Chapter Text
FIRE MEET GASOLINE
Chapter Eight – The Pleasure’s Pain and Fire
The wind hits Ian’s face as soon as the door opens, and he just decides he’s going to turn around when Mickey’s fist connects with his temple.
The asphalt scrapes his cheek, his hand, and he can feel a burning along his leg as he sprawls on the ground. The air is flattened out of his lungs, and he rolls over, stars bursting in his eyes.
Mickey’s fist is still half extended into the air, his eyes directed away from Ian on the ground. And Ian thinks, just for a moment, that if he lays still enough, Mickey might just walk away. But then the anger gets the better of him, and he lifts his leg up, hooking his foot behind Mickey’s ass and yanking forward.
It’s as natural as breathing, the rhythm they fall into then. Mickey’s on top of him, and then he’s rolling them both over, pressing Mickey into the ground as they grapple with each other, punches and scratches and kicks flying between them. And then they flip again, and Ian tries to crawl away, but Mickey grabs his belt loops and pulls him back, his knees dangerously close to Ian’s groin. Ian’s forgotten how many times they’ve been in a place like this, but it’s familiar enough to start sparking parts of Ian’s brain that have been turned off for ages.
And just like that, it finishes. Mickey collapses against the brick wall, a spot above his eye bleeding, his lip already swelling, and blood streaked all over the lower half of his face from his nose. Ian’s quite sure he looks just as bad, if not worse, and he stays where he is, back on the asphalt, clutching his throbbing left wrist to his chest.
“Hello to you too,” he says, his tone mirthless, his eyes scanning the sky for clouds.
“Oh, fuck off,” Mickey says in response. Ian turns his head to look at him, and Mickey spits blood into the patch of weeds poking up through cracks in the pavement. “Why the fuck are you here?”
If Ian hadn’t taken his meds that morning, he might have laughed. A comment like that could have been funny. But Ian’s in that spacey spot in his head, where his thoughts are dulled by the medication and the edges of his body are tingly and nearly numb. “Why are you? It’s my therapist.”
Mickey glances at him then, just for the shortest of moments, and then he’s back staring at his shoes as if he’d never acknowledged Ian’s physical presence at all. “You gave me the fucking card.”
Ian exhales heavily, drawing himself up into a sitting position. He keeps his hand over his wrist, holding it against his stomach, and he regards Mickey with interest. “So you talked to her?” Distantly, he can feel a burst of excitement at the possibility. Did he know now, how hard Ian was working? Was he going to let him see Yevgeny again?
“Don’t know that I’d call that ‘talking’ exactly. Bitch wouldn’t tell me shit. Confidentiality or some bullshit like that.”
He looks up at Ian again, and Ian tries not to look disappointed. He tries to look emotionless, aloof. Anything but the feeling of overwhelming sadness that grips at his heart as soon as Mickey stops speaking. “Oh,” is all he can manage in response.
Mickey’s eyebrows knit together, and then he’s shaking his head. “Should’ve fucking known.” He’s standing them, suddenly in a hurry. “Waste of fucking time.”
He’s three steps away before the word “wait” leaves Ian’s mouth. But he says it, and he’s sure it’s almost too quiet, but when he spins around, he finds Mickey standing stock still, his back to Ian. “Wait, okay?” His voice is louder now, more confident, and he gets onto his feet, drawing up to his full height.
There’s a silence between them that’s uncomfortably long, and Ian almost begins to wonder if Mickey’s disappeared from his own body right in front of Ian. But then he turns, slowly, and he’s staring at the middle of Ian’s chest as if he can see straight through him.
“What the fuck do you want from me?” Mickey asks then, his voice carrying over the distance between them that seems like miles.
Ian wants to say, nothing. He wants nothing from Mickey, the words sounding to Ian as if he’s chipping away at the essence of Mickey himself, robbing him of something precious and dear. He doesn’t want to take anything from Mickey, he just wants to share. How is it so hard for Mickey to understand, all he wants is for Mickey to understand, to take back his bitter refusal to let Ian near Yevgeny.
But he sees Mickey, then, with blood and bruises stretching across his face, and it occurs to him how different Mickey looks. He’s pale, which he’s always been, but the yellow cast his skin has now screams of solitude and illness. There’s dark shadows under his eyes, deeper than any bruise Ian’s just given him. He wears a long sleeve shirt despite the temperature, and through a hole in the arm where the seam has split, Ian can see marks on Mickey’s arm that he knows weren’t there before. And suddenly, he does want something from Mickey.
“I want to know how you’ve been. I want to know if you’re okay.”
They make eye contact then, something icy and hard in Mickey’s glare then. “Fuck you. It isn’t any of your goddamn business how I’ve been.”
It’s a fair point, Ian concedes. That’s what break ups are supposed to mean, aren’t they? And for so long, Ian’s been fine with it. He hasn’t needed to know how Mickey’s been, he hasn’t even wanted to know. But just like when he first saw him again at the diner, there’s this tension in the air that grips at Ian’s bones, and it suddenly feels necessary to know. So even though he’s desperate to push the point, the part of his brain dulled by the medication recognizes this as an opportunity. If he takes a breath, if he does this right, maybe he can show Mickey what the therapist wasn’t able to tell him.
“I’m sorry about the other day,” he starts, and he can tell from the way Mickey’s shoulders tense that he wasn’t expecting the change in conversation. “About coming by like that. And if I was…if I was weird, I’m sorry.”
“The fuck are you talking about, weird?”
Ian stares at his shoes then, and he thinks he won’t be able to admit it. And even just a couple weeks ago, he probably couldn’t have. “I, uhh…I saw something.” He’s scratching the back of his neck with his hand, his shoe pawing at the ground below him in nervousness. “Sometimes, things still…get a little difficult, you know, in here?” He gestures at his forehead then. “It’s why I came here, actually, to talk with her about the hallu…what happened.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Mickey’s folded his arms over his chest, and he’s looking at Ian in a way he can’t describe.
“I thought I saw someone there,” Ian admits, dropping his gaze to Mickey’s worn out sneakers. “A-a guy I used to know from the club. But it’s just something that happens sometimes, and I take the meds for a while to make sure it doesn’t get worse. I don’t let it hurt anybody.” He forces himself to look at Mickey then, because its important Mickey knows Yevgeny wouldn’t be in danger. Sure, the hallucinations aren’t gone, but Ian’s spent months with the therapist coming up with these safety plans and they work.
Mickey narrows his eyes. “You’re taking your meds again?” He sounds suddenly winded, the words spilling out in a harsh breath.
“For a few days,” Ian says. “Just to make sure the hallucinations don’t get worse. Fiona helps. I take them in front of her and if I don’t, I’ve got paperwork with the therapist you met that says they can hospitalize me to stabilize things.” He feels bare, laying all these details out in front of Mickey, whose expression hasn’t softened in the least. But he knows it’s important – Mickey has to understand that things have changed. He isn’t dangerous to Yevgeny anymore.
“You’ve got to fucking be kidding me.” Mickey rubs his hands down his face, the drying blood streaking across his cheek. He opens his mouth to say something more, snaps it shut, and when he finally speaks again, Ian gets the distinct impression he’s skipped over what he was originally going to say. “And you think Cu – the guy you saw – was a hallucination?” Ian nods, once, and Mickey actually laughs. “Jesus Christ, you really have lost your damn mind.”
“Excuse me?”
“He was there, alright? He was there, you really saw him, you didn’t hallucinate shit.” Mickey looks up at the sky then, his shoulders shaking for what Ian can only assume is laughter.
Ian doesn’t know how to respond. His mind’s in overdrive now. Dylan was there, it was real, and suddenly all Ian can think about is that he was wearing Mickey’s boxers. The same pair Ian himself had worn more times than he remembered.
The air changes then, and it’s hard for Ian to breathe. There’s desperation in his eyes when he looks at Mickey again. “You do know he’s a whore, right? A prostitute? People pay him for sex.”
Mickey laughs at him again, the sound that Ian once looked forward to now causing him pain. “Judgment from the amateur porn star? Really? That’s fucking rich.”
“Mick –“
“Fuck you.” Mickey takes a small step forward then. “What the fuck I do – what the fuck I pay for or don’t – it isn’t your fucking business.”
The realization slams into Ian’s body then as if Mickey had just sacked him. Mickey’s his customer. “No –“
But Mickey isn’t listening anymore. He takes another step forward, his jaw clenched. “You’re a real piece of fucking work, you know that? Oh, I don’t like the medicine –“ another step “- it makes me feel bad –“ he’s only inches away now “-boo fucking hoo for my psycho ass brain, better fucking dump my bitch of a boyfriend so I don’t have to take them –“ now his hands are on Ian’s chest, and he shoves hard against him “-but what the fuck, guess I’ll still take them anyway!”
Ian stumbles but retains his footing, and he side steps Mickey’s reach again, scrambling backward. But then Mickey’s at him again, and with another shove, he’s got Ian up against the wall. “So that’s it, right? It was just a fucking excuse? It was never about the pills, was it? Was it?” He slams his forearm across Ian’s chest as he repeats himself, pinning Ian against the wall. Their faces are only inches apart, and Mickey’s eyes are ablaze with a rage that Ian’s only seen directed at others before. “You piece of shit.”
They’re both panting, and Ian wants so desperately to explain to Mickey. He didn’t use the medicine as an excuse – he hates it, he hates every single second of taking these pills. But he can’t not take them. Not when the alternative means hurting people, and seeing his loved ones mangled and bloody and realizing no one else knows it’s real. And that it was never just about the pills – he left Mickey for so much more than that. Because Mickey didn’t understand who Ian really was, because Mickey had waited so diligently for a boy who was never coming home…because Mickey told Ian he loved him and nothing about the person Ian was now deserved the love of the one boy whose love really meant anything at all.
“I fucking hate you,” Mickey growls at him now, and so unexpectedly, Ian feels relieved, and yet he so desperately wants to fall apart now. Because he can see, from the walls in Mickey’s eyes, that he’s really and truly done it now, and Mickey’s gone for good. It’s all he’s said he wanted for months, but Ian suddenly feels so alone.
“I’m sorry.” The word escapes his lips in a strangled choke, and Mickey jams his arm forward into Ian’s chest at the words.
“Shut up. You shut up.”
When he thinks of it later, Ian can’t recall who moved first. Maybe it was Mickey, maybe it was Ian, but suddenly the force of Mickey’s face against his smashes Ian’s head against the bricks. And if their fight earlier had felt familiar to Ian, kissing Mickey again is like returning his soul to his own body. Mickey’s hands are gripping either side of Ian’s face so tightly, and Ian’s own hands grip around Mickey’s back, pulling his hard against Ian’s body, as if they can meld into one body if he only applies enough pressure.
But then, Mickey’s shoving away from him, and Ian’s hands drift back to his sides as if he’d never touched Mickey at all.
Mickey’s shaking his head, his eyes wide, his thumb trailing over his lips. “You’re fucking dead to me, Gallagher,” he says, his voice no more than a whisper. “If you ever come near me again, I swear I’ll make you dead to the rest of the world too. I mean it. You stay the fuck away from me.”
And then Mickey Milkovich is gone – literally, figuratively, emotionally…gone. And Ian wants to be okay with this. Because after all, this was what he’d said he wanted. This was the price of being better than Monica. It meant letting go of the people who expected something more of you than you were capable of being. It meant doing the things you hate to keep everyone else safe, and not letting anyone stick around who doesn’t have to, because they’ll only get hurt.
And that’s all Mickey was – a hurt, wounded little bitch.
Ian wanted to be okay with it. The whole way home, he told himself he was. Hatred was nothing more than Ian had to expect from the boy who’d once so desperately clung to his phone, begging Ian to see the truth – I’m worried about you. I love you.
Ian wanted to be okay, because really he hadn’t lost a damn thing that day. He and Mickey were no less together than they’d been the day before, because they weren’t together at all.
But as Ian walked into the house, forcing his legs up the stairs and ignoring the greetings from Debbie and Liam on the couch, he felt the heaviness of his heart. It was too heavy to stand, and it crushed his lungs in a way that made it nearly impossible to breathe, so he collapsed into the bed, the covers pulled tight around him.
Ian wanted to be okay with losing whatever little shred of love Mickey Milkovich had for him, but he wasn’t. Because Ian loved Mickey, and no matter how hard he tried to deny it, he knew the truth now – all he wanted was to get Mickey back.