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Nothing about Mickey Milkovich's life had been easy. He spent most of his life hungry and dirty, battered and bruised. He spent years under the thumb of an abusive father and a system that didn't give a fuck about him. Most mornings he couldn't believe he wasn't in a jail cell or back in that dilapidated house or worse, inside of a coffin. He couldn't comprehend how he wound up every day free of Terry, free of the bleak future everyone assumed he'd have.
No, every day Mickey Milkovich woke up in his dorm room, a college student.
His first year had been rough, after all he barely passed high school, but quickly he familarized himself with the system and how to work around it. He picked classes later in the day, classes with little to no homework, classes where attendance wasn't even mandatory! He did just enough work to pass each class and keep his scholarship. At this rate his second year was shaping up to be even smoother than the first. He stretched his hands above his head and sank deeper into the sheets, planning to spend a few more hours of blissful sleep.
"What time is your first class?"
Mickey pried open one eye, catching the blurry image of reddish-orange. He closed his eye again.
"Two. I got time."
The reddish-orange blur Mickey could no longer see snorted in disbelief. He heard the thin mattress across the room creek and opened one eye again. A less blurry Ian Gallagher was putting on his running shoes.
They didn't get any say in their roommates their first semester so when Mickey was assigned to share a room with an alien-looking ginger who got up at ungodly times for jogs and actually studied he thought he was destined to hate him. There must be something to the phrase opposites attract though because they ended up good friends at the end of the first semester and Mickey checked the box to keep the same roommate every semester end since.
"Sure you don't wanna go for a jog Mick? The Freshman Fifteen got you last year."
Mickey flicked him off and rolled over, curling up and making the little pouch of his belly protrude. He laid a warm hand on the pudge, gentle and affectionate. The freshman fifteen Ian loved to joke about was Mickey's first time in his entire life he had access to unlimited food. He didn't have to go without for Mandy's sake or pocket snickers bars at the corner to get him through the day. No, the university had a dining hall that was open 24/7 and all Mickey had to do was swipe his ID. He gained a much needed fifteen pounds that first year and Ian could fuck right off.
"Why you runnin' unless someone's chasin' you?" He grumbled, squeezing his stomach roll one more time before maneuvering onto his back again. He let his eyes linger on Ian's form, bent at the waist to touch his toes, before affixing his gaze to the bland ceiling.
"It's called exercise."
"It's called a waste of time."
Ian rolled his eyes and finished his stretching, leaving the room just as Mickey's eyes grew heavy with sleep.
—
He woke around noon and headed to the dining hall after throwing on a pair of sweatpants and his hoodie. Once there he loaded up a plate with pizza and fries, balancing the plate with one hand while he filled a cup with Coke. He spotted Ian at a large round table only half full and joined him.
"Going for a Sophomore Fifteen too? Ow!" Ian said in a single breath, rubbing the spot where Mickey slugged him.
"The fuck you care so much about my weight for, man?" Mickey joked, taking a big bite of warm, gooey pizza. Ian's face pinked up and he shrugged.
"How was your first class?" Mickey asked, trying to disperse the weird tension that had formed. It happened sometimes and Mickey's panic spiked every time it did.
"It was muy boring-o" Ian said, rolling his eyes and grabbing a few of his own fries and stuffing them all in at once. Mickey grinned as he watched Ian's cheeks bulge. He can get on Mickey's case all he wanted but in the end Ian was a Southside kid with poor table manners just like him.
"Told you to take Yiddish."
Ian gave him a look of exasperation.
"The professor basically gives you an A for signing up!"
Mickey had made the same point at the end of last semester when Ian was reviewing the course catalog.
"Its stupid either way. I'm getting an English degree. Why do I even need to know another language?"
Mickey just laughed and took his empty plate back up to the food station for a refill.
—
Mickey entered the classroom a few minutes after 2. He only had to attend the first and second class to get credit for whatever grade he could get on the final. The course also provided all materials and was noted to be for every-body. Figure Drawing 101 was going to be Mickey's easiest A.
—
By the time Mickey lugged his armful of materials back to the dorm he was feeling less confident about his A in Figure Drawing. After the syllabus review Professor Kelly asked them to draw someone important to them from memory, and reminded them of the three hour class time. Mickey sat on the request for twenty minutes, wondering if he dipped now would he still be counted as attending class. Kelly didn't take any type of attendance.
Eventually the tall, willowy professor ambled over to him with a new drawing pad and a packet of fancy ass pencils. He accepted them silently and after five more minutes of inaction Professor Kelly was back at his side, kneeling down next to the table to speak softly in the quiet room.
"Are you having trouble creating today?"
"Uhh, yeah." He agreed, sure that he'd never felt creative in his entire life.
"That's okay. Let's get something on the paper even if it's not your best work. Who are you thinking of drawing?"
Mickey shrugged, lips drawn into his mouth. He was uncomfortable with her soft spoken nature, the sound of pencil on paper, and creaky chairs. If Mickey weren't on scholarship he'd have bailed from this class already, but he needed the credits to stay here at all.
"Who is someone significant in your life? Mom?"
Mickey shook his head. His mom had disappeared within a year after Mandy was born, he barely remembered what she looked like. He knew Mandy looked like her, Terry having confused his own daughter for her mother a few times, but that thought made him sick when he dwelled too much on it.
"Dad?"
Mickey shook his head harder, ready to jump off the stool and leave the University of Chicago in the rearview mirror in some hotwired car. Professor Kelly seemed to sense Mickey's distress and quickly moved on.
"What about a partner? Someone not related to you that you have a relationship with?"
"Ian." Mickey quickly amended, "My roommate." He glanced at Kelly before back at the unopened sketchbook. "He's cool. A good friend."
"Alright." She smiled and opened the pad to the first page, the paper thick and creamy white, quality.
"Draw me Ian."
It was probably the first time Mickey really tried at the whole college coursework thing. He wanted to do Ian justice, even if it was just so Professor Kelly didn't think Mickey roomed with some hideous monster. So he actually tried to get Ian's hair right, his eyes the correct distance apart. He spent an inordinate amount of time adding Ian's freckles to the page, trying to map them from memory like a star chart. Before he knew it the three hour class was wrapping up and Professor Kelly was coming around. Mickey looked down at the drawing he worked tirelessly on the last few hours and…
It sucked.
The head shape was all wrong, the eyes simple and lifeless, and the freckles Mickey had painstakingly added looked more like pimples or some weird flesh eating disease. This wasn't Ian at all. Before Mickey couldn't tear out the page and toss it in the trash Professor Kelly was looking over his shoulder.
"So that's Ian? Very handsome."
"This isn't him. This looks like shit." Mickey argued, feeling angry with himself. He tried and he failed and that was way worse than not trying at all.
"There's real promise here Mickey. You just need to practice. Drawing is a skill as much as it is a talent. Keep trying. I'll see you next week."
With that she moved on to the next person and Mickey slammed the cover over the offending page, gathered his free materials, and walked home.
—
"Hey, how was your only class of the day?" Ian asked him, emphasizing the word only.
"Fucking stupid. Let's go get dinner."
—
Mickey had three other classes that week and in each one he brought his new sketchbook, doodling little cartoonish dicks and skulls in between practicing getting Ian's eyes just right.
—
It seemed now that Professor Kelly knew their skill level she planned to actually teach. The first hour of Mickey's next Figure Drawing class Kelly guided them through some figure drawing basics and Mickey would have zoned out if he wasn't actually learning something interesting. He wiggled one of the fancy pencils between his fingers eager to put the things he was learning into practice. After a few more minutes Kelly projected a collage of pictures onto the clean white wall.
"Find inspiration through one of these photos, an angle or a part of the body, and use it to build upon the techniques learned today."
Mickey ripped his sketchbook open, passing quickly over his first drawing and his dick doodled page to a fresh canvas. He regarded each picture in the collage with skepticism. There were faces straight on and at profile, there were torsos both curvy and contorted. There were crossed legs and pointed toes. There were bodies in motion and at rest. Mickey wouldn't know inspiration if it bit him in the ass so he went with something that felt at least familiar.
A masculine jaw above a stretched neck and the slope of a bare shoulder. He could see it projected on the wall and when he looked down he could see it like an after image on his blank paper. He drew what he saw, what wasn't there he put there. It wasn't an exact match but it was miles ahead of his first assignment. Professor Kelly's blunt fingernails tapped the table next to his book, pulling him out of the intense focus he had fallen into.
"Very well done, Mickey." She commented and to Mickey it sounded genuine.
"It's not perfect-"
"It's an interpretation." Kelly reminded him before moving on, so Mickey doubled down on his interpretation. By the time class was over the jaw was slightly off center, the neck caressed by wispy curls, and the slope of the bare shoulder littered in freckles.
—
"Woah, is Mickey Milkovich actually doing homework?"
Mickey flicked off the giggling ginger who had just arrived back at the dorm from his morning jog. He was indeed doing homework, a dumb math worksheet most likely meant for first graders. It was all he could think to do since he couldn't fall back asleep after Ian left. Shoved into his nightstand was his sketchbook and pencil set which he refused to look at until class Monday. Once he realized who he had morphed his class assignment into he decided he needed to be cut off. Drawing must've been like drinking or drugs or shooting a powerful gun: addicting, all consuming. Mickey had left all of that behind, all the things that could chew him up and spit him out, yet he found it again right there on campus. His plan to coast through college was slowly unraveling by Figure Drawing, or trying to ignore it in this case.
"Mind if I join you after my shower? We can be study buddies." Ian sang the rhyming words, adding lazy spirit fingers.
Mickey considered it, but his worksheet was almost done and he wasn't going to subject himself to more schoolwork. He shook his head.
"Nah, let's go eat. I'm hungry."
—
Mickey dropped his overflowing plate onto a small, dirty table. It wasn't often he was awake for breakfast and he might have gone a little overboard with all the new food available to his palate.
"Ah shit!" He groaned as Ian found him. The redhead gave him a curious look.
"Forgot the Tabasco." Mickey complained. Before he could rise from his seat Ian plucked a bottle from his pocket.
"I didn't see you go that way so I grabbed it."
Mickey's stomach flipped and he was concerned he wasn't going to be able to stomach his eggs, with or without Tabasco. He watched his roommate shove too much cereal into his mouth and drip milk down his chin and itched to put the moment on paper. Just to practice.
"Uhh, thanks." Mickey shook the thought of drawing from his mind and upended the bottle over his plate.
—
Mickey did end up sketching out the lower half of Ian's face after turning in the math worksheet and ditching the rest of the class. It was more cartoony than realistic but the chipmunk cheeks and dripping chin made him chuckle. He drew a hand holding a spoonful of Froot Loops that ultimately made him frown. Compared to the rest of the drawing the hand looked juvenile, untrained. He tried to remember techniques Kelly had mentioned but his mind came up blank and he wouldn't be back in class for another six days.
He just needed to practice, he concluded, but practicing meant he would technically be doing homework, homework that wasn't even going to be reviewed and graded. Practicing made Mickey a chump and he wasn't a chump! He played the system not the other way around. Mickey packed up his supplies and stomped back to his dorm in determination. He was going to take a nap and no one could stop him.
—
It was fucking stupid. Mickey liked facts, real things, shit you can hold. So why has all logic left his skull and been replaced with Ian Gallagher's hands. He imagined them constantly, holding things, moving in intricate ways, his large, freckled fingers interlocked with smaller, tattooed ones. It was fuckin stupid to imagine his roommate's hands just because he was bad at drawing hands. Why did he even care about being good at drawing in the first place? Mickey abandoned the sketchpad on his bed and walked to his history class in frustration.
—
"You seem to prefer the masculine form."
Mickey almost snapped his pencil in half trying to keep calm, but he couldn't prevent his breath quickening or the cold sweat that washed over him. He cleared his throat and flipped to a fresh page, leaving behind the male figure example on the wall and switching to the female next to it.
"No! No, Mickey, it's not a bad thing." She rushed to assure him. "It's not a personal comment either." She added and his fingers relaxed around his writing tool.
"I prefer you work with your muse, not against it. If this," she turns back to his previous page, "inspires you, please, continue."
—
Mickey stayed up late and desperately tried to find new inspiration. He drew tits and wide hips and delicate features and felt like the hand drawing wasn't even his. The images were foreign to him in a way that made his throat close in dread. He tried to keep his wheezing chest quiet and still for the sake of the man sleeping peacefully a few feet away. In a fit of anguish Mickey ripped the page of feminine imagery out of his sketchbook and threw it toward the door. His chest felt lighter immediately.
He drew the dim and blurry lines of Ian's sleeping form until he got tired. Ian was his roommate, his best friend, his muse, and he didn't have to be anything more than that to Mickey. It didn't have to be personal.
—
Ian was on the phone when Mickey got back to the dorm a few weeks later. He had distanced himself from the redhead since the morning after that panicked night when he noticed his crumpled up paper was missing. It wasn't even in the garbage can. The idea of Ian picking it up and seeing Mickey's terrible drawings of tits was unbearable.
Mickey faked a deep sleep when he heard Ian up and prepping for his morning run, he grabbed quick, pre packaged sandwiches and snacks from the dining hall to avoid eating with him, he loitered on campus when Ian wasn't in class and likely hanging out in their dorm. Mickey was even going to classes now.
Frankly, Mickey was being a shit friend.
So when he came home to Ian on the phone, posture hunched and face pinched, he knew he had to get his head out of his ass, put his confliction aside, and be there for Ian.
Mickey moved on quiet feet to his side of the room, giving Ian a veil of privacy. He grabbed his sketchbook from his bedside table, crawled into bed, and leaned against the wall.
"I know." Ian muttered in response to something Mickey couldn't hear. Picking out a light pencil Mickey created Ian's hunched shape.
"What if I'm not cut out for this?" Ian half whispered. Mickey was better at drawing hands now, it actually looked like fingers clutching a cell phone.
"Don't tell Fiona." The angle of Ian's face made it impossible for Mickey to add detail, not that he could anyway. Something about eyes still eluded him.
"Yeah, yeah I will. Thanks Lip. Love you too." Ian hung up as Mickey added shading to the part of his neck hidden by his strong, slightly off jaw. Heaving a sigh he deemed his drawing complete and set it aside, ready to face what he'd been putting off for weeks.
"You good?"
Okay so it wasn't an apology, but Mickey had never been good at saying sorry. It made him feel weak, vulnerable.
"No." Ian scrubbed at his face and when he moved his hands away Mickey noticed his green eyes were rimmed red.
"Pretty sure I failed my Spanish midterm."
Mickey pushed himself off his bed and stood awkwardly in the space between them.
"Was it really hard or somethin'?"
"I had to have a conversation entirely in Spanish with my professor. When she asked how I was doing, do you know what I said?"
Mickey shook his head. Ian let out a humorless laugh and unhunched.
"I said yo soy biblioteca."
"What's that mean?"
Ian groaned and fell back onto his bed, his hands covering his face. Mickey took a step closer and admired the strip of pale skin and orange hair exposed when his shirt rode up.
"I said 'I am a library.' I am so fucking stupid."
"Hey, cut that shit out." Mickey said, sitting next to Ian then letting his upper body fall alongside the taller man. He pushed himself a little further up so they would be face to face.
"Ian you're not stupid. At least not in English."
He watched that freckled face emerge from behind his hands. Ian was finally smiling and the sight made Mickey smile too. He mapped out every facet of the freckled, smiling face and committed it to memory so he could recreate even a fraction of the beauty of it all later.
"Not gonna tell me I should've taken Yiddish."
Mickey shrugged. "There's always next semester."
Ian laughed again and Mickey could see the tension leave his body. He realized with a start how much his eye was wandering when he felt Ian's eyes on him.
"I didn't mean it. The Sophomore Fifteen thing."
Mickey was confused and his face must've conveyed as much because Ian turned on his side and poked Mickey's lower stomach.
"Haven't seen you eat these last few weeks. You're not hoarding food under your bed either like when we first got here. You know I didn't mean it. You look fine. The chub is cute."
Ian's fingers went from poking the slight protrusion to rubbing it fondly. Mickey's face burned as hot as Ian's palm.
"Nah, just been busy."
"With what?"
"College shit."
"Wait, are you actually going to class?"
Ian's hand was still laying just above the waistband of Mickey's jeans. He couldn't tell if Ian was even aware but it was about all Mickey could think about. They stayed like that as Mickey filled Ian in on his last few weeks of lectures, midterms, and homework. He would talk forever if it meant Ian kept his hand right where it was. Eventually though Ian gave the squishy area a light tap that made it jiggle and hopped up.
"Let's go get dinner."
—
One of the reasons Mickey chose Figure Drawing was because all the forums he searched for the easiest classes noted that it didn't have a midterm. Still, Mickey walked across campus to the art building with his sketchbook and pencils. He had filled half the pages since the first class and ever since he had gotten over the one sided awkwardness with Ian he hadn't gone a day without drawing something up.
Professor Kelly greated the mostly empty class and reminded them they didn't have to be there. Two students got up and left but Mickey stayed firmly planted on his stool in the back.
"Please use this time as you see fit."
"Professor?" A front row student called out, raising her hand after the fact. Mickey's chest jostled with silent laughter. Who knew art classes could have nerds too.
"Can you tell us what the final is going to be like? It's got to be a huge chunk of our grade if we don't have a midterm."
Mickey leaned forward, obviously not concerned like the anxiety ridden student rows in front of him, but more out of curiosity.
"We'll be going over it in our next class, but…" she shot the few students remaining with a conspiratorial look before continuing. "We will be recreating our first day assignment of drawing someone who inspires you, applying techniques you have learned in class and in your own practice. Now you can get a head start!"
The girl finally lowered the hand she probably didn't realize was still in the air and her body relaxed, but Mickey's spine had straightened. His final exam was going to be drawing Ian?
With fewer students in the class Professor Kelly spent more one on one time with those who stayed for the three hour block, including Mickey. He waited anxiously for her to reach him, not knowing what he wanted her to say but hoping she'll say it anyway.
"Mickey, is it safe to say you are not majoring in visual arts?"
"Nah." Mickey affirmed, feeling a bit bashful about the confession for some reason. When Kelly didn't immediately follow up Mickey added.
"Still undecided actually."
Kelly nodded, taking an empty stool from another table and pulling it to share Mickey's space.
"What made you choose art?"
It's an easy A is what Mickey wanted to say, but he held his tongue and simply shrugged.
"I know a lot of students take my class because they think it's easy, but it's actually incredibly hard."
Mickey raised an unconvinced brow.
"It's hard because my class makes you really look at those around you. You become intimate with parts of people they don't pay much attention to. Art is incredibly romantic in that way."
Mickey kept quiet, unsure really of what to say and a little uncomfortable. He had never even spoken to a professor one on one before Professor Kelly's first class, let alone had a conversation about intimacy or whatever the fuck. Kelly smiled and pointed to Mickey's unfinished sketch of Ian, his face hidden behind his textbook. Mickey was working on shading the tufts of hair Ian tended to muss up when he was thinking really hard.
"How is your…roommate?"
"Can't get his eyes right." Mickey breathed out in a rush. Steadfastly ignoring the way she had said roommate. Like roommate was only the surface layer of who Ian Gallagher was to Mickey Milkovich.
"Let me help you with that." Kelly offered and Mickey hadn't realized time was up until everyone else had left.
—
The week after midterms was Halloween and the campus went from being abuzz with frantic studying to being abuzz with frantic partying. Ian and Mickey were chowing down on rarely offered fried chicken in the dining hall when a girl neither of them had ever met before came up to their table.
"Has Francesca talked to you yet?"
"Uh," Ian got out around his mouthful of chicken, "no?"
"Great! We're having a party-off against Theta House and Pi Phi would love to add you to our guest list." Out of nowhere the chipper sorority girl pulled out a clipboard and pen.
"Names?"
"Uh, Ian and Mickey."
Mickey kicked Ian hard under the table making the ginger wince.
"Okay Ian and Mickey you are on the list! Can't wait to see your costumes!"
Mickey watched her move to another table before wincing as the hard rubber of Ian's Nike connected with his shin.
"Ow what was that for?"
"For kicking me!"
"I kicked you for giving her my name!"
"I wasn't going to go roped into that shit without you." Ian argued and Mickey fought hard not to react to that.
The boys had barely gotten in another bite before a different girl bounded up to their table.
"Has Madison talked to you yet?"
—
"Do you really think no one's gonna notice I wore this last year?"
"Pretty sure no one even remembers last Halloween. Plus last year was just a dorm party, this looks like the whole fuckin' school." Mickey insisted as they walked up the crowded lawn of one of the sororities, they weren't sure which, but the amount of people told them a party was happening here.
Mickey swung his sadly plastic ax at the ankles of some drunkards standing in the open doorway of the house.
"Woah 'Here's Johnny!'" One of them yelled as they let the two of them pass.
Mickey's Jack Torrance costume was easy to put together. He had the jeans, boots, and the plaid shirt already in his closet. The red jacket he had found at Goodwill when the temperature dipped earlier in the month and the plastic ax was borrowed from Ian's lumberjack costume.
Ian was wearing his lumberjack look from last year again and was so worried people would notice the fashion faux pas.
"Without the ax you're just a hipster! Basically a new costume." Mickey argued to get him out the door.
Inside the house was too warm for their costumes but Mickey ignored the uncomfortable body heat in favor of finding the liquor. If he was going to get fucked up he figured it should be on some rich bitch's dime. Spotting a blow up pool full of ice and beers Mickey snatched up two and passed one to Ian.
"I don't think I should." He said, handing it back.
"Don't know how this new adjustment will handle alcohol."
Ian had gotten an adjustment to his bipolar medication from student health services before midterms and Mickey still regretted putting distance between them when Ian needed him most. He should have been in the waiting room with him at least. Mickey put the beers back in the pool but Ian quickly bent to grab one.
"No, you should have some." He insisted. "I'll just be the DD tonight."
"We didn't drive."
Ian shrugged and twisted off the bottle cap of Mickey's beer and handed it to him.
—
"We are young!" Mickey screamed into the night.
Ian had all but carried Mickey out of the sorority house a few hours later right when Mickey's song came on. He had been screaming random bits of it in Ian's ear as he walked them home.
"So Pat Benatar is your jam, Mick? Not Metallica or-"
"CAUSE LOVE IS A BATTLEFIELD!" Mickey cried, raising his ax high in the air and almost tipping his ride over.
Ian resorted to shoving the plastic ax in Mickey's mouth to get them discreetly up to the dorm room. Once inside Ian laid Mickey gently onto his bed.
"I'm going to get you some water to drink before bed so don't fall asleep!"
Once Ian left the room Mickey shed his jacket and shoes. He didn't feel tired, in fact he felt like drawing.
Ian popped back into the room with cup water and a bottle of Gatorade.
"There was a cooler of these outside the RA's room." Ian informed his uninterested roommate as he set down the red Gatorade, Mickey's favorite.
"Drink this." He held the water out.
"I wanna draw."
"After you drink the water you can draw."
"I wanna draw you."
The pair of Ians Mickey was seeing were oddly still for a moment before they shook their heads.
"Water first Mick, please. Then you can draw whatever."
Mickey managed to chug most of the glass before an ominous burp had Ian taking the cup away and shoving the waste paper basket into his arms. When Ian deemed him spew free Mickey set the basket down and grabbed his sketchbook.
"Sit down." He instructed, feeling very particular about his vision.
"No wait-" he decided when Ian was halfway into the chair. "Shirt off, but suspenders on. Yeah."
There was only one Ian now but like the two Ians he saw earlier this one oddly paused for a moment, hovering just above the seat of the chair. He cleared his throat and plastered on an easy smile as he lowered the suspenders and unbuttoned his flannel.
"What kinda art class you takin'?" Ian joked. He shed his shirt and pulled the suspenders back over his shoulders.
"A fuckin' cool one." Mickey admitted.
"Sit."
Ian sat and Mickey's hand hovered just over the paper. The image of Ian was there in his mind but it was different from what he saw in the room. His alcohol addled brain swam for a moment before he realized what the issue was.
"Lay down."
"Uh, okay?"
Ian moved stiffly to his bed and lay on his side, he propped his head up with one hand but seemed to struggle on what to do with the other arm. Mickey stood up unsteadily and crossed the room to push Ian onto his back firmly.
"Like this." He affirmed, going back for his notebook before returning to Ian's bedside.
"Yeah, just like that." He had Ian in the right spot, but the perspective…
He would never have done any of this sober and if he managed to remember what he did next he would probably change his name and escape to Mexico where he knows Ian's poor Spanish would keep them from ever seeing each other again. But Drunk Mickey had a vision and a willing muse so he hoisted one leg over the ginger's slim hips and straddled his stomach.
There. There was his vision! Lined up perfectly with the real thing and ready to be drawn. He relaxed his ass onto Ian's firm stomach and flipped to a clean page.
Ian was statuesque below him which was perfect for Mickey's rough outline. He took his time, eyeing every part of the man below him from the top of his beanie clad head to his pale nipples mostly obscured by the thick suspenders.
"Mickey, can I ask you a question?"
Mickey shook his head and poked his tongue out of the corner of his mouth. Ian let him work in peace and Mickey almost forgot he was actually there, that is until he felt Ian's impossibly hot hands come to rest on his thighs.
"Mickey?"
"I'm almost done, I swear. Wish I had colored pencils…" He murmured the last part to himself as he absently ran his fingers through the patch of tight orange curls between Ian's pecs. He felt Ian's breath stutter under his fingertips.
"Mickey, are you almost done?" Ian asked, his voice high and unnatural in Mickey's ears. He blinked and finally saw the picture as a whole. It was different than anything he had ever drawn before, rough and unclean but so clearly what he envisioned. Another hour working on it and he'd confidently turn it in for his final exam, that's how perfect his drunk brain knew it to be.
"Yeah I'm done for now."
"Can I see?"
Mickey tossed the book across the room where it smacked against the wall and landed open on his bed.
"Uhh, okay. I guess not."
"Don't ever look in there! Ever!" Mickey felt hot and cold all over all at once. Ian could never see what he'd been drawing all semester. He would think Mickey was some sick stalker who was obsessed with him. He'd be disgusted. He'd check the box for a new roommate and Mickey would never see him again.
"Okay."
"Promise!" Mickey pleaded. Ian sat up, pushing Mickey to sit further down into his lap. Ian held his eye as he grasped his face between large, freckled hands Mickey had drawn so many times.
"Mickey Milkovich, I promise I will never look at your drawings as long as you promise me something."
"What?"
"Promise you won't be weird about this tomorrow?"
Before Mickey could answer Ian pressed their lips together and it was Mickey's turn to freeze.
—
You seem to prefer the masculine form.
You become intimate with parts of people.
Art is incredibly romantic in that way.
Mickey knew before he even opened his eyes on November 1st a few things.
One, he was hungover as hell.
Two, it’s not gay to sketch your homies if you’re trying to improve your drawing skills
Three, he was absolutely going to be weird about what happened.
Because what happened is he demanded Ian take off his shirt, straddled him, then kissed him back before drunkenly declaring it was time for bed.
His head had surfaced from his blankets at some point during the night and the light coming through the window made him flinch in pain.
"Gatorade and Advil are right next to you."
Mickey wondered if he could get away with pretending to still be asleep but judging by Ian's disappointed sigh he was out of luck.
"You promised not to be weird, Mick."
Mickey screwed his eyes shut before opening them and enduring the pressure in his head so he could sit up, take the pills, and drink his electrolytes. Once he had swallowed a couple mouthfuls of the red beverage he capped it.
"Sorry that I already made it weird."
He was sorry, sorry because he knew what he and Ian had would change and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
—
They still ate together, and talked and played video games and hung out, but Mickey could feel this undercurrent of something from Ian that made him more melancholic than usual. Every day with Ian felt like an off day, but Mickey could only ask so many times if Ian was taking his meds before he became Fiona. Mickey promised not to be weird about Halloween but Ian was the weird one and since he made no such promise to Mickey about not being weird Mickey was left feeling helpless.
—
"Can I draw you again?" Mickey asked tentatively. His Figure Drawing Final was due next week. He had tried to draw Ian from memory, using pages filled with him as references, but each attempt felt off in some way Mickey couldn't pinpoint.
Except he could, he just didn't want to admit it. It was the eyes. At first Mickey couldn't draw eyes on a technical level, but now it's because when he imagines Ian's eyes he sees them sad and dull. He didn't want his final work to be that Ian, that Ian wasn't who inspired him.
The Ian who inspired him was proud of who he was. He was hard working and so smart in a way Mickey knew he could never reach. Ian was happiness and sunshine and somehow Mickey had snuffed him out.
Those sad, dull green eyes didn't meet his as Ian shrugged and closed his own textbook.
"How do you want me?" He asked, sounding not at all interested.
Happy Mickey thought but ultimately went with "However you want, man."
Ian ended up moving to his bed, laying on his side facing Mickey. Unlike Halloween he didn't fret with where to put his hands, he just curled them underneath his cheek and waited.
Mickey readied his pencil but couldn't bring it down to touch the page. Ian's eyes were still all wrong. He got up and crossed the room, Ian's sad gaze on him the whole time. Standing above Ian's bed Mickey worried his bottom lip between his teeth then manhandled Ian on to his back. Before he could talk himself out of it he straddled the prone man.
"This okay?" Mickey asked, avoiding looking at Ian by reopening his sketchbook and pulling the pencil from behind his ear. Just beyond where he forced his focus he could see Ian nod.
He began to draw, creating Ian's basic shape. He knew it well, knew how to proportion his head to his shoulders, knew how long to make his neck, knew exactly where to place the bit of his ears that stuck out from his head.
"Professor Kelly told me you become intimate with parts of people they don't even think about when you draw." Mickey started, a smile blooming on his face as he felt himself relax into the method scratch of lead to paper.
"Do you ever think about your ears? I think about them all the time."
Mickey cleared his throat, realizing what he just said. He used his sketchbook as a barricade, keeping their faces hidden from each other. After a few silent seconds Ian's heated palms rested on Mickey's thighs.
"What else does Professor Kelly tell you?"
"She says art is romantic."
"It is." Ian agreed in a barely there breath. Mickey chanced a peak over his barrier and found Ian's eyes sparkling with a familiarity Mickey had been craving.
"She-she also says I prefer a uh," Mickey's throat felt suddenly dry, his hand spasmed and left an errant mark on the paper.
"She said I prefer a masculine form."
Ian's palms on his thighs tightened.
"Do you think she's right?"
Mickey wasn't able to draw anymore, his hands shaking with the onslaught of vulnerability.
"I-I don't know."
Ian was bolting upright, pulling Mickey's tools out of his trembling hands and dropping them to the floor. Those large, freckled hands Mickey had become so intimately familiar with once again framed his face. His vision was a little blurred but he could still feel the intensity of Ian's gaze.
"I don't know if I like the masculine form or if…if I just like you?"
"You like me?"
Mickey's laugh was wet and weak but it made Ian smile.
"Of course I do man, you're my best friend. You're my- Kelly calls it a muse, but I don't know what to call you. Ian you're everything to me."
It was Mickey who pitched forward to connect their lips this time and Ian received him immediately. There was no freezing, no desperate promises, no alcohol. There was nothing but Ian and Mickey.
—
"Jesus Christ this is supposed to be me?!" Ian exclaimed as Mickey opened his sketchbook to the first page. Mickey grabbed fabric and skin in the general vicinity of Ian's nipple and twisted.
"It was my first day fuckhead I didn't know what I was doing. Kelly said to just draw someone who inspires you."
"Aww, Mickey."
Mickey allowed Ian to plant a kiss on his cheek, then his lips, before he pushed him away and turned the page.
"This page is just dicks."
"There's other stuff too! Look, those are your eyes."
—
"This next one is my final." Mickey teased the edge of the page, drawing out Ian's anticipation.
"Do you want to know my grade before or after."
"Mick, just show me."
Mickey turned the page, breath stuck in his throat as the final portrait of Ian he drew was revealed.
"Holy shit Baby, it's amazing! You're amazing."
"What can I say? I had a great muse."
He managed to push the sketchbook aside just in time as he was tackled back onto the bed by his mammoth-sized boyfriend.
"Want to know what grade I got?" Mickey asked between kisses.
"If it's anything less than an A I'll key Kelly's car."
Mickey Milkovich smiled up at Ian Gallagher; his roommate, best friend, boyfriend, muse, and everything else he could contain.
"No vandalism necessary today Gallagher, but there's always next semester."