by the table. The chair scrapes against the floor and the sound makes Ian turn around for a second, smiling encouraging at his initiative.
”Make yourself at home,” he says, turning away again to turn on the tap and clean two cups from the sink, ”I drink tea all the time now, Mick- Mickey thinks it’s disgusting.”
”Why do you keep saying his name like that?”
”Like what?” Yevgeny’s well familiar with the forcibly light tone of his voice, the one his mom always uses when she doesn’t want Yevgeny to know something.
”You knew me?” he decides to ask instead, reminding himself that he doesn’t know Ian, and maybe he has a very specific, and unlikely, stutter.
Ian turns off the tap and picks up a towel hanging by his hip. He wipes one of the mugs dry in silence and places it in front of Yevgeny before returning to the sink. But he doesn’t dry the second mug, instead he leans against the sink and looks at Yevgeny. The gears grinding in his head practically audible in the silent kitchen.
”You don’t know much about Mickey, do you?” he eventually asks and Yevgeny frowns. He doesn’t like the ugly feeling that sweeps over him at Ian’s words. No, he doesn’t know his father, not at all. ”Shit, sorry, that wasn’t-”
Ian sighs and rubs at his face before looking at Yevgeny once more.
”I meant, Svetlana… your mom, she didn’t tell you much about him?” Yevgeny only shakes his head. ”Fuck, that gotta be rough. Sorry.”
”He’s my dad,” Yevgeny whispers, and realizes it’s the very first time he’s said the words out loud. ”He’s my dad.”
Ian looks pained for a second, before his face glosses over into something a bit more neutral.
”She told you that?” he asks, and Yevgeny doesn’t really know what to make of that question.
”No,” he says, frowning, ”mom’s a damned liar though, she said he was dead. Kept saying he was shot when I was a baby, killed by some crazy person. But then I found my birth certificate the other day, and the marriage license… and the divorce papers. She’s been lying to me my whole life.”
Ian only sighs, folding his arms across his chest and staring at the floor for a moment before looking at Yevgeny again. He doesn’t seem the least bit shocked by Yevgeny’s words, by this thing that only two days ago turned Yevgeny’s whole world on its end.
”How did you find us?”
Yevgeny’s frown deepens, he hadn’t been looking for Ian, still the guy seems to take the whole thing very personally.
”Not that many Milkoviches in Chicago,” he shrugs, secretly very proud of his sleuthing, ”I went to a house yesterday, South Side, the guy there gave me this address.”
Ian huffs and shakes his head, mumbling something about giving a heads up, and possibly something about someone being a hopeless stoner.
”I take it Svetana doesn’t know you’re here?”
”You know my mom?”
”Told you,” Ian’s smile is lopsided and a little sad, ”I knew you when you were a baby, your mom- your mom tolerated me. For a while.”
”She has a hard time trusting people,” Yevgeny for some reason feels like he needs to defend his mother, even though he’s still pissed at her and he’s pretty sure this Ian guy already knows.
”She’s also no fun when she’s worried about you, Yev,” Ian nods at him, ”you got a phone?”
”Yes,” Yevgeny shifts in his chair so he can get a hand down his pocket and pull out his beat up and embarrassingly old-fashioned cellphone. ”But I’m not calling her. She’ll just yell at me and tell me to come home, and I won’t. I want to see Mickey.”
”Give me the phone and I’ll call her,” Ian offers, and even though Yevgeny has a hard time imagining Ian doing a better job at convincing an angry Svetlana of anything, he has no problem with letting him try. It would postpone the loud and increasingly Russian scolding he knows he has to look forward to, if nothing else.
He puts the phone down on the table and slides it across, Ian stepping away from the kitchen counter to pick it up and scroll through the contacts. He’s still scrolling when the sound of the lock rattling in the hallway makes both of them look up, Yevgeny twisting in his chair.
They listen in silence as the door opens and someone walks inside, locking the door behind them again.
”You will not fucking believe who I ran into at the fucking convenience store, man,” a gruff and gleeful voice comes through the living room, ”Ian?”
”In here,” Ian says, not moving. Yevgeny feels like he’s forgotten how to blink, staring at the corner of the kitchen wall where he knows his father is about to appear within seconds. When he does, it’s with something like a dull ring going through Yevgeny’s head, eyes and thoughts scrambling to take in the man’s face and the way his soft eyes seem to harden the instance he realizes there’s an unaccounted third party in the room. Him. His son. The kid he hasn’t seen in something like eleven years. Instantly, Yevgeny regrets not asking Ian how he could have recognized him so readily, he wants to know, wants to know what Mickey sees when he looks at him now.
”The fuck is this?” his dad says, looking at Ian for an explanation, ”you reaching out to the neighbors again, Gallagher?”
Gallagher, the other name on the door. Yevgeny doesn’t know why he focuses on that right now, why he didn’t even give it a second thought as he was standing out there, hesitating. It feels like he has a million questions and already wasted so much time with Ian not asking at least half of them. They live together, seem to have been friends for a long time. He should have asked him everything he could have thought of. His mouth is dry like cotton now, he can’t ask anyone anything, even if he wanted to. Silently he turns his eyes on Ian as well, looking to him as a link between himself and this stranger who’s supposed to be his dad.
”No, Mick-,” Mick, Mick, Mick, Yevgeny feels a strange frustration at not understanding the meaning behind the soft way Ian nicknames his friend, ”outside?”
It takes a second for Yevgeny to register what was happening, but then his dad’s moving again, throwing a suspicious glance in his direction before turning to go and open the balcony door, stepping outside.
”Give us a second, alright?” Ian asks him, eyes near pleading. ”I just gotta talk to him first, okay?”
He waits in the kitchen until Yevgeny mutely nods at him. Then he puts the phone he’s been clutching in his hand in the pocket of his hoodie and quietly follows Mickey outside, shutting the door behind them. The lights in the kitchen reflect in the window, but Yevgeny finds he can easily see the two of them standing out there. Two floating heads and torsos against a backdrop of rundown apartment complexes and a light blue and orange sky. Mickey’s smoking, frowning as he seems to ask a question. Ian’s more turned away from Yevgeny’s view, but he can see him talking now, gesturing a little, shoulders square as he leans in towards Mickey. Yevgeny imagines his tone low, urgent. Intimate.
Then Mickey’s eyes dart to the window, landing on Yevgeny. His mouth’s slightly open, his frown deeper, but Ian’s still the one talking. Yevgeny forces himself to meet his dad’s gaze through the window, but after a couple of seconds he gives in and looks down at his hands. When he looks up again, Mickey seems to be arguing wildly, but must still be keeping his voice down since none of it leaks in to the apartment. He points at Yevgeny with his whole hand, and when he looks at him again, it isn’t with the same intense stare. It’s quick, disbelieving.
Ian’s pointing at the kitchen now, too, but doesn’t turn to look at Yevgeny, focus entirely on Mickey who seems about ready to jump off the balcony. Yevgeny jumps a little at the sudden soft click of the kettle turning off when the water reaches boiling point, it feels like ages since Ian turned it on. He tears his eyes from the scene outside and gets up from the table to round it and get the boiling water from the counter. He fills his mug and very consciously avoids looking at the window as he retraces his steps and puts the kettle back on its plate.
He’s staring into his tea, waiting for it to cool down a little, when the balcony door opens again and Mickey steps inside.
”He’s uhm-,” he hesitates, hand still on the door he’s just closed behind him, eyes on Ian like he wishes he’s still out there with him, ”he’s calling your mom.”
Yevgeny nods, feeling like a damned child. He’s basically thirteen, and rarely tongue-tied. Yet now, here, in the same room as his dad, presumed dead or dead-beat, he can’t. Doesn’t know.
”You eh- you want something? See Ian’s made you tea?” Mickey doesn’t seem to know either, reluctance in his steps as he moves towards the kitchen, asking rapid-fire questions he doesn’t seem to expect an answer to. ”He even ask you if you wanted that? You want something else? Got some soda in the fridge, I think.”
He’s somehow made it all the way around the table, not looking at Yevgeny directly once, opening the fridge and sticking his whole head inside.
”I’m good,” Yevgeny surprises himself by talking, staring at Mickey while he closes the fridge again and turns around, eyes darting around the kitchen like he’s looking for something with which to distract himself. He walks over to the sink and absentmindedly dries the mug Ian left there, his back to Yevgeny. Looking out the window, he sees Ian mirroring Mickey’s pose, Yevgeny’s cellphone to his ear, looking out at Chicago as he speaks. Yevgeny almost wants to laugh at the two of them with their backs turned to him, like he’s a bomb sitting in their kitchen and they have to tiptoe around him to make sure he doesn’t go off. Maybe not look at him, and he’ll go away.
He looks back at Mickey at the sound of the kettle clicking off again. Considering what Ian told him about his dad’s opinions on tea, he’s suspiciously confident in making a cup Yevgeny assumes is meant for Ian.
”Mick?” Yevgeny starts at Ian’s voice, following Mickey’s lead as he turns to look at the open balcony door. Ian’s only got his head sticking in and he doesn’t elaborate, just picks up his eyebrows in silence and Mickey drops what he’s doing and joins him outside once more.
The conversation is a lot more subdued this time; Mickey’s face set, lips pressed into a thin line, eyes glued to Ian while he’s speaking. Nodding, tilting his head, shifting his feet; Ian’s talking and talking and Yevgeny can tell from his body language that he’s emotional, even if he can’t see his face. His dad just stands there, listens. Then he says something, it’s short, raw, and Ian’s hand is on his shoulder, squeezing it.
Something shifts and Yevgeny suddenly feels strange, watching the two. Since he knocked on the front door he’s figured himself the main participant of a two-person drama; with his sudden appearance bound to upset the balance of his estranged father’s life. He’d imagined the two of them; talking, screaming, accusing, crying, laughing, hugging, maybe. Instead there’s the Ian of it all, a third party he didn’t expect, that he doesn’t understand. And what he kinda wanted to be an emotional moment between him and his long lost dad, now seems to be something between his dad and this very presumptuous roommate. With Yevgeny reduced to a spectator, unease creeping up his spine.
Mickey closes his eyes, Ian’s hand on his shoulder moving to his neck, other hand on his jaw, thumb stroking his cheek, and suddenly they’re so close. Yevgeny can feel his breath hitching with that one step too close, the one where they’re clearly left pressed together tight as can be, obvious even cropped at the elbows by the window frame. About a dozen little things click together in Yevgeny’s mind when his dad’s tattooed hands move up and grasp at the fabric of Ian’s shirt, bunching it up under his shoulder blades, and his face disappears from view when it too is pressed against the tall man blocking Yevgeny’s line of sight.
”Oh,” pretty much sums it up, the sound tiny in the quiet kitchen, and Yevgeny feels confused, left out, deceived, uncomfortable, kinda warm all over. He’s thinking about just getting up and leaving before Ian and Mickey remember that he’s there, when the balcony door opens and they’re walking back in.
”Your mom isn’t happy,” Ian informs him, smiling a little when Yevgeny meets his eyes. ”But I talked her out of coming here right now and picking you up, told her we wanted to talk to you properly.”
Mickey is brushing past Ian as he’s speaking, still avoiding looking at the general area of the table. He’s fishing out the teabag from the cup still on the counter and disposes of it in the sink before he sits down at the table, putting the cup down in front of the chair next to his. Eyes somewhere on Yevgeny’s left shoulder.
”We’ll drive you home after,” Ian continues, still standing by the balcony door.
”I ain’t,” Mickey suddenly scoffs, finding his voice, ”no fucking way.”
”I’ll drive you,” Ian sighs, but the fondness there is sickeningly obvious, and he walks over and sits down next to Mickey, meeting Yevgeny’s gaze. His face is soft, inviting. Yevgeny feels himself crumble and struggle under his calm kindness. ”Mick’s afraid of your mom.”
”You’re the one she threatened with a fucking claw hammer that one time, man,” Mickey shrugs, crossing his arms defensively, ”ain’t getting anywhere near that shit again.”
”She’s a sweetheart,” Ian looks at Mickey and smiles when he glares back, unamused.
”Fucking fine,” he snorts, ”you drive the kid, see if I care when you turn up dead in the lake in a couple of weeks.”
Ian laughs and Yevgeny feels seconds away from crying. He doesn’t know why, he’s just entirely overwhelmed.
”Hey,” Ian says, leaning over the table, grasping him gently by the shoulder, ”hey, hey. It’s okay, Yev.”
Yevgeny shakes his hand off and wipes furiously at his cheeks, no. No. He’s not crying. He’s not a child. He looks up at Ian, expecting him to look hard at the rejection, but he doesn’t. He’s looking at Yevgeny with the same private fondness he seems to reserve for Mickey.
”I don’t-,” he starts, annoyed at the gravel in this voice, ”what’s going on?”
”Don’t worry,” Ian says and leans in again to put a hand on Yevgeny’s wrist, ”we’ll figure this out, okay? I know it’s a lot, I know your mom’s tried to shield you from all of this and believe me, she had her reasons. Don’t be mad at her.”
”Her?” Mickey grumbles, eyes on the table, maybe on Ian’s hand still holding on to Yevgeny, still not slapped away. ”Don’t be mad at us, we didn’t fucking know.”
”Okay,” Ian sighs, not leaving Yevgeny with his eyes, ”first off, don’t listen to him for a little while. He’s gonna be like this until he gets more comfortable.”
”Fuck off.”
Ian makes a face, and Yevgeny can’t stop himself from smiling, just a little.
”Better,” Ian states and squeezes his wrist once before letting go and sitting back in his chair.
”Are you together?” Yevgeny asks, because it’s a question he knows the answer to and he’s not ready to ask the ones to which he doesn’t. Mickey huffs and scratches at his eyebrow with his thumb, one arm still locking his chest in a tight hold. Ian’s grin is wide and genuine for a second, then crooked and careful as he speaks.
”Yeah, kid,” he says, ”we are.”
Yevgeny nods and looks down at his hands before speaking again, kinda wishing he still had the pressure of Ian’s long fingers there.
”Are you my dad?” he asks, voice very quiet. He knows the answer to this one too, he knows it. He knows it.
”Don’t know,” Mickey sighs.
”Mick, come on.” Yevgeny doesn’t look up.
”Ian, we don’t know.” He does look up at that, at the distressed edge to Mickey’s voice. Ian’s eyes meet him right off the bat, Mickey’s still fixed somewhere to his left. At some point, Ian’s put his hand on the back of Mickey’s chair and Yevgeny can see the muscles in his arm moving as his thumb caresses the nape of Mickey’s neck. ”Bitch told me he wasn’t.”
”Mick.”
”Sorry kid,” Mickey sighs, and now he’s sorta almost looking Yevgeny in the face, ”but she is, if she fucking lied about that, then she is.”
”She told you I wasn’t your son?” Yevgeny asks, not really feeling the reality of it sinking in as quickly as he would want it to.
”Yeah,” Mickey glances at Ian, but then looks at Yevgeny again, ”it was a shit situation, and I was a fucking terrible dad, alright? But I wouldn’t have let her take you away if I’d had any fucking say in it, if I thought I had any right. I was on the inside and she sent fucking lawyers with DNA-tests and fuck me if I didn’t think you’d be hell of a lot better off not knowing any of the shit I come with.”
”You were inside where?”
Mickey scoffs and looks at Yevgeny now, properly looks at him. Ian smiles beside him, dipping his head to hide it.
”Where d’you live, kid?”
”Avondale.”
”Jesus,” Mickey’s shaking his head and looking at Ian again, ”kid’s practically grown up north side.”
”He was in prison, Yev,” Ian’s clearly ignoring Mickey’s attempt at diverting the conversation, ”for a pretty long time.”
”What did you do?” Yevgeny feels his eyes widen against his will, snapping his mouth shut when he feels it hanging slack at this new revelation.
”What I had to,” Mickey shrugs and Ian sighs.
”He was trying to protect me from someone,” Ian clarifies, much to Mickey’s dismay, judging by his low complaint of ’come one, man’ and his scrunched up face as he looks away. ”Nine years for attempted murder. Got paroled in six.”
”Stay in school,” Mickey mutters, eyes trained on the wall behind Yevgeny.
”How long have you been together?” Yevgeny asks, wanting to replace the discomfort in the room with the warmth of the replies he got to his previous question about their relationship.
”Some ways,” Ian shrugs, ”since we were fifteen, sixteen.”
”Some ways,” Mickey mumbles.
”More accurately,” Ian continues, ”properly, ’bout a year around the time you were born. Now it’s been a couple of years.”
”Try four, asshole,” Mickey scowls, his whole mean expression melting away soon as he looks at Ian’s smiling face.
”Just like hearing you say it,” Ian leans closer but then seems to catch himself, turning to look at Yevgeny again. ”A lot of the fucked up shit going down back then was my fault-”
”Ian, come on.”
”No, Mick, it’s the truth,” Ian leans his elbows against the table, shoulders hunched, ”I didn’t mean to fuck up but I did, and I always knew I hurt your dad but I didn’t-”
”Ian, please,” Mickey sounds so tired now, and Yevgeny isn’t even sure he wants to know why anymore. ”We don’t know.”
”Mick, I knew,” Ian bends his head and turns his face a little towards Mickey, voice low, ”he like, just did this thing with his arms and it was you standing out there. I’ve seen that one crappy photo Mandy has of you when you were kids and he looks just like you.”
”Still don’t know,” Mickey’s voice is sharp now, like he’s trying to tell Ian something he doesn’t want to verbalize.
”Does it fucking matter, Mick?” Ian asks. ”Still family, isn’t he? Still your family, still my fucking family. He was- I-”
Yevgeny watches as the roles reverse across the table, at his dad suddenly being the one in charge, the one with automatic hands reaching out, softly touching and comforting, fingers scratching at red hair before falling down and grasping another hand. And once again he feels the situation turning on him in a way he did not expect, where maybe his dad wasn’t the only one possibly, hopefully, missing him. Thinking of him. Happy to see him.
Ian’s pinching at his eyes now and with a deep breath he suddenly stands up, Mickey’s hand falling to the table when Ian’s disappears from under it.
”Fuck, sorry,” Ian laughs wetly and does a lap of the living room before he returns to stand by the table, crossing his arms and eyes no longer shining.
Mickey’s eyes are still on Ian when he speaks, so it takes Yevgeny a second to realize he’s addressing him.
”We don’t know anything about whether you’re my kid or not, Yev,” it’s the first time he says his name, in any form, ”but Ian’s always fucking loved you like his own, and I can tell ya from experience he’s not likely to stop. I’m not nearly as easy as all that, but I look after mine, and far as I’m concerned, one way or another, you fall in that category.”
Ian’s nodding, and Yevgeny realizes that the two of them never got this far on their own, outside, before coming in to talk to him about it, and he’s part of it now, with both of them, separately, coming to terms with some kind of resolution. Mickey’s looking at him now and Yevgeny thinks he likes this, likes his brutal honesty and what it could mean.
”If you want some kinda thing happening here,” he grumbles, gesturing between Yevgeny and himself, his hand turning mid air in a circular motion, including Ian in the ’thing’, ”we’ll sort something out with your mom and we’ll work shit out. Doesn’t have to be harder than that.”
”You want to get a test?” Yevgeny asks, remembering that it’d been important to Mickey at some point.
”Fuck that,” Mickey mutters, taking Ian’s untouched cup of tea with him as he gets up from the table and turns to the sink, ”never did anyone any fucking good.”
”Found out my dad was my dad’s brother when I was fifteen,” Ian smiles when Yevgeny looks at him, ”didn’t change a thing, in the end.”
Yevgeny returns his smile, figuring it’s the least he can do to encourage his awkward attempt at lightening the mood.
”Right, ready to go home?” Ian chuckles when Yevgeny shakes his head. ”Well, tough shit, I’m driving you there now before Lana hunts us down and proves Mickey right.”
”Can’t have that,” Mickey mumbles, taking his time with washing Ian’s mug, clearly intent on not engaging with Yevgeny further. Yevgeny can be okay with that, if his dad is feeling half of the confusing things tumbling through Yevgeny right now, needing a break is understandable.
When he gets up from the table, however, Mickey turns around to grab his half drunk cup of tea and quickly meets Yevgeny’s eyes, nodding at him a little.
”See ya, kid,” he says and turns around again, pouring out the cold tea and slowly, transparently, starts cleaning the mug.
”See ya, dad,” Yevgeny whispers, not looking at Ian’s beaming face as he walks past him and out into the hallway to put on his shoes. He sits down on the floor to untie his sneakers, enjoying the few seconds he’s having to himself in the passageway between the emotionally loaded kitchen and the shitstorm awaiting him at home. He hears Ian speaking softly in the other room, so softly the words blend together into a low susurrus.
Shoes back on, he stands up and shrugs on the jacket he’d dropped on the floor when he first entered, quietly walking up to the edge of the hallway and peeking around the corner at the two men in the kitchen. Mickey’s resting his hip against the sink, his body half turned towards Ian, soaking the side of his shirt where he’s gripping it with his soapy hand. Ian’s got a steady hold on his face, thumbs brushing his cheeks and fingers combing through his hair to land on his neck, gently massaging. They’re kissing, slow, short meetings of lips mixed with deep breaths and mumbled words. Yevgeny would find it pretty gross, only it really isn’t. He’s never liked seeing his mom with guys, but then he’s rarely liked the guys she’s been with, so it makes sense that this is different. That it looks like something he isn’t sure he’s ever seen before, this up close, this real.
Mickey’s fingers untangle from the damp spot left just under Ian’s ribs and gently he puts them to Ian’s chin, angling his face away. Mickey’s wicked grin disappears from view, dipping in behind Ian’s face towards his ear, and Ian laughs when the hand drops to the centre of his chest and pushes him away a couple of inches.
”I’ll text you before I drive home,” Ian promises, taking a couple of steps back, ”if you don’t hear from me within the hour, call the cops.”
”Drive safe,” Mickey’s smiling as he returns to his infinite dirty dish of one and Ian’s face is a picture perfect reflection of it when he turns to join Yevgeny in the hallway.
”Ready?” Ian asks him and Yevgeny nods, ”cool, let’s go. You know the way?”
Ian and Mickey’s car is pretty old and crappy, and it has a certain smell about it. It doesn’t smell bad, but it isn’t entirely pleasant either. Ian tells him it’s going to take them about forty minutes to get to Avondale from South Shore, and to pick a good radio station. He’s got all the power, he says, and asks him to mantle the responsibility with due gravity. Yevgeny flips through the channels about three times before he lands on WDRV playing something he vaguely recognizes as an ’old classic’, hoping it’s something someone Ian’s age would like. It seems to go down pretty well, and for about twenty minutes, they sit together in silence, listening to the songs playing and the DJ:s talking in between.
The last ten minutes they talk intensely about baseball, because Yevgeny recently started playing and Ian is only allowed the bare minimum of sports talk at home, Mickey apparently nursing an impressively longstanding grudge against his middle school PE coach, and all that he represents.
Suddenly, forty minutes is no time at all, and too soon they’re stopping outside Yevgeny’s house, Yevgeny climbing out the car and watching Ian slowly walk around it, eyes on the house that’s been his home as long as he can remember. Ian looks the way Yevgeny felt, stepping into his and Mickey’s apartment a couple of hours ago.
”Do you want to come inside?” he asks, suddenly reluctant to say goodbye. Might be that his mother denies him any contact with his newfound dad. Dads. Two for one.
”No,” Ian smiles down at him, ”maybe next time. We need to talk to Svetana, but you know… don’t judge me for not wanting to do it alone.”
”It’s nice,” Yevgeny decides, not entirely sure what, ”you have each other.”
”He’s careful,” Ian’s voice is serious, causing Yevgeny to look at him again, ”he won’t admit it, but he had a hard time losing you, fuck knows I didn’t make things easier. And prison was- it was a real bad time, everything going down.”
He sighs and, for what feels like the first time this evening, doesn’t look at Yevgeny when he speaks.
”We’re far from the best people you could have tracked down and surprised today, I feel. But I-” Ian clears his throat and flinches a little when a light turns on in the house in front of them. ”I never thought I’d get to see ya again, Yev. Whatever happens next I want you to know I’m so goddamned happy you changed that, and you know, that- that-”
Ian stops speaking when Yevgeny turns to him and grabs him gingerly by his jacket, pulling himself into his arms, long and warm and without hesitation wrapping around his shoulders, embracing him closely. He feels him slowly exhale a breath he seems to have been holding on to, chest heaving against the side of Yevgeny’s face, and then fingers gently comb through his hair. It’s strange, he doesn’t know Ian at all. He’s just some guy who knew him for a while as a baby. But then, not much more can be said for his biological father, Mickey or whoever else, and he still went on an hour and a half train ride today to a slightly dodgy neighborhood hoping to find… something. Something like this.
”You need a haircut,” Ian mumbles and grins when Yevgeny untangles himself and pushes him away.
”Didn’t come to you for more nagging,” he points out, inexplicably embarrassed and delighted.
”Yet it’s all you gonna get,” Ian ruffles his hair, causing Yevgeny to step out of his reach and start walking towards the house, ”tell your mom I copied her number from your phone and I’m calling her tomorrow.”
”Okay.”
Okay.
.