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gallawitchxx · 1 year

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🔮💨 WE'RE BACK BABY 🔮💨

hi buds! i'm writing this au 100 words at a time per the weekly prompts from @galladrabbles. prompted words are in PURPLE & there’s a 🔮💨 to note where each installment ends. thanks for reading! xx

the latest installment is #26: jello for the week of march 25, 2024

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If you’d have told Mickey Milkovich that by eighteen, he’d be Terry-free and running a drug-fueled, fortune-telling business out of the spare room, he would’ve said, “fuck off and eat shit.”

But here he is.

And here’s Ian Gallagher: lanky, alien-lookin’, and back for the third time to ask about his bootlicking future.

Mickey settles in, the snick of the lighter flooding his body with endorphins, and takes a hit. Breathes in deep, blows out slow. Avoids glowing green eyes that remind him just how big of a gamble this whole thing is.

“See anything yet?”

🔮💨

Fuck, his voice is so hopeful. Curious, in a way that sends Mickey’s blood both north and south. Makes him sway in his chair, lightheaded. Floating. High.

Until the flood came.

A breeze that nips the nose. Rosy cheeks, wide grin, a warm, open laugh. Lips press in a quick, familiar kiss. “Betcha I can still beat you back, Mick.” The playful smack of a big, freckled paw. A slight wince. A weariness. Creaky knees, an ache in the low back. Determination. Something that feels like there ain’t a right word for it in any language. “In your dreams, Gallagher.”

🔮💨

What in the fresh hell…

Mickey blinks—once, twice, three times—trying to harness whatever clarity might still be available to him between the weed and the horrifying scene still playing behind his eyelids.

He’s seen some shit before, doing this kinda work. Shit that’s freaked him out, confused both him and the clients desperate for information. Visions of blood, bile and beady red eyes.

But never before has he himself shown up in anyone’s future.

“Didja see something?” Gallagher questions, scanning Mickey’s face with an intensity that flips his belly.

“Ask me again, I’ll cut your fuckin’ tongue out.”

🔮💨

Pink-tinged shame creeps up freckled cheeks, and Mickey’s instantly regretful. Gallagher’s a paying client, even if he does keep his cash in a dorky ass velcro wallet.

Their first two sessions had been fruitful, but incomplete.

Boot camp fatigues.

Helicopter blades.

A set of dog tags that read Phillip Gallagher, instead of Ian.

No wonder he’d shown up again, eager for answers.

Still, old habits die hard. Feelings are a luxury afforded to people a whole lot richer than a Milkovich. It’s easier to lie and be safe.

“Sorry, man. Nothin’ today.”

His chest clenches as Gallagher’s face falls.

🔮💨

The fuck is Mickey supposed to do? Tell him that desperate as he is to get blown to bits in some godforsaken desert, what just came through was nothing more than a couple of sore, old queens chasing each other in the snow? Even worse, try to explain that those frosted fairies are somehow them?

No fucking way.

Gallagher leans back in the rusted metal folding chair. He crosses his arms, his shirt riding up, revealing soft hair and sharp hips.

Heat licks at Mickey’s neck, along with the desire to wrap his legs around him and hold on tight.

🔮💨

“Okay… That’s okay,” he mumbles unconvincingly as he sits up again, his long fingers coming to rest on camo-clad thighs. Then, clearer, “Didn’t mean to pressure you or anything. Don’t really know how this shit works.”

“That makes two of us,” Mickey says before he can stop himself.

Pouty pink lips part, then tick upwards into a small smirk.

The moment lingers a bit too long, but Mickey’s now sufficiently stoned and ridiculously distracted by the deepening dimple in Gallagher’s chin to break it.

Something flickers between them. Cautious, curious, yet undeniably there.

“So, uh… what’s it feel like?”

🔮💨

“What’s what feel like?” Mickey asks, still dazed.

“You know… seeing shit.”

Oh. That.

Mickey mulls it over. He could tell him what it doesn’t feel like — a fucking gift. Or whatever people call bullshit abilities like getting so blitzed that you catch sight of what’s still to come. It’s a burden. A plight. If it didn’t make him cash money, he’d honestly consider going off weed altogether. Simply stick to the sauce.

But then again, he wouldn’t have Gallagher in his house, looking at him like he’s gonna say something stupid like, I’d rather have you, cursed or not.

🔮💨

Mickey battles between being benevolent and brash; nature versus nurture at near-constant war within him. But before he can bark out anything at all, he feels another wave pulling him under.

“Turn this chick shit off, man.” Flexed fingers separate his own, sneaking between them and holding on tight. Strong shoulders shrug. “Think it’s kinda like us.” A belly full of butterflies. A pair of flushed faces. “You’re still into me, huh?” A nod, sure and steady. “Always gonna be into you, Mickey.”

That last line takes him longer to shake, and goddammit, there’s no way Gallagher didn’t notice.

🔮💨

“Did you—” he starts predictably. Then, he quickly snaps his jaw shut, trapping the question within.

Mickey sniffs, fiddles with the zipper of his cut-off hoodie, trying to kill time. Keep his hands busy so he doesn’t do something dumb. But there’s really only one way this is gonna go, and he knows it. If Gallagher has even a lick of self-preservation underneath that buzzcut, he should too.

“It feels like you should stop asking stupid fuckin’ questions.” He swallows any stray pangs of conscience as he shoves crumpled bills across the crooked card table that separates them.

🔮💨

He watches Gallagher’s eyes snap to the money. It’s today’s fee returned, plus a little extra; whatever else was in Mickey’s pocket now collateral for his cowardice.

But he doesn’t take it. He doesn’t move at all.

“You fuckin’ deaf or somethin’?” Mickey shouts. Agitated. “In case you didn’t notice, we’re done here.”

Gallagher looks up. Stares straight into his goddamn soul. It’s terrifying—electrifying—and doesn’t hold a candle to the turmoil that rolls through him when that contact is suddenly gone, his gaze dropping to Mickey’s lips.

He fixates like he thinks they’ve already agreed to a truce.

🔮💨

“I know you saw something,” Gallagher whispers, stepping forward like a dead man on a mission.

Mickey winces. Wills himself back into his body, his eyes drifting shut as he calls to the scattered bits of his blissed out brain.

The time has come to fold.

“Yeah…”

The chaos spreads the room as Gallagher shifts again. Mickey’s pulse races, relying on sound and vibration to track his movements.

“I just need to know one thing.”

Mickey peeks, curious, then breathless at their newfound proximity.

They lock in eye to eye as Gallagher rips them apart:

“Do I make it through?”

🔮💨

The realization that his silence has been interpreted as some kind of personal tragedy makes Mickey want to punch something.

Hard.

Jesus Christ, it breaks his heart.

With fated versions of them swimming around his psyche, Mickey lets himself wonder if Gallagher might feel the way he does—worries he’s too broken, too disenfranchised, too fucked for life for anyone to be insane enough to love him.

He can almost hear their future selves asking, do you still love me even though I’m flawed? Can almost hear their whispered answers, yes, yes, always yes.

“Yeah, man,” he assures. “You do.”

🔮💨

The relief is clear as day for both the out-of-his-depth diviner and his confused client.

“Thanks,” Gallagher sniffs, eyes wide and wet. Everything feels fragile, like spun glass and cotton candy. Past their prime dandelions when a summer breeze kicks up. Not at all the way Mickey likes to feel—in his place of business, his own fucking home, his body… “See you next time?”

There is no next time with what Mickey now knows. Only half-truths and keeping his story straight.

Gallagher turns.

If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.

“Don’t—”

🔮💨

There’s an old poem about hollow men. Stuffed men. Men without sight; shape without form. Line after line of war and faith and shadows. Mickey’s not sure why he knows it. Doesn’t fully understand how it’s come to live in his brain and his bones. But here it is now:

This is the way the world ends.

Gallagher turns, his gaze a challenge. “Don’t what?”

This is the way the world ends.

“Just…”

This is the way the world ends.

Mickey’s breath catches in his throat.

Not with a bang but a whimper.

Gallagher’s lips twitch, but he stays put.

🔮💨

Maybe if those empty men were born in a different time, to other people, and raised under disparate circumstances, they would’ve been able to muster the courage to scream. To cry out their wants. Give voice to their needs.

(Could a couple of doped-up visions really create a need?)

As Gallagher continues to wait—not patiently, per se, but it’s perseverance nonetheless—it dawns on Mickey while he might have been born a worthless man, he doesn’t have to carry on that way.

His situation ain’t what it used to be.

“Can’t tell you what I saw,” he manages.

🔮💨

Gallagher’s hands flex at his sides, and it’s like Mickey’s noticing them for the first time. He ogles at how big they are, how speckled, how good they’d felt around his own hands in that last vision, how much he wants to feel them around his waist, his throat, his dick…

Flushed, and desperate to end this fucked up double date they’re on with their future selves, Mickey looks down at the soiled carpet.

“But I’m alive?” Gallagher asks.

“Very,” Mickey confirms, eyes lifting again. “Look happy.”

Gallagher’s grin sends sunlight streaming through a house once destined for eternal darkness.

🔮💨

“Thanks Mick.”

The nickname zigzags its way beneath Mickey’s skin like he’s a human pinball machine.

“Betcha I can still beat you back, Mick,” echoes an Ian who’s yet to be made real.

Mickey rubs at his bottom lip, hiding the smile that’s threatening to slip. Tries to play it off as a grimace. But Gallagher sees him—really sees him—and beams. A dream, how his smile implies that he’ll wait for Mickey to get there too.

And he will.

Mickey’s seen it.

Which gives him the confidence to say, “Come back. Next week. Or whenever. Try this again.”

🔮💨

The Universe takes “whenever” seriously, and in the days that follow, seizes full control of Mickey’s highs:

A broad chest pressed to his back. Arms wrapped around his neck.“Love is a battlefield!” Hoarse throats. Wide smiles. Two hearts near bursting.

Full-bodied wine. Pasta sauce on the stove. Tight jeans. Tighter tank. “You look good enough to eat, Mr. Milkovich.” “Bon appetite, Mr. Gallagher.”

“I love you, baby.” “Love you, Ian.”

Having waited the full week, Ian finally arrives on the Milkovich steps, dressed down in a striped shirt that makes Mickey’s mouth dry.

He hopes it’s cotton mouth…

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🔮💨 CHAPTER TWO 🔮💨

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Ian’s knuckles pulse from the pert pace at which he raps on the Milkovich door.

It’s torture to just stand there and wait, held captive and stripped bare, nerves torn to pieces and praying for a little compassion.

He hopes Mickey’s home. They never confirmed his appointment. Ian’s just going off of his final words—Come back. Next week. Or whenever. Try this again.—before he turned away to find another cigarette.

Ian’s watched the entirety of their last encounter on a loop ever since, like a fucked up foreign film. No subtitles, just mixed (smoke) signals, confusion, and Mickey.

🔮💨

His whole experience with Mickey Milkovich, Southside’s Supreme Stoner Psychic, has been baffling to say the least.

At first, Ian wasn’t buying it. It’s gotta be some kind of scam! But Mickey’s built a solid reputation for being accurate and to the point. Besides, Ian’s always had a little bit of a crush. A death wish, too. So he paid Mickey his money and left with some fragments of his fated future.

He also left with a hunch that his feelings might not be so one-sided... Mickey didn’t hand over a Valentine’s card, but Ian saw the way he’d stared.

🔮💨

He’s still picturing it when Mickey swings open the door and crosses his arms over his chest, tugging at the buttons of his black dress shirt.

Okay, formal, Ian thinks, taking in Mickey’s slicked back hair and the smoke of his cologne.

Ian regrets his tee and jeans, missing the authority and confidence of his uniform. But Mickey doesn’t seem to mind—there’s hunger in his gaze again, twin storm clouds rolling in over a calm sea.

For a moment, they both look their fill.

Ian opens his mouth to speak, but fails.

Mickey smirks. “Comin’ in or what, Mushmouth?”

🔮💨

He steps back, giving Ian space to cross over the threshold; inviting him to close the distance between them, and commit to finding out what comes next.

Ian obeys every silent order. His feet move of their own volition, as if they’re attached to a ratchet wrench that pulls him forward in one direction, and one direction only: towards Mickey.

The electric current that runs between them had felt innocent enough last week, and then again, today, in the fresh air of the porch.

But when Mickey shuts the door to behind them, Ian realizes he’s caught in a trap.

🔮💨

The house smells different. Good, even? Like something's cooking in an oven that hasn’t been used in years. It’s familiar in a way that tickles at Ian’s memory and further drops his defenses.

Mickey doesn’t mention it. He just brushes past Ian, leading them towards the room he’s been using for business.

On the table, next to Mickey’s bong, is a platter of pizza rolls. Ian’s mouth waters.

Mickey thumbs at his nose. “You’ve lost your way, you think your life is wrecked,” he says, taking his seat. “Well, let me just say you're correct.”

Ian blinks twice. “Wait, what?”

🔮💨

Mickey’s eerie silence pulls the moisture from his mouth until he’s nothing more than a shriveled sack of dust. A tumbleweed in the desert, crawling towards an oasis that might not be real.

What Ian wouldn’t give for Mickey to pick up his piece and press his worries into the earth; bury them in the plush of ground weed. He wants to watch the water swirl beneath colored glass, wants to watch the fire turn into steam and smoke. Needs to see the air fill Mickey’s chest, raise his shoulders and bloat his lungs.

Finally:

“I know your secret, Gallagher.”

🔮💨

Ian’s heart kicks in his chest, a jolt of fear spiking through him, and his head swims. It’s like he’s back inside the dark theatre he’d been in all week. Mickey’s words are nothing but unfamiliar sounds.

If he’s gonna go to the movies, he might as well get a snack.

He grabs a pizza roll from the plate in front of him and pops it in his mouth. But when he bites down, the inevitable happens.

“Fuck,” he garbles, the sauce piping hot and burning his mouth.

Ian doubles over, in pain and embarrassed. He really should’ve known better.

🔮💨

“Jesus Christ,” Mickey huffs, standing up and leaving the room.

Ian opens his inferno of a mouth, hoping the air of the room will cool down the masticated snack. Thankfully, by the time he hears the familiar sound of a beer cap being popped off, he’s able to swallow.

Mickey returns, bottle in hand. He offers it to Ian. “S’all we got.”

Ian takes it, grateful as the icy liquid chills his charred throat. “All you got, huh? Even juvie’s got jello.”

“What d’you know about juvie, Gallagher?”

Mickey’s squint makes Ian’s chest constrict.

“What d’you know about me, Milkovich?”

#we love a master post moment!#updates weekly babes 🔮💨#crystal ball weed bong mickey ily #bright eyed bootlicker ian you are so precious #shameless #shameless fanfiction #galladrabbles #ian gallagher #mickey milkovich #ian x mickey #bee writes 🐝 ✍🏼

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