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“Hold still…”
“Quit fuckin’ poking at it!”
“I need to see if it’s fuckin’ broken!”
“Oh you got a medical degree now, huh? Jesus Christ! Get off!”
“Fine, asshole! End up with a fuckin’ wonky-ass snout. See if I give a shit!”
Mandy released her brother’s chin and stepped back, shaking her head.
“You want me to wash your shirt?”
Mickey smeared his forearm across his upper lip, grimacing at the sight of thick, sticky blood as he pulled it away.
“Yeah. Thanks.”
He tugged the splattered tee over his head and handed it over almost shyly. Their fingers touched briefly and Mickey sighed through his mouth, ignoring the clogged up feeling of his nose as he eyed his sister. She looked shaken but not hurt.
“You okay?”
Mandy folded the shirt over her arm, smoothing the creases out of the grubby fabric before answering.
“Yeah. You didn’t have to … you know.”
Mickey shrugged one pale skinny shoulder and sniffed experimentally, wincing as pain spread across his face from the bruised cartilage of his nose.
“I had to tell him I lost the cash at some point.”
Mandy smiled and tucked a long strand of dyed hair behind her ear.
“Picked a fucking weird time. He was pissed at me not you.”
“Won’t make that mistake again then, will I?”
Mandy snorted and shook her head
“Just admit you did a nice thing, dickwad.”
“Fuck off.”
Mickey frowned and pulled a packet of smokes out of his jeans pocket. His fingers were shaking a little but not that badly now. He heard the soft whoosh of a lighter and bobbed his head gratefully as Mandy leant over to light it for him.
“Hey, you got anything to do right now?”
“Dad wants me to shake down a couple assholes to make that money back.”
Mickey doesn’t say that it can wait but he doesn’t seem to be in any hurry either so Mandy decides to try a little olive branch and see what happens. They are always at their closest after a disaster and Mandy wants to offer her brother something to show her gratitude.
“I could do your hair?”
Mickey runs a hand over the short dirty blonde lengths and scowls
“There’s nothin’ fuckin’ wrong with my hair.”
Mandy shrugs and nods to the ‘Out For Justice’ poster on Mickey’s bedroom door.
“Might suit you darker.”
She wanders through to the kitchen with his bloodied shirt whilst Mickey finishes his cigarette and cleans up his face with a mostly-clean sock he has plucked off a radiator.
“You think it would look okay?”
Mickey asks self-consciously when she comes back in and Mandy smiles encouragingly, holding out a length of her own her.
“Like this or …”
She gestures to her fringe which is streaked with red
“Red maybe? I can mix a couple of colours to get a really dark red?”
Mickey shakes his head quickly
“Nah, I don’t like redheads.”
“Okay, so black?”
Mickey licks his lip and glances back to Steven Segal, staring down at him like a fuckin’ badass.
“Sure. But don’t fuck it up, okay?”
Mandy rolls her eyes and points toward the bathroom.
She works quickly, knowing that Mickey’s patience is always limited and they barely say a word to each other as she coats the short, fair lengths with dye.
“Stuff smells like shit.”
“Gotta leave it for twenty minutes.”
Mickey pulls a face but doesn’t protest.
“Okay, face me and do not fuckin’ move…”
Mandy orders and fights a smile at the almost comical freeze of her brother’s body. Mickey doesn’t give a shit about much but he is a weirdly precious about his hair and although he is shit at styling it and ends up clumping it in weird spikes, he always tries.
Mandy dabs a tiny amount of dye on a comb and with the concentration of a surgeon, sweeps it lightly along Mickey’s right eyebrow.
“What the fuck?”
Mickey grits but maintains his statuesque freeze.
“You want to have pale eyebrows and black hair? No? Then hold still.”
Mandy grunts, applying the same careful stroke to his left. She is not normally up close and personal with her brother, and certainly not this close to his eyes. Their mom’s eyes. Mandy swallows and pushes the memories away with a defiant huff.
“Okay I’ll get you a beer. Sit still, DO NOT touch your hair or face!”
Mickey pulls a face at her retreating back but folds his arms across his chest obediently anyway. Beneath the scowl he is excited. Changing his hair colour isn’t going to change all the other shitty things in his life but it is something new and right now, Mickey desperately wants to feel renewed.
*
The first time Mickey told Ian that story, he was drunk. They were slouched in a booth in a club in Boy’s Town and Ian had been lazily fingering the lengths of Mickey’s hair when violet coloured lights hit them both, sending silver fragments of colour across Mickey’s pale roots.
He’d asked when Mickey first dyed his hair and not really expected much more than the usual shrug and single word answer that accompanied most direct questions about Mickey’s past. However, the whisky had been flowing freely all evening and Ian had sat rapt as Mickey leant a little bit closer to him and told him about it, almost yelling to be heard over the din of the music.
“So yeah, that was it, man. It was the first time I ever felt like … like I made a proper fuckin’ choice about what I looked like. Clothes were always from Iggy, soap was whatever shit Mandy stole, couldn’t grow a fuckin’ beard back then… but this,”
Mickey ruffled his hair affectionately
“This I chose. It was … choosing my own colours, ya know?”
Mickey hiccupped and grinned at Ian, running his hand across the golden stubble on Ian’s jaw, completely oblivious to the intense effect his words had on his boyfriend.
“Mmm. I really do like this though. Maybe I should grow a beard now or something? I’m a fuckin’ bald eagle except for my pubes, man. No fuckin’ chest hair, no proper hair on my legs … shit is freaky.”
“No way! You’re perfect, Mick.”
Ian shouted back over the bass, Mickey’s grin widened and he slapped Ian’s cheek lightly with a small laugh.
“Nah, you’re fuckin’ perfect. Big ol’ freckly alien mother fucker. Mine, you know? My fuckin’ space man.”
Ian watched Mickey’s hand trail up his thigh, inviting and demanding in equal measure and the way when he looked back at him, his pupils were blown and Ian could swear that his boyfriend’s scent had spiked too, taking on a heady aroma of sex and raw masculinity that Mickey didn’t seem to even notice. Ian swallowed dryly and ran his hands through as much of Mickey’s hair as he could, touching every liberated strand with all the love in his heart.
They hadn’t made it out of the club. They barely made it to a locked bathroom stall that Mickey kicked his way into, terrifying the two boys already in there.
“Times up, assholes!”
“You can’t do that!”
One of them had protested as Mickey shouldered his way in, dragging Ian by the wrist, crushing the four of them in together.
“Well it looks like I fuckin’ am. If you’re still here when I get my dick out, I’m gonna put your fuckin’ eyes out with it.”
Mickey snapped, his attention solely with Ian as he began to unbuckle his belt and fumble with the button of his jeans.
“Is he serious?”
The other kid had asked Ian whose air of passive amusement flicked like a switch as the guy shot Mickey a filthy look of distain.
“Yeah, he’s fuckin’ serious, you little twink bitch. Get the fuck out!”
“Jesus! You two are fucking crazy!”
Ian leant in close to the second boy and bared his teeth in a fairly passable resemblance of a deranged smile, his eyes dark.
“You have no fucking idea.”
The boys exited swiftly, already forgotten as the door banged shut behind them. The music from the club was distorted but clear and Ian swayed with the base, his arms linking around Mickey’s neck, drawing him in close. The kisses were hard and wet, a clash of tongues and teeth, slipping to biting kisses along jaws and throats. Ian turned Mickey around and slammed him into the wall of the stall, covering his body with his own and nosing through his hair to find the natural colour beneath, recounting Mickey’s story in his head.
“You made a fuckin’ good choice, Mick. Blonde is sweet and all but black … mmmmm.”
Ian bit Mickey’s neck sharply causing his boyfriend to hiss a breath through his teeth.
“And hairless ain’t freaky, it feels amazing in all the right places.”
Ian thrust his hands down the back of Mickey’s pants, grabbing his ass hard and shoving his jeans down roughly.
“And any fucker who lays a finger on you is gonna have me to deal with, I will fuckin’ destroy them.”
Mickey grunted, pushing back against Ian and reaching back to grip a fistful of Ian’s shirt
“You gonna protect me, huh? Treat me right?”
Mickey’s tone was teasing but he clenched around Ian tightly making his boyfriend gasp and squeeze his eyes shut.
“Always.”
Ian growled, and kissed the tattooed digits clinging to him. He built up a rhythm which Mickey matched, gradually increasing their speed until the stall was rattling alarmingly and they were both sweating and swearing freely, completely lost in each other and not giving a single fuck about the rest of the world.
Mickey came with his forehead pressed to the graffitied wall, the bulk of Ian’s weight leaning into him, Mickey’s sturdy legs supporting them both despite the tangled denim pooled around his knees.
As they left the bathroom stall, several pairs of eyes followed them to the sinks and Ian settled a protective hand on the small of Mickey’s back, daring anyone to say a damn thing. Mickey washed his hands nonchalantly and splashed water over his face, tipping his head back to push wet fingers through his hair.
A couple of men smiled appreciatively but looked away as Ian rolled his neck and made eye contact that could not be confused for anything other than naked aggression.
“Your boy does have nice hair. You weren’t lying.”
One of them ventured with a giggle, watching Mickey neaten himself up in the mirror. Ian smirked, eyes narrowing to slits and took a step forward.
“I missed that, buddy. What the fuck did you say?”
“He called me your ‘boy’,”
Mickey answered casually, turning from the mirror and stepping up beside Ian, who snapped his fingers and cocked his head to the side looking at the men like they were his next meal.
“Shit. That’s what I thought he fucking said.”
Both Southsiders kept their faces straight until the bathroom door closed behind their former audience and then fell about laughing.
Mickey pulled Ian in for another kiss and gently butted his forehead against Ian’s own.
“You’re hot when you’re intimidating assholes for me.”
“Learned from the best.”
Ian murmured fondly then on impulse he neatened Mickey’s shirt, smoothing his hands across broad, capable shoulders.
“You chose the perfect colours, Mick. You know that, right?”
Mickey ducked his head, a shy touch of pink on his cheekbones adding to his spectrum of colours.
Looking around them, both men suddenly realised they had managed to empty the bathroom. Mickey quirked an eyebrow and gave Ian that particular grin that assured Ian things could only possibly go one way. Ian nodded and they tumbled back into the battered cubicle.