Chapter Text
The last thing Ian Gallagher thought he'd be at 19 is married.
But for all he knows, it beats being a 19-year-old high school dropout who majorly lucked out at the genetic disorder lottery and is now once again spending his nights dancing for old closeted married dudes in a gay club called the Fairy Tail, just so he can afford the rent for the world's tiniest and shittiest apartment, and prove to his sister that he's able to take care of himself, even without her constant nagging.
Definitely less of a mouthful.
"I mean, sure, I still pick up Fiona's daily phone calls and pretend like she's actually interested in what I've been doing. Even though we both know what she's really asking is if I'm taking my meds," Ian says before he takes another drag from his cigarette, his fingers already feeling a little numb from the cold.
He should put more clothes on before he goes outside. He's been telling himself that ever since the first time, but in his eagerness, he always forgets.
"And it's not like I even have anything to talk about," he continues as he watches the smoke hang heavy in the air. "I take my meds, I go to work—and that's it. Nothing happens to me anymore."
It's a small lie, and he knows it.
Because there is, in fact, something he can cling to through every mind-numbingly identical night of bright strobe lights and monotonous rubbing against cheap polyester.
And it's this. This freezing, 15-minute-long smoke break.
So each shift, at exactly 2 am, Ian extracts himself with hasty excuses from whoever's currently breathing on his neck, throws his winter jacket around his shoulders, and barrels into the back alley through the emergency exit door.
Where he'll be, like clockwork.
Mickey.
His name's basically the only thing that Ian knows about the guy. That, and the fact that his mouth never fails to quirk up at the sight of Ian's bare legs poking out from under the puffy parka, while he stays clad in the same dark coat, blue jeans and boots combo.
"Ukrainian," Ian heard one of the bartenders mention in the locker room all those weeks ago when Mickey got hired as the club's newest bouncer. "Barely speaks any English, mostly curses. Scares the shit out of people."
Apparently, he's getting paid under the table because, despite being rather on the shorter spectrum, his eyes are hard and piercing, and he looks like he's always gearing up for a fight.
This genuinely baffles Ian, because it sounds nothing like the man he's come to know through their one-sided back alley conversations.
Sure, he has the vibe of someone ready to puncture your windpipe with a blunt pencil, what with the whole knuckle tats and permanent scowl situation, but his silent presence never feels threatening. Not to Ian, at least.
On the contrary. As the nights go by, Ian finds himself revealing more and more to the man. Telling him about Debbie's baby drama, fucking Hal trying to cop a feel mid-song, and the flash of horror and shame it set aflame in the pit of Ian's stomach.
All the things he usually tends to keep to himself.
The most he ever gets in return is an uptick of those thick black eyebrows, or a snorted laugh. The casual nod reserved mostly to signal both hellos and goodbyes.
And fuck if Ian doesn't feel even more naked under that fixed gaze.
"They've been fighting about the college thing again, my sister and my brother Lip. That's one thing I definitely don't miss about living at home," he says, voice weary.
Mickey listens, one finger lazily tapping off the ash from his cigarette, a corner of his lips glistening wet as he quickly swipes his tongue over it. And suddenly, Ian is reminded of the standing bet among his coworkers on which of the dancers offers to suck Mickey's dick first.
Truth is, if Mickey ever gave Ian even the slightest hint that he was interested, Ian would waste no time in proving to him that those lips weren't good just for blowing smoke rings.
It's pretty clear they aren't batting for the same team, though. Can't be.
Fucking figures Ian would crush this hard on a romantically unavailable straight bait, of all people.
"I'll give them a call in the morning. See if they both made it through the night," he decides, matching Mickey's amused expression.
Nothing ever happens to him anymore except for these fifteen minutes with Mickey, which always go by way too fast.
"Gonna head back now." He grinds the butt of his cigarette on the wall, feeling a little awkward. Mickey's typically the one to leave first, but tonight, he's standing stock-still, eyeing Ian with intent. "Same time tomorrow, yeah?"
As he turns, breaking the connection, a slight pang of sadness hits him. Time to slip into his Curtis persona once again.
Then, he hears the muttered words, somehow both rough and vulnerable.
"No tomorrow. I go home tomorrow."
"Oh?" Ian whips back in reply. He can't remember if he ever heard Mickey speak so much in one go—or noticed him taking a day off, for that matter. "You got the night free?"
"No, not Chicago home. Ukraine home."
When the meaning of those words finally registers, it burns all the way down Ian's spine. An inexplicable wave of panic rising.
"You're going home-home?" he asks stupidly. "What? Why?"
"I must go."
"Says who?"
Mickey rubs at his nose. "America," he answers with a fling of his wrist, the gesture reading as frustration.
Ian should just go back to work. Give himself a minute to reflect on their could-have-been friendship, maybe even think well, that's too bad, and wish Mickey a pleasant journey to wherever the hell Ukraine is.
Too far away from Ian, that's for sure.
The thing is, he can't let Mickey leave, because that would mean Ian washing down his pills and going to work every day fully conscious of the fact that there are no more 2am smoke breaks to look forward to.
He imagines the empty back alley, its coldness and solitude, and no one to share it with, and it all leads to one simple, if selfish, conclusion: He desperately doesn’t want Mickey to leave him.
And so, the insane thought is out of Ian’s mouth before he can stop it.
“Marry me,” he blurts out, watching in real-time as the strange uncertainty drains right out of Mickey’s face and morphs into something far more sinister, his whole stance changing with it.
At that point, Ian is almost certain he’s about to get the famed bouncer Mickey treatment.
“What the fuck you say?” Mickey snaps at him, fists clenched at his sides.
“Listen, it would be completely innocent and purely transactional–”
“You wanna rub dicks with me, queer boy?” He stalks closer to Ian, chest all puffed out. “You touch my dick, I break both your arms.”
“Mickey, you work in a gay club,” Ian tries to reason, momentarily forgetting about the very high probability of catching a fist with his face. “Okay, not the point right now, I know! Look, you gotta believe me. I’m not gonna touch you, I swear to God. It’d be just a piece of paper, so they’d let you stay here.”
At that, something akin to recognition passes through Mickey’s face, leaving him to shuffle his feet on the spot. It’s as if he’s finally realized that the two hairless legs in a coat might actually be onto something here.
Something rather beneficial to him.
“Because if we get married, you get to stay,” Ian continues slowly, making sure they’re both on the same page. “You understand what I’m saying?”
“Yes. I understand,” Mickey measures his words, anger visibly simmering down. “But, you wanna marry me. Why?”
Because my entire mental well-being depends on you being here, Ian wants to say. Because you are the only thing separating me from becoming the total fuck-up that my family thinks I am.
“Because I think you deserve a chance,” he says after some deliberation, “and I… enjoy your company.” He tries to level Mickey’s uneasiness with a tentative smile. “Don’t know if you’re aware of this, but you’re quite the conversationalist.”
Mickey lets the glare linger, the heat behind it long gone.
“You use big words to make fun of me. I do not enjoy,” he tells Ian impassively. “You will not enjoy shaking ass with broken bones.”
Ian guesses he’ll note down violence as Mickey’s personal love language, and the thought alone makes his smile grow wider.
“Is that a yes, I’ll marry you, Ian, that I hear?” he asks hopefully.
“Yes, I marry you.” Mickey rolls his eyes, ever the romantic.
As they start to make their way back inside, he adds a mumbled, much quieter, “Orange idiot.” To Ian’s ears, it almost sounds fond.
“You do want to stay in the US, right? I forgot to ask before.”
Mickey lifts his eyes from the menu long enough to somewhat dryly mutter, “You forget to ask many things.”
It’s nearing 5 am, they’re sitting in a booth opposite each other in the 24-hour IHOP over on North Halsted, and Ian debates reaching over the table and taking Mickey’s hand.
Fake or not, they did just get engaged less than three hours ago.
“Holy shit, Curtis! That’s massive!” Rhett, one of his regulars, exclaimed when Ian told him the news over the boom of dance music, knees bracketing his thighs as he moved his hips into the rhythm.
“Thank you! It is kind of a big deal, isn’t it?” Ian replied emphatically as he took Rhett’s hand and slid it seductively down his own chest.
Because it kind of is, really.
Marriage has never meant much to the Gallagher kids, certainly not anything they’d ever associate with stability. But it still does something to Ian. The knowledge that, at least in the eyes of the state’s law, he will belong to someone—and someone will belong to him.
Particularly when that very someone is the dark-haired guy opposite him, his cheeks a shade of pink from the outside cold, who’s looking a little bewildered at the local selection of French toast, pancakes, and waffles.
“You didn’t answer,” Ian says, watching as all of Mickey’s irritation concentrates in that one wrinkle between his eyebrows.
“What is to answer? We have pancakes in Ukraine, too,” Mickey replies as he scans the same side of the menu card from the top again. “And yet, I sit here.”
Ian hums knowingly, marveling at how the words coming out of Mickey’s mouth manage to sound rough and soft at the same time. With all the breathy h’s and hard r’s.
“Aren’t you gonna miss home?” Ian asks him after a beat.
“No?” Mickey shoots back with a warning glare.
“What about your family?”
A near-limit sigh. “What about my family?”
Good enough, Ian decides. At least now he knows there’s a family to speak about.
He’s about to take his phone out of his pocket when a disinterested server comes to fill their coffee cups. Ian gives another quick look to Mickey, whose frown only managed to grow deeper in the meantime, and orders chocolate chip pancakes for the both of them.
“Don’t worry, you’re gonna like it,” he hurriedly says in an attempt to calm down Mickey’s quiet protest.
The server leaves with nothing more than a pop of her chewing gum, and Mickey leans back in his seat, still taking Ian in with that same inquisitive expression.
He has his coat off, finally, bunched around his hips and revealing a dark hoodie and some sort of a chain tucked underneath. A spark of gold hidden under a thick layer of fabric.
“Did anyone ever tell you your eyes are like, so blue?” Ian asks him in wonder.
Mickey lets said eyes comically roam around the place, grimacing when he simply says, “Yes.”
“Right,” Ian voices awkwardly and clears his throat.
He’ll take it as his cue to get down to business.
“Okay, here it is. Chicago same-day wedding,” he announces after a minute of googling, turning the screen of his phone for Mickey to see. “Says here we just have to fill out a form and pay a fee. Should be easy enough.”
In reply, Mickey makes several indistinguishable sounds into his coffee.
“So, we can get our marriage certificate at the City Hall and get married there, too,“ Ian continues after some more clicking and scrolling. “It’s this building right here.”
He shows Mickey a Street View look of the place. All ten fancily columned stories of it.
„I am getting married at a bank,“ Mickey assesses with distaste.
„It’s not a bank—“
„All of my family, christened. You are born, you get married, you die. Every time, you go to church. Is natural. I always think I get married, I go to church. Simple. You Americans love church, no?”
Ian blinks rapidly, assaulted by the barrage of brand new information.
“Wait,” he says when his brain catches up. “Are you telling me you dreamt of getting married, Mickey?”
“Fuck. Off.”
“Kinda sounds like you did, though.”
He chuckles heartily when Mickey, sparing no other word, gives him the finger.
This man gets more intriguing by the second.
“Click here to start your pre-application. Why yes, thank you,” Ian mutters to himself as he opens the Cook County’s website in his phone’s browser. “We’re not related, no. Both over 18?” He finds Mickey’s hard stare. “I’m gonna say yes. Our partner title is groom and groom, good to know.”
Ian skims the additional info page with an impatient click of his tongue.
“Okay, here we go. Name and address, the classics. I’m gonna put my name in first, alright?” He sips on his coffee, concentrating hard so he fills out all the information correctly. “Next page. Occupation and education? Shit. Getting kinda heavy for an early morning.” He lets out an uneasy laugh. “Guess I’m a dancer, and my highest achieved level of education is high school junior.”
“What junior mean?”
Ian looks at Mickey with a tight smile. “Means I didn’t finish high school.”
“Same here,” Mickey answers with a casual shrug.
“You didn’t finish high school?”
“Never even start.”
“Huh.”
Mickey taps his fingers on the table, the tempo vaguely resembling the almost inaudible beat of the music coming out of the wall speakers. Ian tries to imagine a 15-year-old kid with the exact same bitten-off nails and crude English words tattooed on his knuckles. Wonders what he could possibly be doing if he’s not going to school.
He’s well aware of what people from the South Side usually do. They get knocked up, stuck in some dead-end job, or locked up. He’s interested to see which category Mickey falls into.
Ian cuts off that train of thought right as it finds its way back to his 15-year-old self.
“Right. Parental info,” he says as he snaps back to reality. “Think they want me to write down my real dad? Nah, I guess I need to put down my paper dad. Is your parent deceased? Fucking wish he was.” He looks up at Mickey’s quiet snort. “Don’t ask.”
“Daddy issues I get,” is all Mickey adds to it.
Ian finishes filling out his sections just as the waitress returns with their order.
“Your turn now,” he tells Mickey as he stuffs a forkful of pancakes into his mouth. “How do you spell Mickey? Same as in English?”
“Is Mikhailo.”
“What is?”
Mickey rolls his eyes. “My name,” he says, motioning at Ian to pass him his phone. “Give me. I type, you eat.”
He grabs the phone fast, calling Ian an ignorant American with every nonverbal cue while he busies his mouth with a large bite of his own.
“Mikhailo,” Ian pronounces carefully, tasting both the lingering sweetness of chocolate and every syllable of Mickey’s name. “D’you want me to call you that, too?”
“No.”
“Well, it’s nice to properly meet you, Mikhailo.”
Their eyes meet, for just a second. It could mean anything.
“Use mouth to put in more food,” Mickey then instructs him with a bit of mime.
Ian can’t help but smile at that.
Just as he’s about to dig back into his meal, he spots a fleeting smile pass Mickey’s face, too, before he hides it behind Ian’s phone.
It must be such a strange kind of relief, Ian thinks, to be finally able to let it all out. To reveal this rich inner world to someone. Even if it’s just a peek, so far.
“Could’ve said you actually spoke English,” he starts again after a couple of minutes of companionable silence, filled only with the sounds of chewing, Ian’s foot tapping underneath the table, and Mickey’s frustrated grunts at the online forms. “Or said anything, for that matter.”
“Much funnier when you not know,” Mickey replies from behind the phone, one corner of his mouth curling up.
“Yeah, hilarious. Just please don’t tell my family any of the things I told you.”
“Too late. We meet every week. I tell everything. They say you are least favorite brother.”
“Sounds about right,” Ian huffs out as he rubs at his eye, forgetting himself. His finger comes back smudged with black kohl.
He tries to wipe it on his jeans when Mickey slides his phone across the table.
“Is done,” he announces unceremoniously and leans back in his seat.
“You sent it already?” Ian says when he sees the confirmation page on his screen.
“Yes. Is done.”
A beat. Then another.
“Shit.”
They’re actually getting fucking married.
Heart beating wild, he finds Mickey staring at his empty plate, present but mind miles away all of a sudden.
“You having second thoughts?” Ian asks, and the urge to reach over, clasp Mickey’s hand in his, and soothe his thumb over the fading letters on his knuckles comes back strong. In the end, he settles for nudging his foot under the table. “Like, do you regret saying yes?”
Mickey tilts his head in mock contemplation. “No, no second thoughts. First thoughts only.”
“Okay.” Ian lets out a snort through his nose. The little shit. “What are your first thoughts about?”
“You.”
“What about me?”
“Make no sense.”
“Okay?” Ian says in one incredulous breath.
“You see piece of shit Ukrainian you not know. You want to marry him. Make no sense.”
Ian hums, lets the words register. “You know what karma is?”
“Yeah, I know Karma,” Mickey nods, like obviously. “Tall, blonde one. Big fake breasts.”
Shaking his head, Ian gives him another kick. “I don’t mean Karma who comes on Drag Night.”
“I know. I only give you shit,” Mickey smirks, kicking him back.
Looking down, Ian pushes his sleeve out of the way to see the time on his watch. 5:30 am. They still have a few hours before City Hall opens.
He should probably head back to his place and get some shut-eye, but somehow he doubts he’d be able to fall asleep, if even for a wink.
Downing the rest of his cold coffee, he talks into the cup when he asks, “You gonna take my name?”
Mickey brings his hand up and scratches his nose with his thumb—a weird gesture that instantly feels so characteristically him.
“Mickey Orange Idiot?” he says after some consideration. “No, sound too stupid.”
Ian almost chokes on his own laughter. “You’re such a dick.”
If he thought he liked Mickey when he was just wordlessly judging him, Ian was in no shape or form prepared for how much his chest would swell when Mickey poked fun at him with a toothy grin plastered to his face.
He shoots a quick hey guys to his siblings before he runs up the stairs, ignoring the voices calling his name. He took the L all the way back to the Gallagher house with one goal only, and he really has no time to chat now.
When he stomps down to the kitchen again, the pair of suits—his and Lip’s—slung across his shoulder, he can already see the questions forming on Fiona’s face.
“I’m marrying a Ukrainian bouncer called Mickey so that he can get a green card and stay here and maybe even fall in love with me. Don’t ask!” he blurts out by way of explaining and runs out of the house before they can stop him.
With his head in the sink, Ian rubs somewhat aggressively at his face, washing off his stage make-up with broken streams of lukewarm water and pure will.
He’s dabbing his face dry with a wad of paper towels that he blindly grabbed from the wall dispenser when Mickey comes out of the stall wearing Lip’s suit, smoothing his hands down the front as he checks himself out in the bathroom mirror.
Ian chucks the ball of towels in the trash, smiling to himself.
Mickey in a suit. Definitely a look he doesn’t mind.
“Look at you,” Ian says when they stand next to each other and Mickey does the what do you think 360-turn. “Knew it would fit you alright.”
Mickey takes in Ian’s scrubbed clean face and finger-combed wet hair, and his eyes bounce back and forth, stuck somewhere between unreserved ogling and a disinterested once-over.
“You look good. No, um—”
“No eyeliner or glitter? Yeah,” Ian gives a small laugh as he buttons up his shirt. “But they kinda help me cover all the freckles. Not everyone’s into that.”
“I like freckles,” Mickey tells him with a shrug, like it’s not a big deal.
Like it doesn’t take Ian’s insides for a spin.
His phone goes off in his pocket, and when he sees that it’s Fiona calling—again—he switches it to vibrate and sticks it back into his pants.
“And I like men in suits.” He winks at Mickey as he slings his tie around his neck, fumbling a bit with the two ends, and says, “Sounds like we’re a perfect match. We should get married. Ha!”
“Funny. Let me.”
Mickey steps closer, smacking Ian’s hands away to make quick, practiced do with the tie.
“Where’d you learn to tie a tie like that?” Ian asks in admiration when Mickey tugs the knot tighter around his neck. “You a secret suit-wearer? Or was your dad just a decent human being, unlike mine?” And then, a little softer, more jokey, “You get married to anyone before me? You can tell me, I’m a big boy.”
Mickey lets him ramble with a small smile. Finally, he double-taps his chest and answers with a simple, “Church.”
“Yikes.”
“Yes. Yikes.”
Truth be told, Ian is dying to find out more, see what God might say about Mickey working in a nightclub, or even make a joke about gay marriage. Still, he guesses it’s not really a topic to bring up in the public bathroom of a courthouse. They can open the religious can of worms after they get hitched.
“So, what do you say?” Ian, now fully suited-up, asks Mickey as he takes a twirl on the heel of his sneakers. Hopefully, his feet won’t be visible in any of the photos he’s planning to take. “Think my husband will like what he’s getting?”
“What-ever,” Mickey says, like it’s two words.
It’ll have to do for now.
“Here,” he then continues, passing Ian what he digs out from his breast pocket.
Two silver rings. Not too wide, and not too thin either. Simple, without any sort of engraving or design. Not cheap-looking, either.
“Where the hell did you get these?” Ian wonders aloud when he takes one of the rings between his fingers for closer inspection.
Yeah. Definitely not cheap.
“I know people,” Mickey says, a complete non-answer.
The question about how can an Eastern European immigrant have a jeweler on speed dial dies on Ian’s lips when he finally grows tired of the insistent vibration against his leg and switches off his phone.
Taking a leveling breath, he turns back to the sink to wet his hands.
“We’ll have to look like we’re madly in love,” he reminds Mickey as he brushes his fingers through his hair, styling it back. “And we’ll have to kiss like that, too.”
“One kiss is fine,” Mickey says, watching him through the mirror. “But no tongue. You touch me with tongue, and I–”
“Yeah, I know,” Ian supplies with a mock-weary sigh and takes a step back. “You break both of my arms.”
“No. I break your pretty face,” Mickey corrects him with a light smack to his cheek.
What is it with people getting married on a Wednesday morning?
It takes them ages to get processed and then wait to get called in front of the judge. Ian spends most of the time bouncing his knees nervously or taking his phone out of his pocket only to put it right back, remembering he switched it off for a good reason.
The rest is spent wondering how he’s going to kiss Mickey.
He knows he’s got to sell the happy couple schtick, but the Mickey-introduced tongue-ban is kind of throwing him off his game.
Ian doesn’t want them just to share a PG-rated peck. He wants to give the kiss everything he’s got so that Mickey will regret not kissing him all the time.
Eventually, he settles on what he goes for during the ceremony. When the judge pronounces them husband and husband, Ian cheeses at Mickey, cradles his face in his palms, and swoops in for a tender kiss. It consists of several sucking nibbles that linger on the pull-back. He thinks he does pretty well, considering.
What he doesn’t count on, though, is Mickey outplaying him at his own game.
But it’s precisely what happens. Because Mickey makes a low satisfied sound in the back of his throat, the vibration of it making Ian’s lips tingle, and then slides his hand ever so slowly down Ian’s cheek and neck.
It’s right then that Ian realizes he’s in deep, deep shit.
“So, this is me,” Ian comments unnecessarily after he unlocks the door and shows Mickey in his tiny studio apartment. “Well, me and Lorenzo,” he adds, pointing at the dead-looking plant on the window sill. “I keep forgetting to water him.”
The place is very much in the same state of disarray Ian had left it in when he went to work last night. And it’s not like he’s that messy per se, but the relatively compact space is really not doing him any favors.
Every little thing out of order is always magnified, even if he barely owns enough to clutter it up. There’s just the small kitchen area, the round table with two chairs, the dresser and the flat TV mounted above it, the plant that Fiona bought him in some bizarre psychological ploy that Ian’s still figuring out, the bed, and no couch.
“That gonna be a problem?” he asks Mickey earnestly when he finds him staring at the unmade queen-sized bed.
“You try rubbing dicks with me while I sleep?” Mickey accuses him sharply, pointer finger at the ready.
“What? No, no, of course not!” Ian assures him, arms flapping about wildly. “In fact, there’ll be no dick-rubbing in this bed whatsoever. I’ll do all my dick-rubbing… in the bathroom!”
Mickey nods, brows furrowed in suspicion, and empties the trash bag full of his earthly possessions on the floor. He mutters something under his breath as he steps over them, but Ian thinks he can hear orange idiot in there somewhere.
“Where were you staying before this?” he opts for a small-talk while Mickey does a quick tour of the place because, well, there’s honestly not much to tour. Unless he wanted to start digging through the piles of old dishes in the sink—or sort through the mound of clothes in the corner that Ian calls his second dresser.
“With Mariya,” Mickey says distractedly.
And, well, Ian really should’ve expected something like that sooner or later.
“Oh, is that a—a girlfriend of yours?” he stammers out.
Mickey just laughs, leaving Ian without any sort of clarity on the matter.
Instead, he picks up a fancy box sitting atop the little collection Ian keeps on his kitchen table and checks its contents.
He turns to Ian, curiosity peaked. “Why not open?”
“I already have a watch,” Ian says, like it’s the most obvious thing.
“Hm,” Mickey replies, signaling it isn’t.
It’s nearing noon when Ian heats them two meals for one in the microwave, and they eat it seated side-by-side on the bed—with their shoes off, on Mickey’s insistence.
The TV’s playing a rerun of Seinfeld when Mickey, halfway through his bite of Thai-style coconut chicken, asks about Lorenzo.
“He was a cop and good at his job, but he committed the ultimate sin—and testified against other cops gone bad,“ Ian narrates dramatically, his voice lowered. “Lorenzo Lamas from Renegade, you know? The 90s TV series?”
Mickey gives him a weak smile, almost apologetic. “No TV in Ukraine.”
“No shit!” Ian yelps, scandalized. Then, when he notices Mickey’s face, “Oh, right. You’re making fun of me again.”
“Is too easy.”
“I can never tell. With your accent.”
“Next time, I say look out, joke! No need to get orange head on fire,” Mickey says before he loudly sucks on something stuck in his teeth. “We have Lorenzo Lamas, too. You are not special.”
“My head is fine,” Ian grumbles, forking a piece of chicken through the sticky sauce. “Actually, everyone says my head is great.”
Mickey stares at him with a blank expression. “What it mean?”
“It’s a blowjob joke. I give great blowjobs.”
“Gay,” Mickey chuckles, no real heat in it.
Ian gives him an unamused look. “That’s kinda the point.”
Balancing the plastic plate in his right hand, Mickey reaches over to smack Ian’s thigh. “Eat your food,” he tells him then, the shine of his wedding ring prominent and immediately distracting.
It makes Ian look at his own hand and realize the newly added heaviness around his ring finger.
And truly, it’s the strangest sensation. Because there they are, two grown men in white shirts and suit pants, sharing a bed for something other than fucking. In an apartment that was supposed to be Ian’s proof to the world that he could manage just fine on his own.
Warily, Ian regards him—his husband, in the eyes of the law and God and anything else Mickey might believe in—as he snorts at something on the TV, laughing with his mouth open and full, and the panic suddenly creeps in.
What the hell has he done?