Archive of Our Own

Mickey

The first few days

Driving away from the border crossing was so hard. You meant to look in the rearview mirror again before you drove away, but when they waved you through, you just pressed on the gas, so relieved were you that they didn’t recognize you, and, by the time you looked up, the car was bumping along and you couldn’t make out what he was doing in the rearview. Was he still watching? Had he already started walking away? You like to think he was still standing there, watching you. You’d seen him as you’d waited in line. He was watching to see if you’d get through – or was he waiting to see if you’d change your mind and turn around? Nah, you decided, he just wanted to be sure you were safe.

Safe. You sighed and realized you’d made it.

Once you were about an hour away from the border, you pulled off the wig and pulled over and changed back into your regular clothes. And then hopped back into the car and started driving again. It seemed wise to get as much distance between you and the border as you could.

You tried listening to the radio LOUD to drown out the voice screaming “NO!” at top volume in your head. When you were closer to Texas, all you could find were pop stations, country music and Christian talk radio. You’d tried listening to the pop and country stations until you found yourself utterly weeping at love song after love song. You were relieved when you found some ridiculously happy Mexican music.

You’d known. You knew he couldn’t come with you. He could have, but he couldn’t. You’d seen it in him – when you’d passed the state trooper on the road, his entire mood changed. You tried to make him feel more secure even though you knew your “plans” were feeble at best. You did your best to get his mind off it, make him laugh, channel his fear into fucking, but you knew he was afraid. When the gas station lady shot at the car as he was driving, you could feel he was terrified – hell, you were pretty freaked out, too. But Ian didn’t seem to really know how to just power right past terrified paralysis the way you’d always known how to. You’d always had to know how to do that. He hadn’t. He was super tense at the party with the guy Jesus who couldn’t help get you into Mexico. He was totally on edge with the whole scene at the bank. I mean, you could see it. You were scared, too, but taking risks and living on the edge was a little more natural for you, perhaps. You tended to bounce back from it easily. And sometimes over the years when you’d reflect on your day, you’d realize you’d chosen the more dangerous option when there might have been a safer – or at least less-risky – option that just hadn’t crossed your mind. You were often impulsive, sometimes reckless. Act first, ask questions later. You knew you needed to work on that. But Ian? He maybe wasn’t quite built to handle that kind of stress. Maybe he didn’t bounce back so readily.

You spent the next few hours alternating between crying and cursing Ian fucking Gallagher. You tried to remember everything about the preceding 5 days, from when you’d first heard his voice again on the phone to when you’d seen him by the bleachers, to when he’d come to the docks after you’d sent him sexy texts -- pictures of your fingers in your ass, showing him you were prepping yourself and so fucking ready for him. You tried to remember everything about being fucked by him, how it was even better than what you’d remembered when you were locked up. In the joint, one of the only things you could do to retain some sense of yourself was to relive every interaction the two of you had ever had, and often those thoughts turned to sexytime – remembering what it was like to be filled up by him, merged with him. In actual experienced reality, it was overwhelming and ecstatic, and also clumsy and ham-fisted. It brought a smile to your lips to remember when your teeth hit together and you both said “ouch!” and giggled. The two of you weren’t a love story from the movies. There was no filter on the lens, no running towards each other through a field of daisies. It was real, gritty, hot, sticky, messy, fucked up, and beautiful.

Your heart hurt – actually fucking physically hurt. You had run it through your mind before you saw him again how you’d handle it if he said no, if he decided he couldn’t come with you. That was actually the only thing you’d prepared for. You’d hoped he would say yes, but you hadn’t prepared for it. But when he got in the Jeep, you felt so happy. Now, as you continued to drive, going deeper into Mexico, further away from Ian, you yelled at yourself, called yourself a pussy, a bitch, for having gotten your hopes up, for having believed that he could actually commit, that he wouldn’t just run away, which it seemed was his fucking area of expertise, especially when it came to you. Why the fuck had you believed?

Well, you’d hoped.

And this was the cycle your mind went on in a constant loop – grief and loss, and anger at Ian, and anger at yourself, and rationalizing, and replaying events, then reassuring yourself, and back to grief and loss… and over again it started. Cycling again and again.

God, you were exhausted. You needed a drink. And more smokes.

But you knew you needed to keep moving. So you did. And you kept rotating through that cycle. The same thoughts, replaying the memories, the things said and unsaid. Like, why had Ian been silent when you told him how much you’d missed him? Had he not missed you? Why hadn’t he said anything when you’d told him how thinking about the two of you on the beach is what kept you going when you were locked up? Did he just not care?

And eventually it started to get dark and you pulled the car over and went to sleep in the back. You drifted off in the part of the cycle that was just sweet, sexy memories.

And woke up to the feeling of having been left. And you knew you needed to just fucking accept this is your life now.

So you did. Like you always do. You’ve always been a survivor. And right now, you know you have to survive. You know you can’t rely on anyone. When the fuck had that ever worked out? Except for a few short periods of time with him, until he would leave again.

You fucking pussy. Why would you set yourself up to be left again? Ah, the cycle begins again.

So you find some food. You sneer when you realize you do have to use the money Ian gave you, but as you shove the cash in your pocket, you get a feeling of connection with him. He’d held this, he’d worked for this, he’d given it all to you. A parting gift, a blessing, an apology to say “take this because I can’t go with you. Take something of me to keep you safe, because I can’t keep you safe.”

That was really it, wasn’t it? Ian always made you feel safe. He was home.

You realize you really don’t know any fucking Spanish as you try to buy the food, but you point and gesture and they figure out what you want. They look at your money for a minute and you realize you’re going to have to exchange it for pesos at some point, but thankfully they accept it. Maybe you should find a map and figure out where the closest city is. Maybe you just need a bank. And you feel a little twinge of something – that you’d have to trade in this wad of cash that your love had held in his pocket and in his hands, for other cash that Ian had never touched. You had come to accept a long time ago that you had your moments of sentimentality, so you didn’t chide yourself too harshly for such a pansy-ass thought.

You drive more and every time thoughts of a certain redhead creep into your mind, you try to shift your thinking to what you need to do next – find a map, find a city, find some work. You were grateful for the cash, but you knew it wouldn’t last forever. Among other things to do: find a tattoo shop and get tats covered. You know that the tattoos on your fingers and the one on your chest are identifying marks. You hate the idea of covering up Ian’s name on your chest. You’d come to a peace about it when you were locked up. It’s what you were trying to tell him – he’s under your skin in every way, even literally. The past few days you felt like you breathed him, your heart beat for him, your eyes lit up for him, he possessed you in some way. That’s what you’d come to terms with. You knew there was a chance he wouldn’t go with you, but you knew you had to try, had to see him, be merged with him, have him give you that feeling of home. You tried to drink it in and remind yourself that it resided within you now, wherever you went.

Maybe you should try thinking things through more, being less impulsive, planning. Maybe you should ditch this fucking car just to cover your tracks. You don’t want to steal another car. You don’t really know how things go here and it would be stupid to get caught with a stolen car and have everything else hit the fan.

You get a flutter in your heart when the thought, barely formed, pops up, “what if you could get your shit together and create a stable life, find a job for him, would Ian come to you then?” and once again you chastise yourself for even thinking about him again. For hoping.

You stop somewhere for gas and stretch your legs. You get a map and a snack. You look at the map, figure out where you are and think you could probably make it to Tampico before sunset – get to the beach and feel the sand in your toes. That seems like the perfect thing to do.

You’ve run Ian’s words over and over again through your head for the past 24 hours. Everything he said in the previous days, but the thing that keeps eating at you are those last words – “this isn’t me anymore.” What the fuck did he mean by that? You saw his fear, yes, but did he mean more than being on the run wasn’t something he could do anymore? You think to do something you had promised yourself you wouldn’t do. You hesitate, but you go ahead and pull out the burner and send him a text. “so who are you now?”

You promised yourself that you’d be done with him, that you wouldn’t reach out again. That you wouldn’t try to stay in touch.

(You wouldn’t know this, but Ian’s phone battery had died, he wouldn’t get your text until a day later when he’d charged up his phone. He tried responding something about keeping a job and paying taxes and whatever, but you’d never get that message because you’d already thrown the burner into the ocean after waiting hours with no response).

You made it to Tampico and wandered to the beach. You were so tired. Drained. Sad. But also happy to be warm and not afraid the Feds were right behind you, and you sank down onto the sand with a beer and watched people as they tanned themselves, built sand castles, splashed in the water, and played with their kids. You exchanged the money for pesos and sprung for a room in a cheap motel.

It was day 3 you woke up, after having had a really good night’s sleep despite the motel’s shitty mattress, and as consciousness crept in as you woke more fully, you curled up in the fetal position and just felt how sad you were. A few tears formed in your eyes, and you let yourself have them. You weren't overcome. You told yourself you are OK, you're Mickey fucking Milkovich, or Richard Sargent, as your new ID professed (thank you, Damon's hitman buddies), and you're a survivor. You will live, and you may even love someone again someday. You realize you can't think about that now. You figure Richards can be called Ricky, right? That’s close enough to Mickey. You’ll get used to it.

You remind yourself that you just plain love Ian Gallagher. There was no point in denying it, as you’d accepted many months ago in prison. You just fucking love him. When you were locked up, you figured out when you’d realized you loved him – it was after he had run off to join the army and you couldn’t feel anything good except when you looked at his picture. And maybe you had loved him far longer back than that, because it was already fully formed at that point – a total awareness of “absolutely yes, of course yes,” and maybe you’d already loved him for months or years at that point. And you figured you always would love him, forever, and you left prison knowing that there was a chance he would totally reject you when you contacted him. And he hadn’t. He had wanted to come with you. And maybe if things had been different he could have come all the way. He said he loved you. He’d never said that before. And it seemed true. And you wished you weren’t fucked for life from the hand of cards life dealt you before you could make choices for yourself. Lying in that crappy motel bed, you stretch out and decide you’re not going to mope the rest of your life about him. You got some really good moments with him (and you’d replay them in your head a million times despite your repeated assertions to yourself that you were done thinking about it), and you were thankful for that. And you set about making a plan and taking a shower and starting the rest of your life.

The first 6 Months

You tried a lot of different things in your first six months in Mexico. You made a lot of plans that didn’t work out as expected, so then you made new plans. Maybe this was how everyone did it? You had made plans in your life before, but when you considered the potential repercussions of poor planning in your circumstances now, the gravity of having to think things through became more apparent.

You had a brief brush with some Mexican drug dealers, which made it clear you do NOT want to have anything to do with that world ever again. Thankfully you got out with your life. You didn’t think things would be quite this different, but they were and the language barrier was probably the worst part.

You’d learned a lot more Spanish and could more or less get by most days – it depended on how much you’d had to drink – but here’s the thing: you were used to always having a quick retort to everything, you could scare people or charm them, but you couldn’t do it yet in Spanish. You just didn’t have a good enough grasp of the language. You generally understood what other people were saying, but you couldn’t translate and then think of a response and translate it into Spanish and get the words out fast enough. And phrases that made sense in English were met with confused stares when you said them in Spanish. You were quiet a lot. It was a new experience.

You bought a van so that you’d always have a place to sleep. You’d gotten sunburned more often than you thought was reasonable, but now you’d developed a little bit of a tan and thought that looked alright. You’d moved around a bit, staying in a few places for longer than others. You’d thought it was funny that they had a region called Tabasco – maybe it was like a state? – so you tried living in a couple spots there. You wandered into a diner that advertised American food and got a job washing dishes. It was fine for a week or two and then you moved on, trying to find a bigger city.

You had ended up in a gay bar after a nice guy you’d barely spoken with suggested you go there when you asked him where to get a burger and you wondered how he knew. You picked up quickly that being openly gay wasn’t really acceptable in general, but it wasn’t any different than Southside, so it was easy enough. Besides, without having someone with you all the time – especially someone with bright red hair like a beacon to the world and whose gorgeous face and body you couldn’t keep your hands off – you didn’t really have the opportunity to out yourself too often.

You connected with people easily, there always seemed to be someone who thought you were funny, whether or not you were trying to be. It still was lonely, though. And you’d drunk yourself to sleep thinking of Ian more often than you cared to admit.

You had gotten your tattoos covered. It was in a city (if you could call it that) where you worked for a few months as a bar back, and the bartender had recommended a place where his buddy worked. He did a decent job. It had taken you a long time to decide what you wanted on your hands instead of FUCK U-UP, because you’d have to see it all the time and you wanted it to be tolerable. He had suggested chess pieces, sketching out how the figures would cover the letters. You’d never played chess, so you looked through his books and photos. You eventually decided upon an Asian-looking dragon that would cover most of the back of both of your hands, but when you put your hands side by side, it looked like one continuous whole. You didn’t know anything about the symbology of dragons, but you figured it would look cool, and you could make up some bullshit story of what it symbolized later.

It was easier to decide how to cover your chest tattoo – not that it was easy to do it. You’d had to get good and drunk in order to be able to get it done, but you told yourself you didn’t need Ian’s name on your chest for him to still inhabit you and be under your skin. You told the tattoo artist that you wanted flames, tipped red and orange. It made sense. It wouldn’t have to be a huge tattoo as many cover-up pieces often were. It could be just a bit bigger than his name and the letters could be the logs that were the base of the fire. And the colors, of course, made you think of Ian’s hair. The tattoo artist was a gruff guy who barely talked to you the entire time – which was perfect. You had to have it done in several sessions over several weeks, but you were pleased by the results even if you hated that you had to have it done in the first place. But you told yourself Richard Sargent wouldn’t take such a risk as to leave identifiable marks.

For about a week, Ian’s name being gone from your chest made you feel more lonely.

It was sometime in month 5 or 6 that you woke up and realized that for the first time since you said goodbye to Ian at the border, you’d drifted off to sleep not thinking about him – and you weren’t even shitfaced drunk. There had been plenty of those nights when you’d drunk yourself stupid and, while you couldn’t usually recall the final thoughts you had before drifting off into unconsciousness, you would bet money that you were thinking of the redhead then. It seemed to be where your thoughts would drift any time you were drunk – sexy thoughts, remembering his touch, his laugh, hearing the sounds he’d make when you’d fuck. And he was always the first thing on your mind when you woke up. Sometimes you thought you could taste him, smell him. But this morning as you slowly came to wakefulness, you realized with a little start of adrenaline mixed with guilt that he hadn’t been your final thought last night. You wondered if that was a trend that would continue. Would he drift further from your memory? You’d thought of him every night and morning while you were locked up – it had become a habit. But now? Already you’d passed the milestones of being able to count how many weeks it had been, and then it had become months, since you’d seen his face, his eyes, tasted his lips. It was harder and harder to keep track of how long it had been. Something about that made you feel further from Ian. Like the rope that connected the two of you just ran out and you reached for it but could only just barely graze the edge of the rope’s frayed edge with your fingertips.

It was probably for that reason that you found the most touristy shop you could find in the nearest town and sent a postcard to the Gallagher house. You wrote his name and address and sent it from the post office, but you didn’t write any message. Well, the postcard itself was the message. It was saying “this is where I am, and I’m alive.” You doubted he worried, or even thought about you, but you needed to feel some sort of connection, and this would have to do. It was what you could manage. You wished you had been doing this all along – maybe sending a card every week or every month so Ian could trace your progress. But you hadn’t thought of it ‘til now. But you would from here forward – you’d send a postcard on the first of every month, something that would tell Ian where you were. And, every time, you’d push back any little hopes that maybe he would want to come join you.

You’d been with other men, very cautiously. That was part of why you’d moved around so much. The first time was in Tampico as you drunkenly wandered down an alley trying to find a place to pass out. A guy stepped away from a building as you walked and you thought he was about to jump you until you saw him undoing his pants. You looked down the alley and saw two guys fucking about 40 feet away and thought to yourself, “of all the alleys in Mexico, I walk down this one,” and decided maybe it was dumb luck. You pushed the guy back towards the wall and pulled your dick out and he dropped to his knees and sucked you off. It was hasty and not particularly awesome, but it felt OK. When he was done, he gestured to his own dick and you scowled and walked on down the alley. He didn’t follow you or say anything.

When you stayed in little villages, it was trickier to find any sort of gay scene – even a random anonymous sex alleyway. So you’d go to what passed for a larger city and usually find someone to fuck. It was always quick, rushed and anonymous. You’d let yourself get fucked up the ass a few times, always made them wear a condom, and you appreciated how different it was to be in a rather closeted world compared to being in prison where letting anyone fuck you up the ass made you their bitch – where those guys who were owned by their cell mates or whomever would often be made to appear more feminine whether it be their hair, their jumpsuit, or makeshift makeup. Here, you could just like what you liked and get off and that was that. You just had to be discrete about it.

But, more often than not, the next day you found yourself a little anxious that you’d be seen again and maybe the guy would try to beat the faggot out of himself by beating you up. You could hold your own in a fight, you weren’t worried about that, but you knew a lot of these guys had families – wives, children – so they maybe thought they had something to prove, and maybe they had weapons, and friends. And you were a stranger in a strange land with no backup, no idea where to go if you had to run, etc. You could relate to that mindset of having something to prove, like when you’d tried to beat Ian up to try to get him to stop coming around, tempting you, making it more certain that your father would actually kill you. It was one part not wanting to be gay, and ten parts not wanting your father to kill you or Ian. So you’d generally move on to the next town or at least not go to the same spots again. But the larger the city, the safer and more anonymous it seemed – at least in that regard. Sometimes those cities were on the beach, sometimes they weren’t. So much for sandals and tequila.

But even though your time spent relaxing on the beach was less than you’d originally expected, you had started to relax. Tension melted off you more and more with every month that passed.

You easily picked up odd jobs in bars or restaurants. You’d learned how to say “you got any jobs for tonight?” and you’d show your muscles or gesture as if you were sweeping a broom, or whatever to try to convey you’d do anything, and generally you’d find something and make enough money to buy gas or whatever you needed. You lived very simply. You didn’t need much. You didn’t have anything that was your own, really, except the clothes on your back and the van you often slept in.

You’d found out that there were some people in Mexico who were really generous. They may not have had a lot, but they’d offer you a home cooked meal, a shower, and even a room to sleep in. A couple of times at the end of the night when you’d be helping clean up the restaurant or bar (or dance hall or gymnasium or wherever the hell you’d found work), someone would ask where you were heading after, and when you’d shrugged – I mean, you assumed they were seeing if you wanted to hang out and you were usually just fucking tired – but they’d pressed you for where you were sleeping, which you honestly thought was kind of creepy. But then you’d find that they were actually offering to let you sleep on the sofa in the back office, or that they’d insist that you come home with them and eat some of the food their abuela or someone had cooked. You’d always been suspicious of anyone offering anything with no expectation of anything in return. But it happened so often here – at least in the smaller villages – that you’d decided that you could repay them with cleaning up after yourself or being nice to their kids, or fixing a leaky pipe or whatever it was you noticed. None of these guys were hitting on you, either. Nobody seemed to consider that you might like dick.

One guy, Oscar, had teased that his sister would love you, and you’d laughed and muttered under your breath, “maybe not,” and he’d caught on, even though you'd said it in English. He let you stay in his kids’ room and his kids slept in the bed with him and his wife. He owned the bar you’d been bar backing at for almost a week. After two nights, he insisted that you come home with him rather than sleeping on the sofa in the back office. His mother lived with him, too, (or maybe they all lived with his mother? Your Spanish was getting better, but not good enough to discern little subtleties like that) and, lord have mercy, she was a phenomenal cook and a pushy broad who wouldn’t let you go anywhere without eating more than you probably needed. One morning Oscar was gone when you got up and she had you come into the kitchen and help her cook. She showed you some techniques, barely using any words, mostly just showing through gestures and exaggerated miming. She laughed a lot and smiled at you until you realized you’d relaxed and been smiling and laughing along with her.

That night, after sweeping up and wiping down all the surfaces, when Oscar asked you when you would get married again – he already knew you were divorced – you said you didn’t really think you could, and rather than throwing him off the scent which you normally would have done (who knows what it was, maybe you were tired, tipsy, or just needed to tell someone about Ian, make it real instead of just some memory that you feared would fade further and further until you wouldn’t be able to remember the color of his eyes, or the way he smelled) you said there was someone you loved but you had to leave him behind. And that’s when you realized you’d said him – él, not ella. The conversation dropped. You figured he assumed you’d just said the wrong pronoun, and you didn’t really want to get into any more talk about it. You’d stayed with him and his family for over a month, and you were getting restless, so a few days later when you told him you thought you needed to move on to a larger city, he suggested you go to Mexico City and look up his brother Reynaldo. You took the piece of paper with Reynaldo’s phone number and address on it and agreed you’d look him up.

Months 7-9

Arriving in Mexico City was a little overwhelming after all the smaller towns and villages that you’d been staying in. It was massive and unclean and cacophonous and you immediately liked it. You thought you could find a place to stay and get the lay of the neighborhood and figure out where to run and hide and where to buy a gun or a knife if you needed it. And there had to be a gay scene in a city of this magnitude. You were bummed that there wasn’t a beach, but after having gotten blistering sunburns more than once, you weren’t sure the beach was all it was cracked up to be. Besides, you’d been laying low in the villages for over six months and figured by now any media coverage of you had died down and you were safe to hang out in a crazy city where so many things happen every day you could probably scrape by barely noticed.

You went directly to the address Oscar had given you for his brother Reynaldo and were surprised to find it was the address of a high rise, ultra-modern apartment building. You still didn’t have a phone, so you figured you may as well ring the guy’s apartment. The voice that answered the intercom said “bueno” and you said, “hey, I’m Ricky, Oscar’s friend,” as kind of a question, remembering a little too late that you should have said it in Spanish. There was a pause and then a buzz as the door was unlocked. You went up to the 26th floor and just as you arrived at the apartment number, the door flung open and a 30’s-ish man stood there. He was a tall, pretty, slim gay man, a little more effeminate than you found attractive. And you stopped to let it sink in that Oscar totally read you. “You’re Oscar’s friend?” you nod and he waves you inside. “Come in, come in, come in. Welcome! Oscar told me I’d be hearing from you. I love my brother, isn’t he great?” You barely speak. It dawns on you in this moment that you have barely spoken for the past 6 months. Something about having none of your snarky comments be threatening when they’re meant to be threatening or humorous when they’re meant to be humorous BECAUSE NO ONE CAN FUCKING UNDERSTAND YOU BECAUSE YOU SPEAK A DIFFERENT LANGUAGE AND YOU TAKE TEN YEARS TO FIGURE OUT WHAT TO SAY, well, it makes a guy shut the fuck up. It was a relief to be in the presence of someone who spoke English fluently. “I’m Reynaldo, but you can call me Rey. I live here with my beautiful husband Ludovic, you can call him Ludo. He’s not here right now. But look who is here!” and he gestures down to a black and white Boston Terrier who comes running up to you, smelling your pants legs. “This is Pepe, he is my little boy.” You still haven’t said a word. “Oh, pardon me, let’s put your bag down,” and Rey takes the duffel bag from your shoulder and sets it down and looks you in the eye, “would you like a drink?”

“Yeah, whatever you got,” you say and he gestures for you to sit on one of the sofas in the sunken living room just across from the kitchen. Pepe hops up onto the sofa and stands right next to you, staring at you. Rey busies himself in the kitchen for a minute and then comes out with a tray of snacks and a tall glass of iced tea. He sits down across from you and encourages you to eat some snacks, telling you you look hungry. You laugh and say, “you sound like your mother.”

Conversation moves along easily enough. Rey wants to hear all your stories about his brother, mother, nieces and sister in law. He seems genuinely fascinated by you, asking you all sorts of questions, but not prying or obnoxious, just friendly and warm. You eat and drink but realize time is passing. “Look,” you interrupt, “I don’t mean to be rude, but I’ve just arrived in town and I need to find a job and a place to stay, so I should-” and as you start to get up to excuse yourself, Rey reaches over and touches your forearm and reassures, “no, Ricky, you are staying here with me and my husband, we insist, and I am having you come to work at my restaurant tonight – unless you are too tired from your travel?” you shake your head, “no, I’m good.” Rey continues, “we leave at 4. This is how it is, Ludo will be very upset if he does not get to meet you, so you must stay.”

You look at him quizzically and he just stands up, “come on, I’ll show you the guest room and you can take a shower. Want me to wash some of your clothes?”

You think better of arguing with Rey. He seems determined to be your friend. And you could use a friend.

His restaurant is a nice place that he manages and runs, though he doesn’t own it. It’s not fancy, but nicer than any place you’ve ever eaten before. He has you bussing tables and washing dishes for tonight, but asks if you have other skills – maybe cooking? “did you learn something from my mamá?” “Maybe,” you mumble, but he’s already on to the next thing. You watch as Rey flits in and out of the kitchen, dining room, hostess stand and office. You think this guy has got too much damn energy.

When the restaurant closes, he checks in with you to see how the evening went and you say something about washing dishes not being rocket science and he says, “Ricky, you are starting over, yes? In Mexico?” You nod and he continues, “this is a good place to start. The owner owns many restaurants all over Mexico City and you could go far if you want to. But, no pressure. We will head home soon. Ludo is home and has cooked something special to welcome you,” he smiles, “did I tell you he’s French?” You shake your head and raise your eyebrows. What the fuck is it with these people and being so warm and welcoming and generous? Sometimes it made you uneasy, but whenever you’d have a thought like that, you’d taken to telling yourself that it was Mickey Milkovich who was suspicious, but Ricky Sargent was open to new things. Maybe Ricky Sargent trusted people.

When the two of you get back to the apartment, Ludo greets you. He’s not as tall as Rey, with a stockier build, dark hair, hazel eyes and warm smile. He announces that he has made risotto which he confides is Italian, not French, but he says you’ll like it. Over dinner, you ask how long they’ve been together (7 years!) and they tell you all about how they met and what it took for Ludo to move from France to Mexico and how they visit Rey’s family many weekends, but Ludo’s job here in the city is too good to pass up and you hear them, and generally listen, but you find yourself totally distracted by the flavors and textures of this meal. When Rey (finally) stops talking and asks you a question – what was he asking about? Where are you from? – you just say, “this food is fucking delicious, what are these little things in here?” and Ludo tells you they’re mussels, from the sea, he clarifies. He gets up and shows you the shells that he’d removed them from. You think for a moment and allow Ricky Sargent, man open to new experiences, to say “risotto is my new favorite meal, man,” and you feel grateful.

Ludo offers to show you how to make it on the weekend, and Rey insists that Ludo teach you how to cook so that you have more options in the restaurant industry – and he adds it’d be good if you worked on your Spanish, too, to which Ludo says he’ll lend you the course he used when he first arrived. And Rey reiterates what a good idea it will be to have Ludo teach you to cook and admits Ludo is a far better cook than he is. You observe how they are with each other – casual, familiar, affectionate touches, looking each other in the eye, finishing each other’s sentences, laughing and smiling with each other, listening attentively when the other speaks. You think how you haven’t seen this before – a happy couple – except you and Ian. You know the two of you had lived together and did domestic stuff together. But there was something about being a witness to these other people’s life– kind of routine, what would be boring except you’re doing it with someone you love so it’s sweet, and easy. And your mind wanders for a moment and when you come back, you see them both looking at you, awaiting a response, apparently to some question you’d been asked. “Hey,” you say softly, this has been a great meal, and I’d like to help somehow – maybe I can clean up?” and Rey insists that, no, you’ve had a long day, please go relax, get some sleep, it will all be take care of. You realize then that he is spot-on and you’re exhausted and you find yourself falling asleep within minutes of getting into the guest bedroom.

The next few days and months go similarly to the first one, with Rey talking a mile a minute, and Ludo going to work before you get up in the morning. Ludo left you his Spanish course on CD, which you listen to on the boom box in your room. You hang out with Rey a lot, go to work with him and he helps you with your Spanish pronunciation, and he tells you all sorts of stories.

There were a few times you saw Rey and Ludo in a private moment – when they were out on the balcony, Ludo holding Rey, kissing his neck; when you walked in and they were dancing in the dining area; when Rey pushed you aside the moment the two of you entered the apartment and said, “excuse us,” and hastily grabbed Ludo and the two disappeared into their bedroom – and you would watch for maybe a second longer than you ought, something in you stirring, missing Ian, wishing you and he could have that ease and familiarity and fire again. The first time you kicked yourself for aching for domesticity, called yourself faggot, but then you remembered, fuck it, you were Ricky now. Ricky liked this. Ricky wanted this. You had never really seen examples of affection like Ludo’s and Rey’s, this undefended, open display of sheer adoration. Ricky wanted that.

Over the months, you get to know the other restaurant employees – the cooks, the wait staff, the bartenders. You don’t have a lot of time to spend with them while the dinner rush goes on, but once everything dies down and you’ve finished with the dishes or whatever else Rey has you doing that night, most everyone gathers at the bar and has a drink. And once the final diner leaves the restaurant, they play some loud music while everyone polishes off their drinks or finishes up business. It’s nice, you think. It’s a kind of comradery, almost like what it might feel like to have a family if your family wasn’t completely fucked. You even start teasing and playing with one of the waitresses the way you and Mandy sometimes did. You sometimes work at another restaurant when the owner sends Rey over there, but you like this one the best because of the end of night ritual.

At home, Pepe seems constantly curious about you. You’d never had a dog before, but, after a few days of having him follow you around and ask for belly rubs, you decide it’s pretty awesome. You offer to walk Pepe so you can feel you’re doing something for Rey and Ludo, and it also offers a good opportunity to get to know the neighborhood. You have moments of thinking what a cliché this is, but you see how Pepe struts and holds himself like he’s the boss of everything and you think he’s pretty cool, and you thank your lucky stars he wasn’t a poodle.

You didn’t know a subtle way of saying it, so you asked Rey at some point where a guy might go to get laid. And he laughed but immediately pulled out a map and showed you where to go. He told you some etiquette that you should use to keep yourself safe, and you laughed because you knew how to be discrete. You did, however, ask him how to say certain things like blowjob, handjob, bottom, top, etc. It was weird asking him, but he was so eager to help that it could have been worse. You wandered into a gay club one night after a shift at the restaurant and drank a couple of shots before hooking up with a good looking guy who’d been eying you and who fucked you good in the bathroom stall.

After a couple of months, you started to get used to this life in Mexico City: Ludo showing you how to cook on weekends, working at the restaurant about 6 days/nights a week, occasionally getting laid, hanging out with Pepe (whom you called Buddy, just between the two of you), and getting to know your coworkers, sometimes even hanging out with them after work.

One time, Rey told you the story of adopting Pepe from the animal shelter, and how he had been a scared and defensive little terror at first. Rey explained that Pepe had been living on the streets, fending for himself, exposed to the elements, hungry, vulnerable to attack, and just knowing that made him and Ludo have tremendous patience with him, and they saw him transform slowly into a loving and devoted little dog just by loving him and treating him with kindness and care. He said that Pepe knows he is safe and loved now, and that’s what made all the difference.

You had told Rey you thought you should get your own apartment to get out of their space, but he shushed that thought away, insisting that people need family and that he and Ludovic would have to be your family for now. You’d mentioned moving out once to Ludo, too, and he had reassured you that they loved having you and that it really was doing them both a favor having you there because Rey missed his family so much and having you there made Ludo feel less guilty about keeping them in the city for his job. So you dropped it, and found that you felt better when you contributed to the household in whatever ways you could – cleaning, grocery shopping, walking Pepe, and generally doing what seemed like needed to be done.

When Rey found out you didn’t have a bank account, he took you to his bank and got them to open an account for you. He also gave you his old iPhone when he upgraded and had you added to their family plan.

Months 10-12

Rey seemed to know everyone everywhere you went and was totally charming most of the time. But if you had underestimated him when you first met him, that flew out the window when you witnessed him in a shouting argument with one of the food distributors during a delivery. You had gone out to the loading dock to offer backup, but he held his own and had the distributor cowering and begging for another chance. You quickly realized Rey was a sweetheart, but he didn’t take any shit.

Another time, a drunk had grabbed on Rey as you and he walked home from the restaurant and you sprung into defensive mode, pinning the guy against the nearby building, which was overkill because the guy really was just falling-down drunk. Rey had commented all the rest of the way home how protective you were, how he bet your boyfriends felt so safe with you. Maybe it was because of that encounter – or maybe because of the 4 shots of tequila – that you found yourself opening up to Rey about Ian. You tell him, “there’d been one guy, one man I loved, and he wasn’t so crazy about me trying to protect him,” and you recall Ian yelling where is the shit-talking, bitch-slapping piece of southside trash I fell for? You continue, “soon after that, he broke up with me. He was upset with me for being too gentle, because he’d gotten sick and I was trying to take care of him, and I wanted him to take care of himself, too – I was taking him to the clinic and making sure he took his meds and followed the doctor’s instructions. Or trying to, anyway, he’s stubborn as a mule. And this last time he dumped me saying he couldn’t keep up with my lifestyle. I mean, those weren’t his words, he said this wasn’t who he was anymore.”

“What did he mean he couldn’t keep up with your lifestyle?” Rey inquired as you both sat on lounge chairs on the apartment balcony.

You paused, and replied “I did a bunch of stuff that bordered on legal and illegal”

Reynaldo was quiet, thinking for a long pause.

“I don’t know…” you continue feebly.

Then Rey said, “it sounds like you're just too much for Ian. You're either too rough or you're too gentle, too caring. Maybe he doesn't know who he is and he gets lost when he’s around you.”

Mickey insists, “I never pressured him, I never put words in his mouth, I never made him do anything.”

“No, I’m not saying it’s anything about you. I’m saying it’s something that’s not quite strong enough in him. It happened once with me -- I was too much for someone once and he would just lose himself around me and it’s just because I am who I am. I’m kind of a strong personality – like you.”

“No, I don’t think so. Ian knows who he is. When we met, he did ROTC -- it’s like junior military – and he had a regular job that he kept for years. You know, he was responsible. When he got a little older, he tried to join the Army but that didn't work out. He got sick with the bipolar mental illness and he started being a little more out and proud in the gay scene, hanging out at a gay club.”

“Did he turn tricks?”

Your eyes meet Rey’s and you look down at your feet.

Rey says “Yeah, he sounds like he’s vulnerable to – how do you say it? – being taken advantage of.”

“No, no, that was years ago, he became an EMT, a paramedic, had that job for a year, and he saved money and I think he was feeling really stable when I saw him last.”

“So, he missed you and loved you but he didn’t want to lose himself again?”

You consider this for a moment before Rey goes on, “maybe he had lost himself in your bigger personality before and this time he just didn’t want to lose himself by letting go of all that he’d worked for.”

You wonder, is it possible that Ian always felt in the shadow of your bigger personality?

You hope not. You loved him with everything you had, and you know there was an Ian in there. He wasn’t a nothing. He wasn’t just a blank wall. He was funny, and smart, and ambitious, and he nurtured his younger brothers and sister, and Yev.

Shit, Yev. It wasn’t the first time you thought of your son, but whenever you did, it was guilt that you felt for not being there. You would tell yourself that maybe you’d turn into a monster father just like Terry, something unconscious bursting out, so maybe it was better you didn’t see him. Or you’d remember how it was he came into this world and you’d reiterate how you’d never wanted the kid in the first place. But you always felt guilty.

The next day, you wake up to find a flyer Rey had slipped under your door about EMT jobs in Mexico City.

On the 1st day of the 11th month since you’d seen him, you walked to the post office with 3 postcards addressed to Ian. You’d found a box at the restaurant full of postcards that Rey explained they used to give out as marketing – they had a picture of the dining room and a description of the restaurant, including location and phone number. He let you take a few, and you decided this really had to be the last time you reached out to him – it was feeling more and more undignified with every month. You cut out the information about the EMT job and pasted it onto one of the post cards. You may love him, you may always love him, but you needed someone who could love you back, too. Someone who would choose you in return. You dropped the postcards into the mail slot and said, “goodbye, Ian.” You patted the mail slot after the postcards disappeared, just like how you’d patted Ian’s face the last time you saw him, and quietly said, “fuck you, Gallagher,” and turned to walk Pepe back to the apartment.