There were four things that Mickey Milkovich really liked to do.
Sleep. Fight. Smoke. And fuck.
That fourth thing though. That was a damn problem.
Mickey slept whenever he could. It was an escape, an easy way to forget everything, even if just for a little while. When his dad was let out on probation, even that one small thing was taken away from him. He couldn't fall asleep, not with his dad in the house. He had to be vigilant, alert, prepared. There was no telling when his dad would get mad, bust into his room, beat him to within an inch of his life. He'd always been his dad's favourite punch bag. Still, he figured it was better than when the bastard was channeling his aggression on Mandy. Sick fuck.
Mickey wished he could kill him. Mickey wished he could put a fucking bullet in his head, his chest, his stomach. Anywhere. Everywhere. He wished he could hear his dad scream. He wished he could watch the light fade from his eyes.
But then there had been the christening. Then his old man had been locked away again.
With Ian, all that fear disappeared and he could sleep. His nights with Ian let him fall away blissfully into oblivion. They let him wake up peaceful and refreshed and rejuvenated.
Of course, that was gone now.
When Mickey dreamed, the hint he'd once had at happiness felt tangible again. He chased after it every time he lay down at night, the dullness and lethargy he had become so accustomed to feeling beginning to settle, his nerves quieting. Mickey wanted to blackout. He would do whatever it took. Whiskey. Vodka. Crack. Valium. Vicodin. Melatonin. Whatever he could get his hands on. And if that failed… well it was easy as fucking Angie Zago to get a fight in the South Side. Sometimes he barely even fought back. And hell if that shouldn't have raised some fucking warning bells.
Mickey was angry. Mickey was angry all the damn time. He could control it, sure, but he didn't want to, didn't feel the need to. Mickey liked to punch and kick and hit and hear the crunch of bones and the cries of pain. It was so fucking screwed up that it often made him laugh. The one thing he'd always sworn never to become was his dad. And yet, here he was. A chip off the old shit-fuck block.
Mickey needed blood. And he needed sweat. And he needed tears. Not his tears of course. He needed to beat someone until they broke down. He needed to see that other people hurt too. He needed to believe that he was stronger because he wasn't crying. Mickey needed release and the only way he could get it was through brawling and breaking and hurting. He had to dispel the aggression, the coiling in his muscles, the tension, the boiling of his blood, the rapid thumping of his heart. His body was black and blue most of the time, but hell if it wasn't like heaven compared to the ache he felt inside. That absence. That hole.
Mickey breathed smoke like everyone else breathed air. He woke up gasping for it, his body desperate for the intoxication of the poison. Cigarette butts lay strewn about his bedroom floor, on his bedside table, on the front steps, on the roof. Ash followed him like a trail of breadcrumbs.
Nothing compared to the sound of the click, click, click his crappy plastic bic lighter made when he pressed his thumb down in quick succession on the cracked button. His whole body seemed to relax when the flame caught and flickered tentatively, and he rushed to touch the tip of the cigarette into the scorching heat. At night, sleepless and pissed and aching, he would stare at the glow of the tobacco and watch as the paper withered away. It always felt nauseatingly poetic because he felt like he was withering away too. He'd become a fucking metaphor. That's what Ian Gallagher had done to him with his puppy-dog eyes and crazy impish grins. Mickey felt like he was dying.
But none of it compared to the despair and crushing weight he felt each time he tried to bang someone else.
Mickey could fuck practically anything that moved. But every time he did fuck, he thought of the same blue eyes, the same fiery red hair, the same fucking ass-clown Ian Gallagher that caused him nothing but trouble. It was bullshit. His whole damn existence was bullshit. He had a piss-poor excuse for a life.
It wasn't like he hadn't gone out and tried to fuck the thought of Ian away. Shit, Mickey had screwed more people in the past couple of weeks than most people probably did in a lifetime. Men. Women. It didn't seem to matter. Mickey wasn't attracted to any of them. If he wanted to get off, there was only one person who could push him over the edge. There was only one person.
Mickey liked to fuck. But Mickey liked to fuck Ian. He liked it when Ian pounded him fast and hard and deep and rough. He liked it when Ian took him nice and slow and achingly intimate. Mickey liked the way their mouths would press together open and gasping, their breaths mingling, their lips warm and soft. He liked the way they'd grasp at each other, desperate, frantic, clawing at their bodies until their nails broke the skin, their hands left bruises. He liked the way Ian would bring him to the brink and make him stay there, wait, turn into an embarrassing whimpering mess. And then, Ian would open his eyes and gaze into Mickey's with such intensity that he couldn't hold on any longer, his spine arching, his eyes rolling back, a soundless scream falling from his lips.
But that was gone now too. It was all gone.
Mickey liked four things.
He loved just the one.