The worst thing about being in one place for long enough to have a name and a recognizable face is that people actually start fucking recognizing you.
Mickey pulled his shoulder in against the throng of people pushing past him. A girl darted her eyes up and down like his stare might just burn her. Don't look too long you may catch something.
When the curl of recognition began twisting in his stomach making it all that much worse, he wanted to leave. It's one thing to be noticed but then you find yourself thinking – well aren't you familiar? Didn't I see you somewhere crying and broken and I walked right past because I'm a monster. Little fucking loser on the street, I can only wish you find someone better to cry to than me.
His fingers twitched and a bit of dried flesh jagged on the side of his cuticle slid across softer skin. Pain inflicted from your own body. They were all fighting themselves. Sickness and disease only as scary as your own heart.
Mickey shuddered at the thought.
He hit the bar snagging up a glass of whiskey and watched the way the lights colored the bruises on the girls face. It was ugly, so ugly he thought it might just be god damn beautiful. Someone had hurt her good – hope it was worth it.
His hand tilted up high to knock back a shot and it burned like home.
"You looking for a good time tonight?" The words were specific, practiced and rehearsed in the mirror. Plum nails long enough to be considered weapons grazed his arm sending a chill – revulsion.
Mickey smiled and hit the bar for another drink. "I ain't interested."
Red hair flicked hitting him in the face and he thought it was ironic. But god did it make him convulse. Long stray strands of dead skin cells littering his shirt like it fucking belonged or something. Like he had said it was okay for her to shed on him.
"C'mon baby I can ease that burn of loneliness."
A drink slid down his way and he white knuckled the glass. There was a chip in it. "I don't play for your team."
Her nails moved back and forth scratching at him with conviction. Mandy used to do that when they were younger, scratch at him every time he made her cry or threw out an old Barbie. Her tears would roll down faster in a rage as each draw deepened the wounds on any bare patch of vulnerability she could get at.
He still had the scars.
The red head leaned in closer and flicked out her tongue to just tickle his ear. "That don't mean I still can't help you baby." She pulled back and Mickey found himself leaning to keep eye contact. She was pretty, he imagined – to someone. "Loneliness is a disease." Her nails dug and crescent shaped indentations enflamed. "But you already knew that you poor sad thing."
"Where's Mickey?" Lip leaned his back against the base of the bar eyeballing a girl to the right of them. Ian craned his neck and sighed when he saw it was another cheap skinny blonde. Coke still laced her nose and he could imagine the lilt to her voice resembling disdain and hate.
Exactly the type of girl he'd hoped his brother had gotten over.
"Dunno." He shrugged his shoulders downing the rest of his beer and wiped a hand across his mouth. "Why'd you bring him tonight?"
"Said you invited him." Lip ran a tongue over his teeth and breathed out an impressed 'woo' as the blonde turned to bend over. A cigarette between his fingers he whistled while flicking on a lighter.
Ian clenched his hands in and out of fists. "What are you two fucking friends now or something?" His face felt turned and twisted. He could practically see the dip in between his own eyes.
Lip reached out waving a hand in the direction of the bartender. Two fingers wiggled in the smoke of the room before a fresh beer was placed in front of him. "Don't pretend like you're not happy about it."
A bass reverberated throughout his body. Mandy's dress glinted slivers of violent reflection off of the lights. She was dancing alone.
"Make it right with Mandy!" Ian called over his shoulder while watching his brother saunter off to a dark corner.
He let his eyes un-focus blurring the people around him into writhing masses of moving space. Everyone looked the same – he could have been dreaming. Like when faces aren't really distinct but more so a blotched canvas of littered features. He ran his fingers over his legs and up to his face plucking at his eyebrows and pinching the sides of his eyes –
He was still here, he was human, he was not a zombie on the floor.
"You avoiding me?" Mickey chewed his lips, a glazy sheen over his eyes that only alcohol could produce.
"I'm not sure." It was an honest answer.
He stared intently watching the glaze slip and slide around Mickey's pupils like maybe some part of his brain wanted to sober up. Like maybe he didn't enjoy being drunk as much as his actions strived to portray. Like maybe all he really wanted was a second where the fog could lift and he could smile because his thoughts would no longer betray his feelings.
Mickey pushed in closer nudging Ian's knees apart. He closed his eyes sucking in a breath and feeling every muscle tense.
"Why would you invite me here if you didn't want me to –" He leaned down letting the swirl of whiskey coat Ian's senses. "Come."
Ian pulled back quickly knocking his head against Mickey's on the way. "What are you doing?"
"What are you doing here?" Terry Milkovich had rat eyes. Pure black evil and you're pretty sure that your skin will bubble and puss if he bites you. Ian had never really seen him smile but in his mind his teeth were filed like daggers.
He figured that he was shaking but the better part of his mind told him that he had a steady hand. When Terry's fist came flying at him propelled by something he didn't quite have a name for, he realized it didn't really matter.
Todd's back twisted in a strained move and Ian could see him just above Mickey's left shoulder. He was further back in the bar – past the dancers who knew what they were doing and just before Lip's dark corner of self-pity.
"Does it matter?" Mickey's words were breaths hot and panted and Ian could feel every inch of him.
He gritted his teeth and whined. "Not to me."
Ian's back pushed against the bar digging deeper and deeper into his skin. He could feel it bruising – a dull pain, the kind that lingers and grips you like it's just shy of complaint but still bad enough to hurt.
Mickey's hands gripped either side of the counter around him and he could still see Todd. See him moving and talking and smiling and he wondered if he was a bad person. For just a split second it occurred to him that maybe he was in the wrong. Two men one stone – what would he be left with?
Blood on his hands and a sore arm.
Ian shifted in closer turning his head down toward Mickey's wrist. A thin scar danced down the length of his pointer finger. He'd never seen it before, another thing he had to ask him about.
Lips burned hot against his neck and something guttural caught in his throat. A snake of desire wrapping up through his leg and into his abdomen leaking out into his veins – poisoning him.
Mickey's tongue licked slowly and he was getting heady. The high that people dream of when they stab needles into their arms was being gifted to him. It was almost cruel because he would never be able to buy it up again.
His arm was bleeding - Terry's knife sliding dirty against the floor and Ian rammed his head hard against the man's chest. Terry doubled over grabbing at his own body heaving a breath that wheezed and sounded wrong. Broken.
Ian stumbled getting up and jumping back into defense preparing for another hit.
Mickey shuddered under his hands before Ian could register that he was touching him. A woman near by darted a look of disapproval and he dug his nails in harder.
Terry shook like he'd been electrocuted. His eyes going wide and even still Ian could only see black, no whites anywhere. The crash made Ian jump as he hit the floor twisting and convulsing and gasping for anything that would reduce the suffocation happening in his brain.
It was a seizure, Ian knew that, had seen them before in school videos and movies and fuck, that kid Tom once had one on the baseball field.
But it wasn't just a seizure – it was the sign he'd been looking for.
Mickey pushed into him making Ian hiss. His lips still crawling trails up his neck sucking and biting and daring him to say no.
Mandy's eyes darted quick over and her mouth twisted into something tight. Todd was still in his line of view and Ian figured if he was going to hell for anything it would be this one moment.
Because he had a boyfriend and he was hard against someone else – biting his tongue and swallowing blood thinking about how this has got to be love.