Chapter 29:
"We should go out." Mickey waited for a response, but Ian didn't flicker. He rolled his eyes and elbowed his boyfriend gently in the side. Ian rolled over, with a quiet groan, but was still asleep. "Iaaaann," Mickey said, leaning closer to Ian's ear. Mickey smiled and pressed his hand to the inside of Ian's thigh and then slowly, slid it upwards and then Ian was awake and sitting up.
"What the..?"
"Trying to wake you up," Mickey grinned.
"Other people have alarm clocks," Ian said, but he was smiling. "I get molested in my sleep."
Mickey sat up and faced Ian, crossing his legs.
"What did you want, anyway?" Ian asked, as Mickey entwined their fingers together. "How's the head?"
"It's okay," Mickey said, but it was still throbbing a little bit. "Buttttt," he said, stretching out the 't' sound. "I was waking you up to say we should go out."
Ian blinked a couple of times. "I thought we were already going out?" he made it a question.
"No," Mickey shook his head. "I meant out out. As in on a date. We've never gone out on a date."
Ian seemed to stare at him for longer than was really necessary and then he smiled, slightly, his eyebrows raising. "Um, okay," he breathed. "Where has this come from?"
Mickey shrugged and lay back against Ian. "I was just thinking about how we sort of got into this whole thing really quickly," he said. "Like, we started with sex and then feelings came into it, when it should have been the other way round. Plus, dating should have slotted in there somewhere."
They both spoke at the same time then.
"We don't have to."
"Unless you don't want to."
"Oh."
"Oh."
"Oh, what?" Ian asked.
"You don't want to," Mickey said.
"I didn't say that," Ian said, pushing Mickey gently off, so that they could face one another. "I just meant I don't want you to feel like you have to take me out. Sex and feelings is more than fine with me."
"Yeah," Mickey smiled. "But imagine sex and feelings and dating. Or! Imagine dating, then feelings, then sex."
Ian rolled his sky blue eyes and chuckled. "I think it's time for your medication, babe."
Mickey lay back again and Ian cradled his head in his arms, then began to unravel the bandage from around his head. Mickey closed his eyes when Ian gently pulled the bandage off of the cut. It stung, but wasn't hurting as badly as it had the night before.
"Ew," he heard Ian say.
"'Thought you said you loved me," Mickey fake pouted.
"I'll love you in a minute," Ian said, crawling out from beneath Mickey and standing up. "Be right back."
"Does loving me in a minute mean a blowjob?" Mickey called after Ian, as he disappeared into the bathroom. He lay back, smiling, because even though his life had literally come apart at the seams and would probably never be sewn back together, he still had these little moments with Ian. Not for long, his mind said, automatically, but he shoved that away, not wanting to think about it.
He lay there, just thinking, until Ian came back a few minutes later, holding a damp towel and a fresh bandage. He looked at Mickey and smiled. "Have you figured it out?" he asked after a moment.
"Hmm?" Mickey asked, pushing himself up. "Figured what out?"
"The meaning of life, or whatever mind-boggling concept you were just trying to understand."
"Huh?" Mickey furrowed his dark eyebrows.
"Nothing," Ian smiled, sitting back down. "You just looked as if you were thinking about something really deep and meaningful." Ian dabbed the wet towel to Mickey's head and he winced a little at first, but then settled down. "So, what was it?" Ian asked.
"What?"
"That you were thinking about."
"Oh," Mickey said. "You."
"Me?" Ian asked.
"I'm always thinking about you."
"Cheese ball," Ian grinned, unravelling the new bandage.
"I was just thinking," Mickey began. "About how you said no one had ever called you beautiful before." He tilted his head backwards so that he could see Ian, who was blushing now. "Stop getting embarrassed," Mickey smiled. "I'm serious, though. How does that work?"
"How does what, um, work?" Ian asked, taking Mickey's head in his hands again. He began to wrap the bandage back across the gash.
"You getting through eighteen years of not being called beautiful."
Ian only shrugged.
"You don't even see it, do you?" Mickey asked, sitting up and then flipping himself onto his stomach in front of Ian. He reached out and took his hands. "I'm being serious. You're so perfect. It literally hurts when I think about how perfect you are. Just—seriously, you're so attractive."
"Um," Ian said. "Is this some kind of strategical flattery?"
"You wound me, baby."
"What do you want, babe?"
Mickey grinned. "Nothing," he told him. "I do, however, think you should let me take you out and flaunt you to those who have less attractive boyfriends and they can be insanely jealous while I get to take you back here and undress you and put my tongue on every last inch of your body."
"Oh."
"Oh?"
"Oh," Ian nodded and Mickey glanced down as Ian crossed his legs over his growing erection.
"Oh," Mickey grinned and he pushed himself up, then crawled across until he was looming over a flushed Ian. "Did I get you all hot and bothered?" Ian swallowed and Mickey's fingers went to the waistband of his pyjama bottoms. "Lie back."
Ian obliged and Mickey slid his hand down his pants and palmed Ian's half-hard cock through his briefs. "So, uh," Ian managed. "Ab-about going out. Um, where are you—we going to go?"
"I was thinking Breadstix," Mickey informed him as he slipped back down and placed a gentle kiss to Ian's hip, where he had slid his pants down slightly.
"Br-Breadstix?" Ian asked. "But everyone goes there.
"Exactly."
"Oh," Ian uttered.
"Oh?" Mickey asked, and he wrapped his hand around Ian's cock.
"Ohhh," Ian emitted.
"That's what I was thinking," Mickey smiled.
"I feel like everyone's staring," Ian told Mickey on the other side of the table at Breadstix."
"Please," Mickey said. "We could just be friend having dinner together."
Ian watched as Mickey reached across and laid a hand over his.
"Or not," Ian uttered.
"Relax," Mickey smiled, his eyes bright and glittering in the dim overhead lights.
"I am relaxed," Ian said, twisting his hand in Mickey's. "I'm merely stating a fact."
"I like when you merely state facts."
"That makes no sense," Ian told him. "I knew you should have waited before you took those painkillers again."
Mickey grinned like a mad man and began to play with his straw. "I didn't take them."
"Oh," Ian said. "Well, then, that's awkward."
Mickey chuckled and gave Ian's hand a squeeze, ignoring the looks of disapproval the man at the next table was shooting them. "I'm sorry we didn't date sooner."
Ian smiled and squeezed back. "Well, you were already dating someone for most of the start of this," Ian pointed out.
"Even still," Mickey said. His eyes darkened then and he leaned a little closer. "You never deserved to be treated the way I treated you at the beginning, Ian.
"You're sure you didn't take those pills?"
"No," Mickey smiled, the corners of his mouth tilting slightly upwards. "Really, though. I was horrible to you. I should have just given in the second I knew I liked you. I should have left Quinn. I should have told you how I felt. I should have given you everything you deserve right from the beginning."
Ian smiled, crookedly. "It's okay."
"It's not," Mickey disagreed. "I promise you that from now on, I'll treat you with the love and care you deserve. I'll treat you like.. Like a prince!"
Ian laughed. "Actually, I was princess, remember?"
"Pfft," Mickey scoffed. "I'll be princess. I can totally see you riding into castle grounds on a white horse, waving a sword in the air, the sun colliding with the silver point, casting a radiant glow all across your flawless, milky-white, skin, your dazzling blue eyes shining, like the ocean on a summer's day."
"Mickey, since when are you a poet?" Ian spluttered. "I suppose I'm supposed to picture you in a fabulous, pink ballgown?"
"Only if that lights your fire," Mickey wiggled an eyebrow.
Ian choked a bit. Mickey had just said 'lights your fire'. He shook his head and sat back, smiling.
"Think you'll ever forgive me?" Mickey asked, the ghost of a smile still on his pale lips.
"I never held anything against you," Ian apprised him.
Mickey got that glint in his eye, then. "Technically not true."
"Eat your bread sticks, Mickey," Ian shook his head.
Mickey reached across and took a bread stick then lifted it to his mouth and started flicking his tongue across it. Ian blushed, remembering how Mickey had done just that earlier that day when he'd taken his pyjama bottoms off and..
He was doing it on purpose.
Ian frowned at Mickey, whose golden brown eyes were locked with his blue ones. The corners of Mickey's mouth tilted up into a smile when he realised Ian had made the connection. He started to suck the bread stick into his mouth then and Ian could only stare at him.
"I love when you get all flustered," Mickey told him, taking his mouth off the bread stick for a split second.
"We're in public," Ian hissed, but he couldn't take his eyes off Mickey's stupid tongue.
"Oh, I know," Mickey grinned. "And I remember how much you liked it last time I did that to you in public."
Ian looked away quickly, remembering their encounter in the school toilets. "I'll make you pay for this," he told Mickey.
"Ooh," Mickey smirked. "Is that a promise?"
"Where's Mickey?" Rachel asked, sitting down on the sofa. She took her hat off and left it in her lap.
"Sleeping," Ian told her, sitting down beside Mercedes. "He passed out after taking his pills."
Which was half true. Mickey had gotten a tad hyper following taking his pills and only after an hour or so of grinning like an idiot and making sexual innuendos did he finally flake out and go to sleep.
"Is he doing okay?" Mercedes enquired.
"Yeah," Ian smiled. "Yeah, he's doing fine."
"What's Mickey doing after school anyway?" Rachel asked, curiously.
Ian's smile disappeared.
"Nothing," Ian said. "Or at least he has nothing planned."
Mickey felt a little dizzy from the meds, so he pressed his back to the wall and just listened. He didn't want to walk in while they were talking about him, because that would make everything insanely awkward, so he waited.
"So, what's going to happen?" Mickey heard Mercedes ask.
"I have no idea," Ian sighed. "I just.. I wasn't sure about it—us, when I found out he hadn't applied anywhere, but he convinced me to give it a try and I wanted to, so I caved, said yes, but now.. Now I just don't know. Not now that he is virtually out on the streets and without any kind of stability or love in his life. It's like—like I'm all he has."
Which was true, but he didn't want that holding Ian back.
"I just.. I don't know what to do. Because I love him, I really do, but.. I don't know. What's going to happen when I have to leave?"
Rachel and Mercedes were both quiet. Ian went on when he saw they had no solutions. "Sometimes I.. Sometimes I think I should just tell him I don't love him, that we're going nowhere, that I can't do it any more, because I don't know how to leave him, but I won't ever do that. That would be the most selfish thing I could ever do."
"That's what I would do," Rachel added. "My career comes first."
"I can't put my career first, Rachel," Ian said. "I don't know for sure that my career will ever take off, but Mickey.."
"You can't be sure it'll work out with Mickey in the long run anyway," Rachel shook her head. "You'll regret it if you don't go, Ian, trust me."
Ian sighed, sounding worn out. "I just.. I have a feeling about him, Rachel, like he's the one. I just.. I don't know what to do. He has nothing. How am I supposed to claim I love him, then leave him?"
Mickey felt his heart contracting in his chest. He sat there, pressing the back of his head to the wall, just listening.
"I know you feel bad for him, Ian, but this is your life," Mercedes pointed out.
"But he's a huge part of my life."
"You've known him for five months, Ian," Rachel deadpanned.
"Right," Ian said. "And in those five months, he's changed so much and come out of himself and he—he's found himself. If I leave him, what's going to happen? Will he fall apart again? Will he go back to hiding, pretending, just because it's the easiest way to get through? I can't let him do that."
"Maybe you should talk to him," Mercedes suggested.
"I don't want to hurt him, Mercedes."
"If he loves you, he'll let you go, Ian," Rachel uttered.
"I don't want him to let me go."
Mickey didn't want to let him go, either, but for once, Rachel had a point.
Mickey stared up at the white ceiling, into the nothingness above him. He felt as if he couldn't really breathe properly. He was light headed and his heart was hammering and he felt sick, but he knew he had to do it. He knew there was no other way.
It was about thirty minutes or so before Mickey heard Ian coming down the steps. He sat up and tried to act natural.
"Hey," Mickey said, when Ian walked into his bedroom.
"You're awake," Ian smiled and sat down on the bed. "Sleep okay?"
"Why didn't you talk to me?"
"Huh?" Ian asked. "Talk to you about what?"
Mickey pushed himself up so that he could look right at Ian. "I heard you talking to Mercedes and Rachel," he provided. "You should have talked to me."
Ian's expression went blank for a couple of heart beats, then he frowned. "It was too soon, Mickey. Everything happened at once and I—I didn't want to add to the drama."
Mickey studied him. His face was paler than usual and his eyes held a sadness. Mickey wished he could hug him, hold him, make him smile again, but he didn't. "I love you, Ian," Mickey told him.
Ian's eyebrows furrowed. "I love you, too."
"Which is why I'm letting you go," Mickey said, voice breaking a little. "I—Rachel and Mercedes are right. This is your life, your career. If I held you back, that would make me selfish and a horrible human being and it would certainly go against me loving you, so I'm not going to do that. I'm going to let you go. I'll leave, I'll figure out where to stay and then after that, I'll figure out what I'll do after we graduate, but you were right the first time round. Breaking up earlier rather than later is the best thing to do. It doesn't make it easier, exactly, but at least we won't have a million more memories to add to the pain. This is for the best."
"Mickey, no," Ian shook his head. "Stay. Don't leave, stay. We'll figure it out."
Mickey shut his eyes, tightly, then opened them again. "No," he shook his head, adamant. "No, this is how it has to be. If I didn't do this, it would mean I don't give a crap about you, but I do. I love you and you're everything to me, so I'm letting you go."
Ian's eyes were shining now and Mickey hoped he wouldn't cry, because if he cried he would set him off, too and he might give in if he saw Ian crying.
"I don't want you to let me go."
"I don't want to let you go, either, but I have to," Mickey explained. "Can you see where I'm coming from?"
"Yes, but I—Mickey, listen," Ian sat forward and took Mickey's hand in his. Mickey's skin still tingled every time he touched him. "We could try and work something out. Honestly, we'll figure it out. We'll make it through this. I love you. I do. I just—Mickey, I need you in my life. I can't imagine a day without having you in my life. Don't leave."
Mickey was tempted. He wanted to just cry, or sleep, or kiss Ian senseless, but this was what he had to do. He had no place in Ian's bright future, no matter how hard it hurt him to admit it. It was true and this was the right thing to do.
"I'm sorry," Mickey told him and he really was sorry. "You'll get through this, though. You're going to make it, Ian and when you do, you won't remember me. I'll always remember you, though. When you're up there on Broadway, or whatever, I'll be able to sit back and smile and say to myself 'he loved you once. Ian Gallagher love you once' and that'll be enough, just knowing I let you go for a reason, that you went on to do amazing things."
Ian sniffled, but he was smiling, sadly. "I'll look out for Mickey Milkovich in the audience every single night."
"I'll be there," Mickey promised, though if he was living under a bridge, he wasn't sure how he would be able to keep such a promise.
"Look, is there any way I can change your mind? Any way at all? Please, Mickey?"
"No," Mickey told him. "This is what I want, okay?"
Ian sighed and his breaths came out shakily and broken. "At least stay at my house," he said. "I can't have you roaming the streets, Mickey."
"I'll figure it out," he said and he leaned across and kissed Ian on the lips, gently. "It'll be okay."
"I love you, babe," Ian told him and a small sob escaped his throat.
Mickey chuckled. "Love you, too, baby."
Mickey hadn't spoken to him once since he had broken it off. He had heard from Mike that he was staying at his house for a while and Ian was glad that he was somewhere safe, warm. It broke his heart knowing he had thrown away the only thing he had just so that he would have a chance at a real future, away from Lima.
Ian would have been happy to try to figure something out, somehow. He wasn't sure what exactly, but he wished he had given him that chance. He loved Mickey far too much to just let him go, but it didn't seem as if he had much of a choice.
Mickey smiled at Ian after the New Directions won their regionals competition. Ian had smiled back and Mickey had looked away and that was the epitome of their communication. Ian sighed, because e missed his boyfriend. He missed him being crazy and whiny and horny and funny and smart and stupid and all of those things that Mickey was.
He just really missed his boyfriend.
To: Ian at 6.32 P.M.
Ian, have you seen Mickey? He left at around 8AM and I haven't seen him since. Mike.
"Gallagher"
"Why are you at my house, Iggy?" Ian demanded to know. "How do you even know where I live?"
"Lip told me," he explained. He was wearing his football kit and holding his helmet under his arm. "I need a favour."
"I don't do favour for people I dislike."
Iggy groaned and looked as if he wanted to punch something. Ian watched him through bored eyes. "Look," Iggy said, patiently. "I need to know where Milkovich is, okay? This game depends on everything. We need him, so where is he?"
"I have no idea," Ian said. "No one has seen him since 8AM, so if you don't mind, I'm sort of busy trying to fi—"
"Gallagher, it's 6.45 now, the game starts at 8," Iggy said. "We need him."
"He hates you," Ian exploded. "He's hardly going to do you a favour after everything you've done! Now get the hell away from my house!"
Ian didn't give Iggy a chance to speak, he simply slammed the door and went back into the kitchen and re-read Mike's text. He couldn't control the fast paced beating of his heart. He was worried something had happened to him. Mickey didn't have a lot to live for. Ian shook his head. He didn't want to think about anything like that.
He dialled Mickey's number and waited. He never picked up.
"Jesus, Mickey," Ian said, breathlessly. "You couldn't pick up your phone?"
Ian went and sat down in the grass next to him. He had come to the field after having called Mickey at least sixty times. He'd had a feeling he would be here, but he had still been scared.
"What are you doing here?" Mickey asked.
"Looking for you."
"I'm fine."
"You could have picked up your phone and told me, then," Ian said, catching his breath again. "I was worried sick."
Mickey sighed and buried his face in his hands. His hair was a mess and he looked tired, worn, like he hadn't slept in months.
"Noah Iggyerman showed up at my house," Ian said.
Mickey's head shot up quickly and his bright eyes were wide. "Did he do anyth—"
"He was looking for you, actually," Ian shook his head. "I don't suppose you have any intention in going to the game?"
"Screw them and their game."
"Well," Ian said. "I think you should let them know you're not going."
"What? Why?"
"Because it's the right thing to do."
"The right thing to do," Mickey laughed a bit. "The right thing to do always sucks."
Ian nodded. He wished he could fix this, wished he could help Mickey get through it, wished he could help himself, but he didn't know how. Mickey flung his phone at Ian.
"You do it."
Ian did and then gave Mickey his phone back. "Come back to my house," Ian said. "I just want you to be safe."
"Look, I'm surviving, okay? I don't know what else to do!"
Ian reached down and grabbed Mickey's hand, even though he tried to pull away. "Regardless of what happened," Ian said. "I still love you and I still want you alive and well, so please. I'm asking you, please just come back to my house."
"I can't," Mickey stressed. "I'm fine here, really, I am."
"Fine," Ian said and he lay back. "I'm staying with you."
"No," Mickey breathed. "No, go home, Ian. Don't do this for me, it's freezing out here."
Ian was adamant. He wasn't going to leave Mickey in danger. He needed him to be safe. He loved him and he wanted him to be okay, even if okay was the last thing Mickey was.
"I'm staying right here."
"Why?"
"Because I love you."
Mickey looked down at him and he smiled and Ian smiled, too, because Mickey's smile was infectious. "You're an idiot."
"Maybe," Ian said and he sat up a little. "But I still love you and I still want you safe, so I'm staying with you, no matter what."
"I love you, too," Mickey told him.
They kept their eyes locked for a long time, golden discs and blue orbs just gazing into one another and Ian couldn't help what he did next. He moved slowly forward and closed the gap between them, catching Mickey's mouth with his own. He felt Mickey gasping into the kiss and then he was whispering against his lips.
"This doesn't mean anything," he exhaled. "I'm—I'm letting you go. It's j-just a kiss. It means n-nothing."
Ian pulled back a little and looked into Mickey's eyes, his lips still tingling from the kiss.
"A kiss between us will never mean nothing."
And he pressed his lips to his again and they fell back in the grass, their shadows entwining and they became one in the faint opalescent glow of the rising moon.