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“What do you mean, do I believe in ghosts?” Mickey snorted derisively.
Ian shrugged. “Just that. Like, do you think we come back after we die.”
“I fucking hope not.”
Ian tried not to look hurt. “You wouldn’t come back and see me when you die?”
Mickey looked to the sky so Ian didn’t see his eyes rolling. “You’re pissy because I don’t wanna haunt you?”
“Well…”
“And hold up, why am I dying first?”
Ian shrugged again. “You’re older.”
“By, like, a year!”
“Almost two.” Ian sniffed, not letting it drop.
“Hardly worth mentioning.”
“You’re prone to getting shot.” Ian retorted.
Mickey’s eyes widened in disbelief. “You’re prone to getting me shot, you mean.”
“Just seems more likely you’ll go first.”
“And you seem pretty okay with that, fuck you very much.”
Ian held up his hands - pumpkin guts sticking to his fingers - and shrugged. “I never said I’d be okay with it. If you recall, I was pissy you didn’t want to come back to me.”
Mickey raised the knife he was using to carve an obscene picture into his own pumpkin and pointed at Ian. “At this point, Gallagher, I welcome the sweet release of death if it ends this fucking conversation.”
“I just think it would be nice if you wanted to come back.”
Mickey was busy comparing the two packs of ramen in his hands and nodded along. “Sure.”
“You would? I thought you didn’t buy into that shit.”
Mickey finally looked up, confused. “What are we talking about?”
“When we die.” Ian rolled his eyes. “Coming back.”
“Are you still on this bullshit? Jesus Christ, Ian. Fine. Okay. I’ll come back and haunt you when I die. There, happy?”
The soccer mom standing in the same aisle openly gaped at the two men, her hand hovering in mid-air as she reached for her own pack on noodles.
“Excuse us. Just having an existential domestic.” Ian flashed her a grin and she virtually melted into a puddle on the spot.
“We’re about to have an ex-husband domestic if you keep talking about ghosts.” Mickey warned.
“Oh honey, you made a joke.” Ian cooed.
Mickey gazed upwards, looking for divine intervention and getting air vents and strip lights instead. “God, if you’re real, I need help. Save me please.”
Ian cackled and grabbed him up in a rough embrace. “Let’s get Franny and Liam some clearance Halloween candy.”
“We should come up with a signal.”
Mickey lay in bed, almost asleep after a long day of entertaining kids that weren’t his damn own, and jerked back to full consciousness at Ian’s cryptic words. “For, like, when we wanna bang?”
“Of course not. Wanna bang? works perfectly.” Ian retorted.
“That’s what I thought…” Mickey yawned.
“I mean, a signal that will let us know the other person has come back after they die.”
Mickey exhaled slowly and tried not to give in to the urge to smother his ginger husband with his own pillow. Deciding it was quicker and less painful to indulge him, Mickey rolled onto his side. “Right. So what signal?”
“Has to be something specific to us. Something nobody else would understand…” Ian mused.
“Hm,” Mickey nodded along. “Like what?”
“What do we know about each other that nobody else does?”
The two men lay in silence as they considered this.
“How we first started, I guess.” Mickey suggested. “I never told anyone that.”
Ian screwed up his face. “I told Lip that you were hunting me down and trying to kill me on behalf of Mandy’s long lost honor.”
Mickey shoved at him and Ian laughed softly, not letting himself be pushed away. “Fuck you. I meant the first time we…uh…y’know.”
“Fucked?”
“Yeah. I’ve never told anybody how that went down.”
“Really?”
“Who was I gonna tell, man?”
“I told Lip.” Ian confessed.
Mickey snorted. “Course you did. You tell him way too much.”
“He’s my best friend! Well, he was at the time at least.”
“Hmm…”
“Okay, so, if I go first and come back to see you I’ll give you some kinda signal about a tire iron and fight-fucking.” Ian grinned, pressing a kiss to Mickey’s head.
“Sounds so romantic when you say it like that.”
“It was hot as fuck but it wasn’t romantic. That came much later.”
“Yeah?”
“When you let me kiss you.”
A thoughtful silence filled the air as Mickey recalled their first kiss and how it changed everything about their relationship. Mainly how it made it impossible to ignore what was already changing.
“I was so scared after the first time. In the van.” Mickey confessed softly. “It fucked me up.”
Ian shifted in the bed but stayed silent, waiting for Mickey to continue.
“Guess I’d been fighting it for so long and then I couldn’t anymore. I had to face my reality.”
“Yeah?” Ian murmured.
“Yeah. My dad, my uncles…anyone found out about me and I would die. And like, they are so fucking ridiculous and over the top dumb about being nazi psychos that they kinda look like cartoon characters but they were legit about killing fags. I was gonna end up dead if they found out.”
“So why’d you do it?”
Mickey shrugged slightly. “Better off dead than barely living maybe. I dunno. People do dumb shit when they’re infatuated with hot ass ginger guys.”
“Infatuated.” Ian snorted softly into Mickey’s shoulder. “Sure.”
“I was. Totally. I was so far gone on you I wasn’t trying to stay alive anymore.” Mickey whispered.
“Dumbass.” Ian pulled him into a tight embrace.
“Anyway, it’s late and I gotta sleep. You come back as a ghost with a tire iron and I’ll come back to kiss you in a getaway van. Sorted.”
“Sorted.” Ian agreed quietly.
Suddenly it was Christmas and Ian didn’t know where the time had gone. Franny was a hyperactive ball of excitement, which only served to prove that it’s not all about the expensive gifts since the most she would receive is candy, a stolen Barbie doll and whatever hyper-masculine plastic toy Mickey could find at a thrift store. The day passed in a blur of tacky decorations and movies they watched every year without fail. Carl had brought home a turkey and refused to confirm or deny if it came with a store receipt, so Kev cooked it up with everyone chipping in to prepare all the trimmings.
“I love you.” Ian mouthed across the table to Mickey, who returned the gesture with a jerk off hand motion and a quirk of the lips.
They stuffed themselves with a huge meal and then sprawled on whatever surface they could find to watch Home Alone.
“I never get tired of this movie.” Liam settled into his cushion fort on the floor.
Mickey yawned theatrically and shuffled down on the couch until he was melded into Ian’s side. “Wake me up when it’s time to bang.”
“Jesus Christ, Mickey.” Lip huffed. “Try some volume control maybe.”
“Saving that for when we actually bang.” Mickey chuckled and closed his eyes.
Ian pinched his side and whispered “behave” in Mickey’s ear, before biting playfully on the lobe.
“Not helping.” Mickey warned lowly.
Mickey lived a long life, which surprised him more than anyone. He expected to go out before he hit twenty and every day had been a gift since then. So now, making it this far, was nothing short of a miracle.
“Ian? You here?” He shuffled through their apartment looking for his errant ginger.
The countertop still had frosted flakes strewn across it from that morning, when Mickey’s increasingly shaky hand spilled over the bowl. The fridge was covered in crayon drawings that wouldn’t win any art prizes but were held proudly in place by magnets, the work of Franny’s kids at their time in daycare. Mickey looked around for his husband and sighed heavily.
“What’s an old guy gotta do around here to get his dick sucked…” he muttered in annoyance and flopped on his bed.
His body ached now. No pills could take the aches away at his age.
Footsteps at the hallway made Mickey look over to the door and he gasped when a tall, handsome young man appeared.
“What are you…”
Ian smiled brightly and stalked over to the bed, shrugging off his grubby parka and dropping it to the floor.
It was Ian! He was here! But he was so young.
“Ian…you’re here…” Mickey struggled to sit up.
“I told you I would come.” Ian grinned and raised his hands.
Mickey’s eyes widened when he saw the tire iron in Ian’s hand.
“GAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!”
Mickey jerked awake, landing an awkward head butt to Ian’s face.
“Jesus fuck Mickey!” Ian cried out, holding his nose. “What the fuck?”
“You…bedroom…young…” Mickey rambled, looking thoroughly spooked.
The whole Gallagher clan was staring at Mickey while he stood on the spot, shaking and swaying.
“Excuse me?” Ian glared.
“Tire iron…” Mickey exhaled and suddenly Ian understood.
“Oh. Ohhhh.”
Mickey hadn’t expected a bad dream to hit him this hard but he trembled on the spot.
“Hey,” Ian got to his feet and pulled Mickey into his arms. “You’re okay. I’m here. I’m okay.”
“YOU STUPID FUCKER!” Mickey suddenly hollered, feeling his grip on reality return.
“Me?”
“Yes, you!” Mickey roared at Ian’s incredulous face. “This is all your fucking fault. You and your fucking ghost stories. Well fuck you. I’M dying first and there’s nothing YOU can do about it!”
Mickey stomped out of the room and into the kitchen, grabbing his pack of smokes and heading out the back door.
“Umm…I think I speak for all of us when I say, what the fuck?” Lip raised his eyebrows at Ian.
Ian smiled sloppily. “He’s fine.”
“That made sense to you?” Carl frowned. “Sounded like he was having a stroke.”
“I better go check on him.” Ian was still smiling as he grabbed up a blanket and headed out back.
Mickey was blowing smoke rings to the sky when Ian draped the blanked around his shoulders and sat next to him on the steps.
“You good?”
“Fuckin peachy. Just dreamed I was old and you were dead, don’t get much better than that.”
Ian smirked at Mickey’s snarking tone. “It was just a dream.”
“It was a fucking nightmare, Ian.”
“I know. But it wasn’t real. I’m here. You’re here. We’re good.”
“Yeah, for now. What happens when we’re actually old and one of us goes? Then what?”
“What do you want me to say? I was so desperate to cling onto you that I asked you to haunt me and you thought I was crazy. One bad dream and you’re a mess. We’re gonna get old and die one day. That’s life.”
“I gotta go first.” Mickey sucked in a breath.
“I can’t control that.” Ian retorted. “But hopefully we’ll both be so old and fucked in the head that we don’t know death from breakfast.”
Mickey chuckled then became serious. “Promise me you’ll come back.”
“Huh?”
“Promise me, if you go first, you’ll come back to me. Even if it’s just in my dreams.”
Ian wrapped his arm around Mickey and drew him into a hug. “I’ll be there. With my tire iron.”
Mickey let out a long sigh against Ian’s throat. “Fuck man. I can’t do it without you. I love you.”
“Love you too, you giant weirdo.”