When Mickey meets Ian for the second first time – and he doesn't count little league, or school, or any other places they've been caught inside the same trap but never talked about it – it sets something off inside of him. A bomb that's been ticking since he was a little kid, planted there by abusive fathers, absent mothers, brothers who drank too much. It was only a matter of time.
Ian Gallagher comes bursting into his life, and suddenly it all explodes. It leaves Mickey raw on the inside, charred and warm all the same, like he was given a second chance. All it takes is Ian Gallagher, wielding a fucking crowbar.
Mickey is lucky that it was him.
…
The first time really is the first time. Mickey fucks a girl who cries a lot while it's happening and he knows he's not doing it right, but he doesn't care, he can't really bear to look at her. Afterwards, she tells him that it hurt. He starts to say sorry, but she says, "It's okay. It always hurts. It's supposed to." He doesn't know what the fuck that means. Why does everyone make such a fucking big deal out of sex? It doesn't even feel like anything.
When Mickey gets home, his brothers clap him on the back. They tell him, "You're a man now, Mick." He doesn't know why it matters but he smiles all the same. When he's back in his room, alone, his eyes stare right up ahead at the ceiling, and he feels absolutely nothing. She calls him but he doesn't answer. Stupid. The sex didn't matter. Nothing about that mattered. Still, he wants to do it again and again.
He thinks there has to be a reason for it but the only one he can give himself is that maybe it will get better. No one's first time should be good. Right?
He doesn't actually fucking know but when he starts tugging at his cock, waiting for it to harden under his fingers, he thinks that this is the most he'll ever get. Mediocre sex with crying girls. And that is really horribly depressing, and he wants to cry just thinking about it, except he's not a fucking pussy.
He's fourteen. He's a man now. You're a man now, Mick.
…
Mickey doesn't even think about being attracted to dudes until he is fifteen and he's fucked enough girls to start a reputation for himself. That's shitty, too, that it took him so long to find out. Just the idea of it was so stupid that he just literally forgot to consider it. He begins to resent pussy and resent finding it but it finds him, usually, and he's bored, so it happens. Fuck it. He just wants to be normal.
Anyway, the first time, Mickey is watching shitty porn on Iggy's rich girlfriend's laptop. The internet connection is shit but he's fuckin' sitting there watching it, and he hates it. The girls moan too much. Mickey gets pissed, so he shuts the laptop, and it hits him very very quickly, like a fucking freight train, that he's jealous of the girls.
It's so fucking fucked up and Mickey almost pukes. And that's when he knows. It only fucking takes a second. He's jealous that they get the cock. Mickey hates himself. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. He's fucked for life.
…
The man is older, but not by much. A few years. Maybe several. Not enough for it to really matter. Mickey finds him on accident. He ends up pushed against a flat mattress, stained, his mouth shoved into a pillow, a slick, wet heat pushing at his ass, and he just accepts it. So he's a gay little fucking faggot. He always kind of knew it. Might as well set it in stone.
The pressure is pain and pleasure and something jolts inside of him and he buckles and the man is grunting, low and masculine, and Mickey isn't saying anything, and the man pushes in and it's not enough and he's in further and it's not enough and then he's in, and out, and in, and out, and it's still not fucking enough.
The minute it becomes enough, he knows it, and it feels better than anything he's ever known, and that's when he really fucking gets it. Afterwards, the man cleans up. He tells him he's a good fuck, thank you very much, but my wife will be home soon. Mickey never sees him again. He gets home and he smells like sex and come and his brothers congratulate him but they don't know it's not his own, they don't know. Mickey locks himself in his room and it feels like the puzzle pieces are fitting together, slowly, not all at once, but there's still something missing.
He wonders how he can stop this.
…
And then, it's Ian fucking Gallagher.
The fucked up little foreplay. The crowbar. The taunting and teasing and the way Ian's hips are rocking and god, it has to be sexual, it has to be. There's no other way of looking at it. Mickey knows sex, he knows men, he knows gay men, especially, and he's fucking half-hard just from Ian's hips and something else, something primordial and animalistic –
He has half a mind to fucking smash Ian's face in with this pathetic excuse for a threatening weapon until he's hard enough for Ian to notice, and more importantly, Ian's dick notices, and they're both noticing, and suddenly it's like Mickey's never saw him before.
This is fucking fucked up beyond belief but Mickey wants to fuck him, he wants – he knows it. He knows what he wants. What he likes. It doesn't make him anything he doesn't want it to make. Ian is looking him up and down, like he's seeing him for the first time. Mickey swallows a lump in his throat. He wants to fuck him. He wants to be fucked.
The clothes don't come off fast enough. Mickey refuses to fuck face-to-face, and it's his face in the pillow again, biting down to keep quiet, and Ian's quiet, soft boy sounds. When he's in, he's in the whole way, and he feels it. Mickey feels something break. The missing piece of the puzzle slots in and Ian gives a few shallow, experimental thrusts, and Mickey feels it. Ian's breath is hot on his neck, and he's making those boy sounds, and then he says, "I didn't know you liked cock," and Mickey can feel the grin on his shoulder.
Mickey says nothing and Ian pushes in farther and it's over in a second, honestly, barely even a minute, because Mickey is coming without even touching his dick and Ian's breath is hitching, and it feels very –
Well, it doesn't fucking matter. Afterwards, Mickey won't even look at him.
…
After that – everything pales in comparison, becomes a fucked-up monotony. He tries girls, first, and it feels like going into a country where he doesn't speak the fuckin' language. Their bodies are so different and weird and soft and Mickey finds himself resenting it. Thinking about freckles, and red hair, and god, by now he should be done, but it's not. He wants to throw up, so he does, a few times. He tries to avoid Ian. It doesn't work, of course, because Mickey is his own favorite masochist.
Then it becomes a habit. An addiction. Mickey never had that before, a fuck-buddy that sticks around to be a buddy. Suddenly it's every day, Ian's hand curling around Mickey's cock, Mickey biting down on his thumb to keep quiet. Ian is beautiful. There's something about him. Mickey thinks maybe it's just his cock.
Ian's there when Mickey talks about his mom, and his dad, and his brothers. Ian listens. Ian fucks him hard, good, the way he likes it, against the wall and the mattress and when no one's home and when people are. It feels like it'll never end and that scares him, and excites him, and makes a fire start burning in the pit of his stomach.
When Mickey kisses him for the first time he can't stop. He doesn't know why the hell he didn't just do this in the first place, because Ian's tongue is amazing, and Ian's lips are soft, and his teeth, and his tongue, fuck. Mickey thinks he will fucking explode. Maybe it's too late for that. Ian has wormed his way in. It feels like he'll never leave. His fingernails have dug into Mickey's flesh, created a home. He's going to stay forever and Mickey cherishes it, loves it, fucking loves it, hates it. Hates himself. He never fucks Ian because he doesn't want to put himself inside of him. He doesn't want to worm his way in. He wants to stay right here.
…
After, on a hot summer day, the fan cranked up to full speed, circulating the warm air around the room, Ian's body is slicked with sweat, a noticeable sheen. Mickey is eyeing his cock and trying to decide whether or not he feels like sucking it. Ian is half-asleep and Mickey almost gets angry at him, and it's after, of course, it's after.
Mickey says, "When are you leaving?" and he doesn't mean for it to sound like he's annoyed with having him there, because he's not.
Ian cracks a smile and without opening his eyes he says, "Never. You adore me too much."
That's when Mickey knows it's not about the dick. Mickey frowns but doesn't let Ian see. He elbows Ian in the ribcage, lightly, and laughs like it's a fucking joke, but it's not. Mickey knows it now. Never. I adore you too much. That feels like something. The sex never meant nothing to him and –
Well. Now he knows.
Outside, the world presses on, and in Mickey's room, Ian is eternal. That is something. That is everything.
Mickey falls in love and never has to say sorry.