Mickey wakes in the night with a gasp for air and sweat dripping down his chest. His eyes are wide open, but he can't see anything around him. It's too dark, and the posters on Ian's bedroom wall merge with the paint, and everything looks far too much like the concrete walls of his past. He tries, and fails, to catch his breath, each inhalation getting lodged in his throat.
Fuck, he thinks, breathe. But he can't.
The shadows in Ian's room are hands waiting to strike him.
The posters on the wall are concrete bricks of his childhood home.
The bookshelf in the corner is the huddled figure of his father.
He sits up slowly, eyes wide and transfixed on the wall, and brings his knees to his chest. He's like a deer in the headlights, only the car headed for him is inside his head.
A horrible sense of dread washes over him, and he can't move any more than he can breathe. Moving would alert the shadows where he is, and as much as he knows they aren't real, he's never felt more like he was back in his old room, waiting for Terry to strike.
His bottom lip quivers, and he whimpers quietly. He bites down on it, hard, to avoid making a sound. After years of practice, he should be good at keeping quiet. But it's still hard, when he wants to do nothing more than run and hide.
He turns his head just as a light flicks on.
A sweet, concerned, beautiful, freckled face appears before him, and Mickey is at once both confused and terrified. A tear slides down his cheek.
Ian can't be here.
Ian will get hurt if he is here.
"Mick?" Ian asks, and his voice sounds far away, though Mickey knows he's right beside him.
"Hey, you're okay. You know where you are?"
Mickey doesn't answer. He doesn't want his voice to crack, waver and fail him. More than that, he doesn't know, and if Ian isn't quiet, then his father will hear them, and leave his huddled place in the corner.
Eventually, he shakes his head.
"We're in my room," Ian replied, because he knows what it's like to get lost in your head. He's seen Mickey afraid and trembling more than once. A quick flash of confusion flickers through Mickey's eyes, and he slowly takes his eyes off Ian to look around the room.
It's different in the light. The shadows don't exist. The posters are posters. The bookshelf is full of movies and comic books. Mickey's eyes are wide again, and he feels a bit like he's losing his mind.
"Carl's sleeping over there," Ian adds quietly, pointing. Mickey sees him, and he reaches quietly for Ian beside him. He suddenly feels terrible for waking him— Ian can rarely sleep in the first place, can rarely turn his racing brain off; he doesn't need yet another thing to keep him from getting eight hours like he should.
"You're safe," Ian murmurs, and Mickey gasps for breath, sliding as close as possible to the redhead. "Breathe with me, okay?"
Ian keeps his breathing steady and slow, and Mickey eventually catches on. Inhale, exhale, he breathes with Ian, his rapid heartbeat slowing down.
After several minutes of catching his breath, Mickey exhales shakily.
"Fuck, Ian," he mumbles, "Didn't mean to wake you up. You gotta sleep, you never sleep."
Ian shakes his head and thumbs the tear from Mickey's cheek. "You can wake me up if you need to," he insists, "Do you wanna talk about it?"
The answer he gets from Mickey is a predictable "Fuck no."
A second of silence passes, before Mickey huffs out a breath, and adds quietly, "Thought I was back home."
He feels dumb for saying it. Not because of Ian, who sympathetically nods, but because it's dumb. He's obviously not home— his house looks completely different from the Gallagher house, and Carl's snoring away in the corner.
"I thought he was here."
It's a loaded statement, and Ian reaches for his hand. Despite his inhibitions, Mickey lets him take it, and slides closer. He hooks his chin over Ian's shoulder, and sighs. Without hesitation, Ian is rubbing his back, and telling him that he's okay.
Mickey sort of believes him.
"He's not here," Ian murmurs, and Mickey presses his face to Ian's shoulder. Ian continues, "He's in prison, and you're with me. And you're safe."
Mickey's shoulders relax just a little, and he almost melts into Ian's arms. The words send a familiar warmth to his stomach, and he feels almost good enough to go back to sleep. Almost.
"Yeah," he mumbles back to Ian, his voice muffled from where his face is pressed into the bare chest, "Sorry. I was… fuckin' scared."
Ian presses a kiss to the top of his head, a gentle intimate moment passing between the two of them. It's strangely sweet, and the overwhelming fear Mickey had felt a few minutes ago disapates. He's more comfortable with Ian than he's ever been with anyone; he's more openly vulnerable than he's ever been with anyone.
"I know," Ian replies softly, "Go back to sleep, okay?"
Mickey mumbles something unintelligible, something that almost sounds like 'love you', and he's out. He's asleep as quickly as he woke up.
Ian, on the other hand, can't sleep. It's typical for him, and so he cradles Mickey close to him, and switches the light off, and sighs.
"Is he okay?"
It's Carl. Ian lifts his head to look over at him. "Yeah, he's okay," he replies, soft enough to not wake Mickey, but loud enough for Carl to hear. "He just had a bad dream."
Carl nods. He's grown to like Mickey in the short time he'd been staying here, and he's never seen him more scared than he had been just a few minutes ago. He hadn't known what to do, so he'd just faked sleep.
"Okay. Night," Carl replies, and Ian nods, happy with the simplicity of it all.
"Night, Carl."