Chapter Text
Mickey’s wings have never beat the air so fucking fast in his whole life. He soars, hits every upwind he can find and cruises with the power of the cosmos behind him, rushing him on. The halo at his side dings with beautiful new magic and shines like a star to guide his way, but Mickey doesn’t need guidance. He doesn’t need the ground or the sky or maps or lights to bring him to Ian. His skin sings his direction, his heart beats wildly in his chest, and his tail whips and turns and flutters in the breeze, trying to beat Mickey to his final destination.
Miles soar past and then counties and then long, wild stretches of forest and as Mickey gets closer, things become more familiar—there was where he flew with Ian through the trees, light above Franny’s head, there was where he sat in the boxelder as Franny came to pull him from it, there was where he and Kendra stood on that awful, fateful day when everything broke apart, there in the distance is the park where little Franny used to play, there is Mickey’s old apartment, there is Derek’s, there’s the old house and there, there, oh for everything grand in the universe, there is home.
And there, before him now, is Ian, rushing from the front door as if he’s sensed Mickey and stopped in his tracks on the front lawn. Mickey spins to a stop, too, stills in mid-air and looks at him, sees him, drinks in the most glorious sight in all the universe. Because it is his Ian, his angel, with wings soft and white again, dipped in that beautiful, comforting gold, his eyes light, his skin glowing, his radiance floating up to Mickey like a magnet pulling him home. And for the first time in such a long time, for the first time in forever, there is absolutely nothing stopping them from each other, not even one small atom between them to push them apart.
Mickey aims to prove it. He dives at the same time that Ian opens his arms and then they are crashing together, rolling and tumbling down onto the manicured front lawn. The halo goes flying across the grass, but neither of them care because Mickey is in Ian’s arms, so warm and safe and right and their wings are fluttering together and Mickey’s tail has an awfully tight grip on one of Ian’s thighs, refusing to let go and it’s been so long, so very, very long since Mickey touched him like this, since Mickey poured himself into Ian so sickeningly sweet and let himself be held, cherished and cared for.
It takes Mickey a long moment to be able to sort out just what his and Ian’s body are doing, to differentiate where he ends and Ian begins, to pull apart the wild thumping of his soul from the symphony of Ian’s. When he finally clues in, he knows they are kissing. They collapsed on the ground together, sitting, but with their limbs tangled about, Mickey half in Ian’s lap and they are together. Have come together naturally, like the earth soaks up rain, like trees sprout from the ground, like the wind takes the leaves in the fall. They are together, together, their mouths moving on each other like the start of the entire world, their lips and teeth and tongues merging and falling in like the weaving of continents forming. Mickey has him. Has him in his arms. And Ian, well, Ian has him, too. And it doesn’t look like either of them are ever going to let go.
“I love you,” Ian whispers between the dancing of their mouths, “I love you.”
And Mickey says it back, so sincerely it takes his breath away, his hands cradling Ian’s neck. “I love you, too. I love you.”
Ian falls back into him again, kisses him for all he is worth with roaming hands and moving lips, his wings gathering Mickey up in cascades of feathers, pulling him into Ian’s lap and cushioning him softly and securely. Mickey moans in the back of his throat and it turns into a sigh and he could do this forever, forever and ever, but then, above it all, a little shriek followed by “Dad!”
They snap apart and Ian swivels his gaze to the porch, where Franny has come outside and is gazing awestruck at the two of them. Mickey, for his part, ducks his head into Ian’s chest to hide and Ian pulls one wing over him to cover him in a little cocoon.
“Nothing to see here,” Ian says to her. “Go back inside, sweetheart. Daddies will be in, in a second.”
Franny hesitates, turns her body halfway to the door, but Mickey sees the desperation in her eyes, the little bite to her lip. He curls himself away from Ian and stands a little shakily and then holds out his arms for her. She rushes to them quickly and throws herself against his chest as he hugs her in tightly to him. “Tell me you’re not going back,” she says. “Tell me you’re staying. I couldn’t sleep without you here.”
Ian smiles softly at them. “She couldn’t. Even with me in the room.”
Mickey bends down to kiss the top of her head. “This is the first time she’s been away from me since she was a baby. Cut her some slack.”
“Yeah,” Franny agrees and then looks up at Mickey. “He’s trying to be the tough parent. Tell him what I do with my tough teachers.”
Mickey laughs and arches an eyebrow at Ian. “She eats them.”
“I destroy them,” Franny says confidently and sticks her nose in the air.
“What a good monster,” Mickey says with a ruffle to her hair, “but Franny”
“No!” Franny says firmly and clings to him for dear life. “You’ve been gone for so long. I’m not going back to the house. Can’t you kiss him while I’m here?”
Mickey blushes scarlet at that, thinking about just what kind of kissing he wants to do to Ian, but over Franny’s head, he just arches his eyebrows. Ian shrugs at him with a smile and stands up from his place on the lawn, grabs the discarded halo and puts it up on his head. “She missed you something terrible,” he tells Mickey.
Mickey nods, but his insides are fluttering, holding his little girl close to him. She has been the center point of his life for so long now, the star around which he rotates, that it will be hard for them all to adjust, hard for Mickey to turn from a single-star system into a dual one. But it will be good, too. Because Mickey can’t imagine something better than sitting on the couch in Franny’s bedroom, Ian curled happily and warmly at his side. It’s fitting, all three of them. Three sides of a triangle.
And so Mickey gathers Franny up and walks her into the house with Ian right on his heels and the second they are in the door, Franny bursts into action, telling Mickey all her woes of the past few days, like how Lip is a crappy math teacher and no one in this house knows how to cook a good breakfast and they can’t play Monopoly with just the three of them—even though Ian admits he kind of nixed the idea because of Lip’s cheating.
Mickey and Ian sit on the couch and let her zoom around the living room, showing them this and that, telling Mickey stories, and settling back into a rhythm of her-and-her-demon. She shows Mickey the math workbook with three more pages complete and even admits to reading ten pages of her history work. She shows him a drawing she made and equations that she had scratched out on the side of a piece of notebook paper, tells him about how dumb the dog was, but how Debbie took him to the vet for a vaccine shot and she was worried.
When she tires of all the running, tires of all the jumping, but still unable to leave Mickey’s side, she grabs her book from the study and curls up on the carpet beside his feet, on her stomach with her legs sticking up, brushing Mickey’s here and there as she swings them. Mickey tells her to read out loud, and she does, interjecting her opinion between the sentences on the page.
As she reads, Mickey turns to Ian, gives him his full attention and slowly starts to blush under his hot green gaze. He swings his tail lazily against the couch, thumps it on the cushion, and ducks his head down in a wave of shyness. He doesn’t know why he’s suddenly so very nervous around Ian until it hits him that this is the first time that he and Ian have truly been on the same page, no holds barred, shining fateful love casting them in a pretty big spotlight.
Ian pulls down his halo from where it has finally come to spin atop his head again and stares at it, takes in the different color and turns it around in his hands. “You-you did this for me,” he whispers under Franny’s litany about how the cat in her book is a stupid, blushing himself and sounding for all the world awestruck.
Mickey looks at the halo and then back up to Ian’s eyes, they're striking and succulent pools that Mickey could drown in forever. “Yes,” he says, “of course I did.”
Ian blinks and looks down at the halo again. “My grace is back. I thought—I thought surely it was gone.”
“You fixed me,” Mickey whispers, placing his hands over Ians where they’re holding the halo, “and you didn’t even think you’d come back from that. You sacrificed yourself for me.”
“Yes,” Ian admits easily. “Of course I did. You’re the love of my life. Beyond that, I think. You’re part of my soul.”
Mickey chuckles softly and can’t help but smile intimately in Ian’s direction. He leans forward so that his mouth is right next to Ian’s ear, so Franny won’t overhear what he has to say. “You’re a dumb fuck. What would I be without you? How could I go on with you hurt?”
“Well, I’m not hurt,” Ian says and bends his mouth to Mickey’s ear in a mirror motion so they are sitting there, necks entwined on a couch that is not nearly as soft as the cloud that Mickey hopes Ian will lay him down on later, “Not anymore. You saw to that.”
“Of course I did,” Mickey tells him again and touches the opposite side of Ian’s neck, holding him in place.
“You went to heaven and back,” Ian swallows, “for me.”
“And you were worth every second of it.” Mickey runs his fingers over Ian’s skin and dips his hands to go over his shoulder, his arm. “Even if the clouds were awfully fucking fluffy.”
Ian laughs softly and pulls back enough to hold up the halo for Mickey to see. “Good reward, though.”
“Yeah?” Mickey says with a smile. “I fought long and hard to get that grace to you. Better be worth it.”
“Not just to me,” Ian says casually, and Mickey blinks.
“What?”
Ian furrows his brow and cocks his head to the side. “Uh, Mickey, you do realize that it didn’t all funnel back into the halo, right?”
Mickey grunts. “Then where the fuck did it go?” He says rather loudly and Franny stops reading and spins her head around, giving him quite a judgemental look for a ten-year-old.
Ian nods down behind Mickey and Mickey frowns until he spins and looks, nearly slapping himself in the face with his tail—with his new, gold-tipped tail. He squeaks and nearly gives himself whiplash from looking between Franny, Ian, and his own new appendage. Franny just rolls her eyes and goes back to her book, but Ian laughs and reaches over, grabs the spade and brings it up between them so that Mickey can thoroughly examine it. And sure enough, the thing curls its new gold self around Ian’s palm and settles down, squeezes at his hand. “That’s”
“Gold?” Ian finishes. “Yeah. And look.” He holds up the shiny gray-black halo. “I still have a little darkness. I still have part of your well. And I guess, since my grace couldn’t fill itself all the way up, it gave a little to you. So you have some, too.”
“I have grace,” Mickey spits and scrunches his nose up, makes a gagging motion with his mouth. “Blech.”
Franny laughs at him and hops up on the couch to sit by his side. Ian, on the other hand, just tsks and shakes his head. “Now, don’t be that way,” he tells Mickey and Mickey lets a self-imposed shiver cascade through his body.
“I have angel magic in me.”
Ian’s eyes twinkle pretty heavily as he says, “Well, I imagine you’re going to have to get used to that. Having angel things in you.”
Mickey widens his eyes and hisses at him to shut up, but Franny has missed that particular innuendo and is now taking it upon herself to study Mickey’s tail for her own self, pulling it out of Ian’s hand so it falls back to her. “So you’re like, an angel-demon,” she tells Mickey and then cranes her neck to see Ian. “And you’re a demon-angel.” They both turn and frown at her. “It’s like when x and y are on the different sides of the equation and then you divide by one of them.” She shrugs her shoulders and looks Mickey straight in the eye. “Your tail looks dumb now.”
Mickey glowers and smacks her face with it on purpose and she shrieks and tries to tackle him, but Mickey wrestles her in pretty thoroughly until the tussle turns into a little tired, sagging girl in his arms, spread out half between him and Ian. “I’m tired,” she tells him, “but I don’t want to go to bed. I miss you.”
Mickey smiles down at her. “Well, Little Monster, still gotta tuck you in, don’t I?”
“Yeah,” she says and her eyes light up. “Are you going to stay with me while I sleep?”
“Go brush your teeth,” Mickey tells her, avoiding the question, “and get in bed. I’ll be there in a minute.”
She scatters to the bathroom and Mickey takes a long second before he finally turns to Ian, keeping his eyes down and refusing to meet his gaze. “I’ll tuck her in,” he says and then his voice drops lower, softer, the creep of hesitation wiggling in. “... and then I’ll meet you in the guestroom?”
“Hey,” Ian whispers to him and slides his hand around Mickey’s neck, puts his thumb under his jawline and tilts up until Mickey flicks his eyes to Ian’s, wide blue meeting green. “Of course you’ll meet me in the guestroom. What’s wrong?”
“I” Mickey swallows and shrugs. “It’s stupid,” he says softly, like the living room with the worn carpet and the drapes that need to be replaced is as sacred as the start of night in a graveyard, “but I feel like—like I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. You know? This is too good to be forever.”
Ian scoots closer and pulls Mickey to him and Mickey falls against his chest, puts his head in the crook of Ian’s throat. “Fuck that,” Ian tells him, softly like the rain rolling in, “because I never want this to end and I will never let it. And if that’s what you want and you will never let it, then how can it ever stop? Look at what you’ve done, Mickey. Look at the laws of Tierney that you have bent and made your own. And look at what I’ve done, too. It’s impossible. That’s what they said to me. That’s what she said to me, Tierney, standing by her little fountain. She told me I couldn’t heal you. That I couldn’t help you. And I did. She told me I would be different if I tried. That I would never be the same. And you know what? I don’t give a shit. Because if this is different, then this is what I want.” Ian tips Mickey’s head back again so he can stare at him, so they can be present with each other, their hearts born and dying in the steady beats between them, reawakened and alive. “If loving you is different, then I never want to go back.”
“You think we can do this?” Mickey asks. “You think we can keep going like this, an angel and a demon trying to make something of each other?”
“But we’re not an angel and a demon,” Ian tells him. “We’re me and you. And me and you... we can do anything.”
“Then kiss me,” Mickey whispers. “Kiss me and help me believe it.”
And Ian does. Moves forward like the dust that swirled and formed to make the earth. He touches Mickey’s lips lightly, his own dry but soft, and although their mouths move together with the smooth ease of feathers brushing, it feels monumental, deep and solid and striking, a boulder that will never move. And Mickey’s heart opens to him, fans itself apart like it has never truly done because this man knows all of him, knows his grief, his sadness, and his terrible, awful actions. But he also knows the good things about him, too—his strength, his fortitude, the awe-inspiring and total focus of his love. And no one has ever known that about Mickey. No one has seen the good in him, not like Ian has.
And Mickey sees all of Ian, too. Sees the sacrifices he makes for his family, his ability to protect and give all of himself. He sees Ian before, as he was, distant and closed off, unable to be anything because he never truly knew himself. But here he is now and Mickey sees him, sees the film that covers his skin of six years on the ground, six years of heartache and pain and determination. Sees how he came through it all to be here and Mickey knows Ian loves him, can feel it like sunlight on his flesh. And it is reciprocated, given back, reflected until all their light and all their darkness, all their pain and all their joy, molds into this moment, into their two bodies as they move together, lips pressed into one.
Ian pulls back slowly, retreats back into himself, but his smile is Mickey’s, his hands as they touch are Mickey’s, and the flutter of his eyelashes, the pupils as they dilate, are also Mickey’s. “Meet me in the guestroom,” Ian whispers to him and gives him one last kiss. He stands and retreats, touches Mickey until the very last moment when he can’t and as he walks back into the house, Mickey truly believes that his soul goes with him, every fiber of his being.
***
Franny is so tired that she can barely keep her eyes open, so it doesn’t take long to coax her to sleep. Mickey sits on her bed and stays with her until she’s under, but he promises before she closes her eyes that he will be here when she wakes up. He tells her honestly as she snuggles in that when she goes to sleep, he’ll go talk to Ian—he knows that if she wakes and he’s not here, she’ll panic, a trait given to her by his own anxieties. She nods her understanding, and he tells her again, even after so many times, that he loves her, that she is his little monster. And tomorrow, he promises, is all hers. He won’t leave her side. Not even for a second.
When she finally closes her eyes, finally drops off, she snores instantly and Mickey knows that neither she nor Ian were lying. She only snores after great exhaustion, after she hasn’t been sleeping well for days. It has only happened twice before, colds both times, and Mickey knows now how much she cares for him, how much she’s missed him.
But he misses her, too. Even being only eight, she is his companion, the constant presence at his side. He will do anything for her, anything at all. But for now, for right now, he has a date with an angel. And that, oh that, is important, too. Because Mickey has more than just a child now. More than just a daughter to raise. He has a family that bursts within his heart and spurs him down the hallway to the cracked-open white painted door that he not so long ago sat against, trying to convince himself not to love Ian.
Ian is waiting for him, leaning against the wall just inside and Mickey smiles at him, closes and locks the door and turns, and is greeted with a ravishing kiss. “I missed you,” Ian tells him between the slide of their mouths, “the feel of your body against mine.” He pushes Mickey back against the wall and follows him, presses him into it and puts one hand firm on the wall beside them. The room ripples, sings for a second with something that isn’t the ding of heaven, but deeper, older and darker. “What did you do?” Mickey asks in curiosity, even though he can barely keep his focus off Ian’s lips long enough to process words.
“Soundproof,” Ian tells him. “Figure we’re going to be loud fuckers.”
Mickey chuckles. “Is that so?” he asks and hooks his fingers in Ian’s belt loops, dragging him in harder. Ian’s body slots to his and Mickey tingles at the hard planes of his chest, the smooth dip of his stomach and legs where they contour to Mickey’s own limbs. “I don’t think I’ll mind that.”
Ian laughs low in his throat and leans forward to nip at Mickey’s chin. “Didn’t think you would,” he growls and then goes back to kissing, back to diving his tongue inside and pushing his entire essence in, claiming Mickey in a way that makes him shiver with want. Mickey falls back against the wall and lets Ian pin him there, letting the smoothness of the surface behind him and the hot curving of the body before fly him to a place of pure bliss. Ian slides his thigh forward, presses it right into the slot of Mickey’s own legs and Mickey moans into his mouth, letting Ian catch the sound on his tongue and savor it.
“Cloud?” Mickey asks, his voice a deep purring rattle.
“Mmm,” Ian agrees in between sucking Mickey’s bottom lip for all it’s worth, “cloud. But it’s not up yet.”
Mickey blinks and looks at the bed, finds that it isn’t out and wonders how he missed that big of a detail until Ian starts sucking at his throat, nipping and biting at whatever skin he can find. “Evilyn,” Mickey breathes out, “what are you doing to me?”
“Loving you,” Ian mutters into his throat. “And fucking you.”
“You better create that fucking cloud pretty fucking fast, then.”
“No,” Ian tells him and grabs his hands, slaps them into the wall and holds them above Mickey’s head. “You create it.”
Mickey moans and thrusts his hips forward into Ian’s warm body, his tail trying to snake over Ian’s clothing where his hands can’t, before his mind grabs the words from the air like flying dandelion seeds. He frowns. “What?”
“You have angel magic,” Ian tells him. “You be the good one.” He leans close to Mickey’s ear and nips at it. “And I’ll be the bad one.”
“Fuck me,” Mickey breathes because Ian’s words and Ian’s mouth have already made him as hard as a fucking rock.
Ian chuckles. “I will. But cloud first.” He keeps Mickey’s left hand held tight to the wall, but he brings the other down. He caresses it, runs their skin together and then slowly threads their fingers. He leaves his pointer finger up and presses it against Mickey’s so they are perfectly aligned, and then points their joined hands in the bed's direction. “Think about it and will it into existence.” He leans forward and kisses Mickey’s jawline, bites at the stubble he finds there. “And do it quickly so I can have you on it.”
Mickey stares at the bed and tries to concentrate, but is distracted by Ian’s teeth on his skin again, working down the side of his neck to his shoulder. Still, somehow, he manages to point and conjure a little tiny drop of cloud that grows out into the large, bed-sized one they are used to. Only this one is different. This one isn’t white, but a deep dark red that is almost black and the bottom of it rumbles, trying to spit out little bits of lava rain. “Fuck,” Mickey says, “that’s going to ruin the bedsheets.”
Ian stops his ministrations and looks at the bed now sprinkled with little charred out circles and then laughs, full out giggling as he turns back against Mickey’s shoulder. His mirth sets Mickey off and he snorts. They stand there for a good while, chuckling at the cloud and the little Hell storm it’s creating below it before Ian gives up and starts walking backwards, dragging Mickey that way. “I don’t care what it is,” Ian tells him, “I’ll fuck in a lava river right now, but you gotta get naked. I need to have you.”
Mickey smiles at that and starts shedding his clothing, dropping them here and there, practically ripping parts off himself. Ian gets with the program, too, pulls his shirt up over his head and tosses it aside and then works on his pants until they are off and discarded. Soon they are both naked, stopped just right by the cloud. Mickey admires him, the powerful lines of his biceps and the power of his wings, the impurity of the heightened, spinning halo. He steps forward and runs his hands over them, his tail twitching to be added to the mix. His fingers spread over skin, soak into dips like wax fitting into molds and he slides his eyes up to Ian, through his eyelashes, smiles at him with all the lust thrumming through his veins.
Ian grins mischievously back and then he snaps forward quickly, grabs Mickey around the waist and picks him up, tosses him onto the cloud before he jumps there himself. It takes their weight, and it feels no different from the last one—incredibly fluffy and malleable—only instead of white, it’s dark red puffs this time that fly up from their landing, sharp little snaps of carnelian striking below. “Why are you storming?” Ian asks above him, props himself up on his hands, but otherwise stretches the length of his body out to cover Mickey’s.
“Because I love you so much,” Mickey says with a chuckle. “Because this means something to me.”
Ian smiles, open and free, and dips his head to kiss Mickey softly, just a press of their lips. “Me, too,” he admits and then slowly lets his hands release their hold on his body. His skin slides onto Mickey’s, his torso and chest and neck, until they are flat and pressed together, Ian’s weight pushing him deliciously into the soft bending of the cloud below.
“I love you,” Mickey whispers and slides his hands around Ian’s back to hold him there. “Forever. I swear it. How did I get to have you? You’re so beautiful, so strong. You never give up. You never gave up on me.”
“You didn’t give up on me, either,” Ian tells him. “You didn’t let anyone tell you that you couldn’t heal me. And for those six years... even if you were hurt, even if the fire of us was dead... there was still a spark. You kept it burning, even if it was small and hidden, tucked away inside your heart.”
“I wish I hadn’t done that to you,” Mickey tells him, cards his finger through Ian’s hair and sighs. “We lost six years of happiness.”
“And I wish I had never abandoned you forty years ago. But I can’t put those forty years on my shoulders. And you can’t put six. Okay? Whatever happened, it’s over. And right now,” Ian slides his hand up Mickey’s chest to touch his cheek, runs a thumb over it, “it’s just us. And we are happy. So let’s enjoy each other and the rest will come.”
Mickey nods and smiles. “Yes. So kiss me,” he tells Ian and beats him to it, leans up and presses their lips together. “And have me,” he whispers against Ian’s mouth. “And fuck me.”
Ian chuckles and snaps his fingers, summons a lube bottle into his hand. Mickey grins at him. “You’re good at demon magic.”
“Fucking fantastic at it,” Ian tells him, and winks with pride. He pops open the cap and slicks up his fingers, before reaching down between Mickey’s legs, kissing him softly as his hand moves into place.
“I’m waiting for you,” Mickey encourages, his tail landing softly on Ian’s wrist and helping him guide. “I’ve been waiting forever.”
And then Ian is sliding a finger inside, moving slow and deliberate, stretching Mickey open. Mickey falls back on the cloud with his eyes still locked on Ian’s face, wills his muscles to release under his hand, wills himself to relax and be with Ian like he has never been with anyone else before. And Ian takes him so carefullyslides a second finger in and works him, scissors and makes sure he is good and prepared and then, finally then, moves his limbs to lock and interweave and piece together with Mickey’s own and they are ready. Ian is ready. And Mickey is too.
Ian pushes inside and stretches him, kisses Mickey while he does it and Mickey lets stars explode across his vision, thoughts of what all of this means, thoughts of him and Ian and forever and little bitty tiny things begin to form, to settle into Mickey’s veins and keep his heart beating—things like soaring through the sky together, dipping and weaving and turning in a rhythm that is just them and waking up to each other, soft and warm and present like the one day Mickey can remember, his nose in the cloud and Ian right there, holding him close.
It suddenly seems real, seems achievable—like Mickey could really have this, have Ian above him, starting to move him in, have his hips roll up into Ian’s in a steady line, have their mouths upon one another, kissing for all they are worth, have each other naked and vulnerable, but strong and whole.
Mickey gives himself over to that, to the feel of Ian’s body above him as they slide together, the rhythm of his hips pressing forward, Mickey’s own legs dragging Ian in and then guiding him out. His tail lands softly on Ian’s back, weaves up and over it in drawn-out patterns of things like promise and repentance, then dips lower, touches Ian in places that only Mickey has ever touched. Ian gasps at the feel of the spade running over his ass and then between his legs, touching his balls as he moves inside of Mickey, who memorizes each gasp and groan pulled from Ian’s mouth. Ian grins down at him and laughs a little breathlessly at all of it, reaches between them to take Mickey’s cock into his hand, and then pushes forward to kiss him, slips his tongue between his lips and ghost over Mickey’s tongue, heavy with affirmations and sentences that jumble together until they all sound like one word, like one name, Ian, an invocation that settles down into the bumps of his tongue, the spaces between his teeth, the outline of his cheeks.
Mickey takes that moment, takes that word and lets it flow through him, drip in like honey into water and he finally lets go, finally truly releases the worry that has chewed at his mind for years. Because he believes in this, this and only this. They are grander than what their bodies are, grander than their hearts, grander than silly little things like God and fountains or the devil with her trenches. There is no fear anymore, no sadness and no regret, no anxiety or distress. There is only Ian, Ian as he strokes Mickey, Ian as he slides inside, Ian as his skin splays across Mickey’s skin like the meeting of the mountain to the valley. And there is only Mickey, only how he joins him, how he rotates his hips for Ian, how he pushes up into his hand, and how he catches his eyes, blue sky for deep forests.
They roll and bend with each other, touch and melt together as the time slips away, as Ian keeps thrusting deep inside. Mickey’s voice takes action, and he moans, to cry out the name that is now burned into his soul with the fire of forever, casting it up softly despite its power and when it’s time, Mickey whispers, “Come in me?” because he wants it, desires it, needs Ian to be a part of him forever, Ian to release as well.
“Yes,” Ian whispers against his lips and Mickey curls his whole body toward him, bows his spine and all his bones. His wings come in, cling to Ian’s back and his tail wraps around his legs, refusing to let go. Ian brings his own wings down, covers them to cast their bodies in darkness, but it is the warm, comfortable darkness of themselves and Mickey shivers with it. “Finish for me, Mickey,” Ian tells him. “Be with me forever.”
And Mickey does, as if the simple words in Ian’s breath are commands higher than the laws of physics or the splitting of the dimensions. Because for Mickey, they are. They are divine law and he comes hard between them, hard up onto Ian’s stomach and chest and Ian, with a powerful thrust inside, is finishing as well, bringing them together fully, the final locking of gears into place.
They come down together, breathe into each other in large, gasping breaths until Ian finally pulls out, finally rolls to the side. “Shit,” he says to Mickey and gathers him close, “that was…”
“Otherworldly?” Mickey finishes for him and Ian just laughs and nods. Mickey kisses his shoulder and tilts his body, snuggles in. “I love you,” he tells Ian. “More than anything in this world.”
Ian puts his lips into Mickey’s hair in a motion to kiss him, but stops, leaves them there and just breathes Mickey into his lungs. “I love you, too. And I have you. We have each other.”
Mickey smiles and takes his hand, puts it on Ian’s chest and splays the fingers out, touches as much as he can get of him. “You had me pretty well there,” he says with a chuckle.
Ian laughs, too, and nods his agreement against Mickey’s head. “And you can have me next time.”
Mickey hums. “Give me thirty.”
“Thirty?” Ian tells him and then pushes him over so that they’re both on their sides. A glint enters his eyes, shining in the light of the guestroom. “I have a better idea.” And then he reaches out, touches Mickey with just the tips of his fingers, just at his shoulder. He starts moving over Mickey’s arm, starts ghosting the fingers down and as he goes, warmth floods Mickey’s insides and a heady, sparkling thrill fills his veins.
“Fuck,” he gasps to Ian as his dick automatically starts getting hard again, “you really are good at demon magic.”
Ian just chuckles and ends it with an animalistic growl, pulling Mickey on top of him and Mickey, for his part, thinks there’s nowhere else he’d rather be.
***
Another evening, another seven o’clock, and they are flying. The sun is just beginning to set. The world is cast about on the cusp between the streaking oranges of day and the dark blues of night, and it is slightly cloudy, which serves them perfectly. They dive and weave in and out of clouds, pop in beside each other and then giggle away, like schoolchildren in the light of all of it. Ian is, as always, stronger and his wings can carry him long distances, but Mickey is quick, fast like a cobra, and he zips in and out of Ian’s path, now under his wings, now above them, now right beside, brushing together.
This is what they do now, instead, while Franny eats dinner with Debbie. This is how they spend their time, tumbling together in the open air they both love. Occasionally, they will stay inside, repeating their activities of the last six years. It lasts longer than fifteen minutes now, can turn into a regular fucking sex fest if they’re not careful, the cloud they make together dripping both lava and the water that cools it, turning into little obsidian drops on the sheets. And sometimes, too, they combine—fuck in the air on cloudy days, their wings fluttering to keep them afloat. They do it nasty, kinky, soft and sweet, hard and rough, biting and claiming, smooth like river stones. Whichever way they want. And it’s them. And it’s beautiful.
Today marks the one-month anniversary since Mickey came back from Heaven, one month with Mickey and Ian living in bliss, with Lip working on his tan and Kendra trying a new thing now, trying to figure herself out, live for no one but her. Franny is loving all of it, especially the attention she gets now from two dads that follow her around like little magnets attached to her side. They take turns at teaching, learning with her geometry and the importance of Gettysburg, and she splits her time equally between patty cake and trying to beat the number of jumping rope jumps Ian can make in one go.
And she particularly loves the new game dynamic at night, which is why Mickey and Ian stop cruising at about seven thirty, drop to the house, and help set up Life. They are too obnoxious at Monopoly, Lip tells them. It’s absolutely no fun if two parties keep practically gifting each other full sets of property. And Debbie hasn’t gotten around to buying a new Sorry game after Kendra’s rage attack on the board, so Life it is. Franny insists on everyone playing fair, just as she insists when she lands on a marriage card to put another girl into her car. Mickey doesn’t know if it’s because she’s actually intrigued by the idea or if she’s wanting to be like Mickey and Ian in some kind of sense, but he guesses she’s only ten. She’ll figure it out along the way.
They have just settled in, just really started bickering about all the setbacks they’re getting, when a knock comes on the door. They all frown and Debbie, in the kitchen, doesn’t move to answer it. Which means it must be a knock only they can hear. Lip takes the hit for everyone, gets up and goes to the door, peeps through it, and then turns back to them with a heavy frown. “Uh,” he says and tilts his head, scratches at the back of it, “Tierney’s at the door.”
Mickey and Ian both blink in surprise. “Tierney,” Ian clarifies, “As in Tierney?”
“Yep,” Lip grunts and turns back to the wood, stares at it as if it’ll catch fire.
“She doesn’t come to Earth,” Ian tells everyone firmly, but that doesn’t seem to stop the fact that Lip is still confirming through the peephole that it is indeed Tierney. He frowns and turns to Mickey, but Mickey shrugs and rises.
“Let her in, I guess,” he tells Lip, because he’s not rude enough to turn Tierney away.
Lip opens the door and swings it wide, steps back out of her way, and Tierney floats through into the living room, her aura and presence blinding with the taste of goodness. Franny, still sitting on the living room floor at Mickey’s feet with her car in her hands, narrows her eyes.
“Good evening,” Tierney says smoothly.
“Good evening,” Lip answers back and then slides his eyes to Ian as if he had expected him to chime in.
“To what do we owe the visit?” Ian asks, standing up beside Mickey and placing his body half between her and his family.
“I have come to talk to Ms. Franny,” Tierney says. “In private, if you don’t mind.”
“I do mind,” Ian tells her and then glances around to Kendra and Lip, gives a quick nod of his head, “but they can go if they want.”
“Think I should,” Kendra says as she stands, slapping at her knees as if they have dust. “Don’t want to get involved in... the thing.”
“Do I” Lip starts, swinging his head between them and Tierney, but Kendra grabs his arm and pulls, dragging him with her to the garage until it is just Franny and her dads standing guard over her.
“We can get along just fine,” Tierney tells them. “You don’t have to be protective.”
“We want to,” Mickey tells her and holds out his hand, helping Franny to stand.
“It would be best,” Tierney says with a smile, “if you”
“They stay,” Franny tells her, voice strong and firm, “or I don’t talk to you.”
Tierney widens her eyes at the brashness of children, but softens her expression quickly. “Of course,” she says, “You know who I am?”
“You’re Tierney,” Franny tells her. “I’m not stupid.”
“Do you know what I’ve come to do?” Tierney asks, but Franny never answers because a bang echoes through the house from the hallway further inside and all heads turn to find Evilyn strolling powerfully into the room, stopping only to lean casually on the wall, a grin on her face, her hands in her pockets.
“Please do,” Evilyn says, “tell us what you are here for. I am sure it is not you breaking a deal with me.”
Tierney tilts her head and shakes it slightly. “She doesn’t need to be eighteen to know to make a choice.”
“Oh, sure,” Evilyn says and pushes herself from the wall. “That’s why I’m here.”
“Where did you come from?” Tierney asks, her voice sharp.
“The back door,” Evilyn says with a smirk and turns to Franny as she walks even with the group. “More than one way to skin a cat, eh, kid?”
Franny frowns at her and reaches up, threads her hand in Mickey’s. Mickey squeezes all of his strength into her and then pulls her over, sits down on the couch and brings her with him. His tail curls up around her shoulders protectively and Ian sits on her other side, flanking her, prepared.
“It’s time, Franny,” Tierney tells her. “You know in your heart which way you wish to be. All you need to do is tell us.”
“And think,” Evilyn jumps in, “of all the fun you’ve had with your teachers. Think of what the lava rivers look like, fueled by their own light. She comes with rules. I don’t. And do you like rules?”
“Stop trying,” Tierney clips, “to convince her. There is nothing to say anymore. Nothing to do. Her choice is natural. She just has to make it. So Franny,” Tierney turns to her, eyes deep and dark, smile pulled in and radiating at the corners, “make it.”
Franny frowns and darts her gaze between them, and Mickey won’t stand for this. If he is anything, he is the bump in the road between them and her; the curtain set to separate her from their hate. Evilyn keeps talking again, whispering to her that she knows that Franny wants to fly by the stars, and loves the way Mickey’s leather wings feel. Tierney cuts in again, says that Franny must merely decide and their voices get louder, dart in and out of one another and there is no silence, no space between sentences, no room to breathe. Only noise, so much noise, so much sound in the den of their wake, but through it all, Mickey tells her simply, “Franny. Look at me.”
And she does. Snaps her gaze away, tunes them out like they are gnats and she is the sun, burning through the skin of their beings. Mickey bends to her, puts his hands on either side of her cheeks and tells her, “You say what you want to say. You do what you want to do. What is in your heart. Because the only thing you can do wrong here, the only thing you will regret, is if you don’t do what you want to do. Don’t carry it with you. So tell them. Tell them what you want them to know.”
Franny stares at him for the longest time and Mickey locks his gaze with hers, sees her shrewd and keen eyes as they darken into living, breathing pits themselves. She is so sharp, so cutting, and Mickey has every faith in her that even at ten, even having lived only a fraction of a life, Franny is far smarter than any of them. And she proves it to him.
She turns, stares them both down and says with all the power of her lungs, with the fiber of her being vibrating away from any frequency that Mickey has ever learned, “No.”
Evilyn tilts her head back and to the side, away from Franny, and Tierney, for her part, simply blinks. “No?” Tierney asks.
“No,” Franny says and sets her jaw hard. “No. You,” she points to Tierney, “are a stupid, mean, irritating person. And you’ve made my dads cry. And I will not follow you.”
Tierney narrows her eyes and opens her mouth, but Evilyn cuts in, cackling. “Guess I won,” she says, a second too early, because before either of them get a sentence out, Franny is speaking over them. And even if she is ten, even if she is human, they listen.
“You’re stupid, too,” Franny tells Evilyn. “And you’ve made my dad's cry, too. And so I’m not following you, either.”
Evilyn scoffs. “Little girl, you have to decide.”
“I don’t,” Franny tells them and stands. “I don’t have to do anything you say. And I never will. Because I don’t believe in either of you. I don’t believe in anything you have and I’m different. That’s why you both like me, because I’m different. You know, like I know, that I am a dot outside of your axises. I’m not x like you think I am, I’m y and that means you can’t tell me what to do just like you couldn’t tell my dads what to do. They’re outside of you. They didn’t do what you allowed them to because you can’t control them. And I am outside of you. And I’m different enough to know what I am. And what I am is not you,” she points to Tierney, “and not you.” she points to Evilyn. “I’m me and you can’t make me choose. Because you are one and negative one and I’m zero. And you can’t change who I am anymore than zero is one.”
They both try to speak, but Franny shuts them out, turns her back on them and says to Mickey, “Daddy? Can we keep playing now?” Mickey blinks at her and starts to say her name, but she shakes her head. “They go away,” she tells him, “if you don't feed them. They just go away.”
So Mickey follows her, moves down onto the carpet next to her small frame and she picks up the game again, continuing it with just the three of them. Ian slides down, too, and joins, reaches over behind Franny’s back and threads his fingers with Mickey’s. And soon enough, Franny is right. They go away. Evilyn yells, but Mickey doesn’t listen. Tierney demands in her cloyingly light voice, but Ian doesn’t acknowledge. And they go. Just like that. They leave. Because they know there is nothing here for them. No crack in Mickey’s armor to slip through, to widen him out until he shatters. And no forced loyalty in Ian’s veins, either, no dyingly strong will to please. There is nothing but them, but the three of them, one and negative one and the zero between them with her car filled with two pink pegs.
They finish the game, end it a long time after the front and back doors have shut. And when they are done, Mickey takes Franny to bed, pours her in and lulls her to sleep. As her eyes close, he turns to Ian slowly in the low light and catches his gaze, diamond sharp and oceans deep.
“Do you think she’s right?” Mickey whispers to him. “Do you think that we are all outside of their influence?”
Ian shrugs and stares down at her, tilts his head and studies the outline of her body. “I’ve never seen Tierney surprised before,” Ian tells him. “But she was tonight. Couldn’t you feel it? And Lip... Lip can’t help but follow. And that’s what it’s been like for all of my life. Autopilot. I do everything she says, everything she wills. And nothing that she doesn’t. But tonight... tonight,” he whispers, “I could do anything. I defied her.”
“Me, too,” Mickey agrees in that same soft, sacred whisper, the surrounding darkness made holy purely by the presence of three bodies rotating around one another. “I’ve been feeling it for awhile now. Like… like we’re outside of them.”
“Like they can’t even touch us,” Ian agrees. “And they can’t. How could they? We broke the rules. And maybe when we did, we broke them.”
Mickey nods and turns his head to Franny again, her body still in sleep. He thinks of her eyes, her shrewd eyes that seem to get darker by the day. He thinks of Tierney’s, the pits she carries, and Evilyn with her smile, the screaming lines etched into her skin. Ian moves forward to stand over Franny with him and together, they pause there. One guardian for the power in her spirit. Mickey thinks back to that first day, back so very long ago when he left Hell to find her. And he realizes, for all Evilyn and Tierney’s faults, that they were right about one thing. One tiny thing. She is the key to everything. Just not the everything that they had thought she would be.
Mickey takes Ian’s hand beside his and squeezes, tangles their fingers together like hope and love and Ian squeezes back, brings his mouth down to kiss Mickey’s shoulder and then there they are. In their forever. Creating a space in the room humming with power, fueled only by the mutual fire in all of their veins. Mickey breathes it in, takes it into his lungs, his tail ticking the time, and feels it. Feels Franny sleeping not a foot away. Feels Ian with his strong, powerful wings and the curve of his body slid up next to Mickey’s.
And the whole void of the Earth is wide to them, the whole spinning of the sky. And Mickey, with his family surrounding him, complete and safe here in a capsule of true burning belief, is finally free.
***
For once, Mickey beats Ian to the cloud cover, his wings little zippy balls of energy. Ian grumbles behind him good-naturedly and rushes to catch up and soon they both break through the wisps of the sky until the ground below them is blurred in fog. “Mickey,” Ian says with a huff and a smile, “you just fucked me not an hour ago. Seriously? Again?”
Mickey cackles and spins, curling his wings around himself as he goes. Below him, a tunnel of red clouds forms and spreads out into an area large enough for their bodies. When he’s done, he drops, falls down against it in glee, his wings spreading out to catch his body against the cloud. “Come on, baby,” he says with a little flip of his tail, curling the spade and beckoning Ian down. “Don’t you want me?”
Ian snorts and dives, falls against Mickey’s body with a grunt. “You know I do.” He reaches up and runs his fingers through Mickey’s curls, catching his thumb around a horn. “I love fucking you in the sky.”
Mickey laughs and leans up on his elbows, puts his mouth right up against Ian’s and lets their noses slide together. “I’ve got something special in mind.”
“Special?” Ian asks, his eyes wide and his pupils opening up into dark passion.
“Yeah,” Mickey says with a smile that moves against Ian. “Something we’ve never done before.”
Ian scoffs. “Mickey, we’ve run the gamut through all the kink books. What in all Heaven and Hell haven’t we done?”
“What we’re about to do,” Mickey answers cryptically and slides his tail up to run across Ian’s arm, curl around his bicep and squeeze. “Gotta get me naked though.” His voice drops into a whine. “I am so horny for your cock…”
Ian laughs. “You little slut,” he tells him, but then leans forward and captures his mouth, kisses him passionately as he lets loose of his magic, grows the cloud until it covers both of them, wrapped up like a cave in the middle of the sky.
Ian starts working on their clothing, popping buttons and untying ties as he goes. Mickey is pliant for him, shivering at the feel of the fabric leaving his legs, his chest, his groin. Ian’s comes free just as easily, their bodies moving to remove the barriers like a river drilling rock into sediment. They are one, the two of them, in the way they move. Sinful and holy, as light as the air and as dark as the stirring of their own hearts.
When Mickey is naked, he hooks a leg around Ian and draws him close, lets their bodies slide together and snap into place. Ian moans into Mickey’s mouth, his tongue touching all the corners of Mickey’s soul. His fingers are still in Mickey’s hair and Mickey’s have moved to Ian’s hips, digging in and working his way across the skin as if he can crawl inside of it. Mickey’s tail rolls up and down Ian’s spine, feather light like a ghost print, and Ian’s wings rustle their feathers as he shivers with it.
“I’ll never get tired of kissing you,” Ian whispers against him, his cock already hard and willing to breach Mickey. Mickey smiles at his lips and dives in for another, tongue and teeth spelling out his passion. He lifts his hand and grabs Ian’s, lets his fingers play with Ian’s thumb and index finger until Ian grins into the kiss in understanding. He snaps his fingers loudly and the bottle drops into Mickey’s hand, already open and ready for what Mickey so desperately wants right now.
Mickey wastes no time in dipping his spade in lube, swishing it down to his own entrance and working it slowly inside himself while Ian fucks his mouth open with his tongue and presses Mickey’s body down into the cloud. Mickey moans Ian’s name and it’s not a word, not even the formation of it against his lips, but Ian still understands and Mickey feels it, knows it, when Ian moans his own back.
Mickey works his tail inside, just the tip at first and then further, the full spade pushing it and filling him deliciously. But not as good as Ian will, not as good as what Mickey has in mind. While Ian keeps kissing him, Mickey takes the bottle again and slicks up his fingers, reaches down to add his hand to the mix. His spade goes flat, as large as it can go and stretches and his fingers add to pull himself apart.
“Tell me,” Mickey begs to the angel above him, surrounded by a cloud made from both of them, “What you want to do to me.”
“I want to fuck you,” Ian growls and bites down on Mickey’s lip, pulls it for a moment before releasing it with a pop. “I want to take you like you’re mine to take and come in you so hard and so fast that you’ll always remember who you belong to.”
“And what about you?” Mickey asks with a gasping whisper. “Who do you belong to?”
Ian laughs. “You proved that to me earlier when you fucked me against the kitchen counter.”
Mickey chuckles. “Well, I had to take advantage of an empty house. When else do you think we’re going to get to do that?”
“Shut up,” Ian tells him with a shake of his head and a bubble of laughter. “I’m telling you what I want to do to you now.”
“Then do it,” Mickey tells him, laying his head back on the cloud and arching his eyebrow in a challenge.
Ian rolls his eyes, but leans forward to kiss him once more, full of the desire coursing between their nerve-endings, before looking down and arranging himself fully over Mickey. He grabs his own cock and strokes it once, already straining, before moving it to Mickey’s entrance. He waits, obviously, for Mickey to pull his tail out, but he doesn’t. Ian frowns. “Well, get your spade out,” he tells Mickey as if Mickey wasn’t aware of the barrier.
“No,” Mickey whispers in a breathy moan and reaches up to hold Ian’s neck with both hands. “Put it in.”
Ian blinks. “But your”
“Both of them,” Mickey says, his eyes twinkling. “Or don’t you want my tail to jerk you off while you’re inside of me?”
Ian blinks and then blinks again, opens his mouth in a squeak, but Mickey takes advantage of it, leaning forward and capturing his mouth like he is conquering new lands. Mickey pulls his spade out and flattens it so that he can wrap it around the head of Ian’s cock. And then, with Ian’s guiding hips and Mickey’s guiding tail, he slides inside.
Mickey hisses at the feel of it, both Ian and the spade stretching him out. Ian lets go of a broken, gasping noise deep in his throat and Mickey grins up at him. “Good?” he asks.
“Fuck,” Ian hisses and nods, swallows hard. “You’re so fucking tight.”
Mickey chuckles dangerously. “You bet your ass I am.” And then he drags Ian in further, lets him coast up inside until the head of Ian’s cock and the tail are deep within him. And then, once Ian is balls deep and achingly big, Mickey moves his spade so very slowly, twirls it around Ian’s cock until his tail is wrapped around him like a vine. Mickey squeezes and Ian cries out, throws his hands down on either side of Mickey’s head and scrapes at the cloud below them.
“Fucking shit!” Ian cries out and Mickey grins at his success.
“You like it?” Mickey asks, nipping at his jaw, his cheek, his neck.
But Ian likes it so damn much he can’t even speak. Mickey watches him nod his head aggressively and that’s all he needs to know how pleased Ian is at the experience. “Then fuck me,” Mickey tells him and Ian blinks his nearly crossed eyes. “Go on,” Mickey encourages and leans up, licks his way inside Ian’s mouth and loses himself for a moment in passion before saying, “make me yours.”
Ian grunts in agreement and then starts, slowly at first and shallowly as he gets used to the feel of both Mickey’s body around him and the tail as it puts friction there. Mickey works his spade inside like he’s an expert at doing it when it is just him, but he makes sure to squeeze and press as it goes in, to loosen and guide out as Ian pulls back. And they fall into a rhythm, heavy and hot and panting and once it’s there, the glorious snap and retreat of Ian’s hips and Mickey’s tail, Ian reaches down between them and wraps his hand around Mickey, begins to stroke him off to the beat of their bodies.
Mickey fists his hand in Ian’s hair and pulls him down flush against him, their bodies pressing Ian’s hand between their skin as he strokes. “How hard are you going to come in me?” Mickey asks and Ian goes cross-eyed again.
“Pretty fucking hard,” he answers, near breathlessly.
“Good,” Mickey whines, “because I want it. I want your come in medeep as you can get it.” Mickey moans at just the thought of it and twitches in Ian’s hand. “And… and I want it on me. All over my tail. Covering it. Coating it.” Mickey bites his lip in a gasp and rubs his spade over the head so deep inside and Ian bucks forward, fucks him up into the cloud so hard that Mickey screams despite himself.
“Yes!” Mickey cries to the sun and the sky. “Fuck me.”
And Ian does, lets loose and has at him, slams into him hard and without mercy. Mickey clingshis hips arching into Ian’s hand, his tail following the pounding of Ian’s cock as it goes in, out, in, out. Ian begins to tense, his hips erratic in their rhythm, and as he does, Mickey bends, his back arching out beautifully away from the cloud, his cock begging for more and more of Ian’s hand.
“Yes,” Ian grunts. “Yes. Yes. Come with me. Come with me, Mickey,” he growls and then digs his teeth into Mickey’s shoulder, slams home, and Mickey feels it, feels the splash against his tail, the thickness of it deep within and he screams out Ian’s name as his own release starts, pouring out between them.
It takes a long time before either of them come down from the high and an even longer time before Ian pulls out with a little wince from Mickey and Mickey unfurls his tail from around him. “Fucking shit,” Ian whispers to his body and begins to mouth across his skin leisurely. “You didn’t have to do that for me,” he tells Mickey. “You’ll be sore for a month.”
Mickey chuckles, but nods his agreement. “Worth it, though.”
Ian grunts and kisses his neck. “I could heal it. Make it easier”
“Fuck no,” Mickey says with a growl followed by a chuckle. “Are you insane? I love it. I want to feel you everywhere I go. I want to know how much I’m yours.”
“Don’t you already?” Ian says with a grin, staring down at him.
Mickey smiles as he looks up, catalogues the beauty of Ian’s face and the hematite of his spinning halo. “Oh, I know. Still like to feel it, though,” he tells Ian with a small kiss. He thinks about how far they’ve come from the first day they met their squabbling and bickering turning into something else quite indeed. His gold tail flashes in the sun as he twitches it, still stained with part of Ian and Ian smiles as he watches it go back and forth against the cloud and the light.
“I love you,” Ian whispers down to him, running his hands over every inch of Mickey’s body. “I love you.”
And what else can Mickey say? What else can he do, but smile back and say just as softly and smoothly as the earth and Heaven and Hell were formed, “And I love you.”