Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It had been a few weeks since Ian had noticed the way Mykyta's attention lingered a little too long on one kid’s name, Jordan, whenever he talked about school. It wasn't terribly overt, not in the way that an adult or older teenager might talk about someone who had caught their eye, but for their fourteen year old son, Jordan’s name came along with just a tad of hesitation underneath the brightness in his voice and the softness around the edges that hadn't been there before with any of his other friends. 

Ian didn't press. He knew if he made too much of it, Mykyta might clam up, turn away, and Ian desperately wanted not to be the kind of parent whose son felt safer lying to him than telling the truth, and even though the signs were unmistakable, they made something inside Ian ache with the memory of his crush on Mickey, all those years ago when he was only a year older than Mykyta was now.  He remembered the confusion of it, alongside the danger of being queer on the South Side, and even though he told himself that things were different now, that Mykyta had never attached a pronoun to Jordan’s name, Ian liked to think that he and Mickey had built a household where falling in love wasn't something to hide.  Still, the thought of his son navigating attraction, in any way, made him wary, as he knew it scared Mickey as well.

It was for that reason that he found himself, one weekend afternoon, when Mickey was out dealing with depositing some of the cash from their security and deliveries business to the bank, rooting through that one box in their closet that was up on the highest shelf where little hands couldn’t reach.  

They’d expanded their sex toy collection significantly since moving out of their West Side apartment.  After buying their house, only a few blocks away from Lip and Tami, and paying off their bank loans, their collection began to grow.  First it was only a drawer, then two, then two and a half…and then one of Mickey’s random cousins abandoned their four year old son on their doorstep before proceeding to commit suicide-by-cop a few months later.  After the first time they realized Mykyta had the ability to open drawers, and also enjoyed joining them for morning cuddles, their toy collection was sorted and relocated into locked containers, which were then shoved up onto the top shelf of their closet.  

It had taken years for Mykyta to truly settle in, for them to chip away at the defenses that came with a Milkovich childhood.  At first, Ian had thought love and safety would be enough, that once the boy was brought into a stable home, the rest would follow on its own, but it hadn’t been that simple. The scars of neglect and volatility had lingered, shaping everything from the way Mykyta hoarded food in his room to the wary silence he carried in unfamiliar situations. Still, bit by bit, those walls had come down and by the time he turned eight, Ian had begun to believe that they had reached a turning point. Half his short life had been spent in chaos and squalor, but the other half had been spent with them, and that balance seemed finally to tip toward something steadier, as though the child had chosen to put down roots in the soil they had given him.

Not that it had come without its upheavals. When Debbie announced she was having another baby, with whatever partner happened to be nearest at the time, and didn’t want it, Ian’s longing for an infant of their own had almost undone everything. Ian had watched the way Mykyta stiffened in those first weeks, the way his eyes followed the infant with something like suspicion. He recognized that look - it was the quiet fear of being replaced - but once Mykyta began to understand that Clayton was not a threat, not some usurper meant to erase him, the tension gave way to something else. Against the odds, their boys became close. Mykyta learned to guide Clayton’s small hands, to be patient with his endless chatter, to share the kind of afternoons Ian had once thought impossible.

Sometimes, watching the two of them together, Ian thought back to the offhand way Mickey had once shrugged and said they could always, “pick up a few strays.” At the time, it had sounded like one of Mickey’s half-jokes, the kind he tossed out when he didn’t want to admit the truth of his own longing, but years later, here they were, their lives bent around that very promise. Mykyta had been a stray in every sense - angry, half-wild, and unwanted - but now he was legally theirs, Lip pulled some documents and had seen to that. Clayton, too, and what Ian had once dismissed as a throwaway comment, had given them a real family of their own.

Digging through their well-hidden box, wrapped in neon orange duct tape to denote that it was mostly toys rather than assorted gear, with no words that fourteen or six year old eyes could read on the outside, Ian found their least offensive dildo.  None of the ones that were alien-looking, hyper realistic, extra large, or otherwise detailed, but a bright yellow silicone one with a green base.  Ian supposed that it was meant to be a banana, in that ridiculously undetailed way that it was formed, but at the time, he’d bought it for Mickey because it was the cheapest thing that the sex store sold, and after a particularly bad round of adjusting medications, he knew Mickey had needed something in him yesterday.  Somehow, it had survived in their collection all these years, though probably out of nostalgia more than practicality since Ian couldn’t remember the last time they used it.

But it would work for what Ian wanted it for.  It was not detailed, not obscene, and relatively normal sized, perhaps even smaller than normal sized, though Ian had a bad frame of reference.  Still, he brought it down to the kitchen and scrubbed it raw with soap until his knuckles went red, then sent it through the dishwasher twice, watching it flop and clatter against the rack with each cycle before scrubbing it again. 

Even then he still felt ridiculous. Ian only knew that, though he couldn’t be certain where his son was at, and though the last thing he wanted was to rush him into anything sexual (God, the opposite), he needed to make sure that when the time came, Mykyta would know how to put on a condom properly, how to protect himself from STIs and HIV, and how not to stumble blindly the way Ian once had.

When Ian was convinced that the yellow dildo was as clean as it could be, he finally sat down with Mykyta, and placed the dildo and a few condoms on the table between them.  Mykyta eyed it like it might sprout legs and walk, his shoulders braced as though he was waiting for a blow instead of a conversation.  Ian remembered that posture, he’d lived in it once, too, and that was the thing that steadied him as he cleared his throat twice before speaking. 

“Okay,” Ian started, then stopped, running a hand through his hair, “first off, this isn’t - this isn’t a punishment, alright? You didn’t do anything wrong. I’m not sitting you down here because I think you’ve been sneaking around or messing with people already. That’s not what this is about,” he tapped his fingers against the table, restless and worked up, but knowing that this was an important thing that he was doing, “it’s just, you’re getting older. You’re at the point in your life where this stuff matters, where it’s better you hear it straight from me than from kids at school or, God forbid, your uncle.”

He looked at his son, making sure the words landed. Mykyta’s mouth tightened, but his eyes flicked from Ian to the table and back, uncertain but listening.

“So this is,” Ian gestured at the yellow silicone on the table between them, “just like learning to drive stick shift. Awkward at first, but important.” 

Fuck, he was fucking this up.  His son was looking at him like he’d finally cracked.

“This,” Ian began, dragging a hand across his mouth before gesturing at the square packet, “is a condom. You’ve probably heard about them already, yeah? Health class, or kids talking.” 

Mykyta gave a tiny shrug, neither confirmation nor denial, so Ian continued, “okay, well, this is the real deal. It’s what keeps you safe. Stops you from getting someone pregnant, and it protects you from diseases too. You don’t ever skip it, no matter what somebody says.”

Ian picked up the condom, turned it between his fingers like he was back in training himself, adding, “first thing, you don’t just rip it open with your teeth like in movies. Wrapper’s tougher than you think, but the rubber isn’t. You use your fingers, you tear along the edge, slow, careful, so you don’t poke a hole in it before you’ve even started, and when you get it out,” he mimed a little pinch in the air, awkwardly precise, “you pinch the tip. Always. That’s for air, so it doesn’t pop. Hold it tight, then roll it down all the way. If it doesn’t unroll easy, you’ve got it backwards, don’t force it, just flip it and start again.”

Mykyta was staring at the table now, but his ears had gone pink and Ian kept going, steady, “size matters too. Too small and it’ll break, too big and it’ll slip. You get the right kind, the right fit, and you use one every single time. No exceptions, no excuses.”

Finally, Ian hesitated, exhaled. He didn’t want what he had to say next to come across like an accusation, but Mykyta needed to hear it, “you don’t owe anyone anything, understand? You’re the one who decides. You take it out, you put it on. That’s yours to control.”

Only then did Ian reach for the ridiculous banana-yellow practice prop he’d been saving, trying to lead into this conversation carefully unwrapping the packet with fingers that suddenly felt too clumsy, like this was some test he was destined to fail.

Ian’s fingers slipped on the wrapper, and he muttered "shit" under his breath.  He and Mickey hadn’t used condoms together in…quite a while, and the mechanics were messing him up.  His paws were bigger than they used to be, and even though he could build legos like the best of them, apparently this was his new kryptonite. 

 Mykyta snorted, eyes darting to the ceiling, the floor, anywhere but the banana-yellow dildo, though he stayed rooted to his chair.  He wasn’t running away from him, and Ian knew that his son was listening, and maybe more than anything else that they covered, the most important part was the reality that he was trying his hardest to ensure that their son wouldn’t make the same mistakes that he had.  

“Listen,” Ian said, voice steadying as he ignored the condom and the wrapper for the time being, “nobody gets to push you past your limit. Ever. You say stop, they stop. Period.” 

He held his son's gaze then, his words no longer clumsy but deliberate, passing down the armor he'd needed at fourteen and never received.

Ian took a breath and reached again for the wrapper he’d been messing with earlier, narrating again, “see, clean opening,” before he removed it from the metal packaging and pinched the reservoir tip between his fingers, saying, “always hold here, so there’s space at the top. Roll it down with your other hand, all the way,” grabbing for the yellow dildo and doing exactly what he said, “then you do whatever you’re going to do, then, when you’re done, you hold the base so it doesn’t slip, and slide it off carefully.” 

Ian finished his demonstration, rolling it back up with the same deliberate precision, before tying a knot in it and dropping it in the trash.

“Simple,” he said, though his ears burned, “not glamorous, just what you do to keep yourself safe, yeah?”

Mykyta’s lips twitched, caught between embarrassment and a kind of incredulous amusement.  Still, when Ian nudged another wrapper toward him, Mykyta didn’t balk and instead just opened it carefully, slower than Ian had, then mimicked the pinch-and-roll, his brow furrowed in concentration. The silicone wobbled on the table, but he got it on, and then off again, his movements cautious, deliberate.

“Good,” Ian said, surprising himself with how much relief he felt, “that’s it. Just, practice makes it less awkward,” he gave a short laugh, rubbing the back of his neck, “and you can, uh, throw that out now.”

Mykyta did, silent but not stiff anymore, the line of his shoulders easing for the first time since they’d sat down.  Mykyta wasn’t a bad kid, he never had been. If anything, Ian sometimes wondered if the boy’s quietness and careful way of moving through the world were the natural product of a childhood where he had learned to keep himself small, unnoticed, safe. It wasn’t shyness, exactly, he had friends, and he knew how to hold his own in conversation, but there was always that edge of watchfulness in him, as though he expected the ground might shift at any moment. 

Even though they weren’t related, Ian recognized himself in their kid because he’d carried that same edge for most of his own adolescence. It wasn’t the kind of thing you shook off just because the years had rolled on. Which was why, when it came to certain lessons, especially like this one, Ian knew he couldn’t afford to be lax. His son deserved not just the chance to make mistakes and grow from them, but the tools to avoid some of the worst pitfalls, and so Ian had forced himself to step into this awkward, unsteady role of the parent who had to talk about sex, boundaries, and responsibility.

Their boy hadn’t argued, and Ian was relieved there had been no anger or slammed doors, no attempt to wriggle out of the conversation entirely. If anything, Mykyta almost seemed relieved, even if he didn’t quite know how to say it. He sat there, flushed and uncomfortable, and finally said, in that small, uneven voice, “I’m glad it’s you doing this, Dad. Not Papa.”

The words hung in the air longer than Ian expected them to, and he gave a small laugh, almost instinctive, because sometimes laughter was the only way to break the tension of moments like these.

“Why’s that?” Ian managed to ask, keeping his tone light but not joking.  He was genuinely curious why.

Mykyta shifted, looking guilty for having said it aloud as his shoulders bunched and he ducked his head, mumbling, “I don’t know.”

“You do,” Ian said gently.

For a moment, it looked like the boy might stay stubbornly quiet, but then the truth began to slip out in fragments, “it’s just…kids at school. They say stuff about Papa and Aunt Mandy.  They…they know things. About when Papa and Aunt Mandy were little.”

Ian didn’t push, but he nodded for him to go on.  Over the years, Ian had learned things from Mickey, the things that had happened behind the closed, or sometimes not so closed, doors of the Milkovich household, and while Ian was sure that Mickey still hadn’t told him everything, the neighbourhood had a long memory, and Ian hated that Mickey and Mandy still hadn’t faded from it.  

“They say Papa… he got beat up. A lot. That his dad was…” Mykyta hesitated, lowering his voice, “…bad. Really bad, and that’s why Papa’s… y’know. The way he is sometimes,” Mykyta swallowed hard, “they asked me if…if…if Papa does those things to me!  I told them no Dad, every time, I promise!  But I didn’t want to say that to him. Didn’t want him to think I believed it.  That he, you know, would do that.  Or that I was scared he…you know…would.”

Ian felt something twist inside him - protectiveness first, sharp and clear. His son shouldn’t have to carry the weight of half-told stories about his father and aunt, shouldn’t have to sift through whispers and gossip when he was still so young, and yet, sorrow pressed in too, for the boy in front of him and for the man who lived beside him. Mickey had worked so hard to be more than the childhood he was given, had fought tooth and nail to avoid repeating what Terry had drilled into him, but no matter what they built in the present, the past was always there, feeding whispers into other children’s ears.

Ian reached across the space between them, resting his hand and arm on the kitchen table between them, saying, “listen. Some of those stories are true, but none of them change who your Papa is now. He’s not his dad, not even close.”

“I know,” Mykyta said quickly, earnest, “I do! I just…I didn’t wanna mess it up. Saying the wrong thing to him.”

“You won’t mess it up,” Ian assured him, “you’re his kid, and that’s the one thing in this world your Papa’s proudest of.”

They let the silence stretch then, not awkward but steady, as though the quiet itself was part of what Mykyta needed. Ian wanted to wait until he knew Mykyta was done, because maybe that was the only way to counterbalance the noise of other people’s stories, by showing him that his safety didn’t hinge on who said what outside their home. Ian couldn’t erase Mickey’s past, nor stop the world from repeating it in careless ways, but he could remind his son, again and again, that the man raising him was not the boy who had once been brutalized the way he had been.

Finally, Ian shifted at the table, rolling one of the empty wrappers between his fingers, saying, “I need you to hear me on this, Myk. Nobody - nobody - has the right to touch your body without you saying yes. Not friends, not strangers, not even family. Even me. If you tell me ‘no,’ I stop. That’s how it works.”

Mykyta’s brow furrowed, his voice small but insistent, “even you?”

“Especially me.  Me and Papa,” Ian said, “loving someone doesn’t give you ownership. Your ‘no’ always counts. Always.”

The boy nodded slowly, chewing at the inside of his cheek. Ian went on carefully, “sex, it can be fun, it can be beautiful, or it can be weird and awkward - that’s normal. But it can also be weaponized, and people can twist it into something ugly, something about control instead of care. That’s why knowing your boundaries, and respecting other people’s, matters so damn much.”

He hesitated a moment before adding, “and the practical stuff, that anyone with a uterus can get pregnant, no matter what their gender is. Desire doesn’t stick to the boxes people try to put it in, and condoms aren’t just for straight boys with girlfriends. They’re for anyone who has a dick, anyone who has a hole. They’re for keeping yourself safe.”

Mykyta’s ears went pink, but he gave a quick nod, asking quickly, “but what about if you don’t know what they’ve got?”

“No,” Ian said firmly, “it’s for whoever you end up with, it doesn't matter the gender. What matters is protection, respect, and honesty.”

The boy fell quiet, considering when he asked, “did Aunt Fiona give you and Uncle Lip this talk?”

Ian let out a breath, half a laugh, “no, not even close. The South Side I grew up in was a world where nobody talked about it until it was already too late. I learned in parking lots, bathrooms, the backs of stolen cars. I learned from guys who lied, or pressured me, or hurt me. That’s why I’m sitting here now, having this talk with you, because I want you to know better. To do better.”

Mykyta shifted, curling his legs up on the kitchen chair, “what if…I don’t know what I want yet?”

“Then you don’t know,” Ian said, gentle now, “that’s fine. You don’t have to decide today, or next year, or anytime soon. What matters is that you get to figure it out without someone else deciding for you.”

His son gave another nod, slower this time, as though the words had weight. His voice, when it came, was uneven but steady, “I’m still glad it’s you telling me this.”

He felt a laugh rise in his chest, half relief and half something else that he didn’t know how to name, shaking his head and assuring his son, “your Papa loves you so much Myk, but I’m glad that you’ve listened to me as well as you have.” 

That finally pulled the faintest smile from Mykyta, small and fleeting but real. Ian let the moment sit as he realized he hadn’t just been talking to his son. He’d been talking to the fourteen-year-old version of himself who had never gotten this talk, who had always wanted someone to break the silence.

Chapter Text

That night, after they had finally drifted off, Ian’s body gave in to sleep but his mind did not. He slipped into something that wasn’t quite a dream, not in the way most people meant it, and not exactly a nightmare either. Nightmare sounded too far removed, too fantastical, as though it belonged only to the dark inventions of imagination, because rather, what he sank into was different, he knew it as soon as it began. 

He’d tried to explain it once to his therapist, how he had always believed that a nightmare, terrible as they could be, came from nowhere, a kind of fiction your brain cooked up just to scare you, but this was a flashback. A flashback that had gotten tangled in the machinery of sleep, and what made it worse, was, unlike a nightmare, he couldn’t argue with it, couldn’t wake and shake himself into the comfort of saying it wasn’t real, because it had been real, and he still knew every sound, every smell, every touch that came rushing back.

Even worse, Ian knew he was asleep. Some corner of his mind kept repeating it like a useless mantra, trying to tell himself, “you’re dreaming, you’re dreaming, you’re safe in your bed with Mickey,” but the words carried no weight.  His body didn’t listen and instead the old swamp of the flashback pulled him under again.

Kash is suddenly there with him, framed in the worn doorway of the house he once shared with Linda. Ian blinks and realizes he is sitting on the edge of the bed, that bed, his old sneakers scuffed against the threadbare carpet, the curl of smoke rising from Kash’s fingers, the cigarette he’s just plucked from Ian’s lips now between his own. Overhead, the weak bulb in the ceiling flickers, stuttering shadows across the room, and each flare of light catches Kash’s grin, that crooked mix of mischief and menace Ian once mistook for charm, softening it for a heartbeat before sharpening again into something far more dangerous.

Ian’s pulse stutters. He wants to move toward him, wants to feel that burn of familiarity again, but something in Kash’s eyes is colder than he remembers.

Kash steps forward and presses his mouth to Ian’s, stubble scraping unpleasantly. He tastes of the pork rinds Ian had swore off, and as Kash pulls away, his voice curls against Ian’s ear. Ian can’t make out the words over the pounding in his head, but he knows the tone, the filthy jokes, nicknames, words that once felt private but now cut like blades, now that Ian has seen their history for what it was.

Kash’s hands slide beneath his shirt, thumbs digging hard into his waist and Ian flinches, his throat closing. He tries to speak, but no sound comes, and Kash’s grip only tightens.

“You want this,” he murmurs, and Ian’s head nods even as his mind screams no.

Kash’s face ripples then as his skin melts like wax.  Ian presses his eyes closed, trying to remind himself that, “this has to be a dream, it has to be,” as Kash reforms into Ned - gaunt as ever as his bourbon breath sears Ian’s nose.

 “You know how this goes,” Ned says, voice flat, eyes deader than Ian remembered them being. Shadows crowd behind him, no longer reminiscent of Kash’s house, but rather silhouettes from neon parking lots, back rooms of clubs, and alleys. Ned’s hands press down on Ian’s chest, laughter buzzing in his ears as he kicks, claws, but Ned’s body is heavy, pinning Ian.

Other faces flicker past then, blurring and reforming until Ian can’t tell where one ends and the next begins. The retired staff sergeant who ran the ROTC program leans close, too close, like he only did with Ian, smiling kindly and promising a future before his grin collapses into the bark of a drill sergeant, the man’s spittle flying as he bellows orders Ian can’t obey.  Caleb strides forward next, his fire department uniform pressed sharp as glass, helmet tucked under one arm, eyes gleaming with the same hungry weight as the others. Trevor follows, shoulders wrapped in a blue, pink, and white cape, his expression equal parts pleading and accusing, before Cole appears, bleach-white hair glowing and ghostlike, lips curled in a smirk that promises nothing good.

They continue to circle him, orbiting closer with every heartbeat, their bodies colliding and melting together until they form one faceless mass. Hands snatch at him, rough and greedy, boots scrape concrete, and belt buckles snap and clang in the dark.  Shame crushes him flat. Ian shrinks under it, tries to fold himself small, invisible, but their voices rise together, one horrible chorus pounding against his skull.

You want this.  You deserve it.  This is all you’re good for.

The world tilts and Ian is ten again, being slammed into the sagging couch of his childhood living room, Frank’s hand locked around his throat. The cushions groan under the impact and Ian’s vision narrows to red heat as his lungs seize. He tries to scream but only a rasp escapes before the scene cracks and suddenly, he’s on a non-descript stained carpet, shirt ripped open, Kash hovering above him again and smirking.  Men swarm like vultures, slapping his face, pressing between his legs, with each touch tearing open old wounds. Ian shrinks smaller and smaller, until he’s almost nothing.

Then everything collapses into black. A void swallows him whole, dense and airless, whispering in a thousand tongues that this is all he’ll ever be, hollow, ruined, a shell no one can save. The voices curl into his ears like smoke, sinking into his bones. 

This is who you are. This is what you were made for.

A door slams somewhere in the dark, the crack of wood against the frame splitting through the void like lightning. Ian jerks, eyes forced open. Light sears against him, not gentle but blinding, and when his vision clears, he’s no longer drifting in blackness. He’s standing near a couch, in a room that feels more like a gapping stab wound than a memory.

The wallpaper is peeling in long, curling strips, nicotine-stained yellow against plaster. The front window is half-boarded, nails jutting rust-red. Two sets of curtains hang crooked, one floral, one plaid, mismatched like everything else in the place and the air reeks of mildew and old smoke, heavy enough that Ian feels it coat his tongue.

Next to him, on that sagging couch, is Mickey. Smaller, younger, his shoulders drawn up, eyes wide and unblinking, his whole body tight as a wire pulled to snapping.

Ian’s stomach twists because he knows this moment.

He knows it before it begins.

For months, years even, it haunted him, slipped into his dreams like glass under skin. He thought time would blunt it, dull the edges, but here it is, sharp as ever. Nearly two decades later and the day still claws its way back, demanding to be lived again.

Pain explodes across Ian’s cheek and jaw with the first punch, then the second, then the third. Terry’s fists are iron, each blow cracking through bone and ringing in Ian’s skull. Before Ian can even catch a breath, Mickey hurls himself at his father’s back, yanking him away, and for a second it works, until Terry snarls, twists, and slams Mickey against the floor, turning that rage where he always had, onto his own son.

It plays out the way it always has in Ian’s head, the way it had in life, and every night for years afterwards. Terry’s voice, a string of snarled curses and filth, blurs now into nothing, the words dissolved by time, but the hatred behind them still vibrating through Ian’s chest, and then the gun is there, black and unyielding, pointed at him. Ian feels it like he did back then as Terry forces him into the sagging loveseat. He’s just a kid again, hands trembling and heart hammering as he’s forced to watch Terry pistol-whip Mickey until he crumples, blood streaking his face, his body limp. 

Ian can’t move. He wants to run to him, wants to take the hit instead, but the barrel of that gun pins him in place as surely as nails through his skin.

Time unspools strangely. Mickey drags himself back toward consciousness, his face a wreck of bruises and torn skin. Ian’s breath hitches when the door slams and another figure is shoved inside. A girl, hardly older than they are, her eyes wide and glassy, her body trembling in terror. Svetlana.

Terry barks something sharp. She flinches, then turns to Mickey, her voice flat, mechanical, like she has no choice left to give.

This time, in this dream, Ian watches as Mickey shakes his head, small, tears shining at the edges of his lashes, and then, before Ian can blink, the scene tilts and the fabric of her dress is gone in a blink, her body thrown on top of Mickey’s, his shorts yanked away. Mickey’s eyes, blank and deadened, cut sideways to Ian, and Ian knows that look, he’s seen it before, that hollowed place Mickey goes when he leaves his own body behind.

“No,” Ian tries to rasp, to claw at the edges of the nightmare, “not again,” but the scene doesn’t bend, doesn’t change. It forces him to relive it, the worst afternoon of his life, replayed with merciless precision.

The walls of the dream buckle, sagging inward, and suddenly Ian isn’t in his own body anymore. He floats above, watching everything at once.  Himself sobbing into his palms, Terry looming over them all like a grotesque shadow, Mickey’s small frame stiff beneath Svetlana, his gaze hollow and fixed, but something is different this time.

At the edge of the scene, in the doorway to the kitchen, two more figures stand.  Their own sons. Not infants, but not grown either, caught in some weird in-between. Mykyta clutches Clayton’s wrist, his face pale, eyes wide and shining like glass. Terry hasn’t beckoned them, but still, they’re there, as though summoned by the violence itself, dragged into the nightmare against Ian’s will.

Their eyes lift to young-Ian’s where he’s trapped on the love seat, pleading silently.

“Run!” Ian tries to scream from his boyhood self, lungs straining, throat raw, but no sound comes. 

The boys don’t move at first. They only cling to each other tighter, Mykyta’s hand gripping Clayton’s wrist so hard his knuckles whiten, as though he could anchor them both in place by sheer force of will, but then Terry crooks one thick finger, and the command is absolute. 

Step by step, they obey, their footsteps thudding across the warped floorboards, each one echoing like a funeral march.

They move toward a version of their fathers they had both tried so hard to outrun, ghosts of men they had fought to bury, to erase. They had moved heaven and earth to carve out a life beyond this, a life where cruelty was not inherited, where fists did not speak louder than love. A life where they would never again be dragged into rooms like this, never forced to face this kind of violence from their parents, or feel it twisted into the hands of their lovers.

And yet, here it is. The nightmare drags him back, refusing to let them escape, stitching them into the same old wound their fathers never healed.

As they stand there, Ian thrashes, his chest splitting open with the force of his heartache, but he can’t get up, can’t shout, and can’t save them.

Then, everything collapses into black.

Chapter Text

Ian jerked awake, lungs burning as his own ragged breath filled his ears. For a split second, long enough to feel real, he was certain he hadn’t escaped, that the dream was still unfolding, the next blow or command only a heartbeat away. The dark around him pressed close, just like it had moments before, and his chest seized with the expectation of impact. Ian braced himself, waiting for it until the relative silence of the Southside held and he realized the room was not the same.

The bedroom blinds only let through the faintest of city light across the walls and Ian blinked hard, searching for details that he would be able to recognize, for something to prove to him that this was not Kash’s room, not the Milkovich house, not the Gallagher kitchen, but here, in their own house, now. 

Then, the pressure against his ribs shifted, and Ian realized it wasn’t the nightmare holding him down at all, it was Mickey. His arms were tight around Ian’s torso, locked in place like they’d been there the whole time, clinging through Ian’s thrashing without letting go. Ian swallowed, the sweat cooling tacky against his skin, and only then did the truth slot back into place and he truly believed that he was in their bed, their room, their life. 

“What the fuck, Gallagher?” Mickey’s voice was low, rough with sleep, but there was an edge of worry in it. His arms tightened, almost instinctively, “you were kicking like someone set you on fire, I couldn’t wake you up.”

Ian leaned his head back against the pillow, trying to catch his breath. His throat was dry, raw, but he managed, “it was just…just a dream.”

Mickey didn’t say anything for a beat, but Ian could feel the stare, sharp even in the dark.  His husband was unconvinced, asking, “wanna tell me?”

Ian thought about brushing it off, but the images still clung to him, the sound of voices he didn’t want to hear, faces he’d rather forget.  His body wasn’t letting him off easy either as his stomach twisted, sour and unsettled while his muscles seemed to be trembling like he’d run miles in his sleep.

He didn’t really want to answer Mickey, and so the silence stretched before Ian realized that he wasn’t going to get out of this conversation so easily and forced the words out anyway, whispering, “Mykyta’s…he’s the age I was. When it started. With Kash,” his voice was uneven, but once he said it he couldn’t stop, “I kept seeing it, all of it, stuff I used to think was just part of it, you know? Like it was fine, like I wanted it, but I didn’t. Not really. And now he’s…fuck, Mick. He’s that age. He’s right there.”

Mickey shifted closer, chest pressed against Ian’s back, lips brushing his shoulder as he spoke, “you said yes at the time, doesn’t mean it wasn’t wrong.” His voice was steady, but Ian could feel the tension in his arms, the way they clamped down harder like he could keep Ian from slipping back into the nightmare.

Ian closed his eyes, guilt already clawing its way up his throat. He hated bringing this up with Mickey, hated how every time it dredged up that other thing, the thing they almost never talked about.  Because the truth was, most of what Ian had gotten up to back then was him being a dumb, unsupervised, horny gay kid who thought older guys paying him attention meant he was wanted. Misled, sure.  Too young, absolutely.  Regardless, he’d gone along with it because nobody had told him not to. That part had always twisted in his gut, made him feel complicit in his own wreckage, and now, laying here, tangled up with the man who had been forced into horrors so much worse, who had never had the chance to pretend it was a choice, Ian felt the weight of his words turn heavier, almost wrong.

Ian closed his eyes, shaking his head, “yeah, but I didn’t say no either. I don’t even know if I could’ve. And if Mykyta ever…,” he cut himself off, the thought too much to even finish.

Mickey’s breath was warm against his neck as he said, “don’t go there, don’t do that to yourself,” another pause, then quieter, almost a whisper, “I think about it too. Every goddamn day, but what the fuck else can we do except be here? Teach him. Make sure he knows he can come to us. That he doesn’t gotta hide it or figure it out alone like we did.”

Ian let the words sink in, his chest easing only slightly under Mickey’s grip. It wasn’t a solution, not really,  and the fear was still there, rooted deep, the kind that wouldn’t just leave because they wanted it to, but he knew Mickey was right. They couldn’t keep their son locked away from the world.

He thought back to those first weeks with Mykyta, ten years ago now, when they’d both been flying blind. A kid suddenly theirs, a boy with wide eyes who needed them to be steady when neither of them had ever had that themselves. He and Mickey had stayed up at the kitchen table for hours every night after convincing the toddler to sleep, sometimes arguing, sometimes just sitting in silence, trying to figure out what kind of fathers they could even be. 

What they would and would not do. No screaming, no fists, no threats. Food on the table, always. A door that locked from the inside, not the outside. They had written out rules like promises, promises that meant they could keep Mykyta safe, keep him fed, keep him loved, and at the time it had felt like standing at the edge of something enormous, bigger than either of them knew how to hold.

But now, a decade later, Ian could still feel the weight of those vows. They had done the things they swore they would. Mykyta had grown taller, stronger, confident enough to roll his eyes and argue back, but the fear still pressed at Ian’s ribs all the same, the gnawing worry that no matter how many rules they set for themselves, no matter how much love they poured in, it would never be enough to keep the darkness out.

Sometimes, though, the old shadows crept back. Ian remembered all those years ago when he’d thought he’d lost Mickey for good, not just physically, but in the way that mattered most. After Terry had forced that marriage on him, after Mickey had turned blank-eyed and cold with Svetlana, after Mickey had shown nothing for the son he’d had with her.  Ian had been terrified that the boy he’d fallen for, the reckless, stubborn, bright spark that was Mickey, was gone - that Terry had finally stamped it out. Ian had carried that fear like a stone in his gut for years, certain he’d never get the original Mickey back, not really.

He never had, not truly, but at the same time, seeing Mickey with Mykyta and Clayton these past years, Ian wondered if maybe, in all the ways that mattered the most, he actually had. Against everything stacked against them, he had Mickey back. Not the hollowed-out man he’d seen back then, but the one who laughed too loud at his own jokes, who barked at the boys to hurry up in the mornings but still lingered by the door to kiss Ian’s temple before driving them to school. The one who slipped his hand into Ian’s under the table just to remind him he was there. That boy Ian had loved all those years ago, he was still here, still fighting for their little growing family.

For a second, the thought rose in him, what the dream had ended with, the way it had circled back to Terry and Svetlana. To an afternoon where they had gotten so close to believing that hope could be enough. That they could have outrun all the things that had been thrown at them…and they hadn’t.

After they first got Mykyta, when the shock of suddenly having a kid in their apartment finally settled into something steadier, Ian had insisted they both get into therapy. At first Mickey fought it, called it bullshit, but Ian hadn’t let up. They owed it to Myk, Ian told him. They couldn’t drag the old shit into this kid’s life without at least trying to untangle it. 

So they went. One day a week solo, one day a week together, and on those joint sessions Mickey had started talking, halting at first, then steadier as the months passed. He told Ian about things he’d never said out loud before, the way Terry had warped his childhood, how the abuse had started so young that Mickey couldn’t remember a time without it. He told Ian about Svetlana too, how she had forced herself on him over and over while Ian was at Basic, and again while Ian sat locked away in Cook County. 

Ian had sat through those sessions clenching his fists so hard his nails dug into his palms, but he’d stayed because Mickey needed to say it, and because Ian needed to hear it.

Now, years later, lying in bed beside him, Ian almost let his own memory slip free. He almost told Mickey about the nightmare, almost mentioned the one afternoon that was still burned so vividly into his mind that his body had reacted as though he were back there, but he stopped. They hadn’t spoken about that day in years, about Yevgeny in even longer, about Svetlana longer still, and even though Terry was dead now, incapable of laying another hand on anyone, Ian knew the ghost of him could still cripple Mickey in a way even the fists never had. 

The fists, at least, Mickey had learned to fight back against, but the rest of it? The things he’d locked away? Those had carved something into Mickey that even time hadn’t worn smooth.

Ian knew Mickey’s therapist had given Mickey ways to cope, to keep the door sealed without shattering, and he knew too that Mickey leaned on those tools harder than he let on. The last thing Mickey needed was Ian wrenching that door open in the middle of the night, dragging the old rot back into their bed when the sweat of Ian’s nightmare hadn’t even dried yet. So he swallowed it down. He tucked the memory back into the dark, told himself it was enough that Mickey was here now, warm against his side, his breath steady, and he didn’t say it.

For a long time they stayed that way, tangled together in the dark, the house around them quiet except for the creak of pipes and the hum of the fridge downstairs. Ian let his breathing follow Mickey’s rhythm, slow and steady, and for a moment it almost worked. His body loosened bit by bit, the ache in his chest fading under the warmth of Mickey’s arms wrapped so tight it was like he was holding Ian shut against the world.

Eventually, Mickey’s grip softened. His breaths evened out, the small twitch of his fingers giving him away as he slipped back under. 

Ian didn’t move. He stayed perfectly still, his eyes wide open in the dark, pinned there by that horrible edge he knew too well, that keyed-up hum under his skin, a leftover static that wouldn’t let him settle, layered over the sinking weight pressing down on his chest. Like waiting on the edge of a drop he couldn’t see, knowing it was there, knowing it could come without warning.

The thought of sleep felt dangerous, like giving in might tip him over into an episode, but the idea of staying awake felt worse. His body wanted one thing and his mind fought the other, both of them pulling until his muscles ached with it. He swallowed hard, blinking into the dark. He hated this part, the stretch of hours where Mickey could rest and Ian couldn’t, where his own brain turned on him, whispering that he was closer to falling than he wanted to admit. 

He shifted his hand against Mickey’s arm, grounding himself with the heat of him, and told himself he’d make it to morning. Just until the boys woke, just until there was coffee and sunlight and noise to hold him steady, then he’d be fine.

Chapter Text

When they finally woke again to the shrill buzz of Mickey’s alarm clock rattling against the dented wood of the bedside table, Ian found himself staring at the ceiling, his eyes tracing the faint cracks in the plaster he’d memorized a hundred times over, unsure if he’d ever actually fell asleep again after his nightmare or if he’d just drifted on the edge the rest of the night. His chest felt tight, not panicked, just heavy, like someone had laid a weighted blanket over his whole body, his arms sinking into the sheets as if they didn’t quite belong to him, and his legs, though not numb nor asleep, barely felt connected.  Ian wasn’t sure if he could’ve made himself move even if he’d tried.

Giving it five more minutes, Ian bargained with his body like he used to bargain with Lip over the snooze button when they were teenagers. Before he got sick. Reaching sideways, he nudged Mickey in the ribs with the tip of his finger causing his husband to grumble, rolling halfway over to smack the alarm off with a practiced motion, then flopping back down with a sigh.

After a few more moments of just enjoying the silence, Mickey pushed himself up on his elbows, belly pressed to the mattress, and studied him in that way he always had with that look that skimmed past Ian’s words, past his smile, and straight into the shadows underneath. Ian knew what he was doing. Gauging, measuring, trying to decide if this was a morning they could salvage with coffee, or if it was the kind that would end with a phone call to Ian’s doctor, maybe even a trip to the clinic and an afternoon laying on Lip’s couch in his garage while Mickey ran deliveries.  

“I’ll be fine, Mick,” Ian whispered, his voice rough, tugging at Mickey’s arm until he could get his fingers around it. He didn’t quite feel it yet, not in his bones, but he made himself believe it anyway. This wasn’t the creeping edge of an episode, he knew the signs well enough by now, but rather, it felt more like the price of a bad night’s sleep, his body exacting its toll for what his dreams had put him through. Something to keep in mind, certainly, but nothing to panic over yet.

“Okay,” Mickey said after a beat, like he was filing the words away for later, for double-checking. He leaned down, brushing a kiss against Ian’s temple, lips warm against his skin, then rolled out of bed with a grunt, “I’ll get the boys up.”

The bedroom felt bigger without him in it, quieter in a way that made Ian’s pulse echo too loudly in his ears. Slowly, he shifted upright, every movement reminding him of the drag in his limbs. Pulling on his grey camo pants and black shirt, Ian hated how clumsy his fingers were with the hem, as though even fabric was too heavy to manage. The late-summer air drifting through the open window was warm enough that he could leave his jacket draped over the chair, vest still on its hook. He’d need them both once the deliveries started, but for now the thought of adding extra weight to his frame felt impossible.

Upstairs, Ian heard the light scatter of feet across the hallway, and a moment later came the faint scrape of a dresser drawer and Clayton’s muffled voice, high and cranky, as Mickey worked on coaxing their first-grader into clothes that weren’t pajama pants. Ian smiled faintly at the rhythm of it, and he knew that in another minute or two, Mickey would be back at Mykyta’s door, banging louder and threatening to dump a glass of water on their teenager’s head if he didn’t move.

Rolling on some deodorant, Ian shuffled into the kitchen, his body still not entirely his own, though his legs were less leaden than they’d been.  His arms ached with that strange weakness leftover from thrashing in his sleep and Ian wondered if maybe Mickey hadn’t been exaggerating after all. 

Still though, Ian set his jaw and pushed through it, flicking on the coffee pot and breathing in the first hiss of steam as he stared at the coffee pot, trying to ignore the weight of his phone in his pocket. 

Would it hurt to phone his doctor, even if he didn’t think he was going into an episode, just in case?

He hadn’t had an episode that had fully slipped past them in a little over five years. The last time had been when Clayton was going through a brutal sleep regression at around one year old, keeping them up at all hours of the night. Coupled with the strain of trying to expand their security business, Ian had skyrocketed and then crashed hard. At first it didn't even look like much, just more energy, less sleep, and insisting that since Mickey was doing so much for them during the day, that Ian could stay up with Clayton at night…and then still do deliveries like normal during the day.  Ian remembered how sharp he felt, how focused, how convinced he could do everything at once, from staying up with Clayton, to house repairs, all on four hours of sleep stretched over days.

But the swing had come fast, and when it hit, it was a free fall. He remembered the hollow pit in his stomach, the way food suddenly lost its taste, the way every sound in the house felt like it was scraping against his skull.  The evening of the swing, he hadn’t spoken, his body moving through the motions while his mind whispered that none of it was real, that he wasn’t real. The next morning he’d opened his eyes, stared at the ceiling, and calmly wondered if maybe he’d died overnight and had been left there, skin cooling beside his husband. 

That was when they both realized how far he’d gone. Mickey hadn’t known how bad it was until Ian said it out loud, until the words “I think I might already be dead” left his mouth in that flat, steady tone. 

After that, it had been doctors, meds, adjustments, therapy. 

A long crawl back to level ground.

Since then, they’d managed to catch the signs early, between Mickey spotting the little tells, Ian being honest when thoughts of his invincibility, of that old recklessness, came creeping in. They had plans now, and back-up plans. Safety nets. 

But the memory of that last crash never left him, and so maybe it wasn’t the worst idea to phone someone.  Not because he was crashing, not because the ground had already given way, but because it reasonably could.  

Maybe he should call his therapist, at least. Talk about the dream, maybe get a short script for sleep meds on record, just in case the nights got worse. That was manageable, that was proactive, and that was part of the plan.

Yeah. That’s what he’d do.

Coffee first, though. Coffee, pack lunches, get breakfast on the table, and once Mickey got the boys to school, then he’d make the call.

Now, with a mug in his hand, Ian realized how the kitchen was quiet but full of little hums that came with owning a house of this vintage.  The low rumble of the fridge, the tick of the cooling pipes, the faint morning breeze rustling the curtains, it reminded him of the house where he’d spent the first twenty-five years of his life, but in between all that, they’d made this one a home in a way that the other never could be. 

Ian moved automatically, setting out bowls and spoons for cereal, then shifting to the counter where their four lunchboxes waited in a neat row.  He knew Mykyta could handle his own lunch, hell, the kid had proven it plenty of times, sometimes with more flair than Ian ever managed, but there was something about doing it for him still. Ian thought of Fiona then, how she used to slap peanut butter between slices of Wonder Bread and shove it into plastic bags, quick and haphazard because she had half a dozen other fires to put out at any given time, and yet still, making sure that they had something in their bellies come the noon bell. 

They hadn’t even had apples most days, let alone thermoses of reheated lasagna, and so Ian sliced the fruit carefully, parcelling the apple wedges out into four containers, tucked six cookies into four bags, and then packed everything into the lunch kits so tight that nothing would rattle loose. He tucked the thermoses in last, snapping the lids closed and walking them towards the front door. It was nothing flashy, not really, but he liked to think that one day, years from now, maybe when Mykyta or Clayton were packing lunches for their own kids, they’d remember this. Not the food itself, but the gesture, a way of saying I love you at noon on a school day, slipped between the sound of the bell and the chatter of friends.

Once he was done, Ian sat at the kitchen table with his hands wrapped around his mug, though the coffee inside had long since gone cold. He hadn’t bothered to warm it again, but he held on anyway, palms pressing tight, as if the weight of the mug might tether him more firmly to the morning than his mind wanted to.

After running downstairs with Mickey in tow, their boys moved in and out of his line of sight, and the kitchen filled with the clatter of familiar sounds, the scrape of a spoon against a cereal bowl, the snap of a backpack zipper being forced closed over too many books, the sharp crinkle of a cereal bag being manhandled. Clayton’s chatter bounced through the room as he dug for the toy at the bottom of the cereal box, practically tipping the whole thing into his bowl, while Ian caught Mykyta rolling his eyes in a way only a teenager could, so loud, but not saying anything at all.  Their first-grader’s elbow stuck out at a dangerous angle, milk splattering when he leaned too far, but he was undeterred as their ninth-grader clinked his spoon steady against the side of the bowl, a rhythm Ian found himself tracking without meaning to.

It struck Ian then, how different mornings had looked when he was Mykyta’s age. The Gallagher kitchen had never felt steady, never smelled of coffee or toast. He remembered tossing his paycheck from Kash’s place into the old shoebox on the counter, hoping it would stretch far enough to cover bills, heat, groceries. Breakfast was rarely cereal and milk, most days it was just a heel of bread, chewed on the way to school while making sure Carl and Liam had something in their stomachs first. He’d stand in front of the bathroom sink, sniffing yesterday’s shirt to decide if it was wearable, scrubbing dirt or dried blood from his face under a faucet that sometimes sputtered air instead of water.

And beneath all of that, there had been the pulse of something else. That restless rush of wanting to be older than he was, the quiet wanting he hadn’t yet known how to name, the way their whole world could tilt sideways with one phone call, one fight, one night. He had lived every morning waiting for something to explode.

Now, looking across his own kitchen, Ian saw a different picture. His boys sat in a house that was theirs, bought and paid for. They ate full bowls of cereal with 2% milk, bellies filled out by regular meals, shoulders broadening with steady growth. Four lunches already packed, two vehicles in the driveway waiting to take them wherever they needed to go. Even Mykyta, with his summer job at the pool, got to keep the money for himself at the end of the day instead of feeding it into a shoebox to keep the lights on.

Socks scuffed across the linoleum, the fridge door thunked open and shut, and Mickey’s voice carried over top of it all, reminding the boys not to forget their homework or their gym-strip.

Ian still sipped from his mug, viscerally aware that if he didn’t say something soon, Mickey would start to worry.  Mickey knew him too well not to hear everything that Ian couldn’t say, but Ian couldn’t bring himself to break the silence yet, not when his eyes were locked on his boys.  He traced their outlines the way some people read prayers, like memorizing every detail could act as its own kind of protection while they were out in the world during their school day.

Clayton, still a bit small for his age, but not as small as Franny had been, squirmed around on the chair that seemed too tall for him, his legs swinging, socks half-slipped at the heel.  His hair, thick and fiery red, was darker than Ian’s was now, but carried that same stubborn flame that he had once, before he’d shaved it that first time for ROTC, and was a shade that reminded Ian of a childhood he only half-remembered.

Across the table, Mykyta was starting to stretch out, gangly limbs unfolding in a way that Ian didn’t believe Milkovich genetics could carry. He slouched with the practiced ease of a teenager, sweater sliding off his shoulder, one knee bent out as if even sitting down took more patience than he had. Ian’s eyes lingered on the breadth beginning to take shape in his shoulders from a summer spent in lifeguard training, a skill that could get him through life long after Ian and Mickey couldn’t. Ian wanted that for him, the strength, endurance, and a love for fitness that would give him the freedom to choose where to go and how fast.

Ian’s chest tightened. He drank from his mug again, though the coffee was lukewarm now, and forced himself to look away. If he didn’t, Mickey would notice the way he was holding on too tight, being too off-kilter.

“Papa’s gonna leave you behind if you don’t get moving,” Mykyta said, standing from the table and brushing past Clayton who was still intent on his cereal excavation.

Ian opened his mouth, thought about telling him to slow down, to zip his bag, to double-knot his laces, that Mickey wouldn’t be leaving without Clayton, that they weren’t going to be late, but none of it came out. 

Instead, Mickey’s keys jingled as he came around the table, herding the boys to the front hall to get shoes and bags before heading out toward their truck, now parked in front of their ambulance, with a sharp clap of his hands. 

“Let’s go, let's go.  School run, then me and Dad have to get to work,” Mickey announced, the kind of half-serious, half-playful bark that made the boys move without much argument.

Ian felt Mickey brush past him, then pause. A weight settled on his shoulder first, light but steady, and then Mickey’s hand found the back of his neck as he leaned over for a kiss to Ian’s hair.  He squeezed once, then twice, quick but firm, their own way of asking without having to say it out loud.

“I’m gonna call,” Ian managed to whisper as Mickey planted another kiss on his hair.

“Alright,” Mickey agreed, “I’ll be back in thirty, then we’ll see if today’s gonna happen, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Ian agreed.  He didn’t look at his husband, the heat from Mickey’s palm said it all. They couldn’t stop time, couldn’t stop the world, couldn’t guard every doorway their sons would walk through, couldn’t prevent every up or down swing, but right now, just this morning, they were here, and they were doing what they could. 

Their boys were safe, and they’d keep them safe for as long as they could.

The door slammed behind Mickey, followed by the familiar thud of two pairs of feet racing toward the truck, voices rising in a muddled argument about who got to sit by the window. 

Ian closed his eyes, listening to the sound, memorizing it with a smile before he pulled out his phone and made the call to his doctor.