#i wrote this so fast bc it is midterms szn and i am a busy bee! but simply needed to get this out of my brain

[unbridgeabledistances]

okayyy so i had something heavier/hurt-comforty in the works as a gapfiller about mickey processing (bc we all need that!!!) but this fluffy little 3+1 about ian and mickey singing to each other happened instead— i hope u enjoy💞

a 3+1 of 3 times ian sang to mickey, and one time mickey sang to ian (to give context to the absolutely wild 11x09 serenade)

also the biggest shoutout to @southside-forever’s 80s gallavich playlist which has SO many bops and inspired bits of this😌

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1.

Mickey didn’t really know when it all started— Ian was always fucking humming these days, always whistling or singing some tune under his breath when he came out of the shower. He was more buoyant recently, lighter— the security gig was going well, and these days it felt like something looming and heavy had lifted, releasing the crooked hunch out of Ian’s shoulders that had taken root the sour morning weeks before as he shoveled Fruit Loops and Jameson into his mouth. Since then, it felt like he and Ian were finally on the same goddamn page for once— like they had a purpose, like they were moving forward.

Or at least, moving forward on the weekdays— but today was a slow, lazy Saturday, and Mickey was still laying in bed in a tank top and boxers, sweaty and entangled in the crumpled sheets, laying back with his head on the pillow and playing some overly-gory sharpshooter game on his phone. He’d been trying to beat this fucking level a million times, but his thumb couldn’t move quickly enough at the pivotal moment when he had to shoot a bunch of enemy forces— he’d been at the game for a good half hour, since when Ian had sleepily stumbled off of the mattress sporting a full bedhead to go take a shower, and Mickey was starting to get a tinny, sharp headache from staring at his phone screen for too long. He was just starting to consider getting up, to peel off his sweaty tank top and head downstairs to grab some coffee— when Ian came into the room from his shower, a fraying towel wrapped around his lower half and his torso slick with excess water droplets. Mickey flickered his eyes up from his game for a moment, taking an… appreciative glance, and then quickly focused his attention back on his pixelated mission as Ian stood in front of the dresser in the cramped bedroom, and started to rustle through the drawers for a t-shirt.

Mickey maneuvered his buff video game avatar through a minefield, biting his lip in concentration— when his sharp focus was suddenly infiltrated by Ian, singing under his breath in an airy tone.

“Ooooooh we’re halfway there.”

Mickey gritted his teeth slightly and tried to pour all his attention into the pivotal moment of the level, but half of his mind was being pulled to listen to Ian’s gravelly voice, continuing to softly murmur to himself in a tone that was ridiculously off-key.

“She says we’ve gotta hoooold on, to what we’ve got—”

Mickey’s phone screen flickered. GAME OVER.

Mickey wanted to throw his phone at the fucking wall. He inhaled, then pressed “Start Game” again, one last time— and again, his focus was disrupted by Ian, singing under his breath as he pulled on his jeans and gently pattered his hands in a rhythm on the top of the dresser— which was endearing and sappy as fuck, sure, but it was not helping Mickey with the task at hand. Mickey puffed out a sharp, frustrated breath, keeping his eyes on his phone screen.

“The fuck are you singing for right now?”

Ian suddenly gave a sheepish smile over his shoulder as he rifled through their sock drawer, like he’d been caught in the middle of doing something wrong.

“Don’t know. Song was just stuck in my head I guess.”

Mickey glared at Ian, pressing his thumb to the screen to pause his game. “Cut that shit out.”

Ian rolled his eyes fondly, sitting on the edge of the mattress to pull on his socks. “You should be thanking me for serenading you with your fucking eighties dad music. I could be singing Carly Rae Jepson right now, or some other pop bullshit that you hate.”

Mickey felt an involuntary, amused smirk split onto his face, and he tried to turn it into a scowl. Fucking adorable motherfucker.

“Okay, tough guy. If anything you should be thanking me for cleansing your ears from the techno garbage that you used to listen to.”

Ian gave a soft smile, shoulders turning fully towards Mickey now that he’d finished pulling on his socks— and then he turned and clambered into the bed, hovering above Mickey and causing Mickey’s fingers to go slack around his phone case. Mickey could smell the warm, freshly-showered scent of him, all cheap bar soap and Old Spice deodorant, and felt the soft press of his t-shirt through Mickey’s thin tank top— an overly worn t-shirt, one of Mickey’s, that stretched just a little too tight over Ian’s torso.

Ian looked down at Mickey, fucking beaming for some reason, his eyes light. He swooped down, pressing a soft, quick kiss above Mickey’s eyebrow. And then—

“Take my haaaand, we’ll make it I sweeear”

Mickey felt an involuntary, uncomfortable chuckle bubble up out of his ribcage. Was Ian fucking… singing? To him? It definitely seemed like it. And as much as he didn’t want it to, because this was fucking sappy and ridiculous and… well, gay— Mickey couldn’t help the fact that his husband leaning over him, breathily singing the tune of one of their goddamn wedding songs in his husky tone-deaf voice, made Mickey’s blood run a little bit hotter; which was bullshit, because absolutely nothing about this should be hot, and it was probably the most disgustingly married thing that Mickey could think of— but apparently everything about Ian, every dorky and fucking god-awful cringey thing that he did, was a turn-on, or at least according to Mickey’s thudding heartbeat and sweaty palms right now.

Ian’s face was still hovering centimeters above his, his eyebrows raised triumphantly and sporting a sappy fucking grin, like he knew how affected Mickey was by this, no matter how much Mickey grumbled and complained and tried to hide it.

Mickey rolled his eyes. “You’re fucking soft, Gallagher.”

Ian just leaned down again, kissing up the slope of Mickey’s neck and biting at his earlobe—and, okay, maybe Mickey could get behind Ian’s singing after all.

 2.

Ian’s singing was starting to get fucking ridiculous— and as much as it made something deep inside Mickey feel a light pang of relief, to see Ian being his old bubbly self again in the rhythms of routine and held by the safety net of financial stability because of the security gig that made the air between them less stale, it also meant that they were also around each other pretty much 24/7, and Ian’s serenades were starting to get relentless.

While they pretty much had a common ground in liking nostalgic 80s music, they would still inevitably argue about what music to play in the ambulance every morning— and whatever shitty album they eventually chose to put on, whether it was Ian’s pop garbage of Mickey’s mellower 80s tunes, Ian’s brain would apparently absorb all the songs like a fucking sponge and he’d start singing them all day long—in the kitchen, in the shower, even when they were just laying in bed on their phones and Ian would constantly hum absentmindedly.

Today they were driving to some bougie dispensary in Glencoe, near a bunch of ridiculous mansions on the very outskirts of the city, and it was Ian’s turn to pick the music— Mickey usually elected one of the well-loved CDs that he’d jammed into the glove compartment as they were refurbishing the ambulance, CDs that he’d kept since he was a kid when he piled them high in the corner of his grimy room next to a half-broken boombox— but as much as they were Mickey’s comfort CDs, Ian could only listen to Bon Jovi so many times before he started to slander 80s music as a collective genre.

“Can we just listen to something by someone who isn’t older than us, just this once?”

“Easy for you to say, Gallagher. At least the music that I like has fucking words.”

When it was Ian’s turn to pick the music, he usually picked more modern stuff with heavy beats and a thrumming bass (though more often than not he also appeased Mickey’s tastes with some ��80s throwback” playlist he’d found on Spotify that he’d noticed Mickey would bob his head along to)—but on longer drives, like this one, it was easy to butt heads about the soundtrack. Ian had allowed Mickey to play through one of his Queen CDs that morning, and then Ian had put on some whiny indie bullshit from a playlist on his phone for the other half of the drive— now they were heading home after a long day, with the stereo turned low to a local radio station.

They’d settled into a comfortable silence, as they often did at the end of the day when their energy faded— Ian had stopped pattering his hands on the steering wheel like he usually did when he was amped up and buzzing with energy in the mornings, and Mickey could tell they were both ready to collapse onto the couch the second they set foot in the door.

Mickey blew out a deflated breath and reached to turn up the radio, tuning in to some middle-aged host with a cheery voice chattering about the heat wave in Chicago that upcoming weekend—and then the airwaves went silent, and there was the overdramatic sound of a slamming door and a gospel choir.

Ian’s ears nearly fucking perked up at the sound as the opening chords began.

“Life is a mystery… Everyone must stand alone…”

Ian immediately raised his voice to join in, the tired slouch leaving his shoulders.

“I hear you call my naaaame”

He turned to Mickey and pointed overdramatically, causing Mickey to shove his arm away but unable to quell the overly fond grin that he knew was blooming on his face.

“And it feels like… home.”

The beat dropped, rolling into the chorus, and Ian energetically drummed his hands against the steering wheel once more.

“C’mon, Mick!” Ian laughed, throwing his head back dramatically as he sang while still trying to keep his eyes on the road.

“When you call my name, it’s like a little prayer, I’m down on my knees, I wanna take you there.” Ian’s pitchiness clashed with the melody, but he was too focused on singing and bopping side to side in this seat to really care.

Mickey rolled his eyes, his lips still turned upwards at the corners while he watched his absolute dork of a husband jamming to Madonna. “Isn’t this song about giving someone a blowjob or some shit?”

Ian gave an easygoing laugh. “Technically, yes. And it’s also definitionally a gay anthem, which means you have to sing with me.”

Mickey scoffed and flipped Ian off. “Fuck off.”

Ian raised a playful eyebrow, and continued to sing with relentless eye contact:

“It’s like a dreeeeam, no end and no beginning”

Mickey felt heat rise into his cheeks against his will. No fucking way was he going to sing a Madonna song about a blowjob stone-cold sober at 2pm on a Tuesday while driving home from work with his fucking husband—which, wow, that was probably the gayest sentence that had ever crossed Mickey’s mind in his 26 years of existence (which was definitely saying a lot).

This wasn’t ever a place Mickey thought he’d be in— sitting beside Ian so comfortably, singing fucking songs while they drove home from their daily commute; getting to soak up all the warmth, all the brightness that had always radiated out of Ian so intensely that it nearly blinded him, a warmth that he’d always wanted to lean in closer to even when they were just scrawny kids in a shitty neighborhood still figuring everything out.

Maybe, just maybe— it was okay to lean in a little more.

By the time the chorus rolled around the third time, Mickey was begrudgingly humming along, like he usually did whenever the songs that Ian was singing on and endless loop got stuck in his own head and popped up while he was brushing his teeth or making toast for breakfast— by the time the final rhythmic chorus faded to silence on the radio waves, Mickey glanced over at Ian, singing at the top of his lungs, face slightly flushed and grinning ear to ear.

“Just like a prayer, your voice can take me there.”

3.

Ian and Mickey were walking down the moonlit sidewalk, veering back home after an evening at Lip’s— the night had honestly been weirdly enjoyable, which was definitely a welcome reprieve from all of Lip and Debbie’s intense back-and-forths about the house over the past few weeks. Tami and Lip had needed to go over to Brad and Cami’s for some bullshit crisis management about the stolen bikes, and Ian had readily agreed to watch Freddie— which meant that whether he liked it or not, Mickey had spent his Friday evening at Lip’s half-packed apartment watching Ian coo over a one-year-old, which was… not a totally unwelcome sight.

Trying to keep his shit together, Mickey had snapped a picture to send to the Gallagher family group chat, and everyone had immediately given them shit about being so eager to babysit and get their hands on a toddler like a couple of baby-crazed newlyweds—which had caused Mickey to start overzealously complaining in the groupchat to compensate while Ian occupied Freddie. Kev had noticed the texts and swung by Lip and Tami’s house after closing the Alibi to keep the two of them company, bringing by a pack of beers—and now he and Ian were warm and happily buzzed, relieved of their babysitting duties and walking the chilly city streets back towards the Gallagher house.

Halfway through the walk Ian had interlaced their fingers, and now their arms were swinging slightly as they turned the final corner to walk down the last stretch of pavement towards the chain-link fence—when suddenly, Ian stopped cold a few houses away from the Gallagher front porch. He looked down at Mickey, raising their entangled hands and pressing a kiss to the inside of Mickey’s wrist.

Mickey raised an eyebrow in confusion, and Ian just looked back at him—his cheeks glowing pink from the few beers, his eyes light and unguarded under the streetlamps.

“This spot reminded me of something.”

Mickey rolled his eyes. Of fucking course it did. Ian was a sappy motherfucker on the best of days, but with a couple of beers in him he was practically uncontrollable.

“What?”

All of a sudden Ian let go of his hand, punching into the air dramatically.

“Cause love is a battlefiiiield”

Mickey laughed, feeling warm hot blood rush to his cheeks in delight—and fuck, he loved his husband so goddamn much. And just this once, mostly because of the own alcohol running thick in his bloodstream, Mickey made the lurching decision to join in, stepping closer towards Ian and raising his hands equally as dramatically.

“No promises, no demands”

“Woooooah”

Ian had practically doubled over with laughter, tears welling in the corner of his eyes—and Mickey let himself get lost in it, the warm feeling buzzing through his body, of love and joy and fuck knows what else, getting to sing on a fucking street corner with his husband a decade after everything had gone so gut-wrenchingly wrong, leaving him bleeding on this same pavement.

They stumbled over their own feet up the stairs, fumbling out of their clothes and collapsing into bed—and later, just as Mickey was on the brink of fading into unconsciousness, Ian mumbled the same refrain into the crook of Mickey’s neck in a sleepy voice, like the song was still stuck in his head and he just couldn’t help it.

“Love is a battlefield.”

4.

It was late— it was one of those slow, tender nights when the past was hanging heavy over them, laying pressed together in bed as thin streams of moonlight poured in through the blinds, pressing whispers into each other’s skin about all of the hurt and the doubt that had been seeped up and healed with time.

Ian was sprawled back on the bed and Mickey was laying with his head resting on his chest, feeling his ribcage expand and contract each time he took a breath. They’d absorbed so much the past few weeks— the sick, twisted blows of a loss that felt all the more jagged and painful because of how muddled the grief for Terry was—but after a few days had passed they’d found a place to settle, in the comforting press of the silence in their bedroom.

Mickey was mindlessly playing with Ian’s fingers, listening to his steady breathing—and without thinking, he ran a finger over the cool silver of Ian’s wedding band, letting out a breathy chuckle.

“I still can’t believe we’re married sometimes, man.”

Mickey could feel Ian’s lips curve upward into a smile from where his mouth was pressed against the top of Mickey’s head.

“Yeah, me either.”

And Mickey felt something bubbling, something welling— and he didn’t ever fucking sing, not unless Ian made him, but Ian was always fucking dropping song lines into sappy moments like this.

So he took a breath, and, half-singing but mostly talking, in a way that sounded almost mocking if it wasn’t so soft around the edges, he let out into the dark silence of the room:

“At last….”

He wasn’t even singing, not really—he was just sort of… saying the words in a singsongy way, but he knew that Ian could tell what he was doing, what he was trying to do. He was trying to be as fucking sweet and soft and pliant as Ian was, as Ian always was in moments like this, in a way that sometimes made Mickey feel brittle and hard in comparison. This time, Mickey wanted to breathe out the love he had for him into this moment, the love that made his ribcage feel like it was going to fucking burst— a love that he felt erupting outwards when Ian had played this song for him for the first time a few weeks before the wedding, and had asked with a shy smile, “D’you think it’d be okay if you walked down the aisle to this song?”

Ian’s chest shook with laughter, and he carded a hand through Mickey’s hair. And then, in his gentle, sleep-soft voice, in a breathy tone that tickled the shell of Mickey’s ear:

“My looove has come along”

Mickey rolled his eyes fondly, just to prove something to himself, even though he knew Ian couldn’t see him—and then he reached a hand upward and leaned back, drawing Ian’s chin forward to press his lips to his for a brief, lingering moment.

Mickey settled back against Ian’s chest again, and felt Ian press a kiss to the top of his head. He smiled contentedly, closing his heavy eyelids.

Maybe being a couple of sappy motherfuckers wasn’t so bad.