Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When Mickey Milkovich was a boy, he learned the importance of memories.

Not just the simple kind, like how to get to school or that two plus two equals four.  Those were just the things people wanted him to remember, things they told him he needed to know.  Those kinds of memories bounced around in his head like the rubber ball they played with outside, back and forth between so many people that they were impossible to forget.  They were light, they were constant, and they were easy .

Other memories held a lot more weight.

Memories like how to walk over the creaking floorboards in the hall so that he didn't wake his father.  Memories of where to hide if he did.  Memories of how to wrap a bandage over his sister's hand when she didn't hide fast enough and caught a thrown knife by the blade.

The paths of those experiences stung as they carved their way into memory, burned as they were reinforced.  But they still weren't the ones that mattered.

No, the memories that mattered were the ones that could be changed.  The ones that happened first; the ones that made others follow. 

"You look too much like your mother," his dad would say before hitting him, and the memory of their shared features would disappear behind the bruise. 

"That damn sister of yours is asking for it dressing like that," their father would growl, but the memory of his anger would fade like the old wool of the sweater she put on over her dress.

"You say that one more time boy," he'd threatened the first time Mickey stood his ground, "and I'll knock your teeth out."

"Say what?" Mickey had asked, voice tight as he stood between his father and Mandy, who was trying to tug her hem down and his shoulder back at the same time.

He'd only said it once, the accusation.  Once, and almost too quiet to hear.  The words had barely left a path from his mouth to his father's ears, and he already wished he could claw them back.

And his father, staring him down with nothing but blankness behind his eyes, forgot.

"The fuck are you two doing?" He'd asked them after a moment, shaking his head as if to rid it of fog.  "Got the worst fucking headache," he'd mumbled without waiting for an answer, and off he'd stumbled while they stood together, shaking, in the hall.

Mandy had sobbed, throwing her arms around Mickey from behind and burying her face in the back of his neck.  And she had cried hot tears into his skin, and whispered gratitude into his hair.

She would never forget, and neither would he.  But their father had .

And Mickey, young, scared Mickey, had felt it happen.  He had felt the path of the memory drift away as he denied it, like it had never been there at all.  Like a ball that never got caught; like a knife that never left the hand.  And as he gathered the words back into himself like they had never been spoken, he wondered what else he could change.

Because memories hold power.  But if you can take them away, that power is yours .

PRESENT DAY

"Mickey, my dude.  You can make me forget shit, right?"

Mickey sighs, giving the bartop one last wipe with a stained rag.  He stays where he is, bent over with both hands on the sticky wood, and looks down the bar to the man who had spoken.

"What did you do now, Lenny?"

Lenny opens his eyes wide, staring at Mickey over the glowing screen of his cell phone.  The scattered light from the neon sign outside hits him from behind as the phone lights up his face, turning his frizzy blond hair into a halo of innocence.

Well, except for the joint sticking out of the curls around his right ear.

"Ey, I didn't do nothin'!" Lenny claims, phone hitting the bar with a clack.  "It's Cindi again man, look what she's done now."

He gives the phone a shove and it slides halfway to Mickey before getting stuck in a puddle of spilled vodka soda.

Mickey leans over, picking the phone up without a care for the mess.  He gives it a swipe with his rag, smearing the alcohol more than removing it, and taps to rewake the screen.

He frowns, looking down at the image there. 

"What am I even looking at?"

It's a fair question.  All he can see is skin, and none of the folds in it are identifiable.  He thinks he might see an elbow somewhere, if he squints hard enough.

"What do you mean, what are you looking at?" Lenny cries, waving an arm in Mickey's direction.  "That's my girl right there, and she went and sent it to some other dude!"

"And?"

Mickey tilts the phone.  Nope, that's not an elbow.  Maybe the edge of a knee?

"And it ain't right for some other guy to be seein' that!"

Mickey shakes his head, and sets the phone down.

" I'm seeing it," he points out.  "Whatever the fuck it is."

Lenny looks at him over the bar like he's an idiot. 

"You don't count," he says.  "On account o' bein' a--"

Mickey's dirty rag hits him across the mouth.

"Shut up and get to work," he orders, turning his back.  "Regulars are gonna start showing up soon."

A screech of wood on wood echoes as Lenny shoves his stool back, feet hitting the floor with a thump. 

"But what about my problem?" he asks as he squelches his way across the sticky floor.

Mickey focuses on turning the liquor bottles behind the bar so their labels face front, his voice disappearing into the depths of the cabinet as he asks, "Which one?"

The rag hits his head this time, leaving a sticky trail behind as it slides down the back of his neck.

"Dammit Lenny," he growls as he whips the rag off himself.  "Now I've gotta go--"

He stops when he turns and sees Lenny's face, scrunched up and glowering.

"I'm serious, Mick," the man says, and he sounds it.  "I love her, okay, and I...and I..."

"Lenny," Mickey starts, but Lenny shakes his head.

"I can't deal with it anymore, man.  You gotta make me forget."

Mickey stills.  They watch each other for a long minute, Mickey's eyes stony, Lenny's pleading.  Then Mickey, slowly, turns away again.

"You know that's not how it works Lenny," he says shortly, occupying himself with the glasses this time.  They're already clean enough that light catches on the etched logo of the bar--The Memoriam, in gothic font over the outline of a skull--but he picks one up anyway and wipes invisible dust from the lip with his thumb.

"This is what, the third time she's cheated on you?" he asks into Lenny's silence.  "That's a pattern, man; you know I can't fuck with patterns."

He'd explained that the first time they'd met, back when he was the customer and Lenny was the one behind the bar.  When he was drunk enough to spill all his secrets and wipe them away like the beads of water on his glass, then come back the next night to tell them again.  It had been his own fault when after the fifth time, Lenny had remembered.

And okay, three instances is less than five, but Lenny was always a bit slow on the uptake.  Besides, there are better reasons to not give in.

"Look," Mickey says when the silence drags on too long.  "Maybe you shouldn't forget, alright?  Maybe you should just realize that things ain't gonna change, and you deserve better than some chick that can't keep it in her pants long enough to break 'em in."

"Don't care what I deserve," Lenny laments behind him.  "It's her I want ."

Mickey snorts.

"And I want to meet a fuckin' alien," he tells the glasses as he continues to straighten them.  "Good luck to us both."

Silence.  Then a sigh.

"Someday you're gonna love someone, Mick.  You're gonna love them so much it hurts, and you'll know how it feels."

The words stick between them like shoes on the dirty linoleum floor, heavy and thick.

Then Mickey laughs.

"Doubt it," he says, turning and leaning back on the cabinet behind the bar.  "Never been one for love stories, but I--"

The door opens.  Mickey turns his head, and stops cold.

"Hey," Ian Gallagher says from the doorway.  "You guys open?"

Chapter Text

Ian Gallagher.  Ian fucking Gallagher.  Standing there in the doorway of Mickey's bar, those stupid green eyes going squinty in confusion as the moment drags on.

"I can come back later," Ian says in a voice that's startlingly deep, thumbing over his shoulder at the still open door.  "If you're not open yet."

Mickey doesn't say anything.  Can't say anything with his heart lodged somewhere around his adam's apple.

Lenny looks at him strangely.  At both of them, actually, hooded eyes darting back and forth.

"I guess I'll just..." Ian starts, trailing off into Mickey's continued silence.  He twists his body as if to leave, but his feet stay planted.

After one more glance at Mickey, Lenny takes pity.

"Nah, come on in man," he says.  He moves closer to the door, brushes empty peanut shells off the bar where he'd been sitting.

"It's a little early, but we take all kinds here," Lenny goes on as Ian--Ian Gallagher-- comes in and takes a seat .

Then Lenny says, "Don't we Mickey?", and Ian's face turns to him . 

It's an interesting face, covered in freckles that dance as muscles move beneath them.  Freckles that Mickey remembers from a time when they were darker, more prominent over a younger face.  Freckles that couldn't even be hidden by Ian's furious blush the first time they held hands, or the first time they kissed.  Freckles that he'd counted every day, from nose to sternum, until the day his father walked in on them.

Until the day he'd had to make them both forget.

"Mickey?  As in Mickey Milkovich?" that familiar mouth asks.  "Is that you?"

And Mickey, lost in memories that only belong to him, says, "fuck."

"I think that's a yes," Ian says with a delighted little laugh that sounds just like Mickey remembers.  "Damn, how long has it been?"

Nine years, seven months, and two days, Mickey knows.  What he says is:

"Not long enough, firecrotch."

Ian looks hurt, just for a second.  A second that drags on far too long, and has Mickey clenching his teeth to keep from taking it back.  Then he's all smiles again, albeit with a rueful twist to the corner of his lips.

"You always were a mean one," he says lightly, one hand coming up to scratch at a cheek that Mickey's fingers remember caressing.  "Never was sure what I did to deserve it."

And Mickey can't quite do it.  Can't hold up the wall between them when Ian doesn't even know why it's there.

"Blame your brother," he lies, voice gruff.  "Always owed me money."

It's less than nothing as an excuse, and somehow it's still enough.  Ian--good-natured, kind to a fault Ian--brightens immediately.

"Lip always ruins things," he accepts, then raises a brow.  "He's not here now though."

"No."

"So there's nothing stopping you from having a drink with me."

There’s a glint in Ian’s eye now, and fuck if that isn’t familiar too.  Familiar in a way that has Mickey biting his lip, thumbing his nose, and casting his gaze anywhere but Ian’s.

"I can't,” he mumbles, then coughs.  Forces some power into his next words.  “I gotta run the bar.  Regulars will be in soon."

"I got it, Mick,” Lenny says, and Mickey whips his head around to stare at him.  He’s watching with the kind of rapt fascination he usually reserves for soft-core porn.

“You don’t have to–”

“No, no, I got it!” Lenny assures him.  “Not often old friends come in, man; you catch up with firecrotch here."

"Ian," Mickey and Ian correct at the same time.

"Ian," Lenny repeats with a shit-eating grin, and ducks under the pass-through.  He ruins the smoothness of the move by knocking the joint from behind his ear and fumbling for it along the sticky floor, but Mickey barely notices.

"So, Mickey,” Ian is saying, leaning over the bar as if confiding in a friend.  “How'd you end up here?"

–

The night passes in a blur of green eyes, freckles, and soft voices.  They talk about their school days; they talk about their lives.  Ian talks about his family, and Mickey asks questions rather than talk about his own.  

“Nah, I ain’t got any stories like that,” he lies more than once.  “How the hell did the kid get out of it?”

And Ian tells him each time, in great detail, and never pushes for more.

There’s a cadence to it, their conversation.  An ebb and flow, a naturalness, that Mickey stands no chance of resisting.  Ian’s charisma has only grown over the years, his vibrance has only increased, and every excited gesture he makes pulls Mickey in like the tide.

The Memoriam’s regulars come and go around them, drinking and laughing and yelling over the terrible music Lenny plays from the speakers.  Every time a shout interrupts their talking, Ian moves closer, speaks lower, leans in.  

“And that’s how Debbie got Liam’s shitty teacher arrested,” Ian is telling him when a sharp clack sounds to their left.

Mickey, startled, looks up.  Lenny has dropped the passthrough closed behind himself, and stands tossing his keys hand to hand.

“Want me to lock up, Mick?” he asks.

Mickey blinks at him, then looks around the room.  It’s empty, lights off except the few behind the bar, chairs and stool already stacked on tables.

“Shit.”  He rubs a hand over his mouth, realizing he’s incredibly thirsty.  “What fucking time is it?”

“An hour past last call,” Lenny answers.  “Did you not hear me call it?”

Mickey had not, in fact.  And by the expression on Ian’s face, he hadn’t either.

“I guess I should go,” Ian says.  Slowly, uncertainly, like he’s giving someone a chance to change his mind.

It’s a chance Mickey takes, even if he shouldn't.

“No,” he says, probably too quickly, then turns to Lenny.  “You go on, man, I’ll lock up on my way out.”

“You sure?” Lenny asks, but Mickey is already nodding.

“Get out of here,” he reiterates.  Looking at Ian, he adds, “Do you want a drink?  Because I want a drink.”

He lets himself back behind the bar without waiting for an answer, and pulls a glass straight from the stack of freshly cleaned ones underneath.  He doesn’t even look at which tap he pulls a pint from.  The door closes behind Lenny with a soft click, leaving the gurgle of the tap the only sound in the bar.  Mickey chugs the first pint, puts the glass down again, and pulls another.

He doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing.  What he’s been doing, apparently for the last several hours.  Because apparently all it takes to addle his mind is Ian Gallagher wandering into it.

For once the beer is clearing his mind instead of fogging it, pushing through memory and emotion.  He needs to stop, needs to take a breath, needs to remember why he–

“I used to have a terrible crush on you, you know,” Ian says, barely loud enough to be heard over the tap.

Fuck.

Mickey’s glass hits the counter with a heavy thud, sending foam sloshing over the side.  Then he’s leaning over the bar, grabbing a shock-faced Ian by the collar, and kissing him.

Ian kisses back immediately, his hand coming up to Mickey’s face.  Long fingers slide over Mickey’s cheek, catching on barely-there stubble before settling up near his ear.  And oh, Mickey remembers this feeling.  They’d been younger then, less sure, but the fit of Ian’s mouth has always been perfect.

His lips are rougher than they used to be.  A little chapped, a little more firm.  The bottom one still gives under Mickey’s mouth, still drops open just a little wider as he pushes, but there’s a little scar-like notch at the outer corner that must be new.

Scar or not, that lip tastes the same as it always has.  Beer and smoke and cheap gas station chapstick, with the faintest undercurrent of something headier.  Mickey chases that taste into Ian’s mouth, finds more of it wrapped around his tongue.

It’s like it always was, and it’s more.  It’s kisses under the bleachers as last bell rings, and it’s kissing an old lover after years of trying to forget his taste.  It’s warm and it’s comforting, it’s hot and it’s making him itch, itch to crawl out of his skin and into Ian’s like they’d never been apart.

He could stay like this forever.  He wants to stay like this forever.  He can keep kissing Ian ‘til morning at least, ‘til someone walks in and–

He breaks free, gasping.  His lips are wet, his heart is racing, and all he can see is his father’s hard eyes.

“I should go,” Ian whispers, an echo of earlier.  His lips brush Mickey’s as he speaks, and Mickey sucks in the air that leaves his mouth with the words.

“Yeah,” he agrees this time, voice hoarse.  “Yeah, okay.”

“I’ll come back tomorrow?” 

It’s a question.  Waiting for acknowledgement, waiting for permission.

Mickey doesn’t give it.

Because the Ian in front of him is older, safer, free.  But the Ian he sees is young and covered in blood, and it’s all Mickey’s fault.

Mickey draws in a breath, closing his eyes tight.  Ian’s face flickers behind his eyelids, still waiting for his reply.  Then Mickey reaches out, touches a soft cheek, and pulls .

It starts slow; it always does.  The memory has had time to settle, and it doesn’t want to come free.  Mickey loops it around in his mind, finds the places where it sticks, and drags it back along its path.

First it’s just his own face, the heat of his own breath.  Then it’s the connection of mouths, the press of their noses, the dance of their tongues.  That brings with it the moment Mickey grabbed him, and with that the quietness of the bar, and then the memory is rolling and grabbing up sensations that Mickey hadn’t known it involved.

Lenny shouting out the last call–gone.  The creak of the stool when Mickey sits down–gone.  All of it wraps up into a tightly wound ball that glides faster and faster over a groove that disappears as it goes, leaving nothing behind until all that’s left is–

Ian, looking down at him with not a hint of recognition in his eyes.

Mickey swallows, hard.  The ball of memory might be in his head, but the one in his throat is larger.

“Can’t stay here, man,” he croaks out.  “We’re closed.”

Ian blinks at him, once, twice.

“Right, sorry.”  He shakes his head.  “I could have sworn that I…sorry, I’m going.”

And he does.  And as the door clicks shut behind him, Mickey collapses onto the bar.

“Goodbye, Ian,” he whispers, and swears it will be the last time.

Chapter Text

“What crawled up your ass and died?” Lenny asks the third time Mickey breaks a glass and curses for three minutes straight.

“Nothing,” Mickey growls at him.  “Shouldn’t you be doing something?”

He certainly hasn't done anything yet.  He'd come in at four with Mickey, like usual, and just sat like a lump for the past hour.  If Mickey weren't so preoccupied, he'd have kicked the man out.

“Nah, I’m good,” Lenny says in response to the question.  “Gotta rest up, my girl’s coming over tonight.”

Mickey frowns.  He switches from polishing glasses to straightening bottles, careful not to knock them together.

“Thought you broke up with her?”

“Nah, we worked it out.” Lenny looks up, catching Mickey’s stare.  “What?  I told you I love her man, I gotta make it work.”

“No fuckin’ restraint,” Mickey mutters, and then nearly hits the mirror behind the bottles with a handle of vodka.

“Like you showed restraint last night with your old friend?” Lenny counters, and then Mickey does hit the mirror.

He glares at the tiny crack he’s made, shuffling other bottles to hide it.

“Yeah, I did actually,” he tells Lenny as he works.  “Because some of us have–”

“Mickey?” a voice asks from the doorway.  “Mickey Milkovich, is that you?”

Something cold goes down Mickey’s spine even while his cheeks heat under Lenny’s confused gaze.

“You’ve got the wrong guy,” he says shortly, not even looking Ian’s way.

It’s too late.

“No, it is you!” Ian crows, coming in.  The door slips shut behind him as he moves into the room, one hand up and pointing.  “I’d recognize that sneer anywhere!”

Lenny’s gaze has gone from confused to mildly horrified, like he’s just seen a nonfatal accident.  And just like a spectator to said accident, he can’t seem to look away.

“Don’t know who you’re talking about,” Mickey barks.  He turns his back, wiping his hands on his jeans, and heads to the other end of the bar.  “You’ve got the wrong guy, Gallagher.” 

He stops.  Winces as he realizes what he’s just said.

“Look, I gotta go,” he adds hurriedly, making a beeline for the back.  “Lenny there can–”

“Bullshit.”

It hits Mickey like a train, that tone.  Stops him in his tracks.  Memories of their first fight, their last fight, flicker through his mind.  Ian fighting for their relationship; Mickey fighting for Ian .  

“I don’t know why you dislike me so much, Mickey”--Mickey nearly laughs at how wrong that is–”But stop being a pussy about it.  You never used to be.”

And oh, if only Ian remembered.  But he doesn’t, and he won’t, and Mickey needs to get away from him right now before he does something stupid.

“You’re right,” he says to the wall, not daring to look back.  “I don’t like you.”  The lie burns.  “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”

He's through the door to the backroom before Ian can argue, and has the door to the alley open by the time Lenny's "hey, you can't go back there," trickles back to him.  Then he's outside, hands on his knees, breathing the cool evening air and trying to calm his heart.

It doesn't last long.

“Come on Mickey," Ian says, plowing through the door.  It bounces back on its hinges, creaking dangerously.

But not as dangerously as Ian himself.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?” he asks.  He's in front of Mickey now, his scuffed shoes in Mickey's line of sight.  “I know you had a problem with me back in school, but you can't even look at me now?”

"No," Mickey admits to his knees.  "I can't."

Ian scoffs.

"Pathetic," he mutters.  Then, louder, "You know I was actually excited to see you for a minute there?  Can't imagine why.  Not like we were ever friends."

"No.  We weren't."

And technically, it's not even a lie.  They'd skipped straight over friends back then, and never gone back after.

"Don't know why I thought you'd be different now," Ian says with a sarcastic little laugh.  It's not the laugh Mickey remembers; not the laugh he wants to hear again.  "Your whole fucking family was full of assholes, should have known you'd end up like your fa--"

Mickey is surging up before he realizes it, shoving Ian back.  They slam against the alley wall, Mickey's arm over Ian's throat, pressed together from knees to chest.

"I am not anything like that man," Mickey growls into Ian's shocked face.  "He was a goddamned monster, and I will never be like him."

Ian doesn't respond.  He's too busy staring wide-eyed at Mickey's snarling mouth, throat working to get air in under Mickey's arm.  He wheezes, air whistling through his nose, and his face starts to turn red.

Mickey drops his arm, horrified.

"Shit," he says.  "Shit, sorry."  He tries to back away, to put some space between them, to leave before he can hurt Ian further.

Ian doesn't let him.

"Mickey," he rasps, one arm reaching around Mickey's waist.  "Are you...?"

He squeezes his arm a little, bringing them close together.  Their hips brush.

"You are," Ian says, almost wonderingly. 

And Mickey knows what he's feeling.  

"It's nothing," he says, trying to tuck his hips and hide the sudden hardness there.  "Just got my blood pumping, don't read into it."

But Ian is tugging him closer, pulling him in.  Pressing them together again, bending his knees to make them even.

And fuck, he's hard too.

"This explains a lot, you know," Ian mumbles.  He rolls his hips into Mickey's, holding them both steady, and Mickey can't help the groan that escapes.  It makes Ian grin, wide and predatory, and do it again.

"The fuck are you on about?" Mickey manages to ask.  He's already stopped fighting--embarrassing, that--lost in the feel of Ian's body against his.

"Why you went after me more than any of your brothers," Ian pants as he gets a hand between them to work on Mickey's zipper. "Why you always seemed to be around."

He really had always been around.  Even before they were together, he'd followed Ian like a puppy.  Played it off as protecting his sister, for a while.  As tracking down a debt after that.  He'd only stopped when Ian took it into his own hands, followed him home, and done something like--well, something like this.

"Shut up and touch me," Mickey orders breathlessly, like he had all those years ago.  Ian, ever accommodating, works his hand into Mickey's underwear.

His palm is warm and rough, and envelops Mickey's prick completely.  One pull, two, and Mickey's knees are already weak.

“You always did have big fucking hands,” Mickey gasps out, lowering his face into Ian’s shoulder.  He breathes through an open mouth, leaving a patch of wetness on Ian's shirt, and squeezes his eyes shut against the sensation.

“What?” Ian asks.

"Keep going," Mickey demands, and brings his hands up to clench at Ian's shoulders.

They're so broad now, those shoulders.  Wide, thick, strong.  He clings to them, hangs from them, wants to be dragged around by that connection.

He used to scratch Ian's shoulders when they fucked, leave behind red welts that lasted for days.  Ian's shirt is in the way now, snagging under Mickey's nails, but he can still feel the give of the skin underneath.  Feel the movement as Ian strokes him, shoulder to arm to wrist, feel the familiar shift as Ian's other arm tightens around his back.

"Ian," Mickey all but whimpers.  Ian's hand works faster on him, the other shoving down his jeans to cup his ass.

"There you are," Ian is murmuring.  "This is the real you, isn't it?  You're not mean at all, you just need somebody to--"

Mickey cries out, hips jerking as he comes.  Ian strokes him through it, hand slicked with his spend, and holds him as he shakes apart.  Holds him tight, holds him safe, keeps him warm.

Warm except for the quickly cooling wetness of his underwear and the realization of what he's just done.  What they've just done, right out here in the open where anyone could see.

"Damn, Mickey."  Ian laughs, chest moving against Mickey's.  "I never thought I'd get to--"

Mickey panics, and pulls.

The memory hurts this time as Mickey claws it back.  It pokes at him with Ian’s fingers; it scrapes at his back with the bricks of the wall.  It clings and fights and drags him with it through the path of its own making, ecstasy and fear spinning together into something violently strong.

He pulls harder.  Fights fear with anger, and pleasure with pain.  Forces his own memories out into the writhing mass, uses them to drag it back.  The force of his father's fists wins over the strength of Ian's hands; Ian's bruised face wins over Mickey's sore back.  Piece by piece he wrangles it all into submission, convinces each new memory that it doesn't belong.  That it's better to retreat than keep fighting.

Tears bead at the corner of his eyes when its done, and his hands clench so hard he nearly draws blood.  He's three steps from Ian, and a whole world away.

"Hey man, are you okay?" Ian asks, stepping closer.  One warm hand lands on Mickey's shoulder.  "Did I..." he pauses.  "Did I hurt you?"

"No," Mickey says, choking on a hysterical laugh.  "No, you've never hurt me."

"Good.  If you're alright, then I'll just..."  Ian motions over his own shoulder, and Mickey nods.  Then he's gone, out through the mouth of the alley, leaving Mickey alone with more memories he shouldn't have.

Chapter Text

"So," Lenny says as soon as Mickey walks in the following afternoon, "you gonna tell me what that was about yesterday?"

"Don't know what you're talkin' about," Mickey grumbles, beelining for the pass through.  Lenny lurches over, half falling off of his stool to spread himself over the hinged section of the bartop before Mickey can open it.  The beer he’s already served himself sloshes with the sudden movement, wetting his hand, but Lenny doesn’t seem to notice.  

"I’m talking about you bailing on a whole shift, Mick,” he accuses.  “That old friend of yours followed you out, and you never came back.”

Mickey doesn’t look at him.  He tries to lift the pass through anyway, jostling Lenny’s arm, but only manages to spill more beer over the counter.

“And whose fucking fault is that?” he snaps, eyes fixed on the liquid pooling under Lenny’s hand.  “You always let customers behind the bar like that?”

He shoves upward once more on the hinged bar top, this time with enough force to shift Lenny’s weight.  Lenny hisses, wrenching his arm back just in time to keep it from getting pinched in the hinge.

“Hey, I ain’t no bouncer,” Lenny argues, getting louder to be heard over the clack of the pass through falling back into place.  “You want somebody to deal with shit like that, you gotta find somebody else.”

“Not much of anything, are you?” Mickey counters.  He picks up a box of coasters from where Lenny must have left them the night before and slams it down on the counter.  “It’s a fucking mess back here, what did you even do last night?”

Lenny doesn’t take the bait.

“You gonna complain about how I saved your ass, or are you gonna tell me why I had to?” he asks.  “And while you’re at it, you can explain why your old friend couldn’t remember hanging out with you all night.”

Mickey’s hands clench on the edge of the bar, his eyes squeezing shut.

“You know why, Lenny,” he says, and hopes his friend will leave it at that.

He doesn’t.

“I know what you did, yeah,” Lenny agrees.  “Seen you do it often enough when people get too rowdy, seen the way their eyes go all blank.”

He stands, shaking the spilled beer off his hand with a grimace as he walks around the outside of the bar until he can face Mickey again over it.

“But I don’t know why you did it.”

Mickey can feel Lenny watching him, but he doesn’t meet his gaze.

“And you’re not going to.”

He holds fast against Lenny’s disappointed sigh.

“Look, can we just forget it?” Mickey asks, finally opening his eyes.  “He did, so we might as well—"

The door creaks open.

“Hey, are you guys open?” Ian’s voice comes from outside.  “This is going to sound so weird, but I think I know the—Mickey?”

Lenny looks at Mickey.  Looks at the door.  Looks at Mickey again.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” he mutters, then he’s loping toward the door as fast as Mickey has ever seen him move.

“Sorry, not open yet,” he says, voice pitched high.  “We need to, uh…” He glances around with an air of desperation, lands on an unpacked pallet in the corner.  “We need to count those bottles first!”

Then he slams the door shut in Ian’s face, runs back to the bar, and jumps over the pass through to grab Mickey by the arm.  He drags Mickey the full length of the bar, through the door to the back, and doesn’t let go until if closes behind them.

“Mickey,” he hisses as soon as it does.  “What the fuck?”

Mickey doesn’t answer.  His eyes are unfocused, staring at a stain on the wall.

“Do you seriously hate this guy or something?” Lenny is asking.  He’s let go of Mickey to run a hand through his wild blond hair, making it stand up even more than usual.  “Because this is starting to become a pattern, Mick, and I thought you didn’t fuck with those!”

“I don’t,” Mickey mumbles.  “It was only twice.”

“Only twice,” Lenny repeats, then shakes his head.  “Mickey, the man literally just came here looking for you.  That’s not something that happens after twice.”

Mickey swallows.  Blinks.  Breathes.

“You’ve done it before, haven’t you?” Lenny asks.  “Before he showed up here, I mean.”

When Mickey stay silent, Lenny curses.

“Of course you have,” he answers himself.  “If he’s from back then, you’ve probably been at his brain a million times already.”  

“No,” Mickey croaks out.  “Only once.”  He regains himself enough to meet Lenny’s eyes.  “The once.”

“Oh.  Oh shit.”

And suddenly, all the fight leaves Lenny’s body.  He sags against the prep table behind him, eyes wide, and takes a deep breath.

“Okay,” he says quietly, then repeats it louder.  “Okay, that changes things a little.”

Because he knows.  He knows all of it.

“More than a little,” Mickey says.  He steps toward Lenny, turns to lean next to him.  His palms are sweaty on the cool metal of the table.  “I can’t relive that, Lenny.  You know I can’t.”

Lenny nods.  Then halfway through he stops, and shakes his head instead.

“Not sure you get a choice this time.”

At Mickey’s sideways glance, he elaborates.

“I know it hurts, but you gotta stop, Mick.  You’re going to turn that guy’s brain into swiss cheese at this point, and that ain’t cool.”

Mickey bites his lip, too hard.  It leaves a metallic taste in his mouth when he says, “It doesn’t work like that.”

“Doesn’t it?” Lenny asks.  “You told me what happened to your dad.”

Fuck.  Mickey’s eyes close of their own accord.

“That was the drugs, not me,” he says as images of Terry flicker through his mind.  Terry screaming, Terry falling, Terry’s eyes blank like a doll’s.  Nothing but spittle and hatred at the end, lying in a hospital bed with empty eyes fixed on the ceiling.

“Are you sure?” Lenny asks. “Sure enough to risk doing it to him?”

“Just think about it,” Lenny says, pushing off the table and reaching for the door.  “I’ll go out there and—"

Mickey beats him to it.  He’s through the door and across the bar before he even realizes, opening the main door before his feet know where they’re taking him.

Ian stares at him from the other side, eyes widening in recognition.

“It is you!” he exclaims, raking a hand through his hair.  “I don’t know how I knew you’d be here, but I had the strangest dream and—"

“Come in,” Mickey interrupts, opening the door wider.  “We need to talk.”

Chapter Text

“You guys should take the back,” Lenny says, appearing out of said back room.  He’s carrying a box that clinks as he walks.  “I’ve got what we need for the night, Mick.  Won’t need to get back there again.”

“Come on,” Mickey orders Ian, who still stands, confused, in the doorway.  Mickey reaches out to take his hand, then thinks better of it.  He turns his back instead, walks toward the back, and hopes that Ian follows.

Ian does.

“I don’t know what’s going on here,” he says as they cross the behind the bar, “but if it’s some kind of setup, you can—”

“It’s not a setup,” Mickey cuts him off.  He holds the door open for Ian, waits as he passes through.  “Grab a chair, Gallagher, because you’re gonna want to sit for this.”

Ian looks at him strangely, but does grab a chair.  It’s old and rusty and looks like it can barely hold his weight, but he perches on the edge like some kind of gangly bird.  Mickey watches him try to fold himself more firmly onto the seat, far too big for the space of it, and wonders what else Ian might have outgrown.  Their history, their trials, even Mickey himself—but there’s no way to know without telling him.

“Two days ago, you walked into this bar for the first time,” Mickey starts carefully, “and you asked me what you did to deserve me not liking you.”

Ian is already frowning, picking at the chair’s peeling paint with anxious fingers.

“But I only just—”

Mickey holds up a hand to stop him, and keeps going.

“I lied to you then.  Told you it was your family’s fault, when I should have just told you you were wrong.”  He takes a deep breath.  “I’ve never disliked you, Ian.  And you used to know that.”

“You’re not making any sense.”  Ian leans forward, elbows on knees, head tilted.  “Mickey, before today I hadn’t seen you since high school.  You just up and left the summer before your senior year.”  He shrugs a little without moving his arms.  “You never told me where—it’s not like we were close.  I just happened to run into you now because coincidences happen.”

“But we were close,” Mickey corrects him.  “A hell of a lot closer than you remember.”

“I don’t think so, Mickey,” Ian says with a laugh.  “I think I’d know if I’d been friends with the resident thug who dealt drugs under the—”

“I didn’t sell drugs under the bleachers, Ian,” Mickey interrupts, voice flat.  “I was too busy making out under there with you.”

Ian’s face flashes through so many expressions Mickey can’t count them, and finally settles on disturbed.  He leans further forward in his chair, the legs of it creaking under his weight.

“What.”

Just one word, but a million little questions are hidden inside.

“I can prove it,” Mickey says.  He reaches into his back pocket, brings out his wallet.  Opens it, fishes around inside.  

“Our first date was at a carnival,” he continues, his fingers finding the edge of what he’s looking for.  “Took two hours to get there, but it was far enough away that we wouldn’t be seen.”  He pulls the photograph free.  It’s old and faded with a crease along the middle, and he smooths it carefully before handing it to Ian.  “Taking pictures kind of ruined the point, but you insisted.”

Ian takes the picture with a shaking hand.  He stares down at the image—the two of them standing on a pier, arms around each other, smiling—and shakes his head.

“I don’t remember any of this.”

“I know,” Mickey says quietly.  “You weren’t supposed to.”

Ian laughs, short and humorless.  The picture crinkles in his hand, and Mickey clenches his own into fists to keep from grabbing it back.

“What does that even mean?” Ian asks.  His eyes keep going back to the photo.  “Why wouldn’t I remember something like this?”

Mickey scrubs a hand over his face.  He’s not sure if he can look at Ian when he says it, but he makes himself do it anyway.

“I can…do something,” he gets out after a moment.  “To people’s memories.  I can make them forget things.”

“Yeah, sure,” Ian accepts flatly.  “And I can fly.” 

His grip is tightening on the photo, and this time Mickey does snatch it back.  He takes a minute to smooth it out, carefully tracing a finger down the original crease, and sets it aside on the table behind him.

“Look, I know it’s weird, and I know it doesn’t make sense.  But…”  He looks around for something, anything, that could help.  His eyes settle on a pile of old decorations in the corner, left over from an event some months before.  He darts over to it, pulls out a dusty cowboy hat, and thrusts it into Ian’s hands.

“Here, put this on.”

“What?”  Ian’s face screws up in confusion, but he puts the hat on even as he asks, “Why?”

“Just do it,” Mickey orders.  He’s getting out his phone now, opening up the camera.  “And say something stupid.”

“Something stupid,” Ian obeys.  “Mickey, come on, what are you—”

Mickey closes the recording he’s just made, looks Ian in the eyes, and pulls.

It’s surprisingly hard to take such a small, short memory.  Not to pry it free—it comes away easily enough—but to keep from taking anything else with it.  Every time it crosses a path he has to stop, has to redirect it, so that it doesn’t leave a gap in anything important.

But he manages it.  He manages, and then Ian is staring at him in even greater confusion and reaching up to take the hat off his head.

“Mickey?” he asks, and Mickey breathes out in relief.  He hadn’t taken too much.

“Why am I wearing this thing?” Ian asks, turning the hat over in his hands.  “And where did it even come from?”

Instead of answering, Mickey presses play and then hands Ian his phone.

“Something stupid,” Ian’s tinny voice says from the speakers.  “Mickey, come on, what are you—”

“Believe me now?” Mickey asks, and Ian stares.

“Fuck,” he breathes.  He looks at the phone, looks at Mickey, looks at the hat.  “You really…fuck.”

“Yeah,” Mickey agrees quietly.  “Bit of a shock, I know.”

“But why?  Why would you take something like…”  Ian looks at the old photo, still sitting there on the table.  “Like that?”

And Mickey swallows, forcing it down his dry throat.  Because this is where it starts to hurt.

“To keep you safe.”

Ian only looks at him.  He doesn’t say he doesn’t believe it, but Mickey can feel it coming.  So he plows ahead instead, gets out in front of it, and tells him.

“Look, you know what my dad was like,” he begins, speaking quickly.  “What they were all like, back then.  There’s a reason we went so far away just to fucking hold each other’s hands.  And that was enough, that was working.  But we got lazy.”

Ian’s mouth opens, but Mickey doesn’t stop to let him chime in.

“We started to hang out at school.  Then we started to see each other after.  You’d sneak in through my window sometimes, when Terry was out, and we’d—”  Mickey stops.  Coughs, looks away.  “And it was good.  We were good.  Until the night Terry wasn’t out, and he saw you come in.”

There he does pause, and Ian jumps on the chance to speak.

“So we got caught,” he says.  “Doesn’t seem like a reason to—”

“Caught, yeah,” Mickey starts again.  “By a man who’s beat people bloody for walking out of the wrong kind of bar.  You think he just let that shit go?”

He doesn’t give Ian time to answer.  He’s pacing now, not looking at the other man, too caught up in the memory to stop.

“Well he didn’t.  He almost killed you, Ian.  He had you by the neck, and you wouldn’t stop fighting, you wouldn’t just lay down and—”

He stops moving, and catches Ian’s eyes.

“So I did what I had to do,” he says.  “I took his memory to make us safe, and yours to keep us that way.  Because you were never going to give up, Ian.  You would have kept coming back, and you would have fought him every time, and at some point he was going to win.

Silence fills the space between them.  Then:

“That’s pretty fucking shitty, Mickey.”

Short, quick.  Matter of fact.  Mickey can’t help but laugh.

“I know,” he says once his breath comes back.  “Fuck me, but I know.”

Silence again.  Just the sound of them breathing, and the faint click of glasses from outside the quiet of the back room.

“So why now?” Ian asks finally.  “If you’ve made me forget all of that, forget the last few days, why are you telling me now?”

“Because it isn’t working like its supposed to,” Mickey tells him.  “You shouldn’t have known I was here.  And I was going to try again, but Lenny reminded me that—”

He breaks off, chest tight.

“My dad died last year, Ian.  And they said it was probably all the cocaine that did it, but he couldn’t even remember my name.”

“Shit,” Ian mutters.  “So what now?”

Mickey shrugs helplessly.

“I don’t know.  I know you must be pissed and you’d probably rather not know any of this, but I can’t mess with your memories of the last few days.  Not again, not with putting you at risk.  I could try to take just this conversation, maybe, but that just puts us back at—”

“No, Mickey.  That’s not what I meant.  I don’t want you to make me forget.”  Ian stands up, takes a step forward.  He’s right there, within arms reach, and leaning even closer.  “I want you to make me remember.”

Chapter Text

Mickey watches Ian watch him, mouth dry with proximity and fear.

“I don’t think I can do that,” he whispers.  “I don’t even where to start, and it’s dangerous to—”

“I think you should try.”

He’s so close Mickey can feel the beat of his heart now, an even counterpart to his own unsteady pulse.

“You’ve left me like this for too long, Mickey,” Ian says.  “I’ve been thinking about you for years, and wondering why.  Wondering if I was crazy to be so caught up in a guy that’s never even given me the time of day.”

“You’ve thought about me?” Mickey asks, eyes on Ian’s lips when they open to sigh.

“All the fucking time,” Ian admits.  “And I never knew why.  But Mickey, now I need to know.”

“Know what?” Mickey asks, barely a breath passing between them.

“If it’s true,” Ian answers, eyes burning into his.  “If you loved me.”  His head starts to lower, just a fraction, as his voice drops.  “If I still love you.”

Mickey wants to have an answer.  Wants to say he knows.  Wants nothing more than to give it all back and take whatever Ian can offer.

But.

“I don’t know,” he mumbles.  “I never did.  I don’t get your thoughts with your memories, Ian, they just kind of…and I don’t think that I can bring them back.”

“Then try another way to remind me,” Ian murmurs, and kisses him.

Pressure against Mickey’s lips sparks an avalanche of sensation in the rest of him, spreading out from that one point of contact like lightning.  He sags against Ian as electricity flows through his limbs, weakening his knees and his resolve as it goes.  Ian catches him, strong hands holding him up by elbow and by waist, curving around his side to pull him in.  And Mickey goes, presses tighter to a chest that he barely knows anymore, and lets Ian take control.

“Been dreaming about your lips,” Ian whispers between them when they come up for air, said lips parting with a wet, desperate gasp.  “Was starting to think I had some kind of complex.”

“You do,” Mickey manages to force out.  “You gave me so much shit when I wouldn’t kiss you right away, and I—”

Ian seals their lips together again, and the rest of the words are lost into the depths of his mouth.  Mickey’s tongue delves deep after them, finds Ian’s moan there instead, and accepts the exchange.

“And your hands,” Ian says when next they break.  “You have such pretty hands for causing trouble.”

The fingers on Mickey’s arm slide down to meet his, winding between them and pulling both hands between their bodies.

“Did I ever hold your hand like this?” he asks.  “Did you let me?”

“All the time,” Mickey chokes out, eyes fixing on their intermingled fingers.  “Ian, I—”

“What else did these hands do?” Ian muses.  “I think you should show me.”

And Mickey does.

The room fades away as he drags his free hand up Ian’s chest, making his shirt bunch beneath it.  People are talking somewhere else in the building, laughing and cheering outside, but all he can hear is Ian’s ragged breath as he slips one button open, then two.

And Ian’s hands are working, too.  They know the way even if he doesn’t, know where to grab and where to press.  Know the way Mickey likes to be stroked at the back of his neck, and how to make him shiver by gliding down his spine.

“Was it like this?” Ian asks, dropping his head to Mickey’s neck.  He inhales, lets out a steamy breath that tickles Mickey’s skin.  “And did I ever—”

He bites down, and Mickey’s back arches the same way it had the very first time.

“Ian,” he breathes, and he feels like he’s in two places at once.  Two times at once.  Two Ian’s at once, one here, one left in the past, and both of them the same as they’ve ever been.

Ian’s lips slide down the side of his neck, and somewhere in Mickey’s mind another mouth fits itself to the other side.  Ian’s hands roam Mickey’s back, and another pair cover his chest with heated palms.  The feel of Ian’s body, the pressure, the heat, unwind something Mickey hadn’t known he’d been holding tight.

It’s like a tangled ball of yarn, sitting there in the back of his head.  Knotted and wrapped and left in isolation for so long that dust has fused itself to the fiber.  And when Ian kisses him, it quakes; when Ian’s hands find skin, it unravels.  Memories of a thousand touches in a thousand different times, each one unspooling into a new line of pattern with a thousand more strings to come.

Ian's hands work Mickey’s belt there in the backroom, and in the alley, and under the bleachers behind the high school.  Ian’s mouth trails down Mickey’s chest, over his shoulder, along his thigh.  Ian smiles up at him, eyes glinting under curls, under a buzz cut, under bangs.  

“Did I do it like this?” a hundred Ians ask before taking Mickey in hand, and in hand, and in hand.  “Is this good?”

“Ian,” is all Mickey can say, barely aware of which one he’s saying it too.  He’s stretched out in so many directions now, his senses spread so thin, and the bundle of Ian in his mind keeps unraveling.

Ian’s shock the first time Mickey kissed him.  Ian’s blush when he did it again.  Ian’s grin when Mickey took him to the carnival.  Ian’s laugh when they got caught in the rain.  Ian’s hands on his face, Ian’s arm against his, lying under the bleachers and staring up at the slits of sky above.  Ian’s frown when Mickey doesn’t let him in; his soft smile when he does.  Ian’s anger at having to hide, his fierceness when he fights.  His sorrow when they fight, and his eagerness to make up.

All of it is Ian, and all of it is real.  Hidden but no less present; stolen but no less his.  It pours out of Mickey, slings itself down a million tiny pathways overgrown by time and neglect.  Every Ian Mickey has ever known is whispering into his ear as he brings Mickey to the brink, shaking and crying out as all of it, all of it, breaks free.

“Fuck.”

Mickey’s face is wet as well as other parts of him, tears still dripping from tired eyes.  Ian is leaning against him, hand still down his pants, a wet spot on his own to match.  He’s breathing heavily, not speaking, face hidden in Mickey’s shoulder.

The air is cool on Mickey’s wet face.  He can suddenly hear the reverie next door, the clink of glasses and the sound of moving feet.

What he can’t hear is Ian.

“You okay?” he dares to whisper, shifting his shoulder just a bit.  “Was that…”

He doesn’t finish the question.  He’s not sure he can bear to hear the answer.

Ian stays still and silent, for just a moment.  Then he’s raising his head from Mickey’s shoulder and looking at him with teary eyes that hold so, so much more than the day before.  And all he says is:

“Mickey.”

TWO DAYS LATER

“You gonna do some work anytime soon?” Mickey asks Lenny as he hoists another box onto his shoulder.  “We got a lot of stock to move before we can remodel, and I ain’t gonna do it all myself.”

“You’re way too peppy for ten in the morning,” Lenny complains, dragging his feet as he follows.  “It’s like you’re a whole different person, and I don’t think I like it.”

Mickey laughs.

“Yeah, well, you don’t have to.  I pay your salary, bitch.”

“Used to pay your salary,” he thinks he hears Lenny mumble, but he doesn’t care.  Because the door has just opened, and familiar footsteps are coming closer.

“Mickey?” Ian asks.  “Mickey, is that you?”

Grinning, Mickey lowers the box so he can see Ian’s face.

“Sure is, lover boy.  Come on in; let’s make some memories.”