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Mickey is pretty sure this kid is getting fucked for a living.
Or maybe he’s doing the fucking, who knows, but either way. This side of town, two am sandwich runs, the hoodie only half zipped with nothing underneath, the pants so tight they’re impractical…it really only suggests one thing.
The fat wad of cash he pulls from some pocket dimension (heh) in those fuckin’ pants also really solidifies it. Even when Mickey was dealing regularly instead of supplementally, he didn’t carry his money around like that.
Mickey is also pretty sure the kid isn’t old enough to be anything other than multiple charges added to the inevitable solicitation charge someone is gonna catch for wanting to get a piece of him.
He gets it, though. God, does he fuckin’ get it. But at least Mickey himself is only 18, only just out of juvenile charges range himself. Not like the old ass fuckers he’s sure this kid has hanging around, the goddamn pervs.
Anyway, it’s 1:58am and Mickey has about six minutes if he wants to actually go through with what he’s been contemplating for the last three weeks.
See, the kid, who’s name Mickey still doesn’t fucking know, much to his irritation, always walks in between 2:04 and 2:06. Without fail, Thursday through Monday (Friday to Tuesday? He’s not sure how to quantify it when its the middle of the night even if it’s technically a different day than when he and the kid both started their shifts) the kid comes in and orders a pastrami reuben with extra sauerkraut, to go, and an extra long beef, extra hot and sweet, dipped, for here. He gets a single glass bottle of mexican Coke and an extra large water, which he refills three times while he eats his beef like he’s starving, and Mickey looks on longingly from behind the counter. He packs his reuben in his backpack, fills his water for the fourth time, salutes Mickey with a cocky grin and a flutter of his fingers, and leaves. 2:49 on the dot, almost always.
He was pretty sure the kid was getting off the red line at 87th and hitting the shop on his way home from…wherever it was he worked out of. He wasn’t a street trick, that was for sure. Too pretty. Someone had him indoors somewhere, making the real money, and man if that didn’t stress Mickey out a little. Not cause he thought it was a bad way to make a living, hell, he’d run drugs since he was old enough to lie to a cop, but because inside was almost more dangerous than outside. Inside johns were devious and sneaky in a way outside ones weren’t. They always had more to lose, and reacted more violently because of it.
So, now it’s 1:59 and Mickey decides, fuck it. He’s stressed about it long enough. He either does it or he lets it fucking go.
He starts with the reuben, so familiar now with the specifics of the kid’s order that he knocks in out in no time, and wraps it carefully first in the wax paper, then in the brown butcher paper that’s kind of the shops (bullshit, in his opinion) signature. He grabs the sharpie they use behind the counter and scrawls “pst rbn x2 srkrt” at the top and before he can overthink it some more, his carefully planned message underneath.
He can feel himself blushing as he puts the sandwich in a bag and throws in some salt and vinegar chips, a rarity the kid orders every once in a while, and sets it aside, starting on the beef.
The kid walks in right on schedule, right as Mickey is getting ready to dip his sandwich.
“‘Ey,” he calls out, greeting first for once. “Sandwich’ll be ready in a minute, grab a seat.” The kid looks surprised, his green eyes visible from across the tiny shop with how wide they get. His hair, which Mickey is definitely obsessed with and is pretty sure will be copper in the sun, glints orange almost under the shitty lights.
“Gotta pay you first, man,” the kid says, heading toward the register.
“Nah,” Mickey says, focusing on getting an even spread of gravy all over the sandwich and not the way he can feel himself blushing. “On the house tonight. I’ll bring it over.”
He can feel the kid stare at him, sees his head tilt out of the corner of his eye. “Alright,” is all he says, drawn out and confused, but maybe a little intrigued.
God, Mickey hopes he’s intrigued.
The kid sits, and Mickey can feel his eyes on him, can feel the way he watches Mickey wrap the long sandwich neatly in the same wax and brown paper combo as the reuben, the way he makes a little noise of surprise when Mickey gets his coke and his big ass water and loads it all up onto a tray. He walks out from behind the counter for the first time, striding over with a confidence he doesn’t totally feel, and deposits it all neatly on the chipped formica table. “Extra long bee, extra hot and sweet, dipped. Mexican coke. Fuckin’ ridiculous water.” He drops the bag on the table from his other hand. “Pastrami reuben extra sauerkraut to go. Right?”
He finally looks up after rushing through his miniscule proof of interest and attention, and finds the kid staring at him, a smirk on his pink lips, and Mickey loses himself in the freckles that flow over the bridge of his nose, across his cheeks, and up over his eyelids. He’s a goner, and he fuckin’ knows it.
“You know it is,” the kid says, voice playful, energetic, almost, even with the hints of dark circles starting under his eyes. Mickey can relate. Nocturnal schedule in a diurnal world leads to perpetual exhaustion. “Pay real close attention, huh?”
Mickey huffs and rubs his lips, his nose, turning his head and looking away. “Here every night, man.” He can feel his ears heat, knows they’re turning pink and he can’t stop it, can’t keep them from giving him away. “Sides,” he adds, hoping he survives the internal combustion happening at the idea of shooting his shot in person instead of just on the safe confines of brown paper. “You’re uh, hard to forget. So.”
He turns to walk away then, just about at his limit for all this interaction when he really thought he’d worked out a foolproof plan to, y’know, not have to right away, but he feels a hand catch his wrist and he turns, eyebrows high.
“Wanna sit?” The kid looks genuine, and maybe a little hopeful. “Be nice to have company, y’know?”
And Mickey feels himself nod, feels himself slide into the seat opposite, and wonders what the fuck his ace is doing to make a smile like that, so bright and shining and blindingly beautiful break out across the kids face.
“You’re cute,” the kid says, gripping the neck of his coke bottle with long, equally freckled elegant fingers Mickey’s thought about more than once when he’s alone after work.
And fuck, Mickey will never forgive his mouth for overriding his brain right then when he blurts out, “You’re fuckin’ beautiful.”
But then the kid blushes, and Mickey thinks maybe his mouth can be forgiven if it gave him such a fuckin’ sight as this.
“I’m Ian,” the kid says after a moment, bright smile back in place even as the tinge of his blush lingers in his cheeks.
“Mickey,” he blurts in a rush. “I’m Mickey.”
They sit there till well past the kid—Ian’s 2:49 departure, swapping jokes, sharing sly touches and secret smiles, and it isn’t until it’s 4:02 and Ian’s phone starts buzzing that they realize the time.
“Fuck,” he breathes, eyes wide. He looks up at Mickey, shaking his phone. “S’my sister. Probably worried cause I’m not home. I gotta,” and gestures to the door.
“Yeah, yeah, no, go ‘head. I get it, I got a sister, too.”
Ian grabs the bag from the table and hastily leans in, pressing a quick kiss to Mickey’s cheek that feels like a lightning strike and a revelation and a miracle all at once. “See ya tomorrow, Mick,” and he’s out the door in a flash.
It’s only when Mickey manages to get up a few minutes later that he remembers what he’d scrawled on the sandwich and has to laugh at how much more romantic or some shit it’ll sound now, after they sat and flirted and Mickey started slowly falling into the warmth and heat that is Ian.
off tues hmu wanna know you for real
mickey 773-555-0146