Chapter Text
The bedroom was still dark, split by a single line of orange from the streetlamp outside, slicing through the broken blinds. Dust floated in it, slow and silent, drifting like it had nowhere to be.
Mickey lay flat on his back, arms tucked behind his head, jaw clenched so tight it ached. He held himself rigid, like if he loosened even a little, something inside him might spill out — something sharp, something he didn’t want to name.
Sleep hadn’t come. Again.
The ceiling above him was cracked, water stains bleeding out in jagged shapes. He stared at it like the lines might rearrange themselves into an answer. But they never did. They just stared back, blank, reminding him that another night had passed with nothing but the weight in his chest for company.
The silence pressed heavy. Too heavy. Only the occasional car outside broke it, headlights flashing weak against the blinds. Pipes groaned through the walls like the whole building was aching with him. His chest rose sharp, shallow, like if he let it sink too far, the world would cave in.
He hated this part — the hours when it was too quiet to distract himself, too dark to pretend he had somewhere to be. Nothing but him and his head, and that was always the worst company.
Next to him, Ian was turned toward the wall, the curve of his back familiar even in the shadows. His breathing was steady, slow, the kind of rhythm most people would’ve believed. But Mickey knew better. He could always tell when Ian was faking sleep — the way his shoulders were just a little too stiff, the way the breaths came measured, like counting. Ian never could fool him, not here, not like this.
Mickey swallowed, throat dry. The thought had been chewing at him for weeks, maybe longer. Every time Ian brought up the future — offhand, casual, like it wasn’t a live wire in Mickey’s gut — the question sat heavier. Tonight, it clawed its way out.
“Y’know,” Mickey muttered, voice low, almost too quiet, like he was afraid it’d echo in the silence, like saying it louder might make it more real. “You ever think… I’d be a shitty dad?”
The words hung in the air, heavy, sour. He didn’t look over. Couldn’t. His jaw worked as he stared at the cracks above him, chest tight like the sentence had cost him air.
————————————————————
Ian shifted slowly, head turning on the pillow. His voice came out half-rasped, thick with the edges of sleep and disbelief.
“What?”
Mickey didn’t repeat it. His eyes stayed locked on the ceiling like it held him hostage, jaw clenched, shoulders stiff under the blanket. The words already felt like a mistake, hanging in the air like smoke he couldn’t wave away.
Ian blinked through the dark, propping himself a little higher on his elbow. “Where the fuck did that come from?”
Mickey scoffed, a sharp, ugly sound that didn’t match the knot twisting in his chest. “Forget it.” He tried to roll his voice flat, dismissive, but it landed heavy instead, strained at the edges.
“Nah,” Ian said softly, but there was weight behind it, that stubborn tone Mickey knew too well. “Say it.”
The room stretched quiet again. A long pause, tense and loaded, broken only by the hum of a car passing outside. Mickey’s jaw worked hard, muscle twitching, teeth grinding down. His hand curled into a fist under the blanket, nails biting into his palm until he could almost feel the skin breaking. Maybe if he pressed hard enough, the sting would swallow the words back down. Maybe if he hurt himself just a little, he could keep the other hurt from spilling out.
It didn’t work.
“Just thinkin’,” Mickey muttered finally, his voice low, rough like gravel. “That time you brought it up. Kids and all that shit.” His throat bobbed, his breath uneven. “I didn’t say it then but—”
He cut himself off, pressing his tongue hard against his teeth. Saying it was like pulling a thread he wasn’t sure he could stop unraveling.
Ian didn’t push, not yet. He just watched, waiting, patience stretched thin but steady.
Mickey swallowed, the sound loud in the quiet room, and forced the words out anyway. “You really think I wouldn’t fuck it up?”
The question sat there, sharp and raw, like glass dropped on concrete.
————————————————————
Ian pushed up onto one elbow, blinking heavy but awake now. His hair stuck up in soft, messy spikes, his face shadowed in the streetlamp glow. “You think I got some magic dad handbook hidden under the mattress?”
“You’re already actin’ like a fuckin’ therapist,” Mickey muttered, eyes fixed hard on the ceiling. His voice came out sharper than he meant, a defense laced into every word.
Ian snorted softly, the corner of his mouth twitching. “That’s not how it works.”
“Still.” Mickey chewed at his lip, teeth worrying the skin until it stung. His chest was tight, every breath clipped short. “I hit people when I get scared. I shut down. I act like shit don’t matter. You want that around a kid?”
“Hey.” Ian’s voice sharpened, firm now in the dark. “You’re not your dad.”
“Yeah?” Mickey let out a rough laugh, empty, brittle. “’Cause sometimes it feels like it’s just buried under my fuckin’ skin. Waiting. Like—like one wrong day and I’m him all over again.” His hand twitched where it lay on his chest, restless, aching to move, to punch something, to claw the thought out of himself.
Silence again. Heavy, suffocating. The kind that pressed into his ribs until he thought he might choke on it.
Ian leaned closer, elbow bent under his cheek as he looked at Mickey. He didn’t look away, even when Mickey turned his head to dodge the weight of that gaze. Ian just stayed there, steady, eyes sharp and soft all at once.
“You want a kid?” Ian asked finally, voice quiet but carrying, cutting through the noise in Mickey’s head.
Mickey hesitated, throat working. The question sank like a stone, pulling him down deep where all the shit he avoided lived. Then he scoffed, lighter this time, a fake laugh he hoped could shake it off. “Nah. I can’t even take care of a fuckin’ plant.”
The lie hung thin between them. Mickey’s chest still felt like it might split, but his mouth twisted like he’d won something anyway.
Ian didn’t smile. He just kept looking at him like he could see right through the dodge.
————————————————————
The weight of it sat between them, thick and raw. Neither of them spoke for a long stretch, the hum of the street outside filling in the silence. Ian let it breathe before speaking, his voice softer now, almost cautious.
“Alright,” he said finally, “then maybe we start with something easier.”
Mickey turned his head slowly, suspicious, eyes narrowing through the half-dark. “What? Like what?”
“I dunno.” Ian grinned, sudden and boyish in a way that didn’t fit the heaviness of the room. Maybe that was the point. “Maybe a dog.”
Mickey squinted at him like he’d just suggested they start a fucking knitting circle. “A dog?”
“Yeah.” Ian stretched, settling back against the pillow with deliberate ease, his arm folding behind his head. “Like a little test drive for your emotional capacity.”
Mickey stared at him, face caught somewhere between disbelief and irritation. His chest still felt tight, but now it was twisted with something else—confusion, maybe, or the edge of a laugh he didn’t want to give up.
Ian kept going, grin widening like he knew he’d already gotten under Mickey’s skin. “We could get one of those big-ass Rottweilers. Or like, a Belgian Malinois. Real intimidating motherfucker.”
“Oh yeah?” Mickey’s voice came out dry, skeptical. “So you want a cop dog?”
“Hell yeah,” Ian teased, eyes glinting in the slice of orange light from the blinds. “You walking around with some beast on a chain? The whole South Side would clear the sidewalk. No one’d mess with you. Not even Lip.”
Mickey let out a short laugh in spite of himself, sharp and reluctant, shaking his head. “Yeah, that’s what I need. A fuckin’ tank with fur.”
“Exactly,” Ian said, smirking in the dark. “And if it eats one of the neighbors, we just pretend it’s a stray.”
Mickey rolled his eyes, but the corner of his mouth tugged up anyway. “You’re an idiot.”
“Mm,” Ian hummed, flipping back onto his side with the ease of someone who knew he’d won. He tucked his arm under his pillow, grin lazy and satisfied. “You love it.”
Mickey stared at him a long beat, watching the way the grin softened around Ian’s mouth, the way his body already settled back toward sleep. The tightness in his chest hadn’t gone away, not really, but it felt less like a fist and more like a knot now. Still there, still fucked, but looser somehow.
He snorted, turning his face back to the ceiling, though the corner of his mouth still twitched upward. “Yeah,” he muttered, too quiet for Ian to really catch. “Maybe.”
————————————————————
Mickey’s smirk faded after a second, but the mood had shifted. The heaviness in the room wasn’t gone, not really, but it had been knocked sideways by Ian’s stupid grin and his even stupider dog idea. The tightness in Mickey’s chest eased, just a notch. Enough to let air in without it scraping raw on the way down.
He exhaled slow through his nose, shoulders sagging against the mattress. The fight in him was still there, simmering under his skin like it always was, but for once it wasn’t eating him alive.
He rolled onto his side, back to Ian, eyes tracing the cracks in the wall. He still wasn’t going to sleep. His body was too wired for that, too used to lying in the dark with thoughts chewing holes in him. But at least he’d stopped sinking deeper into the kind of place where he couldn’t claw himself back out.
Behind him, Ian was already drifting, his breathing evening out into something steady. Mickey could feel the warmth radiating from him, the solid weight of him in the bed. It was stupid how much that helped, how much easier it made the room feel.
Mickey stared at the wall another long minute before dragging a hand down his face. A dog. The idea rolled around in his head, ridiculous and stubborn, refusing to leave. He could already picture it — some loud, needy mutt tearing up the apartment, shitting on the floor, chewing up the couch cushions. He’d hate it. He knew he would.
But then again… maybe not.
Maybe there was something to be said about having something that wasn’t family, wasn’t blood, wasn’t tied to all the shit that came before. Something small enough, dumb enough, that it might actually need him. That might look at him without fear, without judgment.
The thought twisted, uncomfortable but weirdly warm too. He shifted on the mattress, pulling the blanket up rough over his shoulder, and let his eyes close even though sleep wasn’t anywhere close.
Maybe, just maybe, the idea of a dog didn’t sound like the worst thing in the world.