Archive of Our Own

He’s rambling before Lip even accepts the charges.

“I need your help,” Ian blurts down the line. “There’s something wrong with Mickey.”

“Well, yeah, Ian,” Lip returns easily, “but isn’t that part of the charm for you or something?”

Ian can practically see him now, leaning against the kitchen counter and grinning to himself.

“Shut the fuck up,” he spits. “I’m serious. He’s all - cagey? And weird. Like he’s pissed all the time, and I can’t figure out what the fuck’s going on.”

“You are literally just describing Mickey.”

“Jesus, Lip,” Ian groans, “can you fucking not? I’m freaking out over here.”

“Alright, alright,” Lip says, voice softening considerably. “Sorry, man. Are you sure this isn’t just prison Mickey? Maybe he’s got some kind of Milkovich image to maintain in there. Can’t be seen goin’ soft, ya know?”

And yeah, Ian had considered that. Mickey had plenty of such advice when Ian first arrived. Keep you fuckin’ head down, he’d said. But not so fuckin’ far that you can’t keep an eye out. Don’t give anybody anything.

They maintain a safe distance in the yard and while showering, even sitting at separate tables to play cards or dice with the few actual prison gays they could find. They stay close enough. Just close enough.

But when their cell door rolls shut -

“No,” Ian says firmly. “No, it’s something else. Something’s not right.”

“Okay, then,” Lip says bracingly, “if you’re so sure, you have to say something.”

A beat. Ian lets the inevitable but disappointing answer wash over him.

“What?”

“Ian,” Lip tuts, “you’re not gonna figure it out talkin’ to me. Have you even asked him if something’s going on?”

He hasn’t. He hasn’t because he thinks he knows the answer, and Ian’s not sure he could stand to hear it. He was hoping that Lip might know something — maybe he’d heard whispers from the neighborhood that Ian hadn’t caught onto yet. Maybe Iggy or Colin got picked up again.

Something they can handle. Anything other than the fear that’s been working its way under his skin.

“It’s just,” Ian sighs, “what if he’s, like - what if he’s done?”

“Done,” Lip repeats, clearly not understanding. Ian rubs a hand over his face; the time on their call is running out.

“With me,” he says weakly. Pathetic. His lip quivers a little as he takes a breath, steeling himself to finally put his fear to words. “What if he regrets what he did?”

He expects Lip to come back with some comforting bullshit. Some bracing speech—Ian, you got this— to soften the worry prickling at his mind.

If they were at home, they’d hash it out over a carton of ice cream. Ian would spill his anxieties around mouthfuls of peanut butter swirl; Lip would nod thoughtfully and clap him on the shoulder. You got this.

If they were at home, though, none of this would be happening.

Still, he’s expecting something like that. Some condensed version of it, anyways, muttered down the line by an older brother feeling guilty at their separation.

He’s not expecting Lip to start laughing.

“The fuck?”

“Come on, Ian,” he chuckles, “that’s obviously not it.”

“How can you be sure of that,” Ian demands. “You barely know Mickey.”

“I know enough,” Lip says. “Know more than you think. And that ain’t it.”

Ian deflates. “I just - he was free. He was free, y’know, and now he’s not.”

“Ian. Don’t do this to yourself,” Lip warns. “S’been a long time since Mickey hasn’t wanted to be completely up your ass.”

“Jesus— ”

“It’s something else.” There’s a finality to it. “It just is. If there’s something actually wrong, that is. But you won’t know till you ask him.”

“What if…?”

“Just fuckin’ ask him,” Lip sighs, and the line goes dead.

Ian stares incredulously at the phone for a moment, as if he could just will Lip to come crawling out of it and actually help him.

He moves along when some massive fucking guy starts tapping his foot behind him, cracking his knuckles and nodding towards the exit.

And there’s nowhere to go but back to their cell. It’s almost lights out.

Lip’s probably right. He usually is, goddammit. Ian will probably end up calling him next week, tail between his legs, admitting once again that Lip Gallagher was fucking right.

It’s just —

Something has changed. And if that’s not it — if Mickey’s not hardening in resentment — what could it be? Ian’s gut churns with dread as he drags himself back to their cell.

The first few weeks were golden. They built a paradise between cinder block walls, a safe haven surrounded by cold rigidity. They kept each other warm and present, hearts light and thumping in a place that would see them lost to themselves.

By voice, by touch, by tongue: they relearned and reclaimed every part of each other.

Mickey looked at him like he was something precious. Like he was beautiful. He looked at Ian like he was worth seeing, even here. Even after what he did.

They spent hours in Mickey’s tiny bunk, huddled together under scratchy blankets, talking and repenting and coming clean. It came spilling out of Ian; the grief, the mania, the ache that sent him careening through the world until it all ended in flames.

Mickey whispered his own secrets into the darkened cell. He retraced his journey from the border, his memory and senses swirling together in Ian’s imagination. The cartel, the drugs. The beach.

When the wounds scarred over and they’d kissed absolution into each other’s skin, the laughter quickly followed. They delighted in each other; and Ian fell back into the easy joy of being Mickey’s. He remembered the bone deep satisfaction of making Mickey laugh, of watching him throw his head back — unbridled, unburdened.

The pleasure in each other permeated everything. It dripped down the cell walls. Every touch electric, every sensation stunning. They fucked long and slow, sighs like honey; they fucked hard, they fucked fast, sobbing with release given freely.

The change came slowly.

Mickey grew restless, then sluggish; all at once agitated and exhausted. He laughed less, he whispered less. His sighs flowed from honey into tar. He seemed angry at everyone and no one in particular. He seemed angry with himself.

Ian started to feel his absence even when they sat side by side.

He had hoped it would fade. He hoped it was just a bad week. A couple of bad weeks. He hoped that Mickey would crowd him into the corner of their cell, huff an apology, and then fuck him against the wall.

He hasn’t heard Mickey laugh in a while. Ian’s not sure where they went wrong. Where he went wrong. There’s no way around it; not anymore. Something is rotten.

And at the root of it all: Mickey isn’t happy.

Ian lifts his chin, picking up the pace as he makes his way back to their cell. Mickey gave up his freedom, the ocean and its waves, the sun on his skin - just to make sure Ian wouldn’t be alone.

He owes it to Mickey to ask. He owes it to him to listen.

The speech writes itself as he moves down the cellblock. Ian has it all on the tip of his tongue, and he can see the scene playing out in his mind: he’d fall to his knees at Mickey’s feet, taking his hands and kissing them over and over. He’d tell Mickey that he’ll always love him, and he’ll die loving him for what he did and for everything he is.

And he’d let Mickey go, if that’s what he wants.

God, he hopes that isn’t what Mickey wants.

Ian marches into the cell, blood humming with adrenaline. Mickey is stretched out on his bed, flipping through a book that he’s clearly not reading. He looks up when Ian barrels in, and lets the book fall to his chest.

“What’s up with you?” he asks, sitting up slightly.

“What’s…” he can barely breathe. “What’s up with me?”

“Yeah, you,” Mickey says, eyes roaming his face. “Did somethin’ happen? Why do you look like that?”

The speech fizzles and dies in the back of his throat. He can’t do it. He can’t let him go.

“I just— I love you so much, you know that?”

And Mickey looks relieved to hear it. He tosses the book to the ground and scoots over to make room for Ian to lay beside him.

For a little while, however brief, Ian thinks he’s solved it. Maybe Mickey just needed a little extra attention. Maybe he was just feeling a little aimless, a little agitated - as would be his right, in a place like this.

Maybe by taking the time to hold him, to cherish him, to tell him over and over how fiercely and completely loved he is, maybe Ian helped to set things right again.

For a little while, Mickey smiles a little brighter. He feels more present, more alive under Ian’s fingertips. He kisses him a little deeper, a little longer. They still don’t fuck, but Ian’s comforted by the fact that Mickey isn’t jerking away from his touch anymore.

He’s willing to give it time. He always has been.

At breakfast one morning, Ian looks up from his watery eggs to find Mickey staring at him. It’s the way Ian had always wanted Mickey to look at him, back when the bond between them was still unspeakable.

His eyes are wide, adoring, like he’s committing Ian’s face to memory. His lips are parted, mouth hanging open just slightly. He looks every bit as in love as Ian always hoped he was.

It takes Ian’s breath away.

He starts to smile, lips just beginning to tug upwards, until he notices a flicker of something behind Mickey’s eyes. Ian recognizes it instantly.

Fear, he thinks. It’s fear.

Mickey’s afraid.

Ian clears his throat and breaks the moment between them. Mickey’s eyes dart back to his own plate, picking up his fork and pushing food around. Ian studies him from across the table: he catalogs the shadows under his eyes, the slight tremor in his hands.

The realization settles over him like dread. Things aren’t better. Mickey was just trying to seem better.

A page taken out of Ian’s own playbook, no doubt, and he’s ashamed. His gut churns with it. He’s about to open his mouth to speak when Mickey tosses his uneaten bacon onto Ian’s plate.

“Eat your fuckin’ breakfast, man,” he grumbles. “You got work detail today.”

“You’ve got work detail,” Ian snaps heatlessly, dropping the bacon back on Mickey’s plate.

“Fuck off. I’m washin’ shit stains outta tighty whities,'' Mickey says, standing up from the table. He unceremoniously plops the bacon back on Ian’s tray, raising an eyebrow as if daring him to try putting it back. “You need your strength for savin’ all those degenerate lives.”

“I’m just doing vitals, Mick,” Ian argues, but Mickey’s already dumping his tray and walking out of the cafeteria, middle finger thrown over his shoulder.

Ian sighs, long and shaking. He stares down at the uneaten bacon, feeling lost, until a disgruntled C.O. ushers him off to the infirmary.

As he hunches over the file cabinet that afternoon, Ian concludes that Mickey must be depressed. He’s seen it enough to know. He sees it now, and it kills him to think that Mickey is suffering alone and so quietly.

Maybe he’s scared of the cartel finding him here. Maybe he’s scared of them finding Ian here.

Or maybe the nonstop turmoil of the last few years is catching up to him now that they have some moments of rest.

And how unfair is that?

Ian’s fingers clench around the file folder in his hands. It is unfair. It’s all so unfair. And if Mickey was free, if he wasn’t trapped here with Ian, maybe this wouldn’t be happening to him.

He straightens out the folder and files it away after catching the curious eye of the doctor on call. Resolving to get some answers tonight, Ian half-heartedly finishes his work, looking ahead to finally stepping up for Mickey.

After dinner, he decides, when there’s a quiet moment before lights out. After dinner, he’ll demand the truth.

But the quiet moment never comes.

Mickey is nowhere to be found at dinner, and when Ian returns to their cell, he’s curled up in his bunk, facing the wall and breathing deeply.

In the days that follow, the energy changes.

Mickey shifts from sullen and moody to something more volatile. He’s out of the cell as soon as the door rolls open after count, and Ian can never seem to pick him out at meals or in the yard.

He’s asleep when Ian comes back from work detail, jolting awake whenever he tries unsuccessfully to coax him out for dinner.

Despite being locked together in a cell the size of a postage stamp, Ian sees less and less of Mickey, and the distance between them is startling.

It’s never been like this with them before. Even when Ian was sick and their time was running out, the connection between them never waned. At the heart of it all, Ian was Mickey’s, through and through. And when Mickey broke out and found him again, their souls knew each other instantly.

Ian can’t feel Mickey now, and it terrifies him beyond understanding.

In the fleeting few moments where they are alone together, Mickey stays quiet. He avoids Ian’s steady gaze; instead, his eyes dart around. Watchful, fearful.

Paranoid? Like a wounded animal, Ian thinks.

Still, he tries. When the lights go out, Ian lies awake on his thin mattress, listening to the restless sounds of Mickey below.

“Mick,” he whispers, “you up?”

The sounds — the tosses and turns, the ragged breaths — they slow when Ian speaks, but they don’t stop entirely.

Mickey feigns sleep while Ian stares into the darkness above him.

“What’s going on, Mickey,” he sighs. “What are you hiding from me?”

The silence is deafening.

The next morning, Ian sees the prison shrink and asks to up his dosages. The constant ache in his chest, the worry in the back of his mind that threatens to swallow him up – he can’t indulge that now. He needs to be steady for what comes next.

Whatever that may be.

And that night, he tries again.

“I think you might be depressed or somethin’,” he murmurs into the darkness. “S’okay if you are. I know it’s not easy to say it. Or ask for help. But y’know, it’s not as bad as I thought it’d be here. I went this morning to fix my meds and it was—”

“You sick?”

It’s the first Ian’s heard Mickey speak in days, other than see ya later or toss me the toilet paper. His throat is tight when he answers.

“No,” he says. “Not sick. Just lookin’ out. The clinic here is alright though, is what I’m saying. If you… if you wanted to go.”

He hears a deep, rattling breath from the bunk below. And then - nothing more.

The next morning, Mickey doesn’t get out of bed at all.

Ian tears through the corridors, heart pounding, until he reaches the infirmary. Despite her annoyance at being dragged through the cellblock, the doctor takes her time looking Mickey over. He won’t let her take any vitals, but she agrees to sign off on his staying in bed for the day.

“Think he’s just feeling down,” she tells Ian quietly. “I’ll come back and check on him tomorrow. Let him rest; you’re working with me today.”

Ian hesitates. The doctor has all but confirmed that Mickey’s depressed. How can he leave him alone?

“Gallagher,” she says. “Move it. If you’re upright, you’re workin’.”

It’s torture. Ian moves through the day in a fog, drifting from task to task without feeling truly present. He spares just enough brain power to check pulses and change bandages without fucking up; the rest of his energy is devoted to Mickey.

When he’s released for the day, he skips dinner altogether and practically sprints back to the cell.

Mickey is at the sink when he skids to a stop at the door, breathless and panting. He turns to Ian, face pale, and blinks in question.

“You alright?” Ian asks, moving gingerly into the cell.

Mickey grunts, turning on the tap and splashing his face with water.

“What happened this morning?”

“Nothin’ happened,” Mickey says, wiping his face on a towel. Ian is surprised to hear him answer at all. “Just a cold or something. Fine now.”

Ian’s brain whites out.

“Just a cold…? Mickey. This isn’t a fuckin’ cold. Something’s not right and you know it. I don’t know why you won’t just tell me, but you can’t cover this shit up anymore.”

“Ian—”

“I know you were never, like, told this or anything, but you don’t have to feel like shit, Mick. You didn’t do anything wrong, we can fix this.”

“Ian—”

“If it’s a problem with me, just tell me? I’ll be fine, just stop putting yourself through this, it’s killing you!”

“Jesus fucking Christ, Ian,” Mickey sighs, running a tired hand through his hair and flopping back on his bunk. “Give it a goddamn rest, would ya?”

“But—”

“Nope. Stop it.” He raises an eyebrow and waits for Ian to stop pacing the cell before speaking again. His voice is weak. “Think this place is gettin’ to you, man. Sorry if the cold spooked you, but it’s fine now. Worryin’ too much.”

He can’t quite process what he’s hearing. It’s been days of silence, only for Mickey to tell him he’s too worried?

“It’s not prison, Mick,” he says, “it’s you. Look at you! Why won’t you tell me what’s going on?”

Mickey covers his face with his hands. He’s about to lie. Ian knows it.

“Ian, just lay down. This shit’s in your head, makin’ you all worked up. Just c’mere.” He lets an arm fall, palm open to him.

Ian is tempted to crawl into that space, to curl into Mickey’s body and let himself be held. They haven’t touched each other in so long. Ian feels only half himself without it.

He can’t let it go, though.

“Don’t say that.”

“Say what?”

“Don’t…” He hesitates for a moment. What if Mickey’s right? What if the problem isn’t with Mickey at all, but with him? No, he reminds himself; no, that’s not right. His own mind isn’t responsible for the turmoil that’s clearly plaguing Mickey’s. “Don’t say it’s in my head, please. Don’t let me think that. Not now.”

Mickey softens. “Fuck,” he sighs. “M’sorry. Just… come here, please?”

He gives in.

Ian climbs onto the cramped bunk next to Mickey and lets his body settle against him. Mickey’s arm curls around him, a weak grip coming to rest on his shoulder.

The tears fall hot and fast.

“Why don’t you trust me anymore?” he whispers.

Mickey’s quiet, but Ian feels his breath hitch.

“Did I do this?” he asks, voice wet. “You can tell me. Please just tell me if you don’t want me.”

“I’ve always wanted you,” Mickey says softly. “You know that.”

“Then why—”

“I can’t fuckin’ talk about this, man. It’s not you.”

This doesn’t make him feel any better. Ian’s mind is a tangled web of fear and doubt; he can’t make sense of anything.

He brings a hand to his face, pressing hard against his burning eyelids.

“Stop that,” Mickey chides, pulling his hand away and lacing their fingers together. “It’s not you, Ian, it’s never you. Ain’t that enough?”

“No,” Ian croaks. “How could it not be me if you can’t fucking tell me? You’re just gonna let me lose you?”

Mickey’s quiet for a long while.

The lights are out in the cell. Ian thinks he must have fallen asleep; he’s jolted back to reality when Mickey speaks again, deliberate and even.

“I didn’t mean for this to happen,” he says. “I didn’t think— I didn’t know it would get like this.”

Ian leans up on his elbow. He can just see Mickey’s face by the pale light in the corridor.

“Didn’t know what would get like this?”

Mickey won’t look at him, but he continues to talk. “I thought I could keep it from you,” he admits, frowning up at the top bunk. “For a little while, at least. Until I figured out a plan.”

“A plan for what,” Ian asks. He feels a little sick. “Are you gonna break out again?”

“Fuck no,” Mickey huffs, a ghost of a smile at his lips, “not without you, anyway.”

Ian doesn’t say anything. Mickey looks at him now, face grim with resignation.

“Something happened in Mexico,” he begins slowly, “somethin’ that I didn’t tell you about.”

Dread pools low in Ian’s stomach.

“You can tell me,” he says. “You can tell me anything.”

“I know. I do, I know. But this is— I don’t wanna lose you again. Or make shit harder for you.”

“Mick,” Ian breathes, incredulous. “You’re in prison. For me. All I’ve done is make shit hard for you.”

“Knock that shit off,” Mickey snaps. “Don’t do shit I don’t wanna do.”

“Yeah, well, neither do I.”

Mickey takes a steadying breath.

It begins.

“Was workin’ for the cartel already,” he says. “Running jobs, roughin’ people up. Same shit I used to do at home. I went out to collect one night… and it happened.”

The dread creeps up Ian’s body, settling like a vice around his ribcage. He leans down and presses a kiss to Mickey’s cheek.

“The guy fought back,” Mickey says, like he still can’t believe it. “It was supposed to be easy. I pulled the gun and he just came at me. Fuckin’ wild.”

“What happened,” Ian whispers, voice small.

Mickey laughs.

“He bit me.”

“He…”

“Bit me, yeah. Couldn’t fucking believe it. Thought he was on meth or somethin’, like I was gonna bleed the fuck out because some sick fuck bit me over two grand.”

Ian’s not sure what’s happening. “So— what? You got rabies?”

Mickey pushes Ian away, just lightly. He sits up and tugs at the neck of his t-shirt. “Feel this,” he says, taking Ian’s hand and bringing it just below his collarbone.

Ian jolts at the scarred flesh. “What the fuck,” he hisses, peering in the dim light. “What is that? How did I not notice that?”

“Been keepin’ my shirt on a bunch,” Mickey shrugs. “‘Sides, I got a shitton of scars, man. It kinda looks like that one on my back, y’know where Iggy accidentally stabbed me that one time?”

Ian’s mouth drops open. He thinks back over the last few weeks and — Mickey’s right. He can’t remember the last time he got a close look at his chest.

“I don’t believe this.”

“You tend to get distracted by the tattoo, anyways,” Mickey says. There’s a smile in his voice. “And it’s pretty easy to guide your attention to my ass.”

“Let me get this straight,” Ian says, still not comprehending. “You’ve been torturing yourself, and totally freaking me out, by the way, because some lunatic bit you?”

“No,” Mickey replies. He sounds a little sad, like he’d allowed himself to get so caught up in teasing Ian that he forgot there was more to say. “It’s what happened after that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look,” Mickey says, “I’m gonna tell you this but— fuck. You gotta trust me, alright? I’m not fuckin’ with you.”

Ian can’t breathe.

“I blacked out for a while. After he bit me. And when I woke up, I thought I was gonna fuckin’ die.”

“Well yeah,” he agrees, “if you lost that much blood.” His mind drifts to arteries and cauterization; he thinks about how he could have helped, if he’d been there.

“Not because of that,” Mickey sighs. “I was fucking starving. Couldn’t think about anything else. Felt like my whole body was destroyin’ itself.”

Ian nods, even though he doesn’t understand a single goddamn thing.

“I was hungry,” Mickey says again, “after this motherfucker bit me.”

This time, Ian shakes his head.

“Jesus, are you really gonna make me say it? I was starving, so I hit up a gas station for some pork rinds. Fucking disgusting.”

“Pork rinds are disgusting,” Ian agrees.

“God damn it,” Mickey sighs. “Pork rinds didn’t do it. Neither did fuckin’ burgers, or pizza. No tacos. Nada.”

“I’m not following.”

“I was hungry as shit until my next job. Boss had me rough him up a bit. Broke his nose. It was… that was it.”

Ian’s brain whites out again.

“You— you fucking ate him?”

Mickey smacks him. “What the fuck? No, asshole, I didn’t eat him. It, uh, it was his blood.”

Ian can’t speak; he can’t think. It was what?

“His blood,” Mickey confirms. He must have said that outloud. “I knocked his lights out and licked it all off his face. Felt better than I had in days.”

Ian blinks. Opens his mouth; snaps it shut. Blinks again.

Blinks once more just to be sure the room hasn’t evaporated around him.

What the fuck.

What the fuck?

“Is it… is it a sex thing?”

“What is wrong with you? No, it’s fuckin’ not. I did it because I had to. I did it because that’s how I live now.”

It falls into place; this thing Mickey is trying to tell him. This unfathomable, unthinkable thing.

“You’re…?”

Mickey nods, bringing a hand up to touch Ian’s face. “Yeah,” he says simply, a little sadly.

For a moment, Ian thinks he’s truly lost it; that maybe he’ll blink awake to find himself in the hospital, having hallucinated this entire experience. He doesn’t understand.

He doesn’t understand.

Mickey shifts nervously and Ian feels him move, solid and present and real. It washes over him.

He’s always been able to trust this man.

With his mind, with his body.

Ian feels it break off inside his chest - whatever scenario he’d been expecting. The answer he was waiting to hear. It rises through his body and drifts away.

Of all his theories, the undead wasn’t one of them.

But maybe he should have known. He should have known that it would have to be something this fucking insane—something goddamn supernatural—to change Mickey towards him now.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay. What does this mean?”

“Really?” Mickey asks. “Just like that?”

“I love you,” Ian says, “and I trust you. Do you love and trust me, too?”

The answer is immediate. “Of course.”

“Okay, then. I obviously have a billion fucking questions.”

“Go ahead,” Mickey sighs, settling back against his pillow.

“How did you… y’know, eat back in Mexico?”

“I worked for a cartel, Ian,” he says, voice tired. “Plenty of bloody fuckin’ people around.”

“Did you have to kill anybody?”

“Not for that purpose,” Mickey says, shifting again. “And even then, I didn’t actually do any of the killin’.”

Ian nods, relieved. As desensitized to violence as Mickey might be, he’s glad that at least this weight isn’t sitting on his shoulders.

“And now?”

“What do you mean?”

“How have you been eating here?”

The pause is all the answer he needs.

“I haven’t,” Mickey says simply.

“What the fuck,” Ian shouts, sitting up completely. “Mickey, we’ve been here for weeks!”

“Yeah, I know,” he responds dully. “S’why I’m fuckin’ like this.”

Ian’s up and pacing again. “Why would you come here? Why would you do this to yourself?”

“You needed me.”

“Oh my god, okay,” Ian says, brain bypassing the most strangely romantic thing he’s ever heard. “We need to get you fed. Where’s the shiv?”

Mickey scrambles to unfold himself from the bottom bunk and crosses the cell, tugging Ian close.

“No way. Told you I didn’t want you caught up in this shit. I’ve been thinkin’ of a plan.”

“Oh yeah?” Ian asks, wrenching himself free and digging through his few belongings for their weapon. “And what’s that, huh?”

“Gonna get a guard in here. Tomorrow or somethin’ while you’re at work. One of them will come looking for me and I’ll jump him. Should be good for a bit after another broken nose.”

Ian brandishes the shiv. “Or,” he says proudly, “you could not attack a guard every week, and just have mine.”

“No.”

“Mickey,” Ian pleads. “You can’t live like that. You won’t ever get out of here.”

“And what kind of life is waiting for me out there?”

Ian blinks, hurt. “One with me.”

Mickey deflates.

“I didn’t want this for you, man.”

“I know,” Ian whispers. Then, stronger: “I know. But I never wanted prison for you. And here you are. Please.”

Mickey guides Ian’s boxers down over his legs. His breath ghosts over Ian’s cock, hot and wet. Ian wills himself not to get aroused.

He’s propped up against Mickey’s pillow, breathing in the scent of him as he tries to ignore the sound of Mickey sighing against him.

It’s not the fucking time for that.

“Gonna do it on your thigh, alright? Right here.” Mickey kisses the spot on Ian’s leg. “That okay?”

Ian struggles to keep his mind from clouding over at the touch of Mickey’s lips. His skin is alive with want, and Mickey’s mouth is right there.

But it’s not the fucking time for that.

“Saphenous vein?” Ian asks, dragging his attention back to what’s about to happen. Mickey nods, his face still hovering over Ian’s lap. “Yeah, okay.”

Mickey surges up, kissing Ian hard on the mouth. “I love you,” he whispers fiercely. “Fuckin’ love you.”

Ian chases his lips, but Mickey is moving back down Ian’s body, reverent hands roaming as he goes. He presses more kisses to the spot on Ian’s leg, swirling his tongue over electrified skin.

“Go ahead,” Ian moans. “God, just do it.”

The pain is sharp. The pain is brief. The pain gives way to warmth, coursing through Ian’s body and dizzying his mind.

He punches out breath after breath, feeling himself rise and rise on a tide of need. Mickey licks and sucks, taking what he needs and moaning as life floods through him again.

Ian can feel it; he can feel the life of his body passing Mickey’s lips. He can feel Mickey’s body singing in pleasure and in gratitude.

He’s never been harder in his life.

“Oh god,” he breathes. “Oh my god.”

Mickey flicks his tongue against the wound, a sweet balm on Ian’s stinging skin. Ian brings a hand to rest in Mickey’s hair.

“Oh god,” he says again. “I love you.”

In an instant, Mickey’s hand is wrapping around his cock. Ian’s chin drops to his chest, losing himself in the steady, pulsing rhythm of Mickey’s slick hand moving in tandem with his own heartbeat.

It builds quickly; Ian comes with a cry as Mickey licks him clean.

He’s straddling Ian before the comedown can begin, kissing his face and neck, breathing thank you over and over. When he pulls away, tear-stained and laughing, Ian is struck by how stunning he is.

How full, how healthy. How irresistibly his. Ian has to fuck him.

Ian moves to flip him over, but a dizzying wave knocks him back down. Mickey takes his face in those reverent hands.

“Okay?” he asks gently. Ian nods. “Good. Let me.”

Mickey works him open slowly, grinning at every gasp and cry.

“Fuck, you’re so good,” he groans, picking up the pace as Ian takes his fingers, eager and easy. “So good to me.”

The warmth starts at Ian’s skull and rolls over his body, pooling in his gut as Mickey pushes inside. It rolls all the way to his toes when he begins to thrust, as their bodies move together, delighting each other again.

Mickey shines above him, so cherished and perfect, so giving to Ian’s body. He hits there there there, never wavering from the electric current of Ian’s need. He buries his face in Ian’s neck as he comes, and Ian has never felt more complete.

He wakes early, just as the sun makes an appearance through their tiny barred window. He sits up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. His body is marked and bruised; it’s sore and it’s perfect.

The wound on his leg is already scabbed over.

Ian touches it lightly, running his fingers over the place where Mickey came alive again.

“Careful,” Mickey murmurs into his pillow. “Make sure you nab some ointment from the infirmary today.

“Gonna nab some lube, too,” Ian teases, turning back to press a kiss to Mickey’s cheek, rejoicing in the smile that spreads across his sleep-laden face.

“Yeah, yeah,” Mickey snorts, sitting up and rubbing at his eyes. “You look pretty good for a guy who just got a pint of blood sucked out of him last night.”

Ian swats at him. “You look pretty good for a guy who went without a pint of blood for several weeks. Dumbass.”

Mickey sobers a bit. “I would have figured it out, y’know. At some point, I’d’ve made it work on my own.”

“I know,” Ian says, kissing him again. “But isn’t that what you were trying to tell me when you came here? We don’t have to do anything on our own anymore.”

Mickey crawls out of bed and they dress quietly for the day. The sounds of the prison waking up for another day echo all around them now. Another day of the same, yet changed completely.

“Huh,” he says after a moment. “Yeah, I guess it is.”

The sunlight streams through the bars.

Another day begins.