Just an idea I had this morning about Mickey being nervous before a first date. This is my first fic in this fandom so hopefully it came out ok.

Mickey hates queues. He hates waiting around in general, but he especially hates queues; hates being crammed in with a bunch of people who are equally as impatient as he is, jostling against each other as they move up the line. He hates the queue he's in right now especially, in a diner down the street from the construction site he's been working on for the last two months with a list as long as his arm from all the various contractors there. He hates doing the lunch run, he'd much rather get on with his work in peace, but somehow he seems to get landed with it more often than not.

When it's finally his turn, he steps forward, still growling at the floor, and slides the list over the counter before he looks up. When he does, he's not really paying attention; he's squinting slightly because the sun's reflecting off the metal surface and he's pissed off at having waited so long, so it takes him a minute to take in the, quite frankly, beautiful man that's staring straight at him. He blinks three times in quick succession, takes another look, closes his eyes and then looks again. He's still there, looking at him expectantly, his lips twitching slightly. Mickey swallows hard, snatches up the list and mutters something vague. The guy—Ian, his name-tag says—nods, as if what Mickey just said made perfect sense, and reaches out for the paper in Mickey's hand with a grin. Mickey flinches, and then Ian's fingers are brushing against his, and Mickey thinks that this counter-top must be loaded with static because it's like an electric shock.

Ian obviously feels it too, he's looking at him intently, and Mickey pulls his hand away to rub awkwardly at his lip. Ian's eyes flick up and down, sizing Mickey up, and then he smirks a little, makes a show of turning round to prep the food and then looking back at Mickey over his shoulder. Mickey's suddenly aware of the queue of people behind him and he can feel their eyes burning into his back as if they all know that he's staring at Ian's ass as he gets the order ready and that he's growing an increasingly obvious boner. He looks down, adjusts his pants as best he can and wills his fucking dick to behave itself. He just wants to get his lunch and leave.

Everyone's almost finished eating when Alex notices it. "Hey, Mick," he calls over, and Mickey doesn't respond. "Mick," Alex says, more insistently, and Mickey sighs and looks across.

"What?"

"Why didn't you tell us you got hit on at the diner?" Alex is grinning like a Cheshire cat, a suggestive leer on his face, and Mickey's face creases in confusion.

"The fuck are you talking about, huh?"

Alex waves a piece of paper in his direction, and Mickey's none the wiser. Call me! Kiss kiss kiss." Alex is putting on a high-pitched, girly voice and that's when realisation dawns. Mickey's across the room in three long strides, snatches the paper they'd written the lunch list on out of Alex's hand, and looks down at it curiously.

Sure enough, scrawled at the bottom of the page is a phone number, and a request to call. It's actually only one kiss but Mickey's too baffled to care; he can't think of one reason why Ian would want Mickey to call him. Well, he can think of several if he's honest, but what he can't figure out is why Ian would be interested in him. His co-workers are all looking at him and he can feel heat rising up his neck; he scowls at them, screws the paper up and tosses it into the trash can before stomping out of the room. He hears the laughter and catcalling as he goes and although he knows they mean no harm, he still hates it.

He thinks about Ian all day, about his red hair and green eyes that crinkled in the corners when he smiled and the way his lips curved, about neat, sloping handwriting and well-defined upper arms. He thinks about big hands that would hold him tight while— He catches his thoughts before they go further, clears his throat and tries to focus on his work. He fails.

He retrieves the list later when they've all gone, smoothes it out carefully between his fingers as he stares at the numbers. It's a mistake, is his first thought. Or a joke. But neither make sense, a mistake is unlikely and a joke seems…a bit pointless really. He chews on the inside of his cheek as he considers the possibility of it being a genuine request, that Ian really did just want him to call. He'd like it to be, he thinks. Maybe.

He ponders it all the way home, allows himself to daydream a little about actually calling. He won't, he tells himself. If he's still got the paper in his pocket it's only so no one else can have it to tease him with; if he sits on his bed later with it in his left hand and his cell phone in his right, or if he jerks off while thinking about red hair and strong hands, it still doesn't mean anything. He isn't going to call.

He calls the next evening, having spent another day distracted to the point that the nail on his thumb is black from hitting it so many times with the hammer. He tells himself that he's only calling to prevent any further injuries, because he really can't afford the time off, but deep down he can't help but admit that he's curious. Curious what this guy might see in him, curious as to where it might go. Where he might like it to go.

He has a whole speech planned out but when Ian answers, he forgets it all instantly. Ian's voice is warm and soft, but with a wary edge that somehow rubs against Mickey just right. It goes straight to his dick and he has to take a couple of deep breaths to regain his composure.

When he finally manages to speak, his words come out as a garbled mess. "Hey…um. It's…yesterday. At the diner, you… You gave me your number. So, um. I'm calling." He trails off lamely, cringing at himself as he stammers. He waits for Ian to laugh.

Ian doesn't laugh. He's silent for a moment, and then it's the strangest thing but Mickey swears he can feel the guy smiling over the phone, can hear the breathy exhale Ian makes as his mouth curves open, can see it big and wide with crinkles at the corners of his eyes. "Yeah, I remember," he says, the wary edge all gone, and Mickey almost sags onto the bed in relief. Ian's still talking, chattering excitedly, and Mickey can't help but grin too. "I was wondering if you might want to go out sometime," Ian's saying brightly. "On a date," he adds, as if suddenly he's the one that's unsure of himself.

Mickey hesitates. He hadn't actually thought this far ahead. He doesn't do dates, not really. He does quick fucks with guys he meets in dingy gay bars where he knows he'll never see anyone who might recognise him. A date is…new. But he likes Ian, although he's not quite sure how he's formed that opinion. He doesn't even know the guy but there's something there, something intriguing and he wants to see what it is. So he acts totally on impulse and blurts out his agreement before he can change his mind.

Ian suggests dinner and a movie and Mickey wants to laugh out loud because he's clearly been transported into a fucking rom-com. Except he doesn't, because that part of his brain doesn't seem to be the part that's communicating with his mouth, and suddenly he's agreed and he's talking about which movies are on and what time on Friday and whether he likes Italian food. Before he knows it the arrangements are all made and Ian's saying goodbye with a smile in his voice and Mickey's heart is pounding in his chest. Ian hangs up first and Mickey stares at his cell phone for the next five minutes wondering what the hell just happened.

Mickey doesn't sleep a wink that night. He lies in bed, staring at the ceiling and every stupid chick-flick Mandy's ever forced him to sit through runs through his head. He suddenly realises that he has no idea of date etiquette where two guys are involved. He has no idea who's supposed to pay for what or who drives who home or if there's some sort of "not on the first date" rule. He thinks up every possible thing that could go wrong and then multiplies them all by ten, so by two am he's still wide awake and wondering what the fuck he's let himself in for. By five, he's given up on sleep entirely and he takes a quick, lukewarm shower, cursing his shitty water heater the whole time, and then goes through an entire pot of coffee before he leaves for work.

He's still distracted at work, so he wonders what the point was in even calling Ian if it didn't work, but then he remembers the breathy smile Ian had made over the phone when he realised Mickey had called him and he decides maybe that was the point. He's not sure anyone's ever been so happy to hear from him before.

At lunchtime, he refuses point-blank to go for takeout, and the guys make jokes all afternoon about cute waitresses. He ignores them mostly, flips them off a few times, but he's too tired to really care. He counts down the minutes of his last hour so that he can finally go home and get some sleep.

Mandy calls him the next evening, for the first time in weeks. She asks thinly veiled questions about his love life, and he retorts back that he never asks about hers. She laughs at him and he grins; he's not sure why but suddenly he blurts out that he has a date on Friday and she squeals with excitement. He rolls his eyes while she interrogates him, but all he tells her is yes, he's cute—he doesn't say what he actually thinks which is that Ian is fucking gorgeous and could probably do so much better than Mickey fucking Milkovich—and yes he seems nice and yes he'll call her on Saturday to tell her how it went. He's not really relishing the thought given that his current worst-case scenario is that Ian will turn up, take one look at him and realise that yes, he had given his number to the wrong guy. He doesn't tell Mandy that part because he knows exactly what she'll say and he knows it won't help.

When Friday comes, Mickey still isn't really sleeping. It's ridiculous, he thinks, to be so worked up over one stupid date like a dumb teenage girl, but he can't seem to shift it. He manages to get through the day without causing himself any major injuries, and he waves off Friday night drinks with ease. Instead he goes home, showers and then pours himself a substantial glass of Jack. It's not because he's nervous, he tells himself. It's just because it's Friday and he's used to drinking on a Friday. Three mouthfuls in and there's a pleasant burn in his throat and he's suddenly feeling a whole lot more confident.

He waits outside the movie theatre, trying to avoid checking the time and managing it maybe every other time that he feels the urge. He's a little early, but worst case scenario #346 had been arriving stupidly late and missing the whole thing, so he'd rather be the one waiting around. Until he checks his phone yet again and it's 7.58 and Ian isn't here yet. He know he's being ridiculous but still, doubt curls in his stomach as he watches it switch to 7.59.

By 8.05, he's developed a twitch in his eye and his lip is almost bleeding, he's chewing on it so hard. He's about to call it and leave, when suddenly there's a body in front of him. He looks up and meets green eyes, crinkling at the side as they smile.

"Hi," Ian says, and Mickey can feel himself grinning like an idiot. Suddenly, he's not nervous at all.