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Ian isn’t watching the film. He’s watching Mickey, face tilted slightly toward him, peeking out of the corner of his eyes. There’s a foot of distance between him and Mickey, who’s taking long swigs of his beer.
He sees Mickey’s eyes get caught on him, a quick look.
They haven’t kissed since that one time, when Mickey pressed hot, dry lips against his in the back of a van. It was so quick that Ian didn’t realise it happened until it was done. But afterwards, after Mickey got shot and after DCFS came, they still didn’t kiss. They jerked each other off in the backroom of the store and didn’t kiss. They smoked together in an alley and didn’t kiss. And now, they’re sitting together and watching something Ian’s seen a thousand times before and not kissing.
Ian looks back at Mickey, hope in his throat, but then Mickey’s snapping his face back to the TV.
He sighs, stomach dropping. He'd hoped Mickey would have wanted to kiss him, but clearly he was just trying to prove a point.
Ian’s back at the same place with Mickey that he always is. The flat feeling of being stuck to the regular disappointment. They’ll never get out of it, Ian realises. Forever, they’re going to be stuck in this wordless space of something impossible.
Mickey looks again, and this time Ian stares back.
“What?” Ian asks, blinking at him with raised eyebrows.
“What?” Mickey snaps back. His eyes are wide, jaw clenched. He seems stressed, not angry like Ian was expecting.
Ian huffs. “Nothing.”
Mickey shakes his head and finishes off his beer. “Want another?” he asks, getting up without looking Ian’s way.
“Sure,” Ian mutters.
He returns with two beers, wincing as he sits back down. The pizza rolls are long finished and the movie’s end is beginning and Ian’s abandoned all hope that they will ever be more than sex.
Mickey’s looking at him again, eyes flicking across Ian’s face, big and dark. He works his jaw and gnaws the very edge of his lip, pinching a small bit of pink between his teeth. Ian wants it like he’s never wanted anything before. He wants it in a way that feels close to anger, tight in his gut.
He’s a dam, holding back all the floods of want building up. He’s a poorly constructed dam made of wood, creaking and aching and about to split at the seams if something doesn’t give. He needs it to give.
For so long, Ian’s been wanting this. He needs it now, or he’s out. He can’t do it anymore with Mickey, has never been able to fully swallow the half-way bullshit Mickey’s been feeding him and now it’s choking him.
About to give up, to sigh and decide that nothing will ever change between them and Ian needs to accept it or get out, Ian lets his face drop. The hope drains out of him, sagging his shoulders, and he curses himself for ever letting the hope back in the first place. It’s a problem, Mickey always getting him to hope.
Before he can turn away with a pointed huff, Mickey snaps. He rushes forward, shutting out the space between them, and brings their mouths together. It’s longer than the quick peck in the van, mouths pressing together, but still short and dry and over too soon. It’s a chaste kiss and Mickey isn’t chaste in anything that he does and it makes Ian wonder if he even knows Mickey at all.
Breathing hard, Mickey stares at him afterwards, his cockiness from earlier gone. He seems uncertain now, where no one else can see them and it’s real and he can’t run away.
A smile spreads across Ian’s face before he can help it, hope stinging on its way back inside of his chest. He tips his head back into the couch, knocking against the hard back of it.
Frowning, Mickey glares at him. “Don’t fucking laugh at me,” he mutters, jaw set as he faces the TV again.
“I’m not,” Ian tells him, but he can’t shake the smile, the grin fighting its way through.
“You fucking are. Fuck off,” Mickey snaps.
“I’m not,” Ian huffs, shoving his arm.
“Then what’s that?” Mickey asks, eyebrows high and arched and a finger waving at Ian’s face.
“I’m not laughing at you,” Ian states, more serious. “You just...“
“I just what?” Mickey questions when Ian doesn’t finish, eyes sharpened.
“You can actually kiss me, y’know,” Ian points out. “Like with tongue, for longer than three seconds. If you want to.”
Mickey tuts at him, head shaking. “Yeah, well, you can actually fucking kiss me too but I don’t see that happening,” he mumbles into his beer, so low and clipped that Ian almost has to ask him to repeat himself.
It’s permission, clear and shocking and Ian’s stunned, mouth agape. He rights himself eventually, swallowing down a gulp of the house’s heavy, tobacco-scented air.
“Don’t wanna get my tongue cut out or anything,” Ian says, aiming for playful but it’s low with Mickey’s admission that he can’t just shake off.
“Fuck off,” Mickey scoffs. He slides his eyes towards Ian anyway, fixing them on his face without turning his head.
Ian wanted Mickey to do it. For the last two years, Mickey has been adamant that kissing is off the table. He even went so far as to call it fucking gross once, when Ian tried to bring it up. Ian remembers vividly how sorely it stung to hear that Mickey found the idea of kissing Ian repulsive. So he wanted Mickey to do it. Imagined a hundred different fantasies of Mickey finally kissing him and none of them were like this.
But Mickey has kissed him, now. Twice. Stiff and barely-there and scared, but he did it. So Ian can do this part, he figures. He can make the next leap, even if it isn’t exactly what he wanted. Even if it isn’t exactly what he dreamed up in those moments after he shut his eyes and before he fell asleep.
Skin buzzing, Ian summons all the courage he has. He reaches for him, grasping his jaw to tilt Mickey towards him. It’s rough with stubble and Ian’s never touched Mickey’s face before. Beneath his fingers, Mickey’s jaw twitches. Ian can feel the muscle and the bone jump. He can feel the hotness on his skin.
Mickey has the face of someone about to get shot, Ian thinks. Like Ian’s poison and this means death.
But Mickey said he could, and he isn’t pulling away, and Mickey always sort of looks like he’s terrified whenever they look at each other too long.
Ian kisses him. It’s like dropping into ice water, with the instant panic of it. He’s kissing Mickey. He’s kissing Mickey he’s kissing Mickey he’s kissing Mickey plays in a loop, over and over, until that’s all he can think.
He holds it for longer, snakes a hand to the back of his neck and nudges his mouth against Mickey’s until he’s moving too. Ian’s heart hammers against his chest, knocking furiously on the walls of his ribcage. It’s like he’s floating. His fingers are numb and his stomach is lit up and his chest is tight and it’s like he’s dying.
Mickey’s mouth is hot and his lips are dry and he tastes like beer and smoke and Ian presses his tongue into the heat. Still stiff and awkward and hesitant, things Ian has never known Mickey to be, Mickey grabs onto Ian’s shoulder. It’s nearly platonic, until Mickey’s hand stutters towards Ian’s head and sort of latches on. It’s like he’s nervous, which almost makes Ian’s face split into another smile.
Stupid things want to get out of Ian. Stupid words which Ian holds back. He thinks them, though. They pulse in his mind like a heartbeat.
As Ian’s hand starts wandering — one still fixed to the back of Mickey’s neck like if he lets go everything will end and never come back — to sit on Mickey’s waist and start pulling up his shirt, Mickey slowly relaxes into it. Starts getting used to the rhythm of their mouths moving together, of having Ian so close and touching him so much. His hand loosens, fingers running against his hairline. He licks into Ian’s mouth, tentative and then hungry.
His skin is so warm, hot and soft as Ian presses his thumb against the juncture of his jaw and strokes. As he digs his finger tips into his side.
Mickey seems to like that, or it makes him brave, because he sucks in a breath and then suddenly bites down on Ian’s lower lip. It isn’t so hard that Ian can’t take it, but it’s harder than anyone’s bitten him before. Noise escapes him over it, a small, embarrassing jolt of a moan. His dick hardens to the point where it hurts, and he removes the hand under Mickey’s shirt to push against himself and relieve some of the pressure. To his surprise, Mickey’s hand joins him, takes over, rubbing against the bulge in his jeans.
It’s nearly over, right then and there. Ian has never been quick to orgasm, always good at keeping a clear head and containing himself and not being a two-pump-chump, but that nearly throws him over the edge.
He wonders, vague and unimportant in the back of his mind, if Mickey’s ever kissed anyone before. Ian can’t imagine him kissing Angie or any of the other girls he tries to fuck. Ian knows Mickey was never at the types of parties where people played spin the bottle or seven minutes in heaven. Even if he was, he wouldn’t have played. And Mickey’s awkward kissing him now, clumsy and very obviously letting Ian take the lead, which is so unlike him that Ian’s head spins.
It’s so good, though. Messy and uncoordinated and so, so fucking good.
Mickey’s hand is good too. More practiced and too good, so Ian’s moaning a bit and knows he needs to stop it soon if they want to actually fuck at any point tonight.
Reluctantly, Ian pulls away, knocking their noses together and separating them. He opens his eyes to see Mickey’s flushed face and reddened mouth, glossy with spit. His eyes are dark and furious with lust.
“Your room?” Ian gets out, and Mickey nods.
They abandon the sitting room, beer bottles deserted with the oven tray. Mickey switches the TV off on their way out.
They make out in his room, too. It’s surreal, so heady and dizzying that Ian’s worried he’s dreaming until Mickey bites him again. Mickey hisses around the kiss when he sits on the bed, bullet wounds still not healed. Ian hadn’t actually considered how they would fuck with Mickey’s ass being so fucked up. For now at least he doesn’t need to worry about it, because Mickey isn’t rushing for the first time ever and Ian’s in no rush either. He does pause to tug his own shirt off, feeling himself rapidly overheating.
At some point, Mickey’s tank comes off too and he hasn’t taken that off since their first time together. Ian’s so hard he can’t think.
—
“I wanna ask you something,” Ian mumbles into the back of Mickey’s neck.
Things have changed now. Mickey’s out and Terry’s in prison and there’s a kid and a wife in the mix but they’re still here, in Mickey’s bed, a different one, cuddling after fucking. Not even cuddling, spooning. It still seems surreal, sometimes.
Mickey huffs like a prompt for Ian to continue.
“Was I your first kiss?” he asks, quiet, and presses his mouth against Mickey’s skin.
Mickey stiffens. “The fuck?”
“I was just thinking—“
“What made you think that?” Mickey asks, offended or annoyed when he turns to face Ian. His eyebrows are scrunched up.
“I dunno,” Ian shrugs. He runs his tongue over his lips and tries to think of a way to phrase it that won’t hurt Mickey’s feelings. Because Ian knows about Mickey’s feelings now. Knows that he has them, that they can get hurt, that they’re usually very explosive. He gets to know Mickey’s feelings. “It just… kinda seemed like it might’ve been, is all.”
“Why?”
“I don’t fucking know,” Ian sighs. “I just… okay, I don’t mean this like a bad thing, okay? It was just more, y’know, awkward, than it would’ve been if—“
“Fucking awkward? What the fuck?” Mickey questions, voice raising.
“Yeah, a bit,” Ian scoffs. “It was a good fucking kiss, Mickey, you just didn’t seem—“
“Oh, thanks for your seal of approval, asshole.”
“Shut the fuck up, Mick,” Ian tells him, rolling his eyes. “You just didn’t seem like you knew… what to do. I don’t know! I was just asking.”
Mickey tuts at him, face set in a scowl. He sinks back down to the bed though, pouting to himself.
Maybe he shouldn’t push, but Ian’s never been very good with patience.
“So… was I?”
“Jesus, Ian!”
“It’s fucking hot, Mickey,” Ian states, staring at his side profile. “If I was, that’s fucking hot. That’s why I wanna know.”
“How is that hot?”
“‘Cause then I’d be like, the only person you’ve ever kissed,” Ian explains. “That’s hot. I don’t know why.”
“Whatever, I know I wasn’t yours,” Mickey scoffs, rolling his eyes. “Don’t got any of your firsts,” he adds in a mumble, off to the side.
“You do,” Ian tells him. Love. He thinks. First love.
“Oh yeah? What, then, hotshot?”
Ian doesn’t answer, just taps his stomach and thinks. Beside him, Mickey lets out a puff of breath.
“I was, wasn’t I?” he then prods again, eyes lit up.
“Fuck off,” Mickey tells him, grabbing for a cigarette from his nightstand.
“Just say it, Mickey,” Ian pleads. “I know I was. Just fucking tell me.”
Mickey groans.
“It’s getting me hard thinking about it, Mickey.”
“How is that my problem?”
“C’mon, Mick,” Ian whines, pulling on Mickey’s arm and rutting against his side to prove it. “Just tell me,” he repeats, leaning over to nip at his earlobe.
“Jesus, yeah, fine, okay,” Mickey snaps, shaking Ian off.
“Yes? As in I was?”
“Yes! Fuck, can you leave me the fuck alone now?”
I love you I love you I love you Ian thinks, grinning at Mickey’s grumpy face.
Laughing, Ian kisses the side of his neck and straddles him, stealing away his cigarette and taking a drag. Mickey complains and grumbles and calls Ian annoying, but he’s smiling too. Ian loves that smile.
“Can’t believe I was your first kiss,” Ian says, smug and happy, as he breathes out a line of smoke.
“I’ll knee you in the balls if you don’t shut the fuck up,” Mickey tells him, face going red.
Ian laughs at that, and gets kneed in the ass for it. It’s better than the balls, at least, which may have been what Mickey was aiming for but he doesn’t have a good vantage for it.
“Apparently it was awkward as fuck, anyway,” Mickey adds, snatching the smoke back and resuming his pout.
“Shut up,” Ian sighs. “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”
Cigarette between his lips, Mickey’s mouth quirks upwards and a stream of smoke slips out.
“Doesn’t matter now anyway,” Ian hums, a playful edge to it, “‘cause we kiss all the time now. I can kiss you whenever I want.”
He lowers himself down, bracketing Mickey’s face with his forearms, careful to avoid the lit smoke between his fingers. With it hanging between them, Ian kisses him, licking into his mouth. Ian’s never kissed anyone the way he’s kissed Mickey. It’s starved and heated and all tongue and teeth.
“Wait, wait,” Mickey mutters, pushing Ian back by the jaw. His touch is gentle and firm at the same time, warm pressure. He turns to the side, contorting himself to fit over Ian’s arm. Strong hands jam the cigarette into the ash tray on his table. He slips back under Ian and brings him back into the kiss with that hand on his jaw.
It’s so different to how it used to be. Comfortable, instead of careful. Mickey touches him like he knows how to touch him.
Ian still can’t say he loves him. It still thrums in his veins.
—
Mickey’s been off all day. Distant in a way that Ian might not have noticed years ago, or even if they were out of prison. But here, where they can’t get away from each other, Ian notices.
It isn’t completely abnormal. Of course they have quiet days, days where they want more space, irritated days. Ian thinks it’s that, at first. That maybe Mickey’s not in a talkative mood.
After he finishes brushing his teeth at the sink, spitting and wiping his mouth, it’s made clear that he’s had something on his mind. Mickey looks at him for a little too long when he turns around, pausing in the middle of their cell.
“You okay?” Ian checks, glancing at him over the cover of his book.
“Yeah,” Mickey says, shrugging. “Just thinkin’ about shit.”
“What shit are you thinking about?”
Again, Mickey shrugs, dropping himself onto his bunk beneath Ian. He can’t see his face anymore, and Ian thinks Mickey likes it that way sometimes. He’s always been the most vocal about how he feels when they’re spooning and not looking at each other.
Ian doesn’t mind it. He hates seeing the pitying faces people give him when he’s talking about his own feelings, so he gets it. It makes him want to throw a punch most of the time.
“That boyfriend, from the border,” Mickey starts, and Ian tenses. That whole situation will always be a spot of guilt for him, even though he can’t bring himself to regret spending the time with Mickey. He says boyfriend like he’s rolling his eyes.
“Yeah?”
“You guys fuck and stuff?” Mickey asks, which surprises Ian. Better than anyone, Mickey knows his sexual history. Knows how much sex Ian’s had.
“Yeah.”
“Yeah, I know,” Mickey says, confusing Ian further. “And, like, kissing him and shit too?” he continues to question gruffly.
That makes more sense, even though Ian’s pretty sure Mickey already knows the answer. Ian can probably figure that Mickey hasn’t kissed anyone else in their time apart, but the possibility that he has makes Ian feel slightly sick.
Mickey’s always been jealous. Violently, too. Ian knows he doesn’t enjoy the idea of him kissing other people just as much.
“Uh, yeah,” Ian says.
He hears Mickey hum.
Swallowing, Ian closes up his book. Dropping down from his bunk, Ian finds Mickey lying on his bed, arms folded behind his head. The picture of tense relaxation. Ian nudges out space on the bed for him to sit under Mickey’s legs, letting them lie over his thighs.
“You okay?” he asks.
“M’fine, was just asking,” Mickey huffs.
“Okay,” Ian says, disbelieving.
“I was,” Mickey emphasises, scowling. “I know you fucking kiss people. I don’t care.”
“I don’t just go around kissing people,” he scoffs, even though it isn’t really true. Ian’s had a lot of sex. He’s kissed a lot of people. The majority of which he wasn’t in a relationship with. The way Mickey says it strikes a nerve, though. “He was my boyfriend, most people kiss their fucking boyfriends.”
“Yeah, I know,” Mickey mutters. “I just said that.”
“You’re jealous,” Ian tells him, eyebrows raised.
“Am fucking not.”
“You are,” he laughs, shaking his head.
“Fuck off,” Mickey tells him. “It was just a question.”
“Sure,” Ian says, rolling his eyes. “You got anymore questions?”
“Not for you, asshole,” he says. “Maybe I’ll go ask whats-his-name how he dealt with your annoying ass.”
Ian scoffs, trying to hold back a laugh. Laughing only encourages Mickey to continue pissing him off.
“It’s okay, Mick, there’s no need to be jealous,” Ian says, playful and a little mocking.
“I’m not fucking jealous!” Mickey shouts, glaring Ian’s way.
“You are, obviously, but you don’t gotta be,” he teases, watching Mickey’s scowl deepen. It feels good to have Mickey jealous like this, when it’s not too serious and he’s fighting off laughter.
“Shut up,” Mickey groans, throwing his hands over his face. “I’m not fucking jealous. Just gotta make sure you’ve kissed people that actually know what they’re doing, ‘cause apparently I don’t,” he scoffs pointedly, narrowing his eyes.
“What?” Ian asks, furrowing his brows. Mickey refuses to elaborate, and Ian stares at him, dumbfounded, until the memory slams back into him. “Are you serious? Are you still on that?” he asks, huffing a bewildered laugh. “That was five years ago!”
“That was that long ago?”
“Uh-huh,” Ian nods. The reminder stuns him briefly too. They’ve known each other for so long. He sighs, rubbing his hand over Mickey’s bare shin. “Still think about that, y’know.”
“Think about what?”
“The first time we kissed,” Ian answers, a warmth expanding in his chest.
“Yeah?” Mickey checks, eyes softening.
“Uh-huh,” he nods, pressing his lips together in a fond smile. “Do you?”
He huffs at the question, averting his eyes and taking a few moments to do his little performance of nonchalance, which does nothing to cover the flush that rises at the tops of his cheeks.
Mickey’s surprisingly pretty good at saying romantic, emotional things. More than anyone would expect him to be. It’s whenever Ian asks him a direct question that Mickey seems to remember that he’s uncomfortable with talking about feelings.
“Sometimes,” he grumbles.
“What d’you think about it?”
“Think you were awkward as fuck,” Mickey tells him, eyebrows up on his forehead, laugh playing at the corners of his mouth.
“Shut up,” Ian groans. “Let it go.”
Mickey snickers to himself about that, a wheezing laugh with all his teeth out and Ian remembers a time when he never got to see Mickey happy like this.
He sobers and wets his bottom lip, catching it between his teeth and chewing.
“S’not like that now, though,” he asserts, a question at the end of it.
“What, kissing?” Ian asks, eyebrows furrowing. He nods. “You’re asking me if I think you’re awkward at it?”
“Why you gotta say it like that, man? I don’t—“
“Obviously I don’t, Mick,” Ian interrupts, steamrolling over whatever excuses Mickey’s about to make. “I literally kiss you all the time. Why would I do that if I thought you were bad at it?”
Mickey shrugs, poking his tongue out the side of his mouth to hide his smirk.
Ian shakes his head. “At least I can say that with something to fucking compare it to,” he says. “I could be the worst kisser ever and you wouldn’t know.”
Maybe he’s fishing for compliments, but Ian’s never really asked whether he was good at it. No one has ever told him he was. People usually just want to talk about how big his dick is, which, while it doesn’t hurt to hear, he already knows. They haven’t really noticed the softer things about him.
It surprises him, the nervous twist that appears in his gut over what Mickey’s opinions are on something as mundane and ordinary as kissing.
“Probably what’s happening,” Mickey scoffs, laughing.
With a glare, Ian shuts him up.
“I’m kidding, man. You know you’re good,” he mutters. “There’s a reason I haven’t tried to find that shit anywhere else.”
He beams, one side of his mouth sliding higher than the other. Assuming that Mickey has only kissed Ian because he trusts him, loves him, likes kissing him is one thing, but knowing it is even better.
“Don’t fucking smile at that, idiot,” Mickey tuts, poking him with his foot. “It’s weird how much you like it.”
“Yeah, well, it’s still the hottest fucking thing—“
“Shut up,” Mickey sighs.
“But it is, Mick.”
“Yeah, I know,” he huffs, smile on his face.
He shuffling up, kneeing his way across the bed until he’s swinging one knee across Ian’s lap. Straddling him, Mickey shifts in an attempt to get comfortable. While he’s moving around, Ian lays his hands on his legs, spreading his fingers across the inside of Mickey’s thighs.
Settled, Mickey wastes no time in dropping down, slotting their mouths together. It’s warm, like always, and still sets off familiar sparks that Ian hasn’t found anywhere else. Mickey presses one hand against Ian’s shoulder, right over his heart, while the other winds through his hair.
Ian loves having Mickey in his lap like this. Feeling his weight on him, getting him so close. Ian wraps his arms around his waist like an embrace, digging his fingers into his back.
—
The moment the door closes after them inside the gaudy hotel room, Mickey jumps him. His fists are tight in his dress shirt and pressed against Ian’s shoulders, pinning him against the door. As if magnetised to his body, Ian’s hands rush to grip his hips.
Mickey’s mouth is hot on his neck, sucking in short pulsations. Vibrations thrum through his body over it, excitement curling in his gut. He grins, feeling the scrap of teeth cutting into his skin.
“Fucking husband,” he mutters, growling the word in his ear.
Ian huffs a breathy laugh, squeezing his sides.
“Can’t even fuckin’…” Mickey mumbles, still biting at his throat around his words, “believe it.”
“Hm,” Ian hums. He can’t keep the smile off of his face. Snaking one hand up to Mickey’s jaw, Ian tilts him upwards, cramming their mouths together in something messy and possessive and biting. “Better believe it, baby.”
“So lame,” Mickey tells him, voice dripping with fondness. “You're so goddamn lame, Ian.”
Ian doesn’t care, is fixated on Mickey’s mouth instead. His clutch on the sides of his face is crushing, firm and tight. It’s hardly even a kiss anymore. It’s swallowing Mickey’s air and tasting his tongue.
Abruptly, Mickey digs his teeth into Ian’s lower lip and then pulls back, only by inches. Ian can still feel his breath on his face.
“Fuck,” he says, eyes big, pupils bigger, dragging over Ian’s face. Mickey’s fingers find his shirt’s collar, knuckles brushing along the top of his chest. Ian watches him, heart thrumming. Mickey does things to him. Makes him crazy. Makes Ian want him so badly that it’s almost deranged. “You’re my husband,” Mickey gapes, awestruck.
“Yeah,” Ian breathes, his whole body buzzing with it. “Husband,” he repeats, feeling the reality of it for the first time.
“Filing for divorce yet?” Mickey asks playfully. He swallows heavily like he’s serious, though.
Ian’s tempted to make a joke, to say not yet, give it a week but he’s feeling weighted down with love today and can’t bring himself to say it.
“Course not,” he smiles. Tenderly, he caresses Mickey’s face with his thumb, tracing the corner of his jaw. “Happiest day of my life.”
Mickey beams at him, unabashed and giddy.
“Sap,” he says softly, eyes shining. Ian feels him stroke the edges of his hair at the back of his neck. He does it softly, like Ian’s something precious, like he’s cherished, and Ian doesn’t cry a lot, especially not when he’s happy, but that makes his eyes sting. “I love you so fucking much, man. What the fuck,” Mickey tells him, as if the gravity of his own feelings astonishes him.
The grin that splits open Ian’s face is dumb and stupid and probably verging on creepy.
“I love you too,” he murmurs, kissing him once more.
There is no part of Mickey’s body that has gone unkissed by Ian and Ian’s sure he’s the same, can’t think of anywhere that Mickey’s lips haven’t touched. They got married knowing every inch of each other and Ian’s giddy at the idea of getting to relearn him every day for the rest of their lives.