Now, this quite seriously is THE most random one I have written. No clue where it came from, none whatsoever. But either way, just pretend Mickey and Ian haven't met before and this happens. . . .
It was fucking stupid. That was the only thought Mickey could really conjure up on the matter. He hated libraries, wasn't the type to do any extra learning. He wasn't there to take out a book or enrich his knowledge or any stupid shit like that. No, Mickey was there because it was where the guy Mickey bought weed off of was. He had literally just walked through the doors before they were all slammed shut and the first shots were fired.
Fifteen minutes later they were all sitting in the centre of the library, in the section where people ready stories to fucking kids. They were all just sat there on the floor, the guy with the gun standing in the middle and it was fucking stupid.
People were crying, snivelling when they were told to shut up and Mickey didn't know which sound he actually hated more. He didn't like it when people cried, it made him uncomfortable, he found it annoying. But here he was sitting in the bloody library surrounded by books, with a handful of gunmen and a shit load of crying people. Everyone was scared, Mickey was just bored.
He didn't know if anybody had actually been shot, didn't particularly care, but he didn't think anybody had been. Which was why he found the crying even more annoying. If nobody had been shot yet, the situation wasn't that fucking bad.
He kept his thoughts to himself though, because he was bored, not stupid. He didn't particularly want to be the first one to get his ass shot off. The gunman who seemed to be in charge was a tall guy in a ski mask and Mickey thought he looked like an idiot. There were two other men on the outskirts of the room, but Mickey couldn't see them and he didn't particularly care where they were so long as they weren't pointing a gun at him.
The guy in the ski mask had a phone pressed to his ear and was no doubt asking for some sort of ransom or something, but Mickey was distracted from listening when someone edged up beside him. It was a guy, maybe a year or so younger than him, his expression concerned and his hair bright red.
"You want a drink?" he asked, sitting down beside Mickey and offering him a bottle of water, "We could be here for a while."
Mickey shook his head, "No."
He expected the guy to move on, offer water to some other people or something because he looked like the type to try and be a selfless do-gooder or something. He seemed like the sort of person Mickey didn't really understand, but he for some reason he found himself watching the guy out of the corner of his eye. He felt like he knew him from somewhere, but even Mickey wasn't stupid enough to forget hair quite that fucking red.
But he didn't move on, he just sat back against the shelf Mickey was leaning against, toying with the lid of the bottle. "I'm Ian," he said after a minute, like Mickey had asked, even though he knew for a fact he hadn't, because Mickey didn't give enough of a shit, ever, to ask questions like that.
"Mickey," he replied because he knew it was expected.
"I only came here because my brother Lip made me," the redhead said, pulling a face, "Apparently I'm behind on my trig."Apparen Mickey wondered if he should let the guy in on the fact he didn't really care, but then listening to him talk was a bit more interesting that staring off into space. "I'm trying to get into West Point," he said, answering a question Mickey hadn't even though, let alone asked.
Mickey frowned, "Ain't that the army place?"
The guy nodded, "Yeah, I want to be an officer."
Mickey snorted and gestured around them, "If you want to get your damn ass shot off so bad, you might as well fucking stay here." He didn't really understand why anybody wanted to enter into the army. Mickey liked being in one piece and he certainly didn't have any desire to die for anybody but himself.
The guy, Ian, smiled slightly and Mickey had to look away. He didn't know why, but that smile made him uncomfortable. "What do you want to do?" he asked and Mickey looked sideways at him briefly to see that he was still staring at him with those wide fucking eyes.
"Nothing," Mickey said truthfully. He didn't think about the future, didn't have aspirations. They were pointless because he was fucked for life and he knew it. "I wanted to get high, but look where that fucking got me."
Ian frowned, obviously not understanding, but he didn't ask and Mickey didn't tell him so it was left at that.
"You not want to get out of this neighbourhood then?" he asked, obviously intent to keep this conversation going even if Mickey wasn't really the most sociable person in the world by any stretch of the imagination. It didn't really seem to be bothering the redhead though that he was doing most of the talking.
Mickey shrugged. "Doesn't matter what I want," he said, being surprisingly truthful, "I couldn't get out even if I fucking tried."
Ian looked at him a little sadly when he said that, but Mickey didn't need his pity. Mickey accepted shit like it was, didn't see the point in dwelling on things that he knew weren't possible for him.
"Yeah well I refuse to stay here forever," Ian said, after taking a sip of the water and Mickey didn't know why he paid so much attention to the way the guy's Adams apple bobbed up and down when he swallowed. "I work down at this place called the Kash-and-Grab and just the idea of working there for the rest of my life makes me want to kill myself."
Mickey frowned, he knew that place. "I've been in there," he said, "Never seen you there though." He didn't know why he wished he had done.
Ian smiled and it was oddly genuine. "Ahh well I don't work every day," he said, then frowned slightly at him, "You wouldn't be the Mickey that keeps stealing stuff, would you?"
He didn't know why that made him look away, why it made him feel ashamed. It shouldn't have done. It didn't usually. "What would you say if I said yes?" he asked, looking at the redhead out of the corner of his eye.
"Don't do it on a day when I'm working," Ian said and smirked.
Mickey twisted to look at him. "You're kind of weird, aren't you?"
For once, he didn't actually mean that as an insult.
"When did you get the tats?" Ian asked, running his finger over Mickey's knuckles and Mickey didn't know why the fuck that made him shiver, or why it made his dick twitch in his pants. It just did.
"Couple of years ago," he replied, pulling his hand back and dropping them between his raised knees to pick at the carpet, "Don't actually remember getting them, was wasted at the time and got my cousin to do them."
The redhead smirked, "Surprised he didn't tattoo something worse there."
Mickey shrugged, "It was my nicer cousin."
Ian nodded like this made perfect sense. And maybe in some way it did.
"You Lip's brother?" he asked suddenly, remembering the name he hadn't known he was searching for since he'd heard the last name Gallagher.
The other boy's face lit up. "Yeah," he said, grinning, "You friends or something?"
Mickey snorted, "Nah I don't have friends, but I bought an English paper off him once a few years back." When he'd actually bothered turning up to class on a semi-regular basis. "You know Mandy, she's probably in your year or something?"
He didn't know why he was sitting there working out common ground with someone he didn't even know. Maybe it was because he was bored and had nothing better to be doing. Maybe it was because he wanted to. He didn't really know.
"Yeah," Ian said, smiling, "She's in my history class, always wears really short skirts and all the guys spend most of the class trying to work out if she's wearing a thong." He winced, obviously thinking that he probably shouldn't have said that.
"You better not be, or I'll crack your skulls on that desk over there," Mickey said and he would, even if meant he'd get a bullet in the back for his trouble.
He blanched slightly. "Oh no, I wouldn't, she's really not my type," and Mickey wouldn't have thought anything of that statement, maybe would have just thought Ian liked someone who was blonde and not as trampy as his sister – they were related, Mickey could say that – but then he blushed and looked away quickly, like he wished he'd never said anything.
And Mickey understood.
His dick twitched in his pants again and he smirked.
"Good," he said and really quite pointedly rearranged himself. He couldn't help it though, the way that blush looked on the guy's stupid fucking face was hot and it had been too long since Mickey had gotten laid. Far too long.
Mickey heard the gunshot and knew Ian didn't, which didn't quite make sense somehow when he thought about it afterwards. He moved without even really thinking about it, forcing Ian down out of the way and he swore when he felt something hit his thigh, but he stayed where he was, even though he knew he was bleeding.
Amazingly, the thing that he was actually a lot more concerned about was that the person underneath him was definitely going to be all too aware of his state of arousal. And you would have thought that would have faded now he'd been shot in the leg and it hurt like a bitch, but no, all he could concentrate was the amount of rock hard muscle pressed flush against his body. Apparently, wanting to get into the army was doing this Gallagher wonders.
He could hear more shots being fired, could hear people running around in the room, but he couldn't concentrate on anything but Ian. A hand clamped tight over the wound in his thigh and the redhead stared up at him with wide eyes.
After a moment Ian squirmed underneath him and Mickey had to grit his teeth.
"Please don't do that," he ground out through teeth clenched so firmly together that his jaw hurt, "Otherwise it's going to be really fucking awkward when I have to get off you." Although he sort of had a feeling that was going to be inevitable anyway.
Ian laughed, his fingers digging harder into Mickey's leg where his palm covered the wound, but he stopped moving otherwise. It didn't really help much. Especially not considering he could feel something hard pushing against his thigh and he could work out why Ian had been fidgeting.
The police stormed into the building, more shots were fired, some hit their targets. People screamed, people fell and one of the library bookcases fell, spilling books everywhere. But Mickey and Ian stayed right where they were, in their own little bubble. A bubble which was only burst when one of the paramedics found them and prised Ian's hand off Mickey's leg, covering it with his own as Mickey was rolled onto a stretcher.
He was told he was noble, that he was handling it really well and that he was brave, which he thought was fucking stupid because it was only a bullet and it didn't even hurt that much. And he would have said something, except Ian walked with him to the ambulance, one of his hands painted red with Mickey's blood.
And when he met Mickey's eyes and smiled, Mickey knew it was stupid, but that image stuck with him every time he closed his eyes and even sometimes when he didn't. It almost made him glad that he'd gone to the fucking library in the first place. Even if he hadn't gotten any weed and he had been shot.
Even if he knew how fucking gay that sounded.
A few weeks later. . .
He didn't quite know what made him go to the Kash-and-Grab to track down the guy from the library, but he couldn't exactly change his mind once he'd gotten through the door.
The guy Kash was behind the counter and he tensed instantly when he saw Mickey, because he knew him. He was expecting Mickey was going to shoplift a load of stuff again, Mickey could see it in his expression and he actually considered it when the disappointment over the fact the guy, Ian, wasn't there kicked in.
"Mickey?" he turned to look down one of the isles and caught the shit eating grin that the redhead had on his face. He watched at Ian set down the box he'd been taking stuff from to restock the shelves before straightening up to face him properly.
"Hey," Mickey said lamely, because he didn't know what he wanted to say now he was here.
"How's your leg?" Ian asked, obviously better at making conversation than he was, which didn't surprise him.
He shrugged, "Well I'm on fucking crutches and it aches like a bitch, but other than that. . ." he shrugged again.
"You know that bullet was meant for me, right?" the redhead asked, his eyes looking concerned which wasn't something that Mickey knew how to deal with, so he looked away, "I should be the one that's shot right now."
"Yeah well, I figured that you're gonna have plenty of opportunities to get shot anyway, so I might as well be the one this time," he said, which of course hadn't been what he'd been thinking at the time at all. He hadn't really been thinking anything. He'd just moved.
They stood there for a minute in silence and Mickey started to wonder again what the hell he was doing there. But then Ian smiled and something inside of Mickey seemed to splinter and crack to let tiny slithers of light in for the first time, he just knew. It was really as simple as that, he just knew.
He was there for Ian, to see Ian, because now that he'd met him and even though he knew it was fucking stupid and gay and completely unlike him, he wanted to know everything there was to know about the guy. And when Mickey wanted to know something, he wasn't exactly the type to give up all that easily.
Gallagher was going to be his, there was no two ways about it. He'd been thinking over it these past few weeks and had decided that he didn't even care how fucking stupid that sounded. He was going to make it happen.