Archive of Our Own ^beta

There weren’t a lot of things that brought the entirety of the Southside together, but the Southern Chicago Echo was one of them. The newspaper had been around for fifty years and was still going strong. How Mandy had managed to find a job there was a miracle. How she’d managed to get her boss to hire him, knuckle tattoos included, was even more so.

Mickey hadn’t started out with an advice column. In fact, he had been the general errand boy who had been sent to cover the shitty stories no one else could be bothered to look at. No one expected him to write an article, just that he would take enough notes to help them make their minds up about whether they should send a proper journalist down there or not. 

Eventually, they had let him write things, and though he didn’t have anything approaching journalistic integrity, he did have ‘his own charm’, as his boss had put it. That led to Mickey being given the opportunity to have his own column. 

“We used to have an advice column back in the ’90s, it was really popular until our agony aunt retired,” his boss, Jeremy, explained one day in his office.

Mickey hadn’t taken it seriously then, but his boss was set on the idea. 

“You have a Southside attitude which I think could work really well! People will eat it up.”

And people had eaten it up, much to Mickey’s surprise. People had sent in their fucking stupid life problems, and he had ripped into them, and it became very popular. He would sit down a few nights a week and reply to the dumbass problems of the Southside population. Cheating partners, money troubles, doubt about who stole their TV, anything and everything - it was all a possibility. 

That was what he was doing tonight. His shift at the mechanics had been tough and had left him in a bad mood, but that was no reason not to catch up with the mail that was constantly emailed over to him from his boss. It really was never-ending. Mickey started from the oldest mail and worked his way back. 

He had his own way of narrowing down what he was going to reply to. If it was a real medical or legal problem, that was a no and generally didn’t make it through to him anymore since they got one of the interns to glance over the emails before sending them on to him. The other type of email that didn’t make it through was the boring ones that were a dime a dozen. Mickey had enough people writing in now that he could afford to be choosey and generally only replied to things if they were either very stupid, very funny, if he felt like he actually had some decent advice to give, or some combination thereof. 

He wasn’t sure which camp the email that he was looking at now fell into, but there was only one way to find out. It had been sent a month ago, so hopefully, it wasn’t time-sensitive in any way. But then, if they had a serious and time-sensitive problem, they shouldn’t be writing to him - he had a disclaimer to prove it.

‘Dear Uncle Southside, 

I’m sure you get people writing in to you all the time about stuff like this, but I think you’re one of the only people who can actually help me. I’m a guy in my early 20’s, as is my roommate. He’s a typical Southside guy, not in a bad way, though. He’s nice underneath all of the tough guy layers, really smart and caring, with a killer sense of humour. Yeah, I’m sure you guessed it. I have a fat crush on the guy.

Anyway, I pushed it down for months because he looks about as straight as it's possible to be. Well, I saw a text come up on his phone, and it was a guy asking him to come over. He then said he was going out with friends and didn’t come back that night. I put two and two together and got hookup which is fine, but I’m not sure what to do now.

Do I tell him I know he likes men? He knows I’m gay, but I don’t know how he’d take me knowing he is. Do I say how I feel? I’m just so confused. 

Confused Roommate’ 

Mickey looked over the email and snorted. He could just imagine this dude, some twink-looking guy with a crush on his more thuggish roommate. He idly wondered who the roommate could be. Mickey tended to know the ‘discreet’ men in the Southside, especially the more thuggish ones. There was a not insignificant chance that he’d fucked the guy this Confused Roommate was talking about, which made him chuckle to himself. 

A knock at the door took him from his thoughts. 

“It’s open,” he called out, closing down his tab. His roommate, Ian, didn’t know he was Uncle Southside. No one apart from Mandy, his boss, and a few others from the paper did. 

Ian poked his head around the door, and Mickey had to suppress a smile - he was adorable as ever in his oversized hoodie and sweats. “I was thinking about ordering pizza. You want in?”

“Fuck yeah!” Mickey enthused. “Gotta do some stuff real quick, but I’ll be done by the time it arrives. There’s some cash in my wallet, just take what you need.”

Ian laughed. “You trust me with your wallet?” 

“I trust my ability to smash your face in if you try to steal from me,” he said calmly, holding back a grin. Ian always cheered him up. “I know how much pizza costs.”

Ian Gallagher had been an unlikely roommate. Mandy had introduced them as they had been both looking for an apartment to rent at the time. They had gotten on much better than Mickey had hoped for. They managed not to tear each other’s faces off over chores and things which was a bonus. If Ian hadn’t been his roommate, Mickey might have tried his luck with him as he knew he was gay and Ian was seriously hot. But good roommates were difficult to come by, whereas a casual fuck for the night was a dime a dozen. It wasn’t worth it. Besides, he actually liked Ian as a friend and didn’t want to make things awkward. 

Cracking his neck, he wrote out his reply. Not for the first time, he wished that he could swear in his letters.

‘Dear Confused Roommate, 

So you know this dude is gay, right? Well, that isn’t all you need to think about, ok? Sure, it might be nice to get laid or whatever, but there’s more to life. If he’s a good roommate, I wouldn’t be looking to mess that up if I were you. Not unless you really like him, I guess.

As for telling him that you know he’s gay. Well, if he hasn’t told you, it’s for a reason, especially if he knows you’re gay yourself. Just give him time, trying to force things will make it worse. Also, it’s none of your business, no offence. 

Uncle Southside’

Mickey sent the reply off to his boss. He had hoped to get a few more done tonight, but it wasn’t like he was behind or anything like that. He had four days before the paper was going to be sent to the printers. No rush. 

“Pizza should be here soon,” Ian said when Mickey walked through into their living room. 

Mickey flopped on the sofa a respectable distance away and stretched himself out. “What did you get?”

“Meat feast, obviously. I know that, and pepperoni is the only thing you like,” he replied, pulling up Netflix on the TV.

“Pretty gay of you to remember what pizza I like,” Mickey teased. 

Ian scoffed. “We’ve been living together for months. Would be weird if I didn’t know at least some things about you, you know.”

Mickey kicked his roommate gently. “I was only kidding.”

He sighed. “Yeah, I know. Sorry.”

“Just stop being weird, and we’re fine,” he replied. 

Ian turned back to the TV and paid an excessive amount of attention. Mickey felt bad about how homophobic he often came across to his roommate, but there was no way that he was even close to ready to come out to him. For Mickey, his sexuality was on a need-to-know basis. And people only needed to know if he was about to have sex with them, and since Ian was off the menu, then he didn’t need to know. 

The pizza arrived quickly, and the two of them dug in after deciding to watch one of the many Fast and the Furious movies, he wasn’t sure which one exactly. They settled in to watch it, and soon Mickey forgot about the advice that he’d just given and how the guy was going to react to it. When Mickey had first started, he had often found himself worried about whether the advice he was giving was sound or not. After all, he certainly hadn’t been the person that anyone had gone to with their problems when he was growing up. Not Mandy, not anyone. 

By the time it came for that week’s paper to be published, Mickey had completely forgotten about that one letter that he had received. That being said, when he found another letter from ‘Confused Roommate’, Mickey was quick to read it. He didn’t do multiple replies to the same problem, but he didn’t have an express rule against it either. 

‘Dear Uncle Southside,

I appreciate the advice you’ve given me. I’ve thought about what you said a lot. I really do like him. There was this one night when we didn’t do much at all, we just sat and watched a movie and ate pizza together, and I had to stop myself from smiling the entire time because I was just that happy. No one has ever made me happy like that before. 

And I get that he probably doesn’t like me back, and I get that I should keep it to myself, but I’m finding it more difficult to do every day. I don’t know if you’ll have anything to say to me other than what you did before. But well, I had to say this to someone. 

But he’s my roommate and his sister is my best friend, so if this goes badly, then I’ve not got many options. So, I know I should keep it to myself, but that’s not so easy. 

Confused Roommate’ 

Mickey stared at the email, his jaw slack. It couldn’t be a coincidence. A guy whose roommate was a southside thug who happened to be gay, and he was friends with said thuggish guy’s sister? No, Mickey didn’t believe in coincidences. Well, shit, what was he going to say? All at once, a slightly malicious urge came over him. After all, he needed to know for sure if his hunch was right. 

‘Dear Confused Roommate,

It seems like you really like this guy, huh? Well, if you’re going to confess everything, then I think you need to make sure you’re actually going to get a good response. I mean, just because this guy is gay doesn’t mean he’s going to like you. Sorry not sorry to burst your bubble there. 

If you’re good friends already, then that’s a good place to start. Might be a good idea to try and be a little romantic, though, and see how he takes it. Get him food you know he likes or something, I don’t know. I’m not an expert on romance. But I think it’s better to try that and see how he takes it rather than confess out of nowhere.

Hope that helps,

Uncle Southside’

Mickey looked over his reply three times before he was completely happy with it. He was confident that if this ‘Confused Roommate’ was Ian that Mickey would be able to suss it out. Ian was a nice guy, but he wasn’t such a nice guy that he would just get Mickey shit for no reason, so the difference would be obvious. 

It only took a day after the paper was published for Mickey’s suspicions to be proven correct. It was subtle at first. Ian did his washing up without Mickey asking, and then it was bringing him coffee whenever he made some for himself. Before long, Ian was asking him if he wanted Ian to buy him food and all sorts of things. 

He felt a little guilty for putting Ian up to all of it, if he was honest. It wasn’t like he was a materialistic person usually, but knowing that his roommate was indeed the eponymous ‘Confused Roommate’ had certainly left him in a dilemma. What the fuck was he meant to do with this information? Sure, he had known that Ian was gay, but the ginger had actually done a good job of not coming across like he liked him as anything more than a roommate and perhaps friend. And like he had said in his original email, it wasn’t a good idea to ruin a perfectly good roommate relationship just for some sex, or a relationship or whatever it was that Ian actually wanted. It didn’t matter because none of it ever, ever worked out. 

Things came to a head when Ian brought back some weed and offered to split it with him. Mickey didn’t often buy weed for himself, but he wasn’t going to turn a free joint down. Ian didn’t usually smoke weed either, and it amused Mickey to think that this was how Ian thought that he was going to get his way into his pants. 

“It’s weird,” Ian said apropos of nothing as he passed the joint to Mickey.

Mickey chuckled, taking a long drag before passing it back. “What is?”

“This,” Ian gestured between them. “I mean, we’re an unlikely pair.”

“You think so?” He asked, eager to keep the redhead talking.

“Yeah!” Ian said slightly too loudly before taking another drag and passing it back to Mickey. “I mean, you’re the type of guy I would have gone crazy for as a teenager, and then you would have beaten me up over it if you ever found out.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” he replied. It wasn’t a lie. Mickey might well have beaten Ian up over it as a teen - he definitely would have fucked him first, but that was hardly the point. 

“But here we are,” Ian continued grandly, “being roommates and shit. It’s weird.”

“Good weird or bad weird?” Mickey asked, eyeing his roommate carefully.

He shrugged. “Both?”

Ian looked like he was trying to figure something out, so Mickey didn’t speak. Instead, he smoked the rest of the joint and let himself settle into his high.  His brain was too foggy to say anything decent anyway. Eventually, Ian broke the silence again. 

“I mean,” he said, sounding as if even high, he was unsure of if he should continue, “it’s all fucked.”

“You’re not making any sense, man,” Mickey pointed out, eager to keep the redhead talking. 

“I’m trying not to make sense,” he replied. “Don’t want you to know what I’m thinking.”

A jolt went through Mickey’s entire body as his heart jumped into a faster rhythm. 

“Go on,” Mickey cajoled. “Tell me.”

“You’ll hate me if I do,” Ian whined. 

He groaned. “I’m going to fucking hate you if you don’t at this point.”

“It’s just not fair that you’re all…you and I just have to be here and look at you, and ugh!” Ian said all in one breath. 

Mickey frowned, his brain hardly able to comprehend what Ian had said. “That made no fucking sense at all.”

Ian huffed. “I know you’re gay, alright?”

He let out a long sigh, fighting to keep his cool even as his heart hammered in his chest. “Ok, and?”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” He retorted, sounding genuinely hurt.

Mickey shrugged. “It didn’t come up in conversation.”

“That’s bullshit!” Ian protested. “You knew I was gay, and you never said anything, and it’s bullshit you never…” Ian cut himself off, choosing to stare at the floor instead.

“I never what?” Mickey probed, desperate to push Ian even further. 

“Never gave me a chance,” he said, looking at Mickey with such open sadness that it put him on edge. 

“Look, just because we’re both gay doesn’t mean we’re gonna…I don’t fucking know,” he said, not feeling at all sure what he was trying to communicate to Ian at that moment. 

Ian narrowed his eyes. “Cut the bullshit.”

“What bullshit?” Mickey sighed. Ian high was even more confusing than Ian sober. 

“You want me,” he said with finality. 

“So what?” He asked, wishing he had more weed to smoke to calm himself down. 

“So what?” Ian repeated, looking bewildered. “So everything!” 

Mickey huffed. “So you’re telling me that you’re prepared to risk our arrangement for the sake of sex? You’re ridiculous.” 

Ian’s whole demeanour changed then. It was as if, by mentioning the word ‘sex’, Mickey had awoken some sort of monster. 

“Don’t you think I could take care of you, Mick?” Ian asked seductively. 

Mickey swallowed hard, his mouth suddenly dry. 

“Because I could, you know,” the redhead continued. “I know what you need,” his pupils were blown wide from the weed, but to Mickey, it looked as if Ian was half-crazed with lust. “You try and act tough, but I know. I know I can give it to you too.”

“You’ve got some fucking ego on you, huh?” He replied, unable to think of anything else to say. He was completely sidelined by this new side of his roommate. 

“Let me prove it to you,” Ian said imploringly. 

Mickey felt torn. This was the culmination of his suspicions, and really, ever since he had figured out that Ian and ‘Confused Roommate’ were indeed the same person, he had been wondering about what it would be like. He felt sure that Ian would be able to give it to him like he promised. There was something about him. Plus, Mickey had seen him in sweatpants without underwear enough times to know that he was packing some serious heat. 

He had to admit to himself at that moment that it was what he wanted, and usually, Mickey wasn’t the sort of person to deny himself anything. Fuck shit up and then worry about it later was his motto. But he had been trying so hard to be careful, to be on the straight and narrow. 

Ian was still looking at him. Presumably waiting for him to say something. Mickey felt so torn that he was frozen by the indecision. The fact that he could feel the weed settling into him wasn’t helping either. 

“Let me prove it to you,” Ian repeated softly. 

“Fuck it,” Mickey said, more to himself than to Ian, before he practically launched himself at the redhead. 

His roommate let out a short cry of surprise, clearly not having expected Mickey to move so quickly, but he adapted easily. Their lips met, and Mickey could taste the weed on Ian’s tongue. It was easy to kiss him, easy to climb on top of him and grind down until Ian moaned into his mouth. It seemed like neither of them was particularly able to move on from the kissing, though Mickey was definitely eager for it. It had been too long since he had gotten laid in any case. 

“Let’s go,” Ian said breathlessly after some time. 

Mickey nodded, getting up and dragging them both to Ian’s room. He kept it cleaner than Mickey did his, so it was the natural destination. 

They stripped quickly, though Mickey found it difficult to summon up the coordination to undo the buttons of his shirt and so took it off over his head eventually out of sheer frustration. He decided at that moment never to smoke weed before having sex again. 

Ian seemed to be in much the same predicament as he was shoving his jeans off impatiently. Once they were both fully undressed, they looked at each other for a long moment before Ian pushed Mickey back onto the bed roughly. He followed quickly, plastering himself over Mickey as he kissed him again. Ian was hard against him, and Mickey wanted nothing more than to get right to it. 

“Just fuck me, man,” he growled. 

The redhead seemed happy enough to pick up the pace, and soon, he had three fingers thrusting in and out of him. The quite frankly obscene amount of lube that Ian had used meant there were these absolutely filthy sounds filling the room, and it only sent Mickey wilder. Mickey had to grit his teeth hard to keep back his moans. Usually, he didn’t really enjoy foreplay, but there was something about this that was different. Maybe it was the weed, maybe it was that Ian wasn’t a complete stranger, but Mickey could feel sparks of pleasure rolling up his back as Ian worked. 

“Fuck,” Ian hissed. “You make such pretty noises. Can’t wait to fuck you properly.”

Mickey let out an unmanly whine as Ian gripped his hip in order to get better leverage to fuck him harder with his fingers.

“If you can’t wait,” Mickey panted, “why are you still down there?”

The redhead let out a growl. “Message received.” 

It wasn’t long before Ian was rolling a condom over himself. Mickey took the time to observe his roommate at that moment. This was a deciding moment for them. Mickey was all too aware of what a bad decision he was making, but he wanted that gorgeous cock too much. And besides, they’d gone too far for things to go back to how they had been anyway. 

Mickey tried to roll over onto his front, but Ian wasn’t having it, and Mickey gave up quickly. He didn’t generally like to fuck face to face, but he wasn’t absolutely opposed to it either, and if it made Ian happy, then it was fine. 

As soon as Ian started pushing into him, all thoughts of whether it was the right thing to do or not fled from his mind. It was all that Mickey could do to keep his mouth shut. Jesus, Ian really was packing, and it had been too long since he had gotten laid. 

Ian bottomed out with a shuddering breath and waited for Mickey to give him some sort of signal to move. 

“Fuck,” Mickey said, hardly able to speak normally as his body struggled to adjust despite how well he had been prepared, “stop being such a gentleman and fuck me, firecrotch.”

“Someone’s desperate,” Ian teased. 

“Not desperate,” he retorted, though he was aware of how little it was likely to convince the redhead above him, “just don’t want to get my first grey hair before you decide to get moving.”

“Needy,” the redhead replied, sounding fond in a way that made Mickey want to shut his eyes. 

It wasn’t long before Ian was setting a brutal pace, and it was all that Mickey could do to dig his fingers into the redhead’s back and hang on for dear life. His cock was throbbing against his stomach, but he wasn’t sure that he could move at all, not even to touch himself. 

“Fuck,” Ian whined, “those noises , Mick.”

It was only at Ian’s words that he realised that was, indeed, moaning like a cheap slut. He bit his bottom lip hard to keep the moans back, but Ian just reached up and pulled his lip from between his teeth. Ian’s hand was still holding onto his chin gently, and his thrust had slowed to a deep grind that seemed to hit his prostate directly and had Mickey whimpering needily. 

“Fucking love those noises,” he breathed out, kissing Mickey desperately like he really needed it. “So fucking good.”

Ian was clearly the type who loved to talk dirty in bed, and Mickey was usually more than happy to give it as good as he got, but this time was different. The words seemed to have stalled in his throat, and he just couldn’t bust out the usual cheap words that he was used to saying. 

“So fucking tight for me,” Ian said after a particularly sharp thrust. The ‘for me’ had Mickey whimpering, he hadn’t even known that that was something that he even liked - perhaps he only did with Ian. 

“Please just,” he bit his lip, cutting himself off. 

“Please, what?” Ian teased, rolling his hips in a sensual circle that hit his prostate just right and had him arching towards the redhead despite himself. 

“Please make me come, I need it,” Micky admitted, more words clawing at his lips. “I want you to make me come. I need you.”

Mickey would never have said those words if he had been sober, but they were enough to make his roommate quicken his thrusts to a brutal pace as he moaned deep in the back of his throat. Mickey wrapped his arms around Ian’s back and held on tightly, sensation overwhelming him quickly.

Ian shifted Mickey’s legs higher over his hips which made him go even deeper, and Mickey wasn’t sure that he could handle it for much longer. He got a hand wrapped around himself, and the dual sensations had him moaning wantonly into the redhead’s mouth. He wasn’t going to last, and he knew it. Luckily for him, Ian seemed to be mostly gone as well. He was muttering nonsense into Mickey’s neck, dragging wet kisses over the sensitive skin as he chased his orgasm. 

“Come for me, Mick. You look so fucking beautiful like this. Come for me,” Ian babbled. 

And Mickey did just that. He cried out and came in thick ropes all over both of their stomachs as he writhed and twitched at the overwhelming pleasure. Ian followed behind not a minute later, and Mickey could only close his eyes at the sensation of Ian coming - the way he let out those small, private moans. He almost wished that Ian hadn’t worn a condom so he could feel the redhead coming inside him, but he pushed the thought away - that was dangerous territory. 

They lay there in companionable silence for a long time after that. Mickey was racking his brain for a way to play off the situation like it was normal but found that he couldn’t really think of anything. 

“Thanks for the fuck, I’m going to go shower now,” Mickey said, launching himself from Ian’s bed and practically running from the room.

He vaguely heard Ian saying something from behind him, but Mickey was already out of the room. He stood under the scolding water of the shower until his skin pruned, but when he got out, he knew what to do. 

“This never happened,” Mickey muttered to himself. “Nothing happened.”

Mickey half-expected Ian to knock on his door or simply barge into his room, but he didn’t, and Mickey wasn’t sure if he was glad for it or not. His head spun as he tried to go to sleep. It took a long time, his mind filled with guilt and self-recrimination. He knew full well that Ian would want more from him than just a one-night stand or even a fuck buddies situation - that was just the sort of person that Ian was, and that just wasn’t something that Mickey could give him. It hadn’t been a good idea to fuck him at all, no matter how good it may have been. 

The next morning saw Mickey waking up with a vague feeling of unease before the events of the night before hit him full force. He spent longer in the shower that morning than he usually did despite not needing to shower at all, he just needed the alone time. The entire time he could hear his roommate pottering around in the kitchen. Truly, Mickey would have gone straight back to his room, effectively avoiding Ian for the rest of the day, but he knew that there was no point in doing that. It would only make it worse when Ian did inevitably decide to confront him. There was only one thing for it. 

“What’s up, firecrotch?” Mickey asked, all bravado as he grabbed some cereal for himself.

Ian looked at him with an expression that seemed three parts bewilderment to one part annoyance. 

“You ran off,” he said testily.

“I went back to my room,” Mickey countered.

“You ran off,” Ian repeated even more intensely. “And you can’t say you didn’t run because you really fucking did. Didn’t even give me a chance to say anything.”

Mickey shrugged, feeling a confrontation coming on. “So what?”

“So what? So everything!” Ian retorted in a parallel to his words the night before. 

“What happened last night,” Mickey paused, waiting for Ian to meet his eye, “was a one-off. Drop it.”

The redhead didn’t reply right away, but the look on his face told Mickey all that he needed to know. 

“I don’t know what you want from me,” Mickey continued, knowing that he was coming off like the worst kind of asshole at that moment, “but it ain’t happening.”

“Oh?” Ian replied, not seeming put off in the least. “You saying you don’t want me anymore?”

Mickey closed his eyes tightly, he couldn’t look at the redhead at that moment, or he knew that he’d crack. 

“Cause I want you, Mick. Fucking you only makes me want you more, you know,” he continued, voice low and seductive. 

“Nope!” Mickey huffed, turning away quickly. “Not doing this.” 

Ian chuckled. “Give it a while. You’ll come running back.”

He flipped the redhead off without looking with one hand while he carried his cereal with the other. That had gone terribly, and now the only thing was to hide in his room until it was time to go to work. His boss had been pressuring him to do overtime for a while now, and it seemed like today might be the day when he finally took him up on it.

Things between the two of them remained at loggerheads for the next few days. Mickey spent all of his time at work, and when not there, he was at various bars and when he had to go home eventually, he slunk into his room like a criminal on the run from the law. Ian, for his part, seemed completely oblivious to this - that or he was just playing it extremely cool. Still, it annoyed Mickey to think that he was putting all of this effort into avoiding the redhead, and he wasn’t even noticing it.

Apparently, Mickey needn’t have worried about it as Ian chose that evening to confront him.

“You’re acting like a fucking child, just thought that you should know that,” Ian said casually when Mickey came home from work. 

He sighed. “Just because I don’t want to ruin things doesn’t mean I’m acting like a child. Fuck off.”

“Nothing has to be ruined, Mick,” he replied, sounding more genuine than Mickey would have liked. 

“Just fucking drop it,” he huffed. “Can you do that?”

The redhead looked down to the floor for a moment before nodding reluctantly. Mickey pushed back the wave of guilt that was sitting in his stomach and rushed to his room. There might be some questions for Uncle Southside that would take his mind off of things. His emails were full as they always were, and Mickey searched through them listlessly in the hope that something would stand out to him. 

Under the reams of people asking whether their partner was cheating on them or not, there was one from Confused Roommate. Despite Mickey having only decided to look at his emails to take his mind off of things with Ian, he pulled the email up and looked at it immediately, his heart racing as he did so. 

‘Dear Uncle Southside, 

Things with my roommate seem just to be getting worse. I tried to be honest about everything, and, well, things did progress, but now things are worse than they ever were before. He’s avoiding me. He’s doing all this overtime just to stay out of my way, and I’m trying to give him space since I think that’s what he needs, but really I’m not sure if he’s ever going to come around. 

I’m not sure if I’m even asking you about what I should do since that’s fairly obvious. But maybe hearing it from someone else will help. At this point, I’m considering breaking my lease to get out of this horrendous situation.

Confused Roommate’

Ian was considering breaking his lease? Mickey probably should have guessed that was in the cards given how awkward he was making things, but he had foolishly assumed that perhaps Ian was made of sterner stuff, that he would try to stick it out. Maybe he just wasn’t worth waiting for, or Ian didn’t like him as much as Mickey thought he had. He had to shake his head roughly to rid himself of those thoughts.

‘Dear Confused Roommate, 

Hopefully, the third time’s a charm with responding to your emails. So you managed to make things even worse, so congratulations on that, I guess. Seriously, I don’t know why you thought that would be a good idea. 

If the dude is ignoring you, that probably means he’s waiting for things to cool down, especially if you’re being all clingy. Breaking your lease is a bit of an extreme step, don’t you think? At least talk to him first. Just because he left immediately and is lying low for a bit doesn’t mean you have to just run away. 

My advice to you is simple: just let it be a one-time thing and keep things as they were. The awkwardness will go away eventually.

Uncle Southside’ 

Mickey had to remove several swear words from his email before he could send it off, but really, Ian was pissing him off. He hadn’t thought that the redhead was that much of a coward, but clearly, he was wrong. He needed to do what he could to fix things between them. He’d made a big mistake in sleeping with the redhead, and ignoring Ian had only seemed to be making it worse, so there wasn’t much that he could do to make things right, but he could try this at least. Perhaps where he had failed, Uncle Southside would succeed.

The days between Mickey replying to Ian’s email and the paper being published were pure torment. Mickey attempted to speak to Ian again, to let things go back to how they were, but Ian seemingly wasn’t having any of it. He wasn’t used to having to be the one to make the effort with these sorts of things. Usually, if someone didn’t want to speak to him anymore, he didn’t even notice. As it was, Mickey could feel the silence in the house weighing heavily on his shoulders - it was all his fault, after all.

So when Ian came bursting into his room without knocking one day, waving a copy of the Chicago Echo in one hand, Mickey was surprised, to say the least.

“What the actual fuck, Mickey?” he shouted, face flushed.

Mickey frowned, deciding to play dumb for as long as possible. “The fuck is your problem?”

“What’s my problem?” he repeated incredulously. “What’s my fucking problem? You are, asshole! I know you’re Uncle Southside. God, fuck you for that.”

“Yeah, I’m Uncle Southside. Don’t make it a big deal,” Mickey huffed, unable to meet Ian’s gaze.

“But it is a big deal! I mean, how did I not see it before? It’s totally your way of speaking. Also, fuck you for making me do all romantic shit for you when you realised it was me.”

“If you didn’t want me to realise, you shouldn’t have given me so much incriminating information.”

“Incriminating?” Ian snorted. “The only reason I said any of that was because I figured there was no way in hell you ever read that damn column. I definitely didn’t think you fucking wrote it!”

Mickey racked his brain for something to say but came up with absolutely nothing. 

“Are you…expecting me to apologise or some shit?” he said eventually.

Ian stared at him, mouth open slightly. “It would be a fucking start.”

“Alright, god! It was shitty of me to do that, but there aren’t many people who know about my other job, so it’s not like I was specifically keeping it from you,” Mickey explained. 

The redhead sighed. “We really need to talk,” he said glumly, turning to leave the room before looking back to Mickey. “Come on.”

“Uh, yeah, sure,” Mickey replied nervously, getting up to follow him. 

The two of them walked in silence to the sofa and flopped themselves on opposite sides. It was then that Mickey realised how close they had usually sat before. Ian looked at Mickey like he was expecting him to say something, so he said the only thing that came to mind.

“Look, I’m sorry about everything. I’ve been acting like a real asshole. I just didn’t want things to go to shit between us, but I feel like that’s all I’ve managed to do,” he confessed, hardly able to look at his roommate. 

“I just don’t get it,” Ian huffed. “Ok, sure, I can see why maybe us adding sex to the mix might be scary for you since we’re roommates, but it’s done now. We can’t go back and undo it, and I wouldn’t want to anyway.”

Mickey frowned. “You wouldn’t?”

Ian looked at him in confusion. “Obviously not. Mick, I really like you, you know. You’re one of my closest friends, and now I know how good sex could be with you, surely that’s enough. Fuck knows, I’m not an expert on relationships, but surely friendship plus amazing sex is a decent start.”

“You know I don’t do that shit, man,” he replied weakly. 

“Why not?” Ian asked bluntly. 

Mickey had never been asked that question before. Guys usually took him at his word. After all, he was hardly relationship material. 

“I don’t know. I just never have, alright?” he replied testily. 

“Never found the right guy?” the redhead guessed. 

Mickey nodded. “Something like that, yeah.” 

“Well,” Ian shifted on the sofa slightly, sitting up straighter, “not to come off as too big-headed, but I think I could be that guy.”

His pulse picked up treacherously. Part of him wanted nothing more than to give into it if only to see where it went.

“I can’t do it to you, Ian,” he said reluctantly.

“What do you mean?”

Mickey sighed. “I’d be the worst boyfriend in the world.”

“Don’t you think that’s my choice?” Ian countered.

“Oh, sure, but I just…” he stopped, he was going to say that he was scared, but that was a little too honest for him. 

“So you want to never try in case it fails?” the redhead surmised. 

Mickey huffed. “Basically, yeah.”

“That’s dumb,” Ian replied succinctly. “Ok, let’s put it this way. I want to fuck you again, do you want that?”

Mickey pressed his lips together but nodded. 

“Ok,” Ian nodded as if going through a mental checklist. “And I’ll go out on a limb here and say that if you brought a guy back or whatever, I’d be pretty upset. Is that…um, do you think you would be too? If I brought someone back?”

Mickey had to consider this for a moment. Ian had never brought anyone back before. Mickey knew he had to go out and get laid, but that had seemingly always been at their place. The idea of having to listen to Ian fuck someone else certainly wasn’t his idea of a good time. In fact, the more he thought of someone else touching Ian, the more irate he became. 

He grimaced. “Ok, fuck, fine. You got me. Yeah, I’d hate it, ok?”

The redhead grinned wider. “Ok, so we both want to fuck each other, and we both don’t want each other to fuck anyone else.”

Mickey looked at him warily. “I feel like I know where you’re going with this.”

“Oh, come on, Mick,” Ian sighed. “It’s obvious, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, but…” he trailed off. “What about the apartment?”

Ian shrugged. “We sleep in the same room and have another room to do whatever with - sounds cool to me. If shit doesn’t work out, you know? I gotta be honest, there’s no guarantee of anything in this life. I don’t want things to go south between us, but if they did, we’d figure it out, ok?” 

The corner of Mickey’s mouth pulled up in a treacherous smile. “Yeah, you said you were thinking of breaking the lease already, so being scared that us breaking up will make you leave is kinda stupid at this point.”

“Exactly,” the redhead replied. “You gonna get over here now?” 

Mickey looked at the distance between them and then back to Ian’s face. “And do what?”

“I’m sure you’ll figure something out, Mick,” he said easily.

Mickey sighed before giving in and leaning over to kiss his redheaded roommate. He had been denying himself for too long, so when their lips finally met, Mickey couldn’t hold back the gasp that he let out. Everything had been artificially intensified by his own stubbornness, and he could only be grateful for the fact that, for some reason, Ian felt like he was worth the effort. 

Ian hummed against Mickey’s lips and pulled them tighter together. Things didn’t progress beyond that, which Mickey wasn’t used to. He was used to casual sex with no strings attached. This was a whole other beast, and it left him vulnerable. Still, Mickey forced himself to stay, forced himself not to run like he so desperately wanted to do. 

They stayed like that for a long time, neither of them explicitly drawing attention to everything that had changed between them. But then, sometimes things didn’t need to be said to be true. Mickey was surprised by how little the change bothered him, how little it affected his life like he had feared that it would. Or, well, it only affected his life in positive ways. Someone to sleep next to at night, someone to fuck whenever he wanted, someone who genuinely was in his corner - all of that was everything that he hadn’t allowed himself to admit that he could possibly want. 

The only bad thing was Mandy’s reaction. 

“Fucking finally!” she had cried out when he had reluctantly invited her over to tell her over dinner. “I was waiting for you two assholes to get together.”

Mickey frowned, looked over to his boyfriend, and then back to his sister. “What the actual fuck?”

She shrugged. “I just thought you’d be good together, and I was right. What’s the issue?”

“You thought we’d be good together just cause we were both gay?” he huffed, ready to get his revenge on his sister. 

“Yeah,” Ian added, “that is pretty bad of you, Mand,” he flashed her a smile. “Thanks, though.”

“Jesus,” Mickey complained, though there was no heat in it. “Don’t you two fucking gang up on me.”