Chapter Three

When Ian woke up the small window wasn't letting in any light, only the dim shadow of dusk. He sat up and rubbed his eyes blearily, only remembering where he was after a few minutes. Sighing to himself, Ian looked around for his book – he definitely remembered sleeping with it. He got off of his bed, thinking that maybe he had rolled over in his sleep and it had fallen off.

"Oh, Sleeping Beauty fuckin' wakes up!" Ian heard a voice say from behind him. Turning around, he was met by a guy with black hair and pale skin on the bunk above his. "Who the fuck are you then, newbie?" Ian looked at the guy sceptically for a moment. "I ain't gonna' fuckin' bite, I just asked your name. I'm Mickey.

"Ian," he replied flatly, looking under his bed for the copy of Great Expectations.

"Lookin' for this?" Mickey said, waving the copy of the book in the air.

Ian nodded, making his way towards Mickey, "Yeah, thanks," he reached out to take the book.

"Ah, ah. Whatcha' gonna' do for me?" Mickey asked, snatching the book back before Ian could grasp it.

Ian raised an eyebrow at him before stepping up on his own bunk to reach for the book in Mickey's hand. Before he could, Mickey had leant forward, caught his hand in a vice-like grip and twisted it slightly to the point that it was bordering on causing Ian pain. What hurt more was the way he was gripping his hand and how it was pressing on his bruised, bloody knuckles.

"I said, whatcha' gonna' do for me?" Mickey said, his voice lower, harder.

"What do you want?" Ian asked, not sure how to act. He didn't know what this guy was in for, what he had, how rational he was or wasn't, and whether he was willing to hurt him.

Mickey looked around the room briefly. It was only the two of them in there. He looked Ian in the eye before softening his grip on Ian's hand, not enough to let the redhead pull it away, but enough for him to not be in as much pain. Mickey kept a hold of Ian's hand, pulling it towards himself, placing it on his crotch, where he began to move it over his cock which was slowly becoming visible through his pants. Mickey's eye didn't leave Ian's once as he kept control over Ian's hand, moving it faster. He soon came, his eyes closing as his breathing became deeper. This was the first time Ian had seen him not look like he wanted to kill someone. He moved Ian's hand when he was finished, but he still didn't let it go, maintaining a vice-like grip on it.

Mickey leaned forward and whispered "That's what I want," in to Ian's ear, letting his lip brush against the shell of his ear gently, sending a shiver up his spine.

Ian didn't know how to react. He just held Mickey's eye contact and nodded his head slowly, letting out a small hum of acknowledgement. His hand being let go of, and he pulled away quickly before stepping down and sitting on his bed, his legs crossed underneath him as he stared in to his lap, cradling his hand slightly as it throbbed. He was so zoned out that he didn't hear Mickey jumping down from his bunk, didn't notice him getting closer until Great Expectations was placed in his lap and a whisper of "It's always better when it's someone else's hand," brushed against his ear. Ian didn't respond, he just placed the book beside him and continued to stare at his hands. He had no idea what he should think or how he should feel, so he didn't, he just went back to sleep, the book hugged to his chest.

Sleeping just seemed like the right thing to do, like it was what Ian was intended to do. He was convinced of that until he began to stir. Someone was shaking him. "Yo, Sleeping Beauty, wake up, it's dinner time," the person was saying as they nudged at his leg.

Ian tried so hard to resist the waking, but it wasn't going to happen, and so he gently opened his eyes, looking up at the voice. It was Mickey. Ian recoiled slightly when he felt Mickey's foot nudging at his leg.

"Woah, no need to look like a fucking puppy about to be kicked," Mickey said. "I said it's dinner time. You slept through breakfast, I'm assumin' lunch, so you gotta' come on. You're probably a set of pills or two down today I'm guessin'."

Ian grimaced at the mention of pills.

"I don't fuckin' like 'em either, but it keeps me out of the prison that is solitary. And don't mistake this for me carin' or nothin', I just can't lose my little bitch. So, come on, Sleeping Beauty, get up." Mickey snapped, clapping his hands.

Ian rubbed a hand over his face before standing up, scruffing his hair back and forth a little and slipping on the hideous shoes that he was given. Wow, they were comfy! He then followed Mickey, who was gesturing him towards the stairwell.

"Come with me. There's some fuckin' weirdos in here that you don't wanna' sit near, they'll rip your fucking eyelids off and shove 'em up your ass if you look at 'em funny." Mickey advised once they'd collected their dinner.

"So, does that… make you one of the normal ones?" Ian asked, raising an eyebrow slightly. He most definitely didn't seem normal from Ian's experiences, he seemed quite a few bulbs short of normal.

"I am fuckin' normal, I'm just in here for anger issues and shit," Mickey said, his voice changing to a more defensive tone. "So, what're you in for?" Mickey asked when they sat down at a table with three guys that he assumed Mickey knew.

"I shouldn't be," Ian mumbled as he began to push his food around his plate, not having much of an appetite.

"You and ninety percent of this joint," Mickey chuckled. The three guys across the table chorused along with Mickey's very distinctive laugh. "By the way, this is Jared, James, and Henry. Jared and James room with us and Henry's down on Oak, he used to be in my group before he moved floors. Guys, this is Ian."

"T this fucking duckling under your wing," the lankey-looking boy Mickey had c rust you take alled Jared laughed to himself, while the short, stocky boy next to him – Henry? – smirked and nudged him on the arm.

Ian raised an eyebrow at them, not sure whether he should have been insulted or not. "He seems to go for redheads, we're not sure why," Henry put in, shrugging his broad shoulders.

Ian side-eyed a look at Mickey to see a slight blush creeping up his neck, his face set on his food as he continued to shovel it in. Ian just looked back to his own plate where he wa sstill scraping his food back and forth had slowly started to mush it up.

"For fucks sake, eat your fuckin' food or don't, just don't make it look like a pile of shit and put me off mine," Mickey snapped, turning on Ian with a hostile look. The boy in question looked deeply in to his mushed up food as he put his fork down slowly and began to rub his hands over the bandages on his knuckles. After a minute or so, he stood up and left, making his way for the pill station.

"Ian Gallagher," Ian said to the dispensary nurse, handing his I.D. card over.

"Missed some lithium this afternoon," The nurse pointed out, handing Ian his cup of pills and some water. After he'd swallowed the pills she demanded "Open. Okay, you're good."

Ian then traipsed his way back to his room, getting his stuff and going for another shower, feeling like he needed to let off some steam (aside from washing away the feeling of Mickey on him earlier).

Ian was lucky that nobody was in the showers; probably still eating he assumed. He leant against the counter to take the bandages and gauze off of his hands, seeing the large scabs and dark bruises that covered his knuckles on each hand. He sighed and dropped the bandages on the surface, going in to the cubicle farthest from the doorway and turning the water on high. Within moments Ian was pounding at the wall of the cubicle again, the nurse's handiwork earlier wasted. Ian's hands hurt so much. They hurt to the point that his whole body throbbed with ache. And then Ian just let himself fall to the floor, his head banging against the wall slightly as he landed. Tears fell silently, his face crumpling up in hurt. Not about his hands, about everything else. Mickey, the betrayal of his family, the fact he was here, just everything. Ian then sat with his head in his hands, the water splashing against his skin like a thunderous storm (it was very much representative of his life at that point), blood still dripping from his hands and tinting the water a washy pink.

Oh, how he missed being home, having people around him who didn't force him to do things he didn't want to, didn't make him fear for his life, and didn't seem to constantly treat him like a game. He didn't understand Mickey, it was like he was the bipolar one back there. For a while, Ian didn't move, but then he heard people begin to enter the shower room, so he got up and wrapped himself in his towel, covering his hands by holding his dirty clothes over them so nobody would see. He walked in to the bathroom and went in to the cubicle to get some tissue to hold back the bleeding. After brushing his teeth quickly, he made his way back to his room where he pulled on a pair of boxers and climbed in to bed, not paying attention to who was or wasn't in there. He dropped off almost instantly in to a dull lull without a dream.

Ian woke with a start, and looked at the wall clock to see that it was three fifteen in the morning. With a disgruntled sigh, he got up to make his way to the bathroom, going for a leak before splashing his face with some cold water. God, he really shouldn't be here. He could hear a person screaming, he assumed they were suffering from nightmares or some crappy hallucinations. He looked down at his hands on the way back to his room, seeing that the bruises were darker and spread way past his knuckles. Blood was smeared across his hands. Guess the tissue didn't work too well, Ian thought to himself, turning in to his room with a slight sigh as he rubbed a hand down the back of his neck. A small creak was emitted from the bed as he climbed back in under the white sheets, only now noticing the blood on them that the tissue had not soaked up very well – at all. "Fucking cheap ass shit," Ian muttered under his breath, laying down and trying not to lay in the bloody areas of his sheets.

"D'you mind? Some of us are tryina' not sleep in peace," Mickey's voice said, the silhouette of his head poking down from his own bed.

"Sorry," Ian mumbled, shuffling himself deeper under his white sheets.

Mickey jumped down from his bunk. "Well, if you're not sleepin', move over and make some room," he whispered, climbing under Ian's sheets, forcing the redhead to roll on to his side and move over. "Shoulda' just gone to the nurse again, less mess," Mickey mumbled, reaching under the covers to fish out Ian's hands and observe his knuckles, prodding in certain areas.

"Oww," Ian hissed, snatching his hands back.

"Stop being such a fuckin' pussy, I'm just seein' if anythin' is broken or if they're still good to work their magic," Mickey said, and Ian could just hear the smirk in his voice without even looking at him. He took Ian's hands again and had one last feel of each of them before saying "Nah, seems good. But if you want some pain you're better to cut or some shit, only damages yourself, not whatever wall you've been demolishin' in this place," putting his hands under the sheets, he threw his boxers out from under them before saying "We'll get you a couple razors or somethin'." Mickey must have noticed that Ian was giving him a suspecting look, because Mickey suddenly said "I like your hands working and that face of yours clean-shaven. Just… don't do it somewhere obvious, you'll get picked up on it and moved to a higher monitor detail. And of course you'll look like a fuckin' walkin' stereotype." Mickey then took one of Ian's hands and moved it under the sheets.

Ian stared Mickey straight in the face, but Mickey looked away as he guided Ian's hand sideways of where he wanted it the most. He could feel Mickey guiding his hand on to his leg, and he was sliding his fingers up and down his thigh, his fingers tingling as he felt the numerous ridges that felt like the rungs of a ladder. He noticed they stopped half way down his thigh, just enough so that swimming shorts and boxers would still cover them.

"Tactical," Mickey muttered, still not meeting Ian's eyes.

Ian stopped his hand for a moment, not allowing Mickey to move it, letting his hands hover over the scars, "Why are you really here? That's not just anger issues," Ian's voice was gentle and curious at the same time.

"I said 'and shit'," was the muffled response Ian heard.

"So, what is this shit, then?" Ian whispered softly.

"B.P.D.," Mickey mumbled out before taking control of Ian's hand again and placing it on his semi-hard cock. He then began to pump Ian's hand up and down his still-growing member, his blue eyes still focused on anything but Ian's face.

"No," Ian whispered, trying to stop Mickey's control of his hand, feeling a little courage surge through his veins.

Mickey seemed taken aback as he repeated "No?"

"I'll… I'll do this if you want but… I… I want something out of it,"

"Ooh, a dealer. Okay, what d'you want? We'll see if it can be arranged,"

"I don't want to be used like a puppet, for one," Ian began, watching Mickey's face for some sign of how he might react. This was dangerous ground, Ian knew that, and he head to tread lightly, as cautiously as though he were walking through a mine field. Then again, all interaction he had with Mickey up until then had been very much the same. "And… I want a little somethin' out of this too, if you get me..." He felt Mickey let go of his hand, then moving it slowly towards Ian's leg, running it high up his thigh gently, slowly. The motion was so unlike Mickey that Ian actually flinched at the touch. Ian exhaled, he was unsure of how Mickey was going to respond, but this seemed like it could be a safe answer, he had expected anger.

"This okay? More? Less? I'm guessing you're a virgin," Mickey asked softly, still not looking at Ian, his eyes looking down at his bare chest instead.

Ian hummed lightly as Mickey began to slip his hand in to Ian's boxers which were becoming tighter. He slowly began to move his own hand gently up and down Mickey's shaft, his fingers cautionary and meek.

As Mickey began to move Ian's boxers down with his wrist, his hand not moving away from Ian's length. Ian couldn't take it, he lifted himself up slightly and pulled down his boxers himself, leaving them at his knees before putting his hand back on Mickey's cock and beginning to pump his hand again up and down. And Mickey showed him some proper attention, and it felt pretty good. Mickey had done this before, he knew what to do, how to twist and turn his hand, when to tighten or loosen his grip. Ian realised that in all of the sexual encounters he had had with girls, he had never actually paid attention to what they had done to him, just simply accepted the pleasure.

"Sorry," Ian whispered, not intending to say it aloud.

"What?" Confusion laced Mickey's single syllable. "Why you apologisin'?"

"It's nothing."

"Just remember I'm holdin' your dick here when you lie to me. Now, why you apologisin'?"

Ian sighed and pulled his hand back. He then put a hand on Mickey's that was treating him well and moved it away from him, pulling his boxers back up. "It's nothing," he replied, curling in on himself slightly.

"What the fuck is your problem? Just tell me. I don't care, I just wanna' know," Mickey persisted, looking Ian's constantly-moving eyes straight on.

Ian felt scared a little, he couldn't quite tell how Mickey was feeling because his whisper muffled the emotion from his voice. "I'm… sorry it's… I'm not… not that good," he sighed, shrugging his shoulders.

"Oh, shut the fuck up and get your hand back on my dick," Mickey commanded as he put an arm round Ian's neck and pulled him closer, crashing his lips on to the ginger boy's, kissing him hard.