It was the squeak of the bedroom door opening that awakened Mickey.

He felt dull, leaden, and he didn't have the energy or motivation to actually open his eyes, but he was awake, enough to register the soft click as the door was shut again behind whoever had entered. He could tell they hadn't left; he could hear slightly hitched breathing and feel a watchful presence at his back as he lay facing the window.

He wasn't quite sure why he wasn't jumping out of bed and demanding an explanation. Hell, he wasn't even sure why he was in bed. Last thing he remembered was the tranquilizer he'd taken earlier unleashing its full power with the subtlety of a baseball bat to the face. He was pretty sure he'd passed out right there on the floor where he'd been sitting, but he was on the bed now, and he could feel the sheet that had been tucked around him.

Dim memories were floating back slightly, shrouded in a dreamlike consistency...Ian's light touch on his arms, his coaxing voice, being nearly lifted off the ground… His heart jolted in his chest almost painfully, helping to wash away the last vestiges of sleep.

Light footsteps were shuffling hesitantly closer. Mickey remained where he was, staring at the wall.

The bed creaked and dipped as his silent companion climbed onto the opposite side, and his heart was painfully jolted, only to still into a dull throb as he realized almost immediately that the person next to him was far too small and too light to be Ian.

"Mickey?"

He tried ignoring her, but Svetlana pressed herself against his back and he was immediately overcome with a highly unwelcome increase in temperature when it was already ball frying hot. "Get off!" The words came out as more of a unintelligible grunt than he'd intended, but it didn't seem like she was inclined to listen anyway. Her whole body was shaking violently against his, so hard it began to rattle the bed.

"You OK?" He managed to force his eyes open and the dim room surged back into view.

"No," she whispered. Her breath hitched and staggered; he could feel it in irregular bursts on the back of his neck. Abruptly she wrapped her arm around his waist, trapping his arm against his body under it.

"Hey!" He snapped at her, still feeling too numb to really fight her off.

Svetlana's shaking only increased in violence. He could feel her fingers against his chest trembling so rapidly it was like she was speeding typing on a keyboard.

"Okay, okay…" he mumbled, and with difficulty, he pried himself out of her octopus-like grip, turning over on the mattress to face her. Her face was bone white, her eyes huge and dilated as she stared back at him.

"Calm down. You're safe now," Mickey tried to make his voice as soothing as possible, which was not really a word in his vocabulary, and fuck, since when did anyone expect him to be comforting anyway?

"I killed him," her voice was still a stark whisper. "I killed Terry."

"Yeah," he nodded, now grateful for the artificial numbness the drug he'd taken was giving him. "You did."

Her face crumpled at that. So...verification had apparently been the wrong way to go. After a moment's hesitation, he reached out and put a hand on her shoulder, patting clumsily. "Hey...breathe. Relax."

Svetlana just blinked at him, a kind of resigned terror settling onto her features. Despite it all, there were no tears in her eyes. He'd never been curious about her past before, but now he found himself suddenly wondering exactly how she'd gotten so broken that she couldn't even cry. Oh, the damage that the hands of a father could wreak...

God, it was like looking into a fucking mirror sometimes.

"I could go to prison forever. Never see my son again. Die alone in a cell." Her tremors increased once more.

"No. You won't," he shook his head.

She stared at him in silent disbelief.

Mickey exhaled, then he took his hand from her shoulder and touched her face, tilting her chin slightly so they were looking each other in the eyes. "Listen to me. You saved my fucking life, doing what you did. I'm not going to let anything bad happen to you."

She exhaled shakily. "Promise?" He could hear the cynicism mixed with the hope in that one word.

"I promise," he kept his eyes fixed on her.

She actually managed to smile at that, putting her hand over the one he still had on her face and squeezing. His first instinct was to yank away, but he battled it back, letting her fingers entwine with his.

"We gotta stick together on this, OK? Keep our heads, get our stories straight, and stick to them. We'll be fine if we can do that. You with me?"

She nodded. "Yes. I'm with you," her voice was becoming slurred, her eyes unfocused. Looked like the tranq he'd given her was finally kicking in.

"Good," he looked over her shoulder at the clock on the bedstand behind her. It was barely nine - he'd only been asleep for a couple of hours.

"Get some rest," he told her now, unnecessarily, as her eyes were already starting to close.

Unbidden, his eyes started to drop shut as well. The dark of unconsciousness was beckoning, and gratefully, he slipped into it once more.

This time, it was the gasp that woke him.

He didn't know how much time had passed but it was much easier to go from sleeping to waking now, his head clearing quickly as his eyes snapped open to see Ian standing at the foot of the bed, staring down at him and Svetlana. He held a glass of ice water loosely in his fingers as he stared.

"What the hell?" he finally managed, his voice rough. "Is this payback, Mickey?" His eyes traveled accusingly from Mickey's face downwards, and Mickey realized bemusedly that he and Svetlana had fallen asleep holding hands. Their fingers were still wound together, and abruptly, he jerked his fingers from her grip.

The motion woke her up, and she sat up hurriedly. Her tired eyes moved back and forth between the two of them, registering the storm brewing on Ian's face. She jumped up.

"Coffee…" she mumbled under her breath as she made a hasty exit. The door clicked shut behind her, and Ian turned back to Mickey, his eyes sparking.

Mickey almost laughed. Gallagher had some serious gall, trying to act pissed at him.

"I didn't fuck her," he snapped as he swung his legs over the side of the bed, standing up. Like he should really have to point out the obvious: the mere idea was repellent.

Ian's shoulders slumped at that, whether in relief or recognition for the hidden accusation in Mickey's words he didn't know. Nor, he told himself firmly, did he give a shit.

"I brought you some water," Ian started to offer him the glass. When Mickey didn't take it, he set it down on the bedside table.

Mickey started to push past him towards the dresser to get some clothes, but Ian used his tall frame to block his path. Before Mickey could object, he reached for his face, his expression set in determination.

"Stop - " Mickey tried to shake him off but Ian would not be waylaid. He gripped the undamaged side of Mickey's face firmly but carefully, trailing the fingers of his other hand tenderly over the bruises that were surely spectacular by now. His thumb brushed slowly over Mickey's split lip.

"Jesus…" Ian sucked in his breath as his fingers moved down to Mickey's neck to lightly finger the marks that ringed it.

"Get the fuck off me, Ian," Mickey tried to inject as much force into his tone as possible, considering that he wasn't doing a damn thing to stop the caress. Fire was burning through his skin at Ian's touch, and his whole body was becoming weak as fuck, begging for more.

"If this had happened to me, you wouldn't let it go," Ian looked at him. "Would you?" The last couple of words were tinged in uncertainty.

Mickey just looked at him. Of course he wouldn't, but he wasn't about to give Ian any encouragement.

"I just want to help you. Please - tell me how to help you!" Ian's grip tightened on him, and that was it, it was enough. He shoved Ian against the opposite wall, for a second not sure himself if he wanted to hit him or kiss him. Or really, he wasn't that uncertain, because he was already kissing him.

Ian grabbed Mickey's face in both hands, and he was kissing him back just as frantically.

The kiss stung bitterly in more ways than one, reopening the cut on Mickey's lip, and he tasted his own blood as it deepened. He was dimly aware that a little voice in the back of his head was cautioning him that this was a bad idea, it wasn't going to change anything, but the screaming need of every cell in his body quickly shanked that doubt into silence and left it alone in a corner to die.

He was pulling Ian's shirt off now and then yanking impatiently at his jeans, fumbling with the uncooperative buttons until he was able to shove them downwards and there it was, the Promised Land.

How was it that every time felt like the first time, like his fingers had never closed around Ian's hardness before, he'd never heard that gasping groan as he caressed him, never had his heart nearly beat right out of his chest when Ian nearly ripped his boxers off and pushed him onto the bed?

He didn't have a chance to reposition himself before the other man was on him, biting the nape of his neck lightly, then pressing the lightest of kisses to his damaged skin. He heard the scrape of a lid being untwisted on the bedside table and nearly lost it in a disturbingly premature manner when he felt the moist finger against him, easing the way before he was filled to his core.

He wasn't even sure what he said, the words hissing out between his clenched teeth, but it must have been flattering because he heard Ian chuckle low in his ear. Impatiently, he bucked his hips against him and was satisfied with the groan he received in response before he was forced down even further and was being fucked so hard that the whole damn mattress was moving back and forth with them, banging the bedframe lightly into the wall.

It wasn't long enough, not nearly long enough, before they were both spasming and shuddering in unison and then Ian collapsed on top of him. It was too fucking hot and he was way too heavy and Mickey couldn't have given less of a shit. If only they could stay this way forever, the rest of the world shut out and nothing more important than the touch of bare skin and the feel of Ian's heart pounding against his back.

But like anything else that was good and right in the world, it couldn't last. Ian pulled away, reaching for some tissues to clean them up, and like a door had been thrown open, everything came surging back in, the rage, the hurt, the mind numbing terror of the last day, the crippling surety that everything in their world right now was truly screwed and not in a good way.

He turned over on his side, facing the wall again like he had earlier. Ian returned to him, pressing himself against Mickey's back and draping an arm over him. Mickey tensed immediately and he knew Ian felt it.

He let him touch him though. Might as well get it while he could, because they were on a speeding out of control train now, and it was going to fly off the tracks at any second.

"Was last night the first time?"

"What?" He felt Ian prop himself up on an elbow, looking down at him.

"You and Mandy. Was last night the first time, or has this been going on for a while?"

Ian fell back into the mattress with a resigned sigh. "It was the only time, Mickey, I swear. We didn't know what the fuck we were doing. She brought home some acid and I was already drunk. I barely even remember it - it was like a dream. I am so sorry - "

"Shut the fuck up," The words were said without heat. There was just too much pain to have any energy for anger.

The strained silence lingered for far too long. He could feel Ian steeling himself to speak again. "Do you want me to leave?"

God. The thought was just - like someone had asked him if he really need those lungs to breathe, or that heart to beat.

But the idea of Ian staying too - looking at him every day, seeing him and Mandy together, being faced every single minute with wondering what the fuck he could have done that was so bad that they'd betray him so easily…

"I don't know. I just - give me some space," He shrugged Ian's arm off of him, sitting up and reaching for his boxer shorts.

Ian stood up too. "Mickey, I get it, I do, but how is space what you need right now? You can't handle everything on your own! I don't know what you and Svetlana got into, but something is seriously fucked up. I haven't seen you like this since the wedding - " he broke off, horrified understanding dawning on his features. "Jesus. Terry."

Mickey didn't even have it in him to deny it. He just pulled on his clothes.

"Mickey, tell me what happened! What the fuck did he do to you? What the fuck is going on?"

And just then, there was a loud pouding at the door. They could hear the shout clearly through the flimsy apartment walls.

"Open up! Police!"

Mickey looked at Ian's slack jawed expression.

"Looks like you're about to find out."

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