Chapter Text
I’m holding out for a hero ‘til the end of the night.
“Excuse me!” Ian called out from the upstairs veranda of the luxury villa in Bocagrande, an upscale oceanfront community in Cartagena. “Pool boy!”
The “pool boy” stopped swiping the leaf skimmer over the L shaped infinity pool’s surface. A cigarette was hanging from his lips and Ray-ban sunglasses sat on his nose. He turned to the man leaning over the glass railing above him. Even from here, he could see the red bridge of his nose. He keeps forgetting to put sunscreen on before he goes outside, Mickey thought and made a mental note to put some in their jeep.
“Yes, sir,” he drawled. “How can I help you?”
“Would you come up here and give me a hand with something?”
After hanging the leaf skimmer in the pool shed and disposing of his cigarette in the outside trash, he stepped through the wide patio doors to the all white living room and the open staircase. He took the stairs two at a time.
Ian was laying on a lounge chair on the main bedroom’s veranda, naked. Mickey pulled his sunglasses off and looked down at him. “Well, this is highly inappropriate.”
“Am I making you uncomfortable?” Ian asked, his eyes on the front of Mickey’s low-slung Bermuda shorts.
“Uh, yeah,” he replied. “Really fucking uncomfortable.”
“Would you mind putting some sunscreen on my back for me?”
Mickey snatched the bottle out of Ian’s hand and put a tiny drop on the end of his finger. Stepping one leg over the side of the lounger, he sat down on Ian’s thighs then ran his sunscreen covered finger along the bridge of Ian’s burned nose. “You never listen.”
“Sorry, I forgot again,” Ian apologized then frowned. “You’re breaking character, Mick. This is not the behavior of a shy inexperienced pool boy.”
This made Mickey laugh out loud. “That’s the plot of this porno?”
“Yes, I’m the experienced rich older man and you’re the young innocent virgin looking for a strong man to show him the, um, ropes.”
“Mmm,” came Mickey’s voice from side of Ian’s neck. “Go on.”
“Well, I’m supposed to call you up here to help me with something, but instead I—.”
Mickey pulled back from Ian’s neck when he paused. “You what?”
“Seriously, a virgin would not know how to rock his hips like that,” Ian complained.
Mickey returned to Ian’s neck, his tongue circling close to the earlobe. “Maybe I’m just a natural lover and I don’t need a teacher.”
“Well, that’s no fun for me,” he pouted.
“It’s not?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Okay,” Mickey stood up and stepped away from Ian. He linked his hands behind his back and toed the side of the lounger. “Excuse me, Mr. Gallagher. I’m just poor little virgin who needs a big, strong man to show me the ways of the world.”
With that he turned toward the bedroom and wiggled his ass a little so his shorts slipped down over his hips and fell to the floor as he reached the king-sized bed. He climbed onto the white duvet and crawled to the top of the bed to lay back against the stacks of black and white pillows, fluttering his eyelashes at Ian, who was now standing up but hadn’t moved into the room yet.
“I’ve never been kissed or touched.” At this, Ian lifted his brows and took a step forward until he could reach the tube of lubricant. “I’ve never had a man’s cock in my mouth.” Ian was at the foot of the bed in a flash, his slicked-up hand stroking himself. “I’ve never been fucked. I want you to be my first.”
“Holy shit, we’d make millions if we posted that on PornHub,” Ian breathed into Mickey’s mouth as he landed on top of him. Their tongues did a little dance until Ian added. “You deserve an award for that acting.”
“It wasn’t really acting.”
Ian started to laugh but pulled back when he sensed Mickey was being serious. “What do you mean?”
“You were my first for all those things.”
There weren’t words for the emotion that filled the room in that moment. It was as though fifteen years of want and need and denial combusted and was replaced by love and trust and hope. “And I’ll be your last.”
Mickey opened his legs, so Ian could move between them. He braced himself on one arm and used his other to bring Mickey’s leg up, placing a kiss on his knee, then pushed himself slowly inside. No foreplay, no preparation, just the act of union. Pure and simple.
They kept their eyes on each other the whole time. Even as orgasm chased their bodies, they used their eyes to express how much they loved each other. Until the very last second. Then they used their mouths.
Ian was looking over the once white duvet and wondering how they were going to get it clean. They had been in the vacation rental property management business for almost a year now, and the one thing he could say made him mental was all the fucking white in these fancy ass houses. “Do rich assholes think white is a special right they have? Don’t they fucking know how hard it is to get shit clean?”
Mickey lifted his head from Ian’s belly laying a lazy kiss on it first. “You ask me this every time we bang on someone’s designer bed. I didn’t have an answer for you last time, and I don’t have one now.”
“Yeah, well, you get to do all the outdoor maintenance, and I’m stuck trying to figure out how to clean white sheets and white furniture and white carpet.”
“You and a herd of Colombian cleaning ladies.”
Ian sniffed petulantly.
“Next time you lure unsuspecting virgins to your bed, pick a non-white duvet.”
“Next time you come on a white duvet try to aim for the floor not the center of the goddamn bed. I can’t even try to hide it.”
“There’s no aim involved. This thing’s got a mind of its own.” They cracked up and Ian rolled over so he could cover Mickey’s body with his own. He licked his way into Mickey’s mouth and pushed his legs apart making room for his hips. Mickey wound his arms around his neck.
“You never learn any of life’s lessons, man,” Mickey chuckled but hooked his leg over the back of Ian’s thigh.
“It’s already dirty, so what’s one more cum stain?”
“You could always suck me off, no cum stains to worry about.”
“I’ll put that in the next ad we run on the vacation rental property website.”
Ian had reached Mickey’s belly button when they heard cars pull up in the front driveway. “Are we expecting anyone?” Ian asked.
“No, the owners are out of the country and no one is booked until middle of next week,” Mickey answered although Ian was aware of all this.
They quickly pulled their shorts on and managed to find t-shirts by they time they reached the front foyer. Mickey looked through the narrow window running along the side of the double front doors, then turned slowly toward Ian sucking in a lip thoughtfully.
“What? Mickey? Who is it?” he practically pushed the other man out of the way to see out the window himself. “Oh my god, what do they want? I thought we were done working for them.”
Before he moved away from the window, the door to one of the four black town cars opened and a man got out. “Holy fuck, it’s an American. That’s definitely an American insignia.”
Ian was in an immediate storm of worry, despair, anxiety but mostly anger. “What more could they want from us? Why won’t the fucking world just leave us the fuck alone?” He was storming around the tiled front entry, spitting each word. “Where’s your gun?”
“Why? You gonna shoot someone?”
“If I have to! I won’t let them take you away. We’ll go down in a blaze of glory before that ever happens,” Ian turned to Mickey expectantly. “Don’t laugh at me, I mean it.”
“A blaze of glory?”
“Yes! Guns a blazin’. Oh god, I’m gonna be sick.”
“Come here,” Mickey pulled him forward, thinking of the books that Ian carried around with him all the time now: The Way of the Peaceful Warrior, Siddhartha, The Untethered Soul. Constant reminders that our thoughts can be our friends or our enemies.
As the doorbell jangled, Mickey squeezed Ian’s shoulders. “Life unfolds.”
They clinked foreheads lightly. “We surrender,” Ian sighed. “Fuck, I didn’t think it meant actual surrender.”
With a quick kiss, Mickey reached to open the door.
The room was suddenly full to the brim with alpha males each looking to the one further up the food chain. A handful of men in military uniforms had waited outside and two were guarding the door from the inside. In a perfectly fitted Armani suit, Sebastián leaned against the back wall checking out Ian as usual, just for the pleasure of getting under Mickey’s skin.
“Mickey Milkovich?”
The sound of his name coming from the tall, blonde American gave Mickey a start. He hadn’t really heard his name in years and coming from the lips of an American official was not how he wanted to hear it ever again.
Ian also snapped to attention at the name and he glued himself to Mickey’s side, his hand clasping around his bicep. Mickey ran his thumb along Ian’s hip.
“Who’s asking?”
“Lieutenant Brandenburg, US Drug Enforcement Agency,” the blond man drawled, his southern roots showing. He held out his hand to Mickey, who stared down at it like it was a Trojan horse. Ian used his grip on Mickey’s arm to move it forward toward the man’s hand. They shook briefly. “You’ve met General Reyes, Director of the Policía Nacional.”
All Mickey could do was nod. He focussed on the feel of Ian’s hand on his arm and the warmth of his body. Whatever happened next, the love they shared was rare, and they were fucking lucky for whatever they got because it was more than most people ever experienced. Looking back on his life, he knew that he’d not been born to live a mundane, ordinary life even if that’s all he ever really wanted. Him and Ian, stopping at the store to pick up milk, renting movies on a Friday night, folding laundry. Fuck, he could barely come up with a list of ordinary activities he was so rusty at living like a normal fucking person.
Turning his head slightly, he found Ian’s lips. Fuck the world and what they think. He had fought kicking and screaming to get where he was now, and he was fucking proud of who he was.
“Do you want to come in?” he asked calmly.
Once they were all seated in the spacious living room overlooking the Caribbean Sea, on Ian’s precious white furniture, Lieutenant Brandenburg began, “First, I thought you’d want to know that your brother has been a tremendous asset to the DEA, and he’s going to be a tremendous asset for a long time to come.”
Ian stiffened a little beside Mickey. “That’s good to hear?” he said but left it hanging at the end.
“He’s got an amazing mind and we’re putting it to good use,” he smiled at Ian with a touch of southern charm, but the implications behind his words were clear. They owned Lip’s ass for as long as they wanted it. Ah, well, Lip always found a way to bounce back.
“But my main reason for stopping by was to let you know that the US government appreciates everything you’ve done to assist in the war on drugs,” he said this with a self-deprecating smile. “Your role in stopping the infamous asparagus shipment and the intel you’ve shared with us this past year have stopped nearly half a billion dollars worth of coke from hitting the streets.”
“I’ll never hold my head up again on the Southside,” Mickey commented, and Ian poked him in the ribs. But Brandenburg barked out a surprised laugh.
“That’s what I’m ultimately here to tell you,” he continued. “If you ever want to hold your head up on the Southside again, you will not be stopped. Mickey Milkovich has received a full pardon.”
Mickey didn’t have to look to know that Ian was gonna be blubbering away at this news and that made him smile. He could always count on Ian to express his feelings for the both of them.
“We also hope that you will continue to work with us. We couldn’t have come up with a better plan than to use a management company to get into the homes of wealthy drug dealers,” he stood up and the other men stood too. “Whatever you decide, you have our support. I’m sure Sebastián will be in touch soon.”
As the men returned to their vehicles, Sebastián hung back on the front steps.
“This your doing, man?” Mickey narrowed his eyes at the Colombian.
“You and Ian have made me the golden boy of law enforcement. People are tripping over themselves to thank me.” He gave Mickey his most charming smile. “Least I could do was use my status to pull some strings.”
Mickey awkwardly nudged Sebastián’s shoulder with his fist. “Well, you know, thanks.”
“I know you aren’t much of a hugger, but your boyfriend is.” He turned his million watt smile to Ian. Taking his hand, he pulled the redhead into his arms until his lips were touching Ian’s ear. After a moment, Ian smiled brightly and kissed Sebastián’s cheek with a soft thank you.
The Colombian’s eyes lit up, and he touched his cheek as he skipped down the front stairs toward the waiting cars.
“What a world class flirt,” Ian gawked.
“Mhm, and what the hell was that all about?” Mickey growled.
Ignoring him, Ian waved at the retreating vehicles like they were family leaving after Thanksgiving dinner. Once the last car turned out of the circular driveway, he threw his arms around Mickey’s neck.
“You didn’t have to shoot anyone, Gallagher.”
“I woulda.”
“You’re my hero,” Mickey pecked at Ian’s lips a little.
“Whatever. We both know you’re my hero.”
“Whatever. We both know you saved me.”
“So maybe we’re even then. We saved each other.”
“We’re square.”
Ian pulled away a little. “So you wanna go home?”
“Do you?”
“Nah uh. This is your decision. I’m going wherever you’re going.”
“You don’t care?”
“Nope. I know what I want, and it doesn’t have anything to do with geography,” Ian explained honestly. “But maybe there’s some unfinished business back in Chicago that you want to take care of?”
“Subtle.”
“We don’t have to decide now,” he pushed Mickey through the open doorway into the front entry. Using his foot to slam the door, he pulled his t-shirt over his head and walked backwards in the direction of the patio doors leading to the pool. He crooked his finger at Mickey, “Let’s go swimming naked and fuck in the pool. Then get into the wine cellar and celebrate Mickey Milkovich’s pardon.”
Mickey reached Ian and wrapped his arms around his waist continuing to walk him backwards occasionally bumping into furniture or the corner of walls as they kissed their way to the pool. Once there, they stripped and jumped into the warm clear water. Surfacing, they grabbed at each other.
“I love you, Ian Gallagher.”
“I love you, too, little candy.”