Sorry it's been a while, but I've had writer's block and I've been addicted to Teen Wolf fanfiction and I've had school and I'm making excuses and I'm just going to shut up. Here you go. . . sorry for it being a while. . . enjoy. . .
"Don't let us out until I say so," Mickey said as he stepped into the cage and rolled his shoulders. He was going to fucking enjoy this, he already knew. He could feel the adrenaline and the pure need pounding through him, addictive and intoxicating.
He looked at the person standing opposite him in the cage and grinned. He knew it wasn't a nice smile. It was nothing close, but from across the room he also knew that Ian could recognise all the implications of that smile. Because there was a reason Mickey was in this ring.
Mickey didn't even wait for the bell to ring. He just lunged forwards.
That morning Cole had seemed to decide that he was getting comfortable and had decided to grow the balls to mouth off to Ian in front of everyone. Apparently as far as he was concerned, Ian and Mickey's fight had been nothing but a lucky win, because if either of them were put up against real trained martial arts fighters. Fighters like him apparently.
Ian hadn't said a word, hadn't tried to discourage the situation at all, which only spurred Mickey on. It only made him challenge the guy, because Mickey had been looking for an excuse to kick his ass and now he had the perfect one.
None of the others look particularly worried, except Lip. And that was probably understandable, because Mickey thought Lip probably suspected on some level what was happening between Cole and Ian. He'd never said anything, but Mickey thought he suspected. Yet, more than that, he knew how far Mickey was willing to go.
Which was exactly why he backed Mickey into a corner not long before the fight and stared at him in that stupid impenetrable way that he had to have picked up from Mandy. "Don't take it too far, Mickey," Lip warned him, rubbing the back of his neck out of habit, because Mickey knew he wasn't actually nervous. Lip had stopped getting nervous around him a long time ago.
He shrugged, "I'm not going to fucking kill him if that's what you mean."
Lip rubbed at his mouth and his fingers twitched with the obvious need for a cigarette. "That wasn't what I meant actually no," he said, sounding exasperated because apparently he had just worked out exactly how much damage Mickey wanted to do to Cole, "Just don't put him in a coma or some stupid shit like that, we don't need attention being brought to you."
And Mickey wasn't stupid. He understood that. He'd pretty much lived on the straight and narrow, cutting the illegal shit right down to the bare minimum. He didn't need the cops to find him interesting, he didn't need them to start digging into his past and he certainly didn't need anyone to connect him to Firecrotch in that they could work out that Mickey had a habit of defending him. That couldn't happen, because Mickey didn't want to go to jail. He would if he had to, he'd probably fit right in, but he didn't want to.
Then again, nobody ever wanted to go to jail. Except maybe that one time he'd put himself in Juvie on purpose. But he'd had his reasons. Mickey always had his reasons, it just so happened that a lot of the time nobody could really see the logic in them.
"I won't," Mickey said, smirking, "I'm not an idiot, dude, seriously."
Lip rolled his eyes, "I know." He'd actually learnt that Mickey was kind of reasonably smart. He just didn't give a shit about school and stuff. That was the difference.
Ian didn't speak to him before the fight, or really since the challenge had been uttered, but Mickey would meet his eyes sometimes from across the room and the blind faith that Ian obviously seemed to have in him made Mickey feel strange inside. It made him want to smile at the same time as it made him want to throw up. So Mickey just did neither and looked away quickly. He'd sort out whatever the hell was happening now between him and Gallagher after he'd beaten up his boyfriend into a pulp.
He doesn't know what's happening between them now because it never happened like this before. It was never subtle touches under a table that weren't in any way sexual, it was never small smiles being given from across the room or just the comfort that could be taken from fingers knitting together and squeezing tight. There had never been that warm feeling that spread in Mickey's stomach whenever he saw the bracelet around Ian's wrist, the one that he knew Gallagher hadn't taken off since he'd found it and the one he knew Gallagher probably never would take off. It had never been about how that made him feel, but all of a sudden it was.
This wasn't in his comfort zone, he knew that. In fact, it was so far out of his comfort zone that he was just going off of guesses. It was like wading through darkness. He didn't know how to do any of it, it was all too confusing. So he just told himself not to think about it. He told himself not to think about how the soft kiss Ian had pressed to the side of his mouth hadn't been anything like the rough, hard touches that they'd grown accustomed to with each other. None of this was about sex, none of it was even about lust. It was all about love and longing and need and it freaked Mickey the fuck out. But he didn't let that show, he couldn't let that show. Because if he did he thought he might maybe lose whatever was hanging between them, connecting them still, because it was as fragile as a piece of thread. It would be so easy, so simple for Mickey to shatter it and he would have done if Mickey didn't know how terrible he was at fixing broken things.
He knew that from experience. He knew that because he'd shattered a vase once and had spent four hours trying to glue it back together, but he couldn't make any of the pieces quite fit right. Mickey was good at breaking, at demolishing and ruining, he wasn't any good at mending things. So his theory was that if never got broken, he didn't have to even try to fix it.
He was going to stick to that theory. And he was going to stick to it by turning his confusion into anger and turning his anger on someone that he definitely didn't give a shit about breaking.
He kept the image of Ian's scared, wide eyes, his bruised face and the chewed up bottom lip in his mind, like it was burned into the back of his eyelids, he kept it there as he landed the first punch. And the next. And all the ones after that. Because that was why he was doing this. For Gallagher. For Ian. That was why when he took a fancy kick to the side of the head he didn't even groan, he just rolled and made it back onto his feet, throwing himself at Cole in a way that was practically possessed. And he thought that maybe in that moment he was possessed, because this felt like revenge. The sting on his knuckles and the blood running from his cut lip, that felt like and tasted like revenge and it was glorious. It was so incredibly addictive that it made Mickey want to defend Ian against something every day. Except he hated the idea of that, because he hated the idea of something wanting to hurt Ian every day.
Mickey ducked a blow from Cole and caught him in the stomach with his fist, making the guy double over. He laughed and spat out blood, dancing back a little bit because he was fully intending to soak this up. He wanted to enjoy this as much as he possibly could. He sidestepped Cole's tackle, noting that the guy was getting sloppy now. He was running off adrenaline by this point and Mickey knew it wouldn't be much longer until he just dropped. Mickey on the other hand was far from being done. He was running off of anger, practically flying off of it and he'd always found that in the past, anger made you last longer.
Because anger meant you had a reason.
Mickey dragged Cole close when he rebounded off the other side of the cage when Mickey sidestepped him. He head-butted the guy hard, hearing a crunch that implied Mickey had broken his nose. He could add that to the list of broken bones since Mickey was pretty sure he'd broken one of the guy's ribs and a finger or two as well. He wasn't sorry in any way.
Most fights in the cage lasted only a short time, the longest being with Ian, but this one, this one lasted a lot longer. And it was pretty obvious that that was because Mickey was toying with Cole. He knew he had all the time in the world, so he kept dancing around Cole in a way he knew was pissing the guy off.
"Still think you can kick my ass?" he asked, his voice low enough that it sounded dangerous, but not so quiet that only Cole heard him. He wasn't ashamed at all of people discovering that he was taunting the guy.
He was pretty sure he heard some people laugh at the idea that Cole thought he could beat Mickey.
"Fight's not exactly fair," Cole wheezed out, doubled over.
Mickey kneed him in the face, holding the sides of the guy's head and dragging him back up to his level. "And was it fair when you hit Ian?" he asked, this time keeping his voice low enough that nobody else had a chance of hearing him, but he knew Cole did. He knew from the way that his eyes widened a little and the guy definitely seemed to understand exactly what was happening here. He had some brains in his skull, Mickey had to give him that.
He tossed Cole across the cage, rubbing at his bottom lip and not even bothering to wince at the face he bothered the stinging cut there. Cole stayed slumped against the floor, his back leaning against the cage wall and his head tipped up so that he was staring at Mickey with blurry eyes. Mickey thought it was pathetic, even more so given how battered Cole was. Not that he was quite battered enough for Mickey's liking, but then the only way that was ever going to happen would be if the guy was in a body bag.
He crouched down, a foot either side of Cole's thighs and he cocked his head to the side slightly, spitting blood out and considering the man in front of him. "Just so you know," he said, holding Cole's chin between his thumb and forefinger to keep his head up and squeezing hard. The pussy winced. "You ever hurt him again and I will make you wish you were never even born, comprendé?"
And he didn't even wait for an answer, just punched the guy in the face one last time and stood up. "Let me the fuck out," he said to the guy on the cage door, who was looking at him like he was unhinged mentally. Maybe he was. He thought he was probably going to get into some shit with Keeley over this, but he didn't care right then. As far as Mickey saw it, he was defending what was his. Even if it wasn't technically his. Technically.
He took special care not to look at Ian at all as he went into the back to get cleaned up. He didn't need Gallagher following him right then. He just needed time to process everything and to make sure he calmed the fuck down enough before he faced people. He thought he was going to puke and he was pretty sure that had nothing to do with the kick to the stomach he'd taken. Nothing. At. All.