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It’s not like Mickey means to be roommates with a vampire—who the fuck does that kind of thing on purpose? But it happens. He’s kind of desperate for a roommate, places an ad, and someone answers (that’s generally how those sorts of things go).
Ian Gallagher seems normal enough, and even if he collected nail clippings or some shit, Mickey wouldn’t give a fuck because he can pay his half of the fucking rent and that’s all Mickey really needs out of a roommate, anyway. As far as he’s concerned, if Ian stays out of his shit, he’ll stay out of Ian’s, and Ian seems perfectly content with that situation. He works at a nightclub until fuck o’clock in the morning, and sleeps through the entire day. Mickey hardly ever fucking sees the guy. And the only thing he ever asks of Mickey is to not come into his room during the day and bother him, and to not drink his protein shakes.
Which is not a fucking problem, because why would Mickey ever drink a fucking protein shake?
Except then he does. By accident. He doesn’t really look at what he’s drinking before he takes a swig, is too fucking exhausted to care, and then is immediately spitting the thick, metallic liquid into the sink.
It’s surprising to say the least that what he sees against the stainless steel basin, what he had in his fucking mouth, is blood—and not his own fucking blood (at least as far as he’s aware, but unless he somehow cut his own tongue off without realizing it, the chance is pretty unlikely).
“Shit.”
Mickey is still spitting the remnants of blood into the sink when he glances over his shoulder, and Ian is standing there, body still and nostrils flaring and pupils blown from fear. There’s blood at the corner of Mickey’s mouth when Ian blurts, “I can explain.”
Really, Mickey would have accepted any explanation that meant he didn’t just swallow some amount of someone else’s blood. Literally. Any fucking reason.
“I’m a vampire,” is what Ian decides to tell him, point blank, face completely serious and stance physically defensive as if he’s expecting Mickey to charge at him headfirst. And all Mickey can do is groan as he wipes his bloodstained mouth against the back of his hand.
“You seriously pulling this shit?” Mickey gives Ian a completely unimpressed look, and Ian stares back, absolutely perplexed.
“What are you talking about?”
“I didn’t peg you as one of those sparkly vampire freaks, Gallagher. Don’t know what the fuck you’ve been drinking, pretending it’s blood or some shit—“
“It is blood,” Ian interjects, and Mickey pinches the bridge of his nose.
“Uh-huh, sure, just—“
“Mickey. I’m not some Robert Pattinson fangirl, all right? I’m legitimately a vampire.”
That time, Mickey flat out laughs. Laughs because Ian is a fucking nut. He seems to actually believe he’s a vampire, and shit, maybe Mickey should have done some kind of background check or like crazy test or whatever the fuck people do to insure they get normal fucking roommates. But nah, he didn’t, just got stuck with some absolute loon.
It’s hysterical.
Except Ian doesn’t seem to think so. The confusion and desperation on his face melts away into annoyance as he crosses his arms, and he opens his mouth as if to say something—and doesn’t. Mickey’s laughter dies in his throat so quickly he chokes on it as he watches Ian’s canines extend into long, sharp fangs.
Well shit.
Ian gestures at his mouth, as if to say, See? I wasn’t fucking lying, and all Mickey can do is nod dumbly because shit.
Shit.
“Shit,” he exhales, running fingers through his hair, and the fangs shrink back into Ian’s mouth and it’s almost like things are normal.
Almost.
Except Ian is a fucking vampire, and Mickey still has the taste of blood on his tongue.
“…maybe you should sit down,” Ian advises, and Mickey snaps out of it, sending him a sharp glare. Ian holds up his hands, placatingly, and Mickey settles with leaning against the counter, thumbing at the corner of his mouth and picking at the place some of the blood has dried.
“You suck my fucking blood?” Mickey asks, and Ian blanches.
“You think I’m a fucking idiot? Nothing says vampire like leaving fucking bite marks in my own roommate,” Ian retorts, wrinkling his nose. “Besides, then who’d pay the other half of the rent?”
“…you saying you kill people?”
Ian goes still again, chews his own lip, and really, there’s nothing about the kid that screams supernatural monster of legend. He’s just some guy. Like, a fairly attractive one, but if Mickey walks around thinking every pretty guy in Chicago is some sort of nightmare, he’s going to make life pretty hard on himself.
“Sometimes.” It’s almost nonchalant, with the way that Ian shrugs and looks away, except there’s nothing nonchalant about fucking killing people. It would be creepy as fuck, even, if there wasn’t a guarded look in Ian’s eyes. Actually, it’s still creepy as fuck. Mickey’s roommate just owned up to sometimes being a murderer. And a vampire.
That’s a lot for Mickey to take in all at once after the fucking day he’s had.
“Look.” Ian shifts uncomfortably, and Mickey realizes it’s been awhile since he’s said anything. “I’ll move out, you’ll never see me again, just don’t—don’t say anything about me, okay, because—“
“Fuck that,” Mickey says almost immediately, and with the way Ian’s eyebrows shoot up his forehead in alarm, you’d almost think he wasn’t some kind of creature that kills people to survive. “You think I want to foot this rent on my own anymore than you do?” That really should be the last fucking thing on his mind, but the thing is that it isn’t. Ian’s been his roommate for months and aside from the weird hours he keeps (…that now make a shit load of sense, actually), Mickey’s never had an issue with him. It’s like living with a fucking ghost.
Or, apparently, vampire.
“You don’t care?” Ian asks, aghast, his mouth hanging open in a way that would probably be unattractive if, you know, Ian wasn’t so ridiculously hot that it counteracted that.
“I fucking say that? I’m not going to lie, this is some fucked up shit that I frankly don’t know what the fuck to do with, but far as I’m concerned, long as you don’t snack on my neck and keep paying the rent, I have no problem with you living here.”
“I actually prefer the wrist,” Ian mumbles, more to himself than anything else, and Mickey finds himself rubbing the inside of his own wrist as if he might find scars there in the shape of two precise puncture marks. He doesn’t.
“Hey, none of that shit, all right?” Mickey wrinkles his nose. “Don’t ask, don’t tell, or whatever.”
“Isn’t that about gay people?”
“Well now it’s about gays and vampires.”
“What about both?”
Mickey pinches his bridge again, keeps his eyes closed when he says, “Where the fuck is your off button, I swear to god—you got anything else you need to get off your chest since it’s apparently fucking honesty hour?”
But Ian just grins, and Mickey’s aggravation is faintly dimmed by the way his attention snaps to Ian’s teeth. He stares at them, as if maybe he’ll see the fangs that are no longer there.
*
It’s not like Mickey expects things to stay normal after that. Vampire is pretty much so far from normal that Mickey had never even considered it a fucking option. But to be perfectly honest, he kind of thought things would stay more or less the same. He would still see fuck-all of Ian, and Ian would stay out of Mickey’s life and business.
But apparently honesty brings out all of Ian’s worst traits and habits, and Mickey is not talking about the fucking vampire thing.
Suddenly there are thick curtains up in the living room that completely block out the sun, and then Ian is around all the fucking time. He stops hiding his blood in sports water bottles and then there are just bags of it. Ian explains to him at one point that one of the reasons Mickey’s apartment was such a good gig for him is that it backs up to the local blood bank, and Mickey is quick to tell Ian that that sort of information falls under their not talking about it policy.
Even if Mickey sort of has mad respect for the fact that Ian can break in and out of a blood bank without drawing any attention. That level of thievery requires a certain amount of finesse that Mickey just fucking admires, all right?
It turns out Ian really does work at a nightclub, and he even goes as far as to use the word dancer—Mickey doesn’t need it fucking spelled out to realize what the fuck that means. He makes a joke about how those sad pathetic fucks that need to get their rocks off at those sort of places must make the perfect victims for him. Ian goes all quiet, and Mickey realizes he broke his own fucking rule, when Ian says, “I only indulge when I’m making the world a better place.”
And that’s an opening to a conversation, a conversation that Mickey finds himself morbidly curious about, but he’s not going to let himself fall down that rabbit hole. So he doesn’t. Just let’s Ian’s sentence hang there.
Basically, Ian just starts to act like his vampirism is this normal thing that he’s allowed to… Well, not necessarily flaunt, but not actively hide, just because Mickey fucking knows about it. Not that he turns into a bat, or sleeps in a coffin, and he doesn’t hate garlic but he doesn’t really like it, either (and Mickey totally doesn’t just buy cloves of garlic to test it out or anything, that’d be fucking dumb).
The worst fucking part is the blood thing. Like, Mickey gets that Ian drinks it, that’s pretty much a standard thing for vampires in any universe they exist in. But does he have to fucking do it in front of Mickey? He grabs one of the pouches from the fridge, fucking warms it in the microwave, and then sticks his fangs into it like he’s enjoying a capri sun and not something that came out of a fucking human.
And Mickey can’t help but watch. He doesn’t really get how the fangs work, knows that asking will nullify his rule, and there’s something horrifyingly fascinating about watching the blood drain from the bag, at the way Ian sometimes closes his eyes the way Mickey does when he’s eating a particularly fucking good burger.
One time Ian catches Mickey watching, and he stops, baring his teeth so that Mickey can see the way he runs his tongue over one of his fangs, mouth and lips darkened from the blood, and Mickey has to look away.
It’s the stupidly inopportune time that Mickey decides to ask, “So do vampires, like, fuck and shit?”
And Ian let’s the mostly drained bag of blood hang from his fingers, looking surprised by the question at first before he smirks, “Shit, no. Fuck, yes.” Mickey levels him with an unamused glare.
“How?” He asks, not really expecting an answer, and certainly not expecting Ian to laugh.
“Like every other fucking creature on the planet? Just because I’m an immortal creature of the night doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy a good fuck.”
Mickey glances at Ian and the way he runs his tongue over his lip to catch a few drops of blood clinging there, and wishes he hadn’t fucking asked at all.
*
Ian’s comfort with the whole situation hits a new level of uncomfortable when Mickey comes home from work late one night, after Ian’s already left for his own job, and sees a message waiting for him.
On the wall behind the table he’d left his dead phone on to charge.
Written in blood.
Mandy called, it reads. P.S. I ate the last pudding. I’ll pick up more after work.
Because apparently drinking blood doesn’t mean that Ian can’t eat and enjoy human food, as well, including Mickey’s fucking pudding.
Mickey pointedly does’t clean it up, and when he wakes up the next morning and Ian is lazing on the couch, flipping channels on the TV, Mickey stands over him with his arms crossed.
“What?” Ian sounds grouchy, which means he probably hasn’t eaten yet. For some reason, he always waits for Mickey to be around before he sucks down some blood. Like he’s constantly trying to remind Mickey what he is.
Or maybe constantly reminding himself that Mickey doesn’t have a problem with it.
“I bought more pudding,” Ian continues when Mickey doesn’t say anything, and Mickey let’s out a dry huff of laughter.
“Oh, yeah, I saw your fucking message. On the wall. In blood.” Mickey stares at Ian, eyes hard, and Ian stares back.
“I couldn’t find a pen.”
“Yeah, well, maybe just forego the message next time instead of finger painting with your most recent meal all over the wall, all right?” Mickey sighs in aggravation, and Ian grins this stupid lazy smile, like he’s sleepy and amused. Which is stupid, because Mickey knows by now that Ian doesn’t fucking need to sleep. “Just clean it the fuck up.”
“But the living room finally has my own personal touch!” Ian counters, still grinning like a shit-eating idiot. “Well, I mean, technically it was someone else’s personal touch, but—“
Mickey stops listening, and flips Ian off for good measure as he stalks into the bathroom to take a shower.
Stupid fucking vampire.