It was finals week, and Ian was basically living in the library at school. Normally, he wouldn't have been studying this hard but he had a lot of things on his mind and his grades were starting to slip. Math was especially kicking him in the ass.

Mandy came running in and plopped herself down on the seat across from Ian. They hardly spoke since the incident with Mickey and that was over two months ago. She stared at him and Ian looked up at her, putting his pen down.

"Hey." He said almost surprised.

"I might have over reacted. You know, about my brother being gay and all. I mean, now that I think about it, I'm not at all that surprised. He only ever bagged ugly fat chicks. It's comforting to know that at least his taste in men is better." She rambled. "I was just so surprised. I didn't know you were even into my brother. I guess, I figured you just wanted to be friends with him, but not like into him."

"It's okay Mandy. Besides, Mickey hasn't even talked to me since."

"He hasn't?"

"Nope." He grabbed his pen and started working on his notes again. "He's scared of your dad I think. He always said shit about getting killed. He's scared about that people are going to think of him."

Mandy nodded. "Dad's a real asshole. Biggest homophobe I know." She sighed. "I'm sorry, Ian."

The redhead shrugged. "I'll get over it. Him… hey, are you and my brother a thing now?"

She beamed and nodded. "Yeah, we made it official a couple weeks ago."

Ian chuckled. "That's great, Mandy. He's really into you….look, I need to study. After exams, we'll catch up. I promise."

She nodded and got up, kissing the top of his head. "By the way…Mickey's upstairs, studying. I went to find a book for Chem there earlier and saw him." She half smiled and started walking away.

Ian pressed his lips together.

Where are you? – Ian

Trying to figure this fucking bio shit. I'm gonna fail. – Mickey

Ian didn't expect Mickey to reply to fast. Or at all.

Are you in the library? – Ian

Are you stalking me now? – Mickey

Mandy told me. I'm downstairs. – Ian

Come upstairs. Hardly anyone up here – Mickey

Ian quickly gathered all his books and headed upstairs. It took him a while to find the Thug. He was all the way in the back, in a corner. Books were open all around the table and he had a pencil trapped between his teeth. Ian slowly made his way over, sitting on the seat beside him. He dropped his book bag on the floor with a dramatic sigh and looked at what he was working on. He noticed that one of his answers on the practice quiz was wrong.

"It's A." he pointed to the question.

Mickey's eyebrows furrowed together and he started flipping through his textbook to read over the section again.

"How is it A? It's fucking C." he mumbled.

"Here" Ian re-read the lines in the text book and explained the question to Mickey again. Mickey listened carefully and Ian could see the light bulb go off in his head.

"Oh." He erased the answer he put and circled A.

Ian started taking out his math text books and his notes. Mickey's eyes kept shifting over to Ian's notes and chuckled.

"What?" Ian looked over.

"I mean – "he grabbed Ian's notebook and wrote in a couple of notes in the margins. "You forgot a step to the equation. If you were gonna do it the way you had it down, you would have only gotten half the answer. You gotta simplify the answer by dividing A and B." he explained.

Ian blinked slowly. "You're good at math?"

Mickey shrugged. "Something I picked up."

"Why didn't you tell me this earlier? I've been fucking struggling with this shit all fucking year." Ian complained.

"Stop your bitching, Gallagher." He huffed, "I'm struggling with this bullshit."

"Help me and I'll help you?" he offered.

Mickey nodded. "Okay."

Ian and Mickey met up at the library almost every day after school, and would be there until late at night. Taking turns on tutoring each other in different subjects they were good in. Ian helped Mickey with Bio and English. Mickey helped Ian in Math, and World History.

It was nice. They were just focused on studying and didn't mentioned what had happened. They were finally becoming just friends, something they were working on since they met.

"Fuck, I need a cigarette." Mickey stood up and stretched his arms. They had been sitting for almost three hours.

Ian nodded and continued to read his notes.

"Coming?" Mickey grabbed his coat and his pack of smokes. Ian looked up and nodded. He did need a break. He grabbed his coat and followed Mickey out through the back door. It was almost ten at night. Mickey sat down on the pavement, leaning against the pavement, lighting up a cigarette and passing it to Ian.

Ian sat down beside him and took it. Mickey stuck another one between his lips and lit it.

"You're gonna do fine." Ian finally broke the silence. "On your exams." They hadn't really talked about anything but school for the last two weeks.

"Can we not fucking talk about exams right now? My brain is fried." He mumbled. Ian nodded.

"Sorry."

"Why are you helping me, Gallagher?" Mickey asked. "I've been nothin' but an asshole to you."

Ian shrugged and exhaled the smoke. "We're friends. I needed your help too. Friends help each other."

"Right…we're friends." Mickey nodded with a chuckle. "Friends." He repeated.

"Best friends?" Ian suggested with a smile. He nudged Mickey's shoulder with his, which made Mickey laugh again.

"Yeah man. We are fuckin' best friends. Wanna go get friendship bracelets now or something?" he offered with a sarcastic eye roll.

Ian laughed and finished his cigarette. "We better go finish up." He stood up and held his hand out to help Mickey up. The thug took his hand and stood up, tossing the cigarette aside.

"Terry's gettin' out of prison in a couple weeks." Mickey huffed, walking back inside the library. Ian never really knew much about Mickey's dad, except that he was a homophobe.

"Yeah?" Ian sat back down in the chair at their table.

"Yeah, fuck. It was so nice not having him around. Now I gotta go back on runs with him and be his fucking bitch. He doesn't even like me all that much, I swear. He loves Iggy and Collin. " He complained.

"Can't you just say no to him?"

"Do you want me to fucking die?"

Ian went quiet and shook his head. "Sorry…" he nibbled on the back of his pen. "If you wanna get away from him ever, you can crash at my place. We have a lot of room." He offered and looked down at his book. "Mandy can come stay over too, since she's dating Lip."

Mickey eyed him carefully, "Thanks…" he mumbled and looked into his text book. "Why do you even like me?"

Ian was taken aback by the question. They hadn't talked about their feelings, ever, so he stayed quiet for a bit. Mickey slowly looked back up at Ian and gave him that hard expression he knew so well.

"I don't know." Ian shrugged. "I think you're cool."

"Bullshit." Mickey snapped back.

"Seriously, I have no idea. I just do. You are a challenge and I like that I guess. You drive me nuts but for some reason I think you're a good guy. I know that you put on this act to protect yourself, and I get it. I kinda like that I'm the only one you can really stand being around and I wanna be around you all the time. Even though I know I can't."

Mickey looked down at his books and twirled his pen in-between his fingers. "You know we can never be together, right?"

"Why the fuck not?" There was frustration in his voice. "Because of your dad? Fuck your dad. I'm not scared of him. We can deal with him together. Com'on Mickey, we can do this. Please." Ian reached for Mickeys hand but the Thug quickly pulled it away.

"What the hell do you think this is? We don't get to fucking be happy, walkin' around holding hand and shit. If we do that, that will get us both killed."

"I'm not asking to show you off to the world. I just want you to be mine. I want to know that I'm not crazy, that there is something between us. I want to find out what we could end up like if we were together." Ian protested.

"It's not going to fucking happen."

Ian pressed his lips together and nodded. He started gathering his books and putting them in his backpack.

"Where the fuck are you going?" Mickey stood up.

"I can't be around you then. I like you too much, and I'm done with it. I'm not gonna try anymore." Ian sighed. "It was nice knowing you I guess."

"Stop being so fucking dramatic. I'm going to see you around. We're in the same fucking class and you're best friends with my sister."

"Bye Mickey" He turned around and headed out the library.

"Whatever man."