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jademickian · 21 hours

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It's posting day for my @gallavichthings Gift Exchange gift! I got @rayrayor and I wrote a little something for their prompt about Mickey being a 'straight' patron of Ian's gay bar. Happy gift exchange, I hope you enjoy it!

(There's no warnings and it's fairly PG)

You're Like In Love With Me - a gallavich a.u. fiction 🫶

Someone at the brewery has it in for Ian, he’s decided. They’ve assigned him the world’s weediest delivery guy, who manages to shift one keg for every seven Ian hauls off his truck, and always gets to Ian ‘after lunch’, which, tends to be closer to dinner than lunch in Ian’s opinion, and leaves him very little time to get everything stocked and inventoried and get a break in before the evening rush starts.

He’s sweating buckets as he waves the guy off and staggers back out into the main bar for some ice water. He rounds the bar and snags a dishcloth from Joni who wrinkles their nose up at him as he swipes it over his forehead and the back of his neck.

Joni doesn’t sweat, it’s a point of pride for them. Ian isn’t sure if they actually aren’t capable of sweating, or if they just avoid any activity that could possibly cause them to perspire. If he was at home with his siblings, Ian would shake his head like a wet dog, sending droplets flying all over every surface and into the faces of any person standing close enough. But last year when he took over from Gigi she made him sit through like thirty hours of online health and safety and food hygiene training, and there is an open container of cut limes on the back bar that he can’t in good conscience condemn with his bodily fluids. So he holds himself back and focuses on getting himself a drink and trying not to be too obvious about checking out his favorite regular.

Mickey Milkovich has been coming to The Scratching Post since before Ian’s time, before it was ever even a gay bar, according to the man himself. When he was a kid, before the neighborhood ‘went to shit’ – Mickey’s colorful way of saying got gentrified by the u-haul lesbians and professional gays – it was something of a slum. And Mickey grew up a regular little slumdog. Before The Scratching Post was The Scratching Post, it was The Alibi Room, and the way Mickey tells it, it was basically his dad’s office. He’s told Ian stories about how he used to sit in one of the booths and watch his dad take book or make deals, how he got his first tattoo from the owner’s cousin who was trying to rustle up enough bail money to get her boyfriend out of jail after he shot up their apartment during a bad trip. How his older brother lost his virginity in the upstairs room when it was a short-lived brothel. How the whole fabric of his life is tied up in this place, like he’s just as much a part of it as the stains on the carpet that they’ve never bothered to change.

So now that Mickey is out of prison (attempted murder, but according to Mickey it was a trumped up bullshit charge and if he wanted to murder someone he would fucking succeed) and back living in the house he grew up in, he likes to drink in his neighborhood bar, even if it’s turned into some sort of haven for the L-G-B-T-Q-Whatever (his words). It’s home.

Ian doesn’t mind. Mickey’s a fast drinker and he can hold a lot of booze, and it never hurts to get some steady business during the day. And he likes Mickey. Kind of really likes him, actually. Sort of wouldn’t mind licking the inside of his mouth or tasting the sweat on the back of his neck. And that’s where he gets into a certain amount of trouble. Because Mickey Milkovich? Is straight.

Straight as a ramrod. Straight as a ruler. Straight as the day is long. Capital S Straight. So Ian tries not to think too much about how soft his lips look or how good he smells, and he also tries to keep it under wraps exactly how much he likes to look at the guy. He’s not gonna not look at him. But he doesn’t want to make him uncomfortable in, from what Ian can gather, one of the only places he feels comfortable. And he also doesn’t want to get his ass kicked by a guy he has a crush on. He had enough of that kind of fun in high school.

So he grabs his pint of ice water and wipes his forehead with his stolen rag and he limits his glances to two seconds long with twenty second intervals. Or at least he thinks he does until Joni rolls their eyes at him and announces they are going on a smoke break, since he’s clearly gonna be there for a while anyway. He’d be annoyed but honestly, they’re right.

Mickey always sits in the same spot, on a high stool at the bar just where it’s curved around enough so that he can easily see the door but not so far that he can’t see who’s coming and going from the restroom or the back. His vigilance is quiet, but noticeable if you know what you’re looking for. Or if you just spend a lot of time looking.

He’s in his spot today, left hand curled loosely around his beer like he likes to be ready to drink at any moment, and he’s smiling down at his phone in a way that has Ian’s tummy start to fizz with little sparks of jealousy. What’s got him smiling like that? He’s desperate to know.

He doesn’t always talk to Mickey every time he comes in, he tries to show a respectful level of interest, though if you polled his employees they would probably say he fails at that. He does some quick math in his head while grabbing another rag and starting to wipe down the bar top, making his way down toward Mickey’s end. Today is Wednesday, Mickey didn’t come in yesterday, on Monday Ian kept his distance, and he hadn’t worked Sunday. That meant that their last interaction had been Saturday. Four days. That’s a decent interval, he figures, and he carries on wiping over the bar, trying to come up with a subtle way to find out what has made Mickey smile.

“That your girl?” Is what he’s got by the time he’s stood in front of Mickey, and it may not be subtle but it’s all he could think of.

“Huh?” Mickey asks, looking up.

“You uh, you look like something in your phone is making you real happy, I thought maybe it was a girl.”

“Oh, Uh.” Mickey looks down at his phone and then back up at Ian, his lips tugging down into a half frown. “No.”

He closes his phone and shoves it in his back pocket, eyes shifting around the room as he takes a sip of his beer. There’s something kind of shifty about it, like Ian’s made him uncomfortable somehow, and if Ian had more self-control he’d call this one a loss and find an excuse to leave him be. But his discipline only extends to his exercise regime and diet apparently because he finds himself unable to walk away, quietly desperate to know what Mickey had been looking at.

“So what d’you win a bet?”

Mickey huffs a laugh and sticks hi phone in his back pocket, Ian wipes a spot on the bar that he’s already wiped clean three times.

“Naw man, just a picture of my sister looking fuckin’ dumb in a squirrel hat.”

Ok. Not what Ian had been expecting.

“A…squirrel? Hat?”

“Yeah it’s for her job or whatever, she looks like a fuckin’ idiot.”

His words are harsh, but the smile that’s spreading over his lips is kind of soft, like he is actually kind of fond of his sister. Ian’s never seen him smile like that before. His smile is always kind of dirty, or wry, or sometimes bordering on a grimace, this is different, and Ian feels like he’s unlocked a new Mickey nugget. He wonders if he can get some more.

“I didn’t know you had a sister.”

“Two brothers, one sister.” He takes a gulp of his beer and then does a thoughtful little shrug. “That I know of. The way my dad was though, wouldn’t be too shocked if I got a bunch more I don’t know about.”

There’s that wry smile that Ian’s used to, with a half an eye roll that belies a lifetime of dealing with a parent who never stops disappointing you. It’s an eyeroll Ian has performed many a time himself.

“God yeah me too. I got at least one half-sister who showed up out of the blue a few years back, but I could be related to half the city for all I know.”

“Half the redheads at least.” And there’s the dirty smile. He’s mentioned Ian’s hair a few times, most people tease him about it a little, it’s no big deal. He imagines Mickey would have terrorized him if they’d known each other as kids, chasing him around calling him Carrot Top or Little Orphan Annie. This is kind of a gentle tease though, something warm, accompanied with a squint that could almost be a wink, if Mickey Milkovich was the kind of guy who winked, and it spurs Ian on.

“I knew this girl in high school, her dad had so many kids running around that she had to ask people for their family tree before she would hook up with them.”

Mickey almost chokes on his beer.

“Fuck me, should I be doing that?”

“I don’t know. She had a close call once, and her dad literally had like, thirty kids.”

“No shit.”

“Yeah, so, next time you’re lookin’ to hook up with someone, just, ask for a DNA screening first I guess.”

Mickey nods, and then the air sort of drops out of the conversation, like it has nowhere left to go. Mickey gulps the last of his beer in one huge mouthful that puffs his cheeks out and sort of makes him look like he’s chewing it, and the only thing Ian can think to say is to ask him if he wants another.

“Nah I’m good, gotta get back.” He throws some cash down on the bar to cover his tab and is out the door with his arms still shoving into his jacket before Ian can even say syanora.

And then he doesn’t come back for three weeks.

It’s not like Ian’s moping, Joni can fuck off for implying that. The bar is busy and he has a lot to do and employees to manage and siblings to deal with. But in the afternoons sometimes he’ll find himself staring at the empty space where Mickey would normally be and wondering, kind of forlornly, if the guy is ever coming back. Trying to figure out what he did or said in that last conversation that pissed him off so bad he would forsake his childhood bar.

Ian misses him. His expressive face and his disgusting sense of humour, and the way he makes Ian feel, like on edge and at ease at the same time. It just sucks, not seeing him, and not knowing why.

And then one day, three weeks and four days since The Scratching Post had last seen hide or hair of him, he’s back, sitting on his regular stool when Ian gets done mopping the bathrooms.

It gives him a jolt, a little shiver of excitement running down his spine as he shoves the mop in the corner and rounds the bar.

“Haven’t seen you around here lately.” He greets Mickey, as casually as he can, and Mickey looks up, kind of startled, and then looks down at the bar. Or. There’s a white envelope sitting there, and he seems fixated on it.

“Everything ok Mick?”

Mickey nods, a quick little jerk of a thing, eyes fixed on the envelope. He doesn’t even have a drink in front of him.

“You want a beer?”

He shakes his head, brings his right hand up to lay his fingertips over the envelope and slide it across the bar toward Ian.

“What’s this?” Ian picks it up, there’s no name on it, no details, it’s not sealed but he’s still not sure if he should open it. Mickey’s looking up at him when he’s done inspecting it.

“It’s uh.” His bright blue eyes flick away and then back again, are they wetter than usual? They seem so shiny when they finally rest back on Ian. “It’s a DNA test.”

“A DNA test?”

“Yeah. We um. We ain’t related. So.”

He raps his knuckles on the bar a couple of times in a short sharp knock that he must think serves as a suitable stop to this most bizarre of conversations, and clambers off his stool, heading for the door.

“Wait Mickey—What?!”

“Just. Read it.”

The door has barely had time to swing shut before Ian is practically tearing the envelope in his haste to look at the paper inside. It’s exactly what Mickey said, a DNA test, comparing Mickey’s DNA to his own, which, he’s gonna have to talk to him about where he got a sample of Ian’s DNA from, and confirming that there’s no overlap. In the top right corner, in a chicken scratch of a hand, Mickey has scrawled the words ‘just in case’ and then a phone number, and Ian almost drops his phone in the ice trough in his rush to pull it out of his pocket and send a text.

[2:34pm] I thought you were straight?

The reply buzzes through almost immediately, like maybe Mickey’s stood outside looking at his phone waiting to see what happens.

[2:34pm] Good.

It’s a very Mickey text, and something about it makes Ian feel warm, like he’s being trusted with something Mickey doesn’t trust a lot of people with.

[2:35pm] Where did you get a sample of my DNA??

[2:35pm] That really what you wanna be asking me right now?

[2:35pm] I’ve got a lot of things I want to ask you.

[2:36pm] So come outside, I don’t got all day.

It’s possible that Ian knocks over a stool and drops his dishcloth on the floor, he’s got bigger fish to fry.

#to read

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