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Ian was on the phone with Mandy when he heard yelling in the background. He couldn’t make out words but he definitely made out Terry Milkovich’s voice. It was like Frank when he was drunk, easily recognizable and predominantly unchanging. He supposed that kind of chaos was nothing new for the Milkovich siblings and it made him sad. Pretty much everyone on the Southside could attest the abundance of shitty fathers in their neighborhood but few were worse than the Milkovich Patriarch.
Mandy was trying to tell him about some skeevy man she ran across on her way home from school but was interrupted by a loud crash and the sound of skin hitting skin.
“Jesus, fuck” She muttered, startled by the sudden increase of volume that wafted in through the thin walls from the living room.
“What the fuck was that?” But Ian already knew. Mickey had told him sometime before he got shot that he was his father’s favorite punching bag. Something about the way his mother favored Mickey growing up didn’t sit right with the man and he took it out on his kid when his wife was no longer around to stop him.
“I don’t know. They’ve been going at it for the last half an hour”
“Why?”
“He never really has a reason why”
Ian was struck with the powerful urge to get the two youngest Milkovich siblings as far away from that household as possible. He knew he couldn’t but it made his skin crawl to think there was nothing he could do.
A loud slam interrupted his thoughts and Ian’s heartrate increased proportionately to the rising fear that something even more terrible had just happened.
“Mandy, what was that?” he asked, his voice unable to sound steady despite his efforts to mask his alarm.
The sound of her bedroom door squeaking open came in through the phone at his ear, right before the audible sigh that must have come from Mandy. “I think Mickey left. Must’ve slammed the door on his way out”
Thank God. “Where’d he go?”
“How the fuck should I know?”
Mandy always got defensive when Ian brought up her family—especially her brothers. She mentioned once that not everyone was like the Gallaghers when it came to family. He knew she cared about them, but always wanting to know what was going on with your siblings must have been more characteristic of the Gallagher household.
Ian had an idea about where Mickey could have gone, but didn’t like the idea of Mandy being at home while Terry was fuming. It made him feel sick to think she’d have to deal with him. “Why don’t you go over to the swings? I have to take care of something first but I can meet you there afterward.”
Ian hung up the phone after Mandy agreed to meet him and practically ran downstairs and out the door. Ever since the other night when they fucked in the dugouts, it had become their primary hang out spot. Ian loved it because it was still somewhat public, but private enough that Mickey felt comfortable. It was in a lot of ways, their own special place. Mickey offered up a lot more of himself inside the chain link fence along the third base line and Ian couldn’t get enough of it. He knew if he had any chance of finding Mickey, it’d be there.
Turns out, he was right. When he got closer to the dugouts he could see Mickey’s back leaning against the fence. He looked tense and Ian wanted nothing more in that moment than to hold him.
“Thought I’d find you here”
Mickey looked over his shoulder at the approaching redhead, but his face was unreadable. Just as soon as he looked over, his eyes were back facing the ground.
“I’ve been looking for you” It wasn’t the whole truth. He only knew of one place to look and he was standing in that place right now. He thought maybe Mickey would find comfort in knowing that he cared enough to be willing to go searching for him.
Mickey must not have though because he was pushing past Ian, head down, just seconds after the words left the redhead’s mouth.
“Hey wait” Ian called as reached out to grab onto the passing boy’s arm. “Don’t go”
“What?” Mickey snapped, abruptly turning to face Ian.
Ian immediately dropped his arm as the older boy’s face came into view. There was bruises lining Mickey’s cheekbones and his eye was slightly swollen.
He stood still with his mouth hanging open with Mickey getting more visibly irritated the longer Ian stared. “Don’t act like you’ve never seen a fucking bruise before”
“Don’t act like I shouldn’t care that your face got bashed in”
“It’s not even that bad.” Mickey scoffed “Quit with the fucking dramatics”
Ian stepped forward and brought his hands up toward Mickey’s head but hesitated when Mickey turned it, pointedly looking away from him and seemingly flustered by Ian’s sudden closeness.
Standing there in front of Ian with his face bruised up feeling more vulnerable than he was ever supposed to allow himself to be terrified him. And Ian knew that. Ian saw what Mickey was willing to give and take and new it wasn’t just black and white. Ian understood him enough to know Mickey wasn’t as readily comfortable with affection as he was. Ian was okay with that and didn’t push many issues he knew Mickey didn’t want to deal with.
Tonight was different though. He needed Mickey to understand that people cared about him—that he cared about him. So he allowed his hands to wrap around the sides of Mickey’s head and he closed the distance between them so that Mickey’s back was to the dugout wall, boxed in by Ian’s recently acquired towering figure.
Ian bent backwards ever so slightly, determined to maintain eye contact with the frightened brunette boy. Mickey looked pissed and Ian didn’t want to chance getting a punch to the jaw, so he opted to not outright kiss him. He wanted to. God, did he want to.
Instead he tilted his head and pressed a soft kiss to the less battered of the two cheeks. Mickey scrunched together his eyebrows and looked at Ian incredulously. He looked like he was about to speak, probably to tell Ian he wasn’t fucking fragile and didn’t need to be babied, but Ian didn’t give him the opportunity. He brought his hands to wrap around Mickey’s shoulders and pulled him in close against his chest.
Mickey was rigid in his arms, letting out a completely expected “Gallagher, get the fuck off of me”. Ian only held him tighter. He knew that Mickey could have shoved him off if he really wanted to, but Mickey didn’t.
Under the setting sun of the evening, in the middle of the Southside of Chicago, Mickey Milkovich allowed himself to be held. Although Ian had wanted so much more, he knew Mickey and he was willing to wait.