"Where the hell have you been?" Mandy asked as Mickey walked out of the school to see her waiting with Karen in the sun.

"What?" he asked, running his hand through his hair to flatten it out, a little pink still lingering in his cheeks.

"Did you get detention or something?" Karen asked.

She was lying back on the grass, eyes closed as she enjoyed the sunshine. Mandy sat up next to her, covering her eyes from the sun with her hand.

"No I didn't get detention," he said. "And who said you two had to wait for me?"

"This have something to do with Gallagher?" Karen said.

"Why the fuck would you ask that?" he asked quickly and she sat up with a curious look.

"Mandy said he came looking for you earlier," she said. "What did you do?"

"Nothing."

"He said you saved his ass the other night, said he just wanted to talk to you about it," Mandy said. "I mean he used some weird fucking metaphor about tongues but you know."

Karen let out a loud laugh and Mickey hoped his cheeks weren't as red as they felt.

"Tongue metaphor? What the hell does that mean?" she asked and Mandy shrugged as she got up off the floor.

"I don't know, something about Mickey being a dick to him and all he wanted was to say thanks or some shit," she said, pulling Karen up with her.

"Damn, I was convinced you'd beaten the crap out of him," she said. "So that was why you were late? You were having some kind of tongue conversation?"

She gave a flick of her eyebrows and he flipped her off.

"Fuck off, Mr Loch kept me late... old fucker," he lied. "Probably failing me on purpose."

"Whatever," Karen said, slinging her arm over Mandy's shoulder. "You guys hungry? I could totally go for some cheese fries."

Mickey felt his stomach growl, he hadn't realised just how hungry he was. He'd been somewhat distracted.

Ian's hands pulled roughly at Mickey's belt, pushing him up against the bars under the bleachers. Mickey's hands were clenched into fists in Ian's shirt, keeping his body at a decent distance.

Ian's fingers hooked in Mickey's boxers, sinking to his knees as he pulled them down over his thighs. He didn't start slow like he had earlier. He swallowed down the hot length of him in one quick mouthful, making Mickey reach forward to take hold of Ian's red hair.

He let go quickly, trying not to cause him any pain.

Ian pulled his lips back and looked up at him.

"Don't stop, you can pull harder than that," he said.

"I pull any harder it's gonna hurt," Mickey said, knowing that he wouldn't be able to hold back if he started.

"I don't care," he said.

"It's gonna hurt," Mickey said again and Ian shrugged.

"Maybe I like it a little rough sometimes," Mickey bit down on his lip and reached for his hair as Ian took him into his mouth again.

He tightened his grip, making Ian moan loudly around him. In all his time thinking about Ian he had never spent any of it thinking about the exquisiteness of his mouth.

It was soft in the rim of his lips, shiny and pink as they slid up and down his hard shaft. His tongue was strong where it needed to be and torturously slight in the right places. Mickey had no doubt that his mouth was well versed in this type of conversation and in this moment, with his lips stretched tight around his cock, he was more than glad for it.

His hands instinctively guided Ian's mouth over his length and again his eyes watched the way he moved, the way his eyelashes fluttered as he dragged Mickey in to the back of his throat.

Ian didn't waste any time, each move finding a new weakness in him that he exploited to the best of his ability, bringing him to the edge quicker than last time. The stream of curses that came out of Mickey's mouth was about as shameful as the sticky mess that Ian swallowed down eagerly.

He didn't think it should have been as hot as it was to watch but he could worry about his moral compass later, when Ian fucking Gallagher wasn't on his knees and wiping the last of his come from the corner of his mouth.

He was panting hard, leaning against the bars as Ian got to his feet with a hungry look in his eyes as he raked them down his body.

"Turn around," he said quietly and Mickey raised an eyebrow as he tucked himself back into his boxers.

"What? Why?" he asked.

"Just turn around," Ian said breathlessly and Mickey, being too blissed out to argue, turned his back to him.

He felt Ian's hand around his waist and almost flinched away from him. When he felt his other hand slip over his chest and his hips pressing firmly against his ass he just tightened his fingers around the cold metal bars.

Ian's breath against his ear made him close his eyes, the sound of his shallow moans and the feel of his heat grinding against his ass brought back the tingling in his stomach in a whole new way.

"Fuck..." Ian whispered as Mickey pushed back into him.

"Don't stop... go harder..." Mickey rasped, not even sure he'd said it out loud.

Ian moaned at his words, pressing his lips to Mickey's ear. "What, you like it a little rough too?"

"You tell me... go harder..." he growled, fingers going white with their tight grip.

One of Ian's hands took a firm hold of his hip, the other snaking up and into his hair, pulling his head to the side so his lips could rest just under Mickey's ear. The sound of his moans as he thrust his hips harder and faster against him making Mickey wish he'd let him finish off to this instead of in his mouth.

He heard the desperation in Ian's pleasured moans, felt him grinding into him as though his orgasm was just before him, and when he finally made it over the edge he let go of Mickey's hair and reached for the bars to hold himself steady.

Mickey just relished the feel of him for a moment. His body pressed against him and his hot breath now caressing the skin of his neck.

As Ian pulled himself off him, laughing with a pleasured sigh, Mickey turned to lean his back against the bars. Ian caged him in, each hand on a bar either side of him. He was short of breath as he looked up at him with a grin.

"Next time... let's do more of that..." he said.

Mickey gave him a playful eyebrow raise. "Next time huh?"

Ian chuckled again, moving in so that his chest rubbed against Mickey's. "Come on... 'go harder'... this time you can't pretend that I took you by surprise."

Mickey narrowed his eyes a little, putting a hand against Ian's chest in case he thought kissing him would be a good plan. "Your breath smells like cock."

"Now that definitely shouldn't surprise you," he said with that arrogant hint to his voice that Mickey couldn't decide whether he hated or not.

He grinned a little and felt Ian pushing into him a little harder. He'd had more time to recover and so when he urged his hips forward Ian could feel his cock against his hip, already beginning to get hard again.

"Fuck..." he said, grinding into him a little. "You got anywhere to be later?"

Mickey thought about it and shoved Ian back, reaching down to properly re-buckle his belt.

"Gotta work on some shit," he said and Ian nodded.

"Okay, well how about I meet you here at lunch tomorrow?"

"Karen and Mandy'll be here too, always are," he said.

"After school then?"

"Are you that hard up for it or something?" Mickey asked and Ian smiled with a shake of his head.

"Yeah, that must be it," he said. "I guess I'll just see you in class then."

Mickey shrugged, "Whatever."

Ian turned to walk away, turning back to face him when he reached the edge of the bleachers.

"I couldn't help but notice you took my advice on your boxing stance the other night," he smirked. "Maybe you should be thanking me."

Mickey narrowed his eyes, trying to hide the smile on his lips.

"Yeah, yeah, go clean your fuckin' jeans," he said.

"I will!" Ian called back as he left him there.

Mickey smiled to himself, following after them while his mind went over the events of that afternoon over and over again.

He didn't say much to the girls as they walked and they barely noticed, he often walked the whole way home without saying anything.

The pattern seemed to play out the same way until the weekend and then again the week after. Mickey was late to walk home with Karen and Mandy every afternoon and they soon came to expect it, just as Mickey came to expect Ian to meet him under the bleachers after the final bell of the day.

So far it had played out the same way as that first day after school and when they were in classes together Mickey tried to avoid anything other than a few playful words or facial expressions.

That Friday afternoon Mickey had to wait later than usual and by the time Ian showed up he was more than a little impatient.

"Where the fuck have you been?" he said as Ian came striding in with a smirk.

"Why? You miss me?" he asked.

"Parts of you maybe," Mickey said and Ian just widened his grin.

"Sorry, team meeting," he said.

"What the fuck is that?" Mickey asked, hands already moving to his belt.

"For basketball," Ian said. "Big game coming up."

"Uh huh," Mickey said. "We doin' this or what?"

Ian shrugged, leaning up against the bars and Mickey rolled his eyes, walking over and roughly unbuttoning his jeans.

He slipped his hand down into Ian's boxers and wrapped his fingers around his cock, making Ian close his eyes and run his tongue over his bottom lip.

The first time Mickey had done it he'd been surprised at how big he was, thrusting into him from behind was great, but it hadn't given him too much of an idea about size.

He had raised his eyebrows and given him a look, saying something along the lines of 'and here I was thinking your arrogance was fucking over-compensation or something' and Ian had just grinned at him.

So they went through the motions, far more familiar with one another than they had been at the start.

Ian liked if Mickey started with his hands a little slower at first, building him up. Mickey thought he just liked it any way he could get it but the more Ian worked at him the more he learned about himself.

As much as he wanted to let himself go he couldn't forget his surroundings, or the fact that they'd nearly been caught by some freshmen at the beginning of the week. He still had a part of his mind concentrating on everything around him.

When they were buckling up their jeans again Ian was giving him a strange look.

"What?" he said, leaning back against the bars as he pulled up the zip on his jeans.

Ian just stared a moment before walking in closer, head tilted to the side a little.

"Hey, hey, back the fuck up," Mickey said, hand out and pushing back against Ian's chest. "The fuck you think you're doing?"

"You know what I'm trying to do," he said with a sigh, leaning into the pressure of Mickey's palm.

"Ain't I told you not to do that?"

"You have, and you're running out of excuses," Ian said with a grin as he pulled himself back.

"Whatever, still not happening."

He made a point of not putting his lips on another person if he could help it and so far it had been working well for him.

The first time Ian made any move to kiss him was the beginning of the week and Mickey had been much rougher about his refusal. Ian never pushed it too far, always pulling back when he could see Mickey getting riled up about it.

It wasn't that he didn't want to do it, each time Ian tried he almost thought about letting himself give in but he refused to let himself do so.

Still, Ian didn't seem too deterred by it.

"You busy tomorrow night?" Ian asked.

Mickey gave him a strange look. "Why you askin'?"

Ian shrugged without looking up at him. "Got a play-off game on, you should come down."

Mickey narrowed his eyes a little but Ian's eyes weren't on him.

"What? Come and watch you run up and down a squeaky fucking wood floor?" he said. "The fuck would I want to do that for?"

Ian shrugged again. "I don't know, show a little school pride, and I don't have anything to do after the game so I figured we could find something to do to pass the time."

"Last thing I want to be doin' on a Saturday night is hanging around this place," he said.

"Whatever, just giving you an option," Ian said.

"Uh huh," Mickey said, zipping up his jacket. "See you Monday."

Ian scoffed a little and shook his head, watching him walk away and out of the bleachers.

Mickey could feel his cheeks getting flushed as he left, his heart pounding in a bizarre way. They were just screwing around so why would he ask him something like that? He tried not to think about it too much.

He wondered whether Mandy and Karen were waiting for him but when he made it to their usual meeting point it was only Karen leaning up against the fence with a cigarette between her lips.

"Where the fuck have you been?" she asked.

"Where the fuck is Mandy? She's later than I am," he snapped back as she held out the cigarette for him to take a drag of.

"Detention, told Miss Rawlings to fuck off," she said.

"Should have smacked her one too," Mickey said as they started walking. "Think Iggy or Colin used to give her hell and now she takes it out on the rest of us."

"You saying you don't give her hell too?" Karen said with a grin.

"Not as much," he shrugged.

"Whatever, let's go get something to eat I'm fucking starving," she said.

"You and your fucking cheese fries," he said.

"Shut up."

Mickey didn't think too much of Ian's proposition, at least until the following night when he looked at the clock and thought about how the game must be almost about to start.

He sat on the couch with one of the game controllers in his hand, idly playing the last game left in the console while Mandy sat and watched from the armchair.

You could easily still make it, he thought to himself.

He shook his head, it wasn't even an option.

It might have stayed that way if he hadn't been so bored sitting around doing nothing but the longer he failed at the same damn level the more he thought it might be worth doing.

"You goin' out tonight?" he asked and Mandy glanced over.

"Do I look like I'm going out tonight?" she asked.

"What do I care?" he said.

"No, I'm not going anywhere Mick," she said. "Karen has something on for her mom so she can't do anything until later anyway."

He just nodded a little, losing another three minutes of progress on the screen as his character died yet again.

"Wanna go out?" he said, getting up off the couch and walking towards the kitchen.

She raised an eyebrow at him and turned to watch him.

"Go where?"

He shrugged, grabbing his keys off the bench. "There's a game on if you wanna go watch."

"A game? What game?"

"Some fuckin' – down at the school or whatever," he said, yet another shrug of his shoulders and Mandy just narrowed her eyes in confusion.

"What? That play-off for the basketball team? Why the hell would we go to that?"

"Because it's better than sittin' around here like fucking losers all night? I don't fucking know," he snapped.

"We are fucking losers," she said.

"Whatever, you wanna go or you wanna sit around here alone all night whinin' about how much of a loser you are?"

She rolled her eyes and climbed out of the chair, grabbing her shoes and pulling them on.

"You're an asshole," she said as they were walking out the door.

"Takes one to know one," he said.

By the time they had made it down to the gym most people were inside and they could hear the cheers from half-way up the street.

Mickey's heart was pounding. He was now in the stage where he was regretting coming out but there was no way he would turn back now, especially not when Mandy was with him.

"You ever been to one of these things?" she asked.

"They made us go watch the seniors run their track finals when I was a freshman, they fucking sucked," he said.

"This is fucking weird, how many people want to spend their night out watching high school basketball?" she said.

"We can always fucking leave," Mickey said.

"Nah, I'm kinda curious now," she said as they walked up to the doors to head inside.

The stands were pretty packed out, mostly parents from the other team. That didn't surprise Mickey at all. Parents in their neck of the woods weren't exactly known for their parenting skills, more for their lack thereof.

The cheerleaders were on court doing some kind of fire up, the game clearly yet to start. The two of them climbed up the stairs to sit in the back, a few kids from their classes snickered as they passed them.

Mandy found it in her to give one of them the finger, earning her a disapproving tut from one of the nearby parents but she didn't give a damn about that.

"Jesus, this place is full of fucking assholes," she said as they sat down at the back.

"Now you know why I hate team fucking sports," he said.

She scoffed and looked over at him. "Thought it was because everyone pisses you off and they won't let you do what you fucking want."

"That too," he said.

It wasn't long before the crowd was cheering around them as the teams made their way on court for their warm up. Mickey and Mandy just gave one another a look and stayed quiet in their seats.

Mickey tried to make himself look relaxed but his eyes were trained on the court looking for Gallagher, and he wasn't easy to miss. His red hair stood out among his team mates and against his seemingly second-hand uniform.

He tried to keep his eyes off him, thinking it was obvious if he looked at him for more than a moment or two, but no one else had noticed.

He saw Ian looking out into the crowd and waving over at a group of people on the other side – likely his family. They all grinned over at him and waved back before he was back into drills again.

"I guess this isn't too bad," Mandy said from beside him. "Some of the guys on the other team are kinda hot."

"What? You not into South Side trash?" he said with a grin and she turned up her nose.

"Maybe if I didn't know what disgusting assholes they all are," she said.

"What, you been in all their pants?"

She punched him in the arm and glared at him as he grinned back.

"No, I've just heard them speak," she said before rolling her eyes. "So I've been there with some of them, big fucking deal."

"Was it?"

"Please, all the guys around here are tiny limp-dicks anyway," she said and Mickey chuckled to himself, trying not to think about Ian in any more ways than he already was.

It wasn't long after that the game started up and the crowd was yelling support for their teams. Mickey and Mandy had no idea what was going on or why fouls were getting called but it didn't matter too much.

Ian was killer on the court, his height a pretty decent advantage. Again Mickey was forced to try not to watch him when the ball wasn't near him. Mandy wasn't too attentive tonight but she sure as hell wasn't blind.

Still, Ian hadn't noticed him before the break in play and he started the next rotation on the bench. He was watching the game and Mickey was watching him, shaking his head at how quickly Ian had been able to work himself in.

Ian's eyes looked up to the crowd, just looking at all the faces. Slowly his head turned towards Mickey and a look of surprise washed over him as Mickey cocked an eyebrow at him.

It was as if he was saying 'proved you wrong, huh'.

A grin spread over Ian's features and he shook his head, turning back to the game a minute before looking back up at Mickey. He just leant back a little and shrugged as though he wasn't that impressed and he could see the smile spread as the coach called Ian up to get on court.

It was as if seeing Mickey had sparked something for him, he was going harder, moving faster – he looked like he was playing to impress. Mickey tried to stop himself from laughing, especially when Ian kept shooting him looks.

By the time the game finished Mickey was feeling a lot better than when they had first showed up and Ian kept trying to get his attention subtly as they headed to the change rooms. Mickey just headed out with Mandy.

"Well it actually wasn't too bad," she said as they stepped out into the cool air.

Mickey leant against the outside wall of the gym and folded his arms.

"If you're into sports, our team fucking sucks though," he said.

"Hey, it was your fucking idea," she said, giving him a strange look. "Why are you just standing there?"

He shrugged and she rolled her eyes.

"You selling shit for Iggy again?" she asked.

"So what?"

She grunted loudly, "I knew there had to be some reason you wanted to come out. Whatever, I won't interrupt your dealing."

She looked at him a moment before holding out her hand and giving him an expectant look. He just rolled his eyes because as much as he wasn't dealing for his brother – not tonight anyway – he still had a few things on him.

He reached into his pocket and handed his sister a couple of joints and she gave him a grin.

"I knew you were my favourite brother," she said, taking them from him and then kissing his cheek against protests from Mickey.

"That ain't saying much," he called to her and she skipped off. "Have fun banging some ballbag!"

"I will," she grinned and he chuckled to himself.

She may have to be his favourite sister but she was his favourite sibling regardless.

He waited around, watching the crowds thin out but he didn't see Gallagher. When other members of the team started heading out to meet their families he finally caught sight of him.

He walked over to his siblings who gave him a consolatory hug and he thanked them for coming down to watch. Mickey saw him look around and after a moment they locked eyes and Ian gave him a grin.

"Hey, I'll be home later, some of the guys are going to get together and hang out," he said and his big sister gave him another hug and a kiss on the cheek.

"Be safe okay?" she said and he rolled his eyes, waving them off and waiting a few moments before turning to Mickey who was now hanging in the shadow of the building.

"You look pretty shady hanging out over here like this, you know that right?" Ian said as he walked over.

"You don't know me too well if you think I'm anything but shady," he said, not moving from his spot.

Ian chuckled, looking down at his feet as he got closer.

"And whose fault is that?" he asked with a raised eyebrow and Mickey just scoffed.

"Whatever, you call that a game?" he said.

"Yeah, yeah, I guess we did suck tonight," he said. "But hey, we get another shot so..."

"Uh huh," Mickey said. "So, you just want me to come down here to watch a shitty game or we gonna do something?"

Ian grinned, "Come on."

As he walked past him Mickey smiled, pushing off the wall to follow him, he didn't really mind where they were going.

~ ~ ~

A/N: Please let me know what you think! (: