This idea came to me in a dream. It went a little differently, but this is just a more detailed version of it. Slightly AU (as in, Ian and Mickey had never had any interaction apart from Mickey stealing from the Kash and Grab occasionally and taunting him at school, nothing romantic/sexual has occurred. Ian is also out and proud, Mickey obviously isn't) but I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it
The day was Friday, the weather was gloomy and the children of downtown Chicago were trudging through the school doors, dragging their backpacks behind them. The week had finally drawn to a close and Ian was relieved when he checked his school schedule and found that he had a free period at the end of the day. The weekend would be upon him quicker than he expected and he was going to spend it hanging out with Mandy, sitting on the Milkovich's couch, smoking weed and watching a bounty of comedy movies. He smiled at the thought.
"Thinking about sucking off the principal aye Gallagher?" Mickey Milkovich asked, flashing a teasing smirk and catching Ian mid grin. Ian's expression immediately changed to that of distain. Mickey raised his eyebrows at Ian before shoving a younger kid face first into his own locker door and entering the boys' toilets. Ian looked over at the poor ninth grader, pressing his freshly bloodied nose to the sleeve of his jacket. He looked up at Ian momentarily, before slamming his locker shut and running down the corridor towards his classroom. Ian shook his head, piled his bag with the books he required for the day and closed the locker door.
Mickey Milkovich. A year older than Ian and about as Southside as anybody could get. His knuckles were tatted up with the ever so charming phrase "FUCK U-UP", he was always caught with an unlit cigarette in his mouth, his hair was dark and greasy and he had been stealing from Ian's work for the past three months. Ian despised everything about Mickey and had no idea how he was related to Mandy. Sure, Mandy had her flaws, but she wasn't half as bad as Mickey. All Mickey did was cause trouble for the fun of it, like the time Mickey had purposely (or 'accidentally' as he had claimed) set the teacher's coffee mug on fire when they were in the fourth grade. Instead of Mickey being punished though, the teacher had been fired for being drunk on the job – as his coffee mug had contained a very potent whiskey. Then, when they had been in the sixth grade, Mickey had keyed the principal's car and drove it onto the baseball field. Everyone had known it was Mickey who had done it, but without any evidence, he was once again let off. Minor offences in comparison to what Mickey was probably capable of. That boy was headed on a one way trip to jail as soon as he turned eighteen, as the juvie's 'get out of adult jail free' card had almost expired.
"Hey Ian, you ready for English with Mr Shithead?" Mandy asked, leaning against the locker adjacent to Ian's. Ian flung his back pack over his shoulders and linked his arm with Mandy's. With a quick nod, the two walked down the hallway towards room three. Just as the two were walking past the boy's toilet, a familiar face exited. Mandy and Ian came to a halt as Mickey eyed them up and down.
"I hope you don't think Ian has the hots for you Mandy. I caught him jerking off to a picture of Principal Monroe in the locker room the other day. The only straight he is, is a straight up fag," Mickey said mockingly, chuckling at his own joke. Mandy rolled her eyes in response and kicked his knee cap. Mickey groaned with pain and clasped onto his knee.
"Fuck off you asshole, leave us alone and go find your own friends. It's getting a little sad that you seem to always be around when I'm with Ian," Mandy spat, turning her back on Mickey and continuing towards their classroom. Ian was almost certain that when he turned around he had seen Mickey staring at his ass, but his eyes had diverted elsewhere so quickly, that Ian convinced himself that he still hadn't woken up properly and that he was simply seeing things.
As soon as news had spread around the school that Ian was gay, the eldest Milkovich sibling had been mercifully bullying him on a daily basis. Sometimes he was bumped into, sometimes his books were knocked out of his hand, but most of the time it had been insults. Ian had stopped counting the amount of times Mickey had referred to him in a derogatory way. Mickey was a fairly well-known thug at school, bullying kids younger and even older than him, but his main target always seemed to be Ian. He had no idea what he had done to make Mickey Milkovich hate him so much, but within a few hours; the reason would become one hundred percent clear.
[x]
The entirety of the day had gone by about as slow as Ian had expected for a Friday and he'd kept a tally of how many times he had fallen asleep. Just as it was about to become the fifth time, the bell finally rang for the end of his day and the sound of students leaving their desks and the room completely drowned out their history teacher's attempt at giving them all homework to do over the weekend.
"Want to go out back for a smoke?" Mandy asked.
"You read my mind," Ian responded. The two once again, began walking arm in arm down the school hallway when they ran into Lip. Lip and Mandy had been on and off for the last few weeks, but judging by the exchange of saliva that occurred between the two, Ian assumed they were currently in the on phase of their 'relationship'. The two pulled apart, leaving their arms wrapped around each other's waists.
"You ready?" Mandy asked. Ian pondered the question for a moment. He realised he really needed to go to the bathroom, so he opted out.
"You know what guys, I'm going to run to the toilet, I'll catch up with you in a couple of minutes," Ian replied.
"Alright man, we'll be behind the bleachers. Don't be longer than five minutes or you might not want to come," Lip said, winking at Mandy, causing her to simultaneously blush and smile. She squeezed his side and the two made their way to the bleachers behind the baseball field. Ian had been fairly wary of the pairing of his brother and his best friend. It was a difficult position to be in. On the one hand, he had the obligation to be there for his best friend whenever Lip had been a complete asshole to Mandy, but then he also had to support his flesh and blood whenever Mandy had caused a problem between the two. Ian simply avoided the topic as much as he could. Despite not having any romantic drama in his own life, he was thoroughly convinced that he was doing the right thing by dodging relationships all together.
Ian entered the boy's toilets and was immediately greeted with a cloud of smoke in his face. He immediately sensed that it was not normal cigarette smoke, but in fact marijuana smoke and it was coming straight from the mouth of Mickey Milkovich. Ian briefly glanced up at him, hoping that he would let Ian go to the toilet in peace. Unfortunately, Mickey was a well-known loud mouth and had to make a comment.
"Meeting some queer-bo in here for a little bit of something hey Gallagher?" Mickey laughed, taking another drag from his joint. Ian didn't respond, he simply headed over to the urinal and went about the business he was there for.
"Are you deaf or something Gallagher? You going to answer me or am I going to have to force it out of you?" Mickey said. Ian took it as somewhat of a threat, but his ROTC training had left him strong and more than able to ward off any beatings that Mickey was getting ready to give him.
"Mickey, if you spent half as much time in class as you did smoking weed in this bathroom, which by the way is always so smoked up that you could probably get a contact high when taking a shit, then you might actually learn something useful or perhaps, kill your reputation as a dumbass," Ian said back to Mickey, zipping up his jeans and heading to wash his hands.
Mickey jumped off the sink and came straight up to Ian. Mickey's body was pressed up so close to Ian's that he could smell a mixture of cigarettes and some form of dollar shop cologne radiating off of him and was stunned to find that he kind of liked how he smelt.
"Say any more shit about me Gallagher and I swear your face will hit that faucet so hard you won't have any teeth left by the end of the day," Mickey threatened. Ian turned to face him, flicking water into Mickey's eyes.
"Bring it on tough guy. You can talk all the shit you want, but at the end of the day, they are just words. I dare you, hit me. Fucking hit me!" Ian shouted, specks of spit flying into Mickey's face.
As Mickey was raising his fist towards Ian's face, a deafening bang echoed throughout the bathroom. The two boys immediately fell to the ground, covering their ears and screwing their eyes shut. Another bang went off seconds later and all that could be heard were the terrified screams of their fellow students. Ian shot a panicked look at Mickey and Mickey shot one straight back. Ian had never seen a single shred of vulnerability in Mickey Milkovich's persona. He was a tough guy, never backing down or showing a shred of any emotion other than anger, but in that moment, Ian knew Mickey was equally as or more scared than Ian was.
The two boys slowly released the palms of their hands from their ears. They had both concluded that the two bangs that they heard were in fact gun shots. It was nothing they hadn't heard before, that wasn't what they were afraid of. The fear came from the fact that the gun shot had been extremely close by, so close that Ian's ears were ringing and he could feel a dull throb forming in his ear drum.
The boys remained motionless. No more gun shots had come and no more students had been heard. It had been dead silent for several minutes, so Mickey decided to take action. He raised his index finger to his lips, inaudibly telling Ian to stay quiet, and commando crawled towards the bathroom door. He hooked his left hand underneath and opened it as little as possible, but enough to be able to peek outside. Mickey pushed the door closed again and leant his back against it. He closed his eyes, the look of fear still imprinted heavily on his face.
Ian sat up and rested on the wall underneath the faucet. A million thoughts were racing through his head. What on earth had happened outside? Who fired the shots? Was it a student? Teacher? Ian had no idea what was going on, he just knew that he was way too petrified to move. A bead of sweat dripped down his face and fell on the tiled surface below. Ian looked over at Mickey who had already been looking at Ian. Ian raised an eyebrow at Mickey and Mickey replied with a shake of the head, which Ian took to mean that whomever had fired the shots, wasn't there anymore.
Mickey stood up off the bathroom floor, lifted and placed the trash can in front of the door and wedged the door stopper underneath. He walked over to Ian and sat down next to him.
"You alright?" Mickey asked softly.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Ian replied. Mickey nodded his head and turned to face the cubicles in front of him. Ian examined Mickey's face from a side-on view. His eyelashes stuck out the most as they were dark and long. He had a sprinkle of light-coloured freckles on his cheeks, which he assumed were replicated on the other side of his face and the end of his nose turned up slightly. Up close, he was about as intimidating as a kitten. In fact, Ian thought that despite the dirt marks, Mickey was rather attractive.
"Who the fuck do you think fired those shots?" Mickey said, terror still evident in his voice.
"Whoever it was, I'm sure somebody called the police already," Ian said in an attempt to calm him down.
"But what if they come back and blow our fucking heads off? I don't want to die man," Mickey responded, his voice now clearly trembling. Without any hesitation, Ian rested his hand on Mickey's shoulder. Mickey shook it off almost immediately.
"We'll be fine, we just need to lay low for the next couple of hours until we get the all clear. Try and keep your mind off of it. Let's play a game," Ian suggested. Mickey glared at Ian, not trying to show how stupid he thought Ian's idea was.
"Do you want to play duck duck fucking goose or something Gallagher?" Mickey said.
"I was thinking more along the lines of twenty questions. You ask me something and then I ask you something and then we continue until we've asked each other a total of twenty questions. As long as we keep our voices down, it will be a good distraction," Ian explained. Mickey glanced at the door once more, sighed and nodded in agreeance.
"Fine, but you go first," Mickey said.
"Alright, easy one, what's your favourite food?" Ian asked.
"Definitely banana pancakes. My mum used to make them for Mandy and I e-," Mickey paused midsentence, realising he was uncomfortable with how much he was sharing, "yeah, so banana pancakes".
"Alright, so now you ask me something," Ian said.
"Uh, what's your favourite brand of…. Toilet paper?" Mickey asked, staring at the toilet cubicles. Ian sighed.
"You're supposed to ask personal questions Mickey," Ian said.
"What's more personal than what you use to wipe your ass?" Mickey exclaimed.
"Just, ask me something else man," Ian demanded. Mickey rolled his eyes.
"What's your favourite flavour of water?" Mickey asked
"Mickey, come on," Ian grunted
"How many times can you say fuck without taking a breath? My record is fifty-two," Mickey announced.
"Mickey, can you take something seriously for five fucking minutes?" Ian huffed.
"Fine, what… what do you want to do after high school?" Mickey questioned, turning to face Ian as if he was genuinely interested in what his answer was going to be.
"Well, option one is join the army and to move state. The second option is to stay here and become like Frank. So, I'm doing ROTC almost every morning," Ian replied, causing Mickey to crack a smile.
"Your old man as bad as mine?" he asked, pulling a flask out of his jacket pocket and taking a swig of it. He offered Ian the flask and Ian snatched it straight out of his hand and let a small amount of whiskey trickle down his throat.
"Are you kidding? My Dad almost lost my younger brother in a bar bet," Ian challenged.
"That's nothing. When I was younger we had a dog, his name was Yoda because his ears stuck out to the side way more than they should have," Mickey smiled at the memory of his childhood pet, "one morning after my Dad had spent the night drinking himself stupid, Yoda was barking at his door. Dad got so angry with the dog that he dragged it into the lounge room where Mandy and I were. He had the dog in one hand and a gun in the other. He did it in front of Mandy and I. Apparently it was to warn us that if we ever ran our fucking mouths, he would do to us, exactly what he did to Yoda," Mickey reminisced, his face growing sad as he told the story. It must have been the fear that Mickey was feeling to divulge such information. Ian had never heard that story from Mandy and by the way Mickey told the story, it was probably the first time anybody had heard it. Mickey was right, Frank was a complete waste of time, but Terry Milkovich; he was a psychopath.
"You don't have to be like that Mickey," Ian said.
"The fuck does that mean?" Mickey asked, suddenly on the defensive again.
"Like your Dad. You don't have to turn out like your Dad. He is an abusive, manipulative, disgusting piece of trash, but you don't have to be like him. You walk around this joint with a permanent scowl on your face, hating the world and everybody in it. You taunt everybody else because your Dad taunts you," Ian explained. Mickey's hands were slowly transitioning into fists, his face reddening with every word.
"I'm not going to become my father Gallagher," he spat.
"Then why the fuck are you so angry then?" Ian demanded, "Why do you go around the school taunting kids, taunting teachers… taunting me?"
Mickey stared at Ian, looking him up and down and licking his chapped lips. Mickey placed his hand at the back of Ian's head, running his fingers through his soft orange locks. Ian was motionless as Mickey leaned in towards him.
*To be continued… hopefully by the end of this week guys, stay tuned for what's going to happen next ;)*