#CW: cringy-ness

[clingymickey]

Back at ya with another franny and her favorite uncles fic. Inspired by this prompt by @ianandmickeygallavich. I honestly don't know where I was going with this but hope ya like it <33.

Soulmates...to me

"Uncle Ian, look at what I found."

They are babysitting Franny, again, not that it's a bad thing, in fact, Ian's not even complaining, he loves Franny, spending time with her, and he especially loves his niece and his husband bonding together. Franny definitely has a liking towards him, but not as much as she has for Ian though. Obviously.

"What'd you find, Fran?" he asks from the couch, where he's sitting with his husband – talking about their pick up's and renovating the ambulance.

"I found this magazine from mommy's old stuff," she says with a giant smile on her face. "And guess what it has a soulmate quiz." She shrieks excitedly, frantically waving the magazine – that looked like it had been through hell with torn pages, stains, and whatnot – in front of Ian's face.

"Mommy said your soulmate is the person you're meant to be with, you'll love them with all your heart, and they'll love you with all their heart too." She explained with her unfeigned innocence. "You and Uncle Mickey should take it – to see if your both soulmates"

Immediately, Mickey's head turns towards Ian, who he finds is already looking at him.

"What do you think?" the look says, "Wanna give it a go?"

"Why not" Mickey silently replies back with a shrug.

"Alright, lil red, we'll give it a go." Mickey now says loudly.

Franny hands the magazine to Ian, to read it out aloud since she can't read the big words yet.

"Okay" Ian drags out, "Let's do this shall we"

"First question, do you guys support each other's dreams?" Ian reads out, "I think so…yeah. What about you, mick."

"Oh yes for sure, remember that one dream you had about me being tied-"

"Mickey!" Ian loudly interrupts. "Not in front of Franny." Ian whispers through gritted teeth.

"Not what in front of me Uncle Ian? Did u have a dream about Uncle Mickey in a tie?" she says, as awkward as those questions are, the way she asks seems so endearing, Ian can't seem to lie to her. Somehow.

"Uhh…Y-yes I had a dream of Uncle Mickey in a tie." He stammers. Well, he's not wrong exactly.

"Anyways yes. I am definitely supportive of his dreams" Mickey continues, winking at Ian – who's currently giving him an unimpressed look.

"Okay read out the next question Uncle Ian" Franny says with excitement, jumping up and down on the armchair in front of them.

Ian gives Mickey a side-eye before he continues.

"What three things do you like about each other – actually why don't you go first, Mickey."

"Alright, well I can't say 2 out of 3 of the things I want to say because of you-know-who," Mickey says with a smirk on his face, his eyes wandering down from Ian's face towards his lap. Ian catches on immediately and rolls his eyes.

"So, I guess it's his looks, personality, and umm…our 'exercises' together." winking again at Ian.

Exercises? Ian thinks, whenever Ian calls him for a morning run or yoga, he always whines about how much he hates it. He thinks again on what he could possibly mean by exercises together – Ohhh. Those ones. The ones that they'll both (hopefully) never get tired of. While Ian was expecting and maybe wanted an answer of something sweeter, he guesses he can live with this, instead.

"Your turn Ian." Mickey says.

"Uh okay, I love our 'exercises' too mick, I love how you take care of me when I'm low and I love your looks as well", giving a beaming smile towards Mickey.

Okay now Mickey sort of thinks he should have given something better than what he said, but it's alright though, Ian already knows.

While Ian and Mickey are over there giving each other sly glances, Franny's sitting there with a confused look, wondering why her uncles' love would to exercise so much, were the fitness freaks? With them still staring at each other, Franny decides to break it apart before things get not child-friendly.

"Uncle Ian, read the other questions" she pleads with a cough, trying to divert their attention towards the long-forgotten magazine.

"Ah yes," Ian mumbles. "What's a secret you haven't told the other person yet?"

Immediately Mickey leans towards Ian and whispers something incoherent, for Franny to hear, to Ian's ear, resulting in Ian's eyes going wide and his cheeks and ears slowly turning the same shade as his hair.

Ian stands up quickly.

"Uhh…F-Franny, can we do this later, please? I just remembered Uncle Mickey and I need to go…exercise, like right now." Ian says abruptly, holding Mickey's hand in his, walking towards the stairs.

"No!" she yells out. "Please Uncle Ian, you guys told me you'd do it, you can exercise later if you want, please" she whines, tugging on both of their t-shirts.

Both Ian and Mickey look towards her bright eyes and the cute little pout that she's wearing.

"I guess our exercise can wait, right Ian?"

"Yeah, it can wait.", looking down at Franny, giving her a smile and ruffling her hair.

"Yay!"

They all go back to sit down at the couch, resuming the unfinished quiz. Quickly, Franny remembers something to tell her uncles.

"Oh yeah and one more thing Uncle Mickey, can you please do this seriously 'cause I really wanna see if you are really soulmates."

"Yeah, Mick, I'm with Franny on this one"

"Fine, sure thing kid" Mickey says, then looks towards Ian "Not even a little bit of teasing, though", with a pout on his face.

"Nope" Ian says with a pop, "not even a little"

They answer all the questions again, this time doing it properly. Finally, they reach the near end of the quiz.

"Did you say I love you to each other yet? If so, who said it first?" Ian says as he reads the last question.

"Oooh, I wanna know this one" Franny says cheerfully.

"Well yes, we already did say I love you to each other, and uh I'm actually not sure who said it first, to be honest." Ian says, then looking at Mickey – who's slowly turning red.

"What, you have something to say, Mick?" Ian prompts.

"I uhh… I actually said it first, don't know if you know but uh it was when you were…sick. I was calling you, trying to see where you were, but you didn't pick up, so it went to voicemail, and that's when I said I love, for the first time and you didn't hear it." Mickey said, looking at the interesting pattern on the pillow instead of Ian's face.

Franny was watching the whole thing, she saw Mickey's flush, that was spreading across his face to his ears, and Ian's eyes going wide, mouth opening then closing, trying to form a sentence.

"You" a pause. "You said you loved me then, how'd you know?"

With that Mickey finally turns his head to Ian, however his eyes not meeting Ian's.

"I don't know, I just knew I loved you, man" Mickey lets out with a sigh.

Ian instantly hugs him. "I love you, mickey" he whispers so faintly that only mickey hears it.

Franny might not understand the context behind it, but she understands the feeling, the warmth, the love, it's the same feeling she gets when her mom kisses her before going to bed, the same feeling she feels when sandy hugs her.

She also doesn't want to be left out, so she goes and hugs her uncles as well, earning a chuckle from both of them.

After all the sappiness – as mickey called it, they check the results of the sweet but awfully long quiz.

"That's bullshit" Mickey yells in frustration. "Not soulmates. Not soulmates, they better be fuckin' messing with us. Are you sure you did it right, Ian?" he says, pacing up and down the living room.

"Mickey, language" Ian retorts "And calm down it's a stupid, girly, pre-teen quiz, it doesn't even mean anything."

"Yeah, but how could they say that, what the f- hell do they know?"

Mickey then feels a tug at his t-shirt, then sees Franny looking at him with glassy eyes.

"I'm sorry Uncle Mickey, I didn't know it would end like this" Franny says with tears running down the side of her cheeks and words coming out rushed.'

"Hey, no, no, it wasn't your fault Franny, it was the stupid dumb magazine" Mickey says, trying to reassure her.

"Really? But I made you guys take the test."

"It doesn't matter what the test says, Fran, all that matters is that we love each other. And it definitely isn't your fault okay?" Ian says kneeling down, wrapping a hand around her back, comforting her.

"Okay" she says quietly.

"C'mon, let's go get some ice cream."

"Okay" her frown quickly turning into a bright smile.

As they head inside the house, with ice cream in their hands, Franny melts her uncles' heart by just saying one sentence.

"You're soulmates to me, Uncle Mickey" she says in between licking the sprinkles off her ice cream, then hugs them both and runs off to her room, leaving the two men shock.

"We're soulmates, Ian" Mickey croaks out, after minutes of just standing there, the ice cream dripping down on his hands.

"Huh, we are." He says with a laugh.