The day his family found out, they weren't even caught doing anything bad.

No, they were caught because Mickey had been too tired to get dressed and had walked out to try and con his sister into making him some eggs in nothing but his boxers. It was all Mandy's fault really, she had to turn around and stare at him from where she was sitting next to Ian on the sofa and she had to ask loudly why the hell he had handprints on his hips.

Mickey had looked down in a sort of stupid way, looked at the shape of Ian's fingers imprinted into his skin that was visible because Mickey's boxers were riding low on his hips. He touched them briefly, felt the familiar soreness that made his dick twitch and then he'd been slammed into a wall.

Because you didn't get bruises like that from fighting, you didn't get bruises like that from fucking a girl. No, bruises like that, handprints on your hips only came from being fucked so hard from behind that when you closed your eyes hours later, you could still see stars and lights dancing there. His family maybe didn't know the specifics of the last part, but they knew it meant Mickey had been fucking someone and that he hadn't been fucking a girl.

His Dad slammed him into the wall, hands going for his throat and Mickey did the first thing he could think of when someone got him in that position. He slammed his forehead hard into his Dad's nose. There was this brief moment where his Dad started to crumple, but Terry was a Milkovich and he brought Mickey down with him.

Mickey felt his head hit the floor hard and saw stars behind his eyelids – not the good kind this time – and it only made matters worse when a fist connected with his face. He could feel himself blacking out, felt like he was sliding away, an ache in his brain somewhere near the back. It was weird because all he really thought about when he felt himself blacking out was that it was fucking unfair that he be killed by his father for not even doing something he enjoyed. Sure if the man had walked in on his with Ian buried balls deep in his ass, then maybe Mickey would have been happy to die, because that would have been the closest to heaven that Mickey was ever going to get. But no, he was going to die because of his sister's big mouth, because of some stupid bruises that he even then sort of loved.

Because he was about to die, he thought maybe he was allowed to think – even though it was so incredibly stupid – that the bruises were a good attribute to be wearing because it made him belong to Ian in some idiotic way. It made him belong to a stupid redhead who was getting out of this shitty neighbourhood, who was getting out of Chicago, going off to be all amazing and shit, leaving Mickey behind. Like Mickey had always known he would do. That was fine, he'd probably see Ian in whatever shitty afterlife there was when the kid got his ass shot off in wherever the hell he was sent with the army.

Actually, he took that back, because he didn't like the idea of Ian dying. The thoughts tasted sour on his tongue.

Another face appeared above him that wasn't his father's and that was the last thing Mickey focussed on before he passed out.

-000-

Ian hadn't really been paying attention, because he knew if he looked at Mickey he was only going to get a hard on and remember their farewell sex they'd had not hours before. Ian was off to WestPoint soon and that had put a new sort of desperation behind their actions that neither of them had the vocabulary or the courage to talk about.

He heard some comment about bruises from Mandy and then there was a bang that seemed to resound through his small house. He turned to see Mickey being pinned to the wall by his Dad, saw the dazed look in Mickey's eyes harden as he headbutted his Dad hard. And then it was a sort of blur. He saw Mickey's head snap back as it slammed into the floor, Terry landing on him hard and as soon as he saw that fist pulling back to land a punch, Ian was moving.

He wrapped an arm around Terry's neck and dug his knees into the soft parts of his sides. He gritted his teeth in determination as he felt the man underneath him catch on to exactly what Ian was doing. He only just had the time to see Mickey's eyes sliding closed before Terry was throwing them both backwards.

He clung on like some sort of retarded monkey, clung on because he didn't know what else to do, there wasn't anything else he could do. He held on even after he felt Terry go limp, just to be sure.

It was a struggle to push the now unconscious man off of him, but he was crawling towards Mickey before his brain even really registered that his body was moving. It was like every single part of him was acting on instinct, on desperation, for Mickey.

The ex-con was still unconscious and Ian touched his cheek gently, relieved to hear the stuttering breath that rasped out of Mickey's lungs when he bent close to put his ear near to the older boy's mouth.

"Mandy, you're going to have to call an ambulance," he said when he noticed the blood pooling out from underneath Mickey's head. He lifted the ex-con slightly, pressed his hand against the wound that he couldn't see. He could feel the blood slick against his palm though and he thought he was going to be sick from the fear that was twisting in his gut.

She didn't even argue, just ran off into the other room to get her phone and he could hear her practically hysterical voice explaining things. He hoped the police came as well, so that Terry couldn't touch Mickey again. He knew he didn't have much time with Mickey on his own, so that was why he took that opportunity to press his lips against Mickey's, the only kiss he'd ever had from the older boy and it was sort of typical that Mickey would be unconscious when it happened.

"You'll be fine," he whispered, because he believed that. Mickey was too fucking stubborn to give up just because of a bump to the head.

That was what he kept telling himself as the paramedics came, as Mickey was put on a stretcher and lifted into the back of an ambulance, as he sat in the back with him, next to a crying Mandy. He silently told himself that as they took Mickey into surgery, as the nurse told them that they had to operate on Mickey's brain because there was severe swelling at the back and they had to get it down. He kept telling himself that even as he looked down at his hands that were sticky and red with Mickey's blood, even as he realised he didn't want to wash it off yet because as sick as it was, it linked him to Mickey somehow.

He told Mandy he was going to be fine when she clung to him while they waited, he told her again when they looked down at Mickey lying there in his coma, wondering if he'd ever wake up. He smiled and told her no problem when she thanked him for saving her brother. He was pleased when she didn't ask him to leave.

But two days later he had to anyway.

As he sat on the bus going off to his new life in the army, as he was getting out of Chicago, he told himself that when he came back, Mickey would be fine. Mickey would still be Mickey and he'd be waiting there with a smirk and a needy look.

If he didn't tell himself that, he knew better than anything that he was going to crack. And Ian had to be the strong one, he had to, because he didn't know what he was going to do it Mickey wasn't okay. He didn't want to think about it.