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Weaving through the crowd, Mickey held the cones closer to his chest and tried to hunch his whole body around the already melting ice cream as he shouldered his way through a group of dancing twinks, ducking under a massive rainbow pirate flag and doing a sharp turn when a huge guy in a tiny sparkly bikini vogued into his path.
“Mands!” he shouted over the music, spotting his sister. She spun around and met him halfway, making grabby hands for her ice cream.
“They didn’t have strawberry,” he said before she got the chance to bitch about it, “had to pay outta my ass for this technicolor nightmare though, so you better fucking enjoy it.”
“Mmh, additives,” she deadpanned, her tongue already looking like a color wheel crawled into her mouth and died on it, “tastes like vanilla and food coloring.”
“You owe me,” Mickey said between bites, ignoring the face Mandy made at him. She always hated the way he ate ice cream – teeth first – which naturally only ever encouraged him to do it more. “And it’s my month, you should’ve been paying for all my shit the whole time, to be fair.”
Mandy scoffed.
“Fuck off, I’m officially here to experiment so really, you should be buying me shit! I’m the new guy!”
“Uh-huh, and what ‘experimenting’ have you done so far? Failed to talk to a single person who isn’t me or Sandy?”
“I’ve been reliably informed that being a gay disaster is an important facet of the bi experience.”
“Good for you, you’ve got the easy part down for sure, now you just gotta do the bi facet of the bi experience.”
Mandy sighed, looking around.
“Where the fuck is Sandy?” she muttered, pitching her voice to a mocking approximation of their cousin. “Don’t worry about it, I’ll be your wingman, I got your back, fucking bullshit.”
Mickey shrugged and checked his watch, 5:19. “Last I saw her was on Belmont, sucking face with some chick on a float. Trust me, we won’t be seeing her again until tomorrow morning.”
“Unbelievable.”
“Afternoon, probably.”
“And you’re no fucking help at all.”
“Hey, I got you ice cream.”
Getting on his toes, he made a vain attempt to see what the holdup was – the whole parade had been at a standstill for almost half an hour – but all he could see was an endless sea of colorful hair, hats, banners and flags blocking his view of the street. One of the floats probably took a sharp turn and toppled over in the front, he figured for his own amusement, before almost toppling over himself when something careened into his side.
A small child, bouncing off his leg and falling haplessly to the ground.
“Christ,” Mickey cursed and, without thinking, handed off his half-eaten cone to Mandy to sit down in a crouch.
“Upsy-fuckin’-daisy,” he muttered and reached out to lift the child up by the armpits before she had a chance to decide that she got hurt by the short fall, “you’re okay.”
On her feet, she was still small enough to look up at Mickey with huge green eyes. He batted some of the dust off the back of her yellow dress and looked around the immediate crowd. No one seemed to take any notice of them.
“You lost, Little Red?” he asked, frowning when she shyly shook her head. “You got your mom or dad around? Or moms, or dads? Whatever–, some kinda fucking parent, adult-type person who should be looking after you at a fucking pride parade? Perverts fucking everywhere, no offense, can’t be too fuckin’ careful.”
He was rambling and the kid wasn’t helping, staring at him like he was speaking a foreign language.
“Lou!”
At the distant sound of a man’s voice the kid turned around, her whole face lighting up. Then she was off running again.
“You’re welcome,” Mickey said after her and got up, pretending not to notice Mandy smirking at him as he took his cone back. The ice cream had turned into cream soup.
“Don’t fucking start,” he said and tipped back the ice cream like it was a shot.
“It’s just funny.”
Mickey took a bite out of the now pretty soggy waffle cone and didn't ask.
“Seeing the two of you, you and that little ginger kid. Just kinda makes you think, doesn’t it?”
“About what?” Mickey asked, even though he should have known better.
“What-ifs and shit, I don’t know?”
Mickey frowned and popped the chocolate-stuffed end of the cone in his mouth, chewing as he spoke. “The fuck are you even talking about?”
“Oh, so it’s been ten years and we’re still not talking about it,” Mandy rolled her eyes. “Great, okay, fine.”
“I literally don’t know what it is you think we’re not talking about!”
“You know exactly what it is we’re not talking about, it’s you not talking about it!”
“How am I supposed to know what I’m not talking about if you don’t tell me what it is I’m not talking about!”
“Are you shitting me right now or are you actually this fucking dense?”
Mickey stared at his sister, straight up bewildered, and swiped absently at the corner of his mouth. He felt vaguely sticky, and vaguely nauseated. Rainbow ice cream had probably been a bad idea.
Then Mandy’s eyes found something over his shoulder and she suddenly cracked a wide, delighted smile.
“Oh, you’re so gonna wish you’d talked about it now!” she exclaimed, smacking him on the shoulder as she brushed past him.
“Mandy!”
Feet frozen to the broiling asphalt, Mickey couldn’t make himself turn around at the sound of the voice, instantly familiar. He could have just walked away, one step after another into the crowd and he wouldn’t ever even know he was there at all, but–
It was Ian. There was no scenario in which he didn’t turn around, where his eyes didn’t scan the crowd until they landed on his face and stuck.
It was Ian.
His eyes were closed and shaded under the brim of a baseball cap, freckled cheeks painted with shaky rainbows warped by the way he smiled so wide he looked ready to burst. He had Mandy clutched in his arms, throwing his head back and laughing at something she said, hugging her tighter still.
It was Ian. He was taller, bigger. Older. His smile looked the exact same, the way he laughed ringing in Mickey’s ears.
Leaving an arm around Mandy, Ian turned them both to face the people he was with. A tall, skinny guy with a pleasant smile and Little Red perched on his hip, his other hand on the shoulder of a slightly older ginger kid standing next to him. Mandy shook his hand, and then the girl’s, before waving at the toddler when Ian reached over to adjust the little hat now covering her red hair.
Well shit, Mickey thought, and then Ian spotted him, his face falling.
“Mickey?”
Mickey could have still walked away, but his feet were stuck. He shrugged, helplessly, and then Ian smiled, and it was like the fucking sun breaking through a cloudy sky. Head full of poetry, Mickey didn’t have much of a choice, and before he knew it he was shouldering his way through the crowd, losing sight of Ian for a second as he had to dodge around a group of laughing lesbians, struggling to separate their tangled banners.
And then he was engulfed in the biggest, warmest hug of his life and he was clutching the guy back like said life depended on it. Ian made some kind of noise into his hair and hugged him closer still, Mickey’s fingers grabbing at the back of his sweat-damp white t-shirt, willing him to hold on for just a second longer. He wouldn’t have admitted this to anyone, but he’d imagined this moment many times over the last decade, so often that the acute desire of the daydream had been dulled into a banal routine. Brush your teeth, wash your dishes, go to work, go get groceries, catch a familiar shade of red or quirk of a hand or slope of a neck in the corner of your eye and wonder, would today be the day?
Not once had he ever dreamt that Ian would smile at him so openly, or embrace him so willingly, or take him by the shoulders to look at him and radiate such uncomplicated joy.
Mickey was helpless, soaking it in.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Gallagher,” he croaked, not realizing how wide he was grinning until Ian put his large hands on the sides of his face for a second, thumbs brushing the lines of his smile before fluttering back to squeeze his shoulders. Mickey’s own hands were not doing much better, still clutching at elbows, underarms, wrists, whatever they could get in reach.
“Shit, sorry,” Ian laughed, “hi.”
If he’d known it could have been like this, Mickey would have– he would have… He would have.
“Been a while,” he said, completely at a loss for anything else to say.
“Just moved back to Chicago last year,” Ian said, his hands still on Mickey’s shoulders, “I was hoping we’d–, but didn’t think… who’d have thought, Mickey Milkovich at Pride.”
Mickey rolled his eyes. “You of all fucking people shouldn’t sound so fucking surprised.”
“Not surprised, just–,” Ian trailed off with an embarrassed grimace, “proud?”
Mickey shook his head and laughed, and his treacherous hands still on Ian’s wrists squeezed tighter. “Fuck off.”
“Ian?”
Ian’s party of three had moved closer while they were busy making a scene, and the tall thin guy carrying Ian’s mini-mes was still smiling pleasantly as his eyes went from Mickey to Ian and then back again. Ian’s hands fell off his shoulders and Mickey’s hands were left grasping air.
“Jesse, this is Mickey,” Ian said, smiling, “Mickey, Jesse.”
“Boyfriend,” Jesse tacked on, not aggressively but certainly pointedly, and stuck a hand out for Mickey to shake.
“Mickey,” Mickey said and shook the guy’s hand, waving his other hand about dismissively as he tried to think of a way to explain his history with Ian that wouldn't betray any of his actual feelings and still be a rough approximation of the truth. “Shitty highschool situationship.”
Ian rolled his eyes but Jesse laughed and seemed to relax a little, so Mickey counted it as a win.
“This is Franny,” Ian indicated the older kid, probably closer to eight if Mickey had to guess, “and this is Eloise.”
Jesse handed over Little Red, who’d been leaning out of his grip and making grabby hands at Ian since they’d walked over.
“Upsy-fucki-daisy,” she said and smacked Ian in the face. He laughed and hoisted her up on his shoulders.
“Yeah, your mom’s gonna love that,” he said wryly and then turned his blindingly happy smile back on Mickey, the bastard. “Debbie’s kids, we lost her somewhere on Belmont.”
“Your sister always does this,” Jesse said and Ian stopped smiling to make a face at him.
“Not always.”
“Last Tuesday.”
“She asked me to babysit, that’s the definition of babysitting, leaving your kids with someone and then going somewhere else.”
“She showed up without any prior warning, on date night, and didn’t even ask if it was a bad time!”
“It wasn’t, we were home, we weren’t doing anything.”
“That’s not the point, we could have been. We sure were about to.”
Mickey watched the lighthearted argument with something empty expanding in his chest, strangely relieved when Mandy moved silently to stand next to him, shoulder bumping into his.
“No kids of your own?” she asked innocently, looking between the couple. Mickey resisted the urge to elbow her and ask her the fuck she was up to. Nothing was ever simply an innocent question when Mandy sounded like that.
“Not yet,” Jesse said, at the same time as Ian shook his head and said; “We’ve only been dating for a couple of months.”
“A couple,” Jesse repeated, smiling quizzically at him. “Six months last week.”
“Just a turn of phrase, Jesse,” Ian said, smiling back.
“A turn of phrase which indicates two, Ian.”
They were both still smiling, but Jesse had got a pinched look about the eyes and the confused line on Ian’s forehead was achingly familiar to Mickey.
“We’re moving again,” Jesse pointed out, and he was right, people were slowly starting to flow around them. “Guess we should…?”
“Oh, okay,” Ian looked at his boyfriend and must have seen something there, because he turned back to Mandy and Mickey with an apologetic smile.
Jesse had already started to move, making a face like he was incapable of withstanding the coursing stream of the parade, and Ian started backing away after him.
“Here,” Mandy said, walking after them and handing over her unlocked phone. “Put in your number.”
Not knowing what else to do, Mickey trailed after them, fingers tingling, hands hanging uselessly at his sides.
“There,” Ian said, handing the phone back to Mandy. “You better call.”
And Mickey might have been delusional, but he could have sworn he saw Ian briefly glance his way as he said it, right before turning into the crowd and disappearing after his boyfriend.
His fucking boyfriend. Ten fucking years and the fucker had a fucking boyfriend. Of course he fucking did. The only weird part about it was the part where the kids weren’t his, and the boyfriend wasn’t a husband. But still, he had a boyfriend. And they made a pretty picture, all domestic and shit, everything Ian’s ever wanted. Fucking of course.
He had a fucking boyfriend.
“I give it a week,” Mandy interrupted his thoughts, and he almost fumbled it when she lobbed her phone at him.
Realizing that it was actually his phone, he thumbed at the home button to unlock it.
“The fuck?” he said, frowning at the opened conversation on the screen. “What the fuck?”
Sent 5:42
This is Mickey’s number, don’t use it unless you mean it. /Mandy
“Shit,” Mickey muttered, looking up to tear Mandy a new one and finding that she had already ditched him, probably to dodge the consequences of her actions and to go find Sandy.
“The fuck am I supposed to do with this?” he asked, only getting a confused shrug from a glittery twink passing by.
Staring down at the empty message field, he considered writing something more.
Something apologetic, telling Ian that Mandy was being an ass and to ignore the message. Something suggestive, something to let Ian know he was an option, for whatever. Something sincere, something something I fucked up things were fucked up and I’m sorry about all of it and I still think about what-ifs and shit have you thought of me half as much as I have thought of you dump your boyfried and give me one more chance seeing you again felt like nothing’s changed but everything has changed, I have changed. Something something.
Anything.
“Shit.”
Writing nothing, he locked the phone and tucked it away, and went looking for his sister.
Received 11:31
Wanted to kiss you today
Sent 11:38
What fucking stopped you?
Oh, right. The boyfriend.
The fuck are you doing, Ian?
Received 11:40
Ex boyfriend
Who just kicked me out of his place
Sent 11:45
Okay
So what’s this?
Looking for somewhere to spend the night?
Received 11:46
Or the foreseeable future
Sent 00:01
You know where I live, Gallagher