Mandy pressed her lips together and scowls as she stormed up the front steps of her house. She could just feel Lip pushing her closer to the brink with all this Karen shit and she knew it was going to be just a matter of time before she snapped.

But sue her; she was a Milkovich after all. Wasn't like her morals were ever going to be that fucking high.

She could hear Mickey laughing in a way that was more of a giggle really as soon as she walked through the door, which made her frown at the same time as she smirked because Mickey only ever giggled like a fucking little kid when he was as high as shit.

Like majorly.

Except it was the middle of the fucking afternoon and she knew Mickey hated getting high alone so she wondered who the fuck he was with.

"Shut up, no there," she could hear Mickey saying, "Those ones, next to the big one, they look like a fucking cock."

Mandy heard a low laugh and then, "Mick, the fuck cocks have you been looking at?"

And shit, but that was Ian. As in her Ian. What the hell was he doing with Mickey? She hadn't thought too much of it, but she had vaguely registered Ian skipping their last few periods. Had he been with Mickey this whole fucking time? She knew they worked together, but she hadn't thought they were friends.

Why the hell would he want to be friends with Mickey? Or want to hang out with Mickey? Nobody outside of fuckheads and family liked hanging out with Mickey. And Ian was neither. Ian was just so good. It didn't make sense.

She moved closer to Mickey's room and looked through the cracked door just as Ian said "Look, those ones look like a penguin." She saw him grab Mickey's wrist and trace out a shape on the ceiling. And when she looked up, she could seed that they'd drawn a load of dots all over the ceiling in Sharpie. They'd even taken Mickey's poster of Megan Fox down to do it.

But that wasn't the weirdest thing about the scene in front of her. Neither was the empty pizza box or the crushed cans spread out on the floor around them that implied they'd been there a while.

No, the weirdest part was how Mickey and Ian were sitting.

Ian had his back against the bed, sitting upright. He was shirtless and for just a moment Mandy was distracted from her confusion by the tense, tight muscles of his stomach. He really was as hot as fuck and it hurt her sometimes to remember that he was gay.

Mickey though, Mickey was the especially odd part. He was lying with his head in Ian's lap looking up at the ceiling. There was a bandage still tied around his knuckles from where he'd put his fist through a window the other day; she couldn't remember why, but his dark clothes looked rumpled on his body. Even more so than usual. Like he'd been rolling around in them.

More than that though, he looked relaxed. It was fucking weird. Especially since Mickey was probably the least touchy-feely person she knew and this should have been so far out of his comfort zone it was unbelievable.

"Fuck off man, no," Mickey muttered, scratching a hand through his hair and messing up the gel so that it stuck in a million possible directions at once, "I fucking hate penguins."

Ian laughed, looking dopey-eyed and happy as he stared down at the ex-con in his lap. "What, why?" he asked, "Penguins are cute."

Mickey snorted loudly and then took a long drag of his cigarette, blowing smoke up into Ian's face. Ian coughed for a minute, rolling his eyes and making Mickey smirk as he rubbed at his bottom lip that way Mickey often did.

"They fucking waddle man," Mickey huffed out, his fingers hooking into the pocket of his trousers as he stretched his legs out. "You can't trust shit that waddles, you think they're going to be all slow and shit and then BAM!" He clapped his hands together loudly, laughing when Ian jumped.

"BAM, what?" Ian asked when Mickey didn't say anything else, apparently having gotten distracted by the dots on the ceiling for a minute. He raised an eyebrow at Mickey and was obviously trying hard not to laugh.

Mickey shrugged as best he could lying down. "Then they've gotcha," he explained, "It's all cuz they fucking waddle as well." He shook his head and rubbed a hand on his trousers before tucking it back into his pocket. "You let you're fucking guard down, like if a fat chick pulls a gun on you." He flicked his cigarette away, "That's what fucking penguins are like."

Ian didn't bother trying to hold in his laugh then, just tossed his head back and let his lips stretched wide, looking fucking beautiful. Mandy watched his wide, glassy eyes for a moment as they shone in the crappy lighting of Mickey's room and then saw his finger's curl around the back of Mickey's head, sliding through his gel-slicked hair and she frowned when Mickey didn't push him off.

"You're as high as fucking shit, Mick," Ian told him, "That doesn't even make sense!"

But he sounded affectionate and Mandy had never heard anyone sound that way or be like that with her brother before.

"Whatever," Mickey muttered, his mouth splitting into a slow, lazy grin and Mandy could have sworn for a second he even pushed back into Ian's fingers in his hair.

They fell into silence for a minute then, Mickey staring at the ceiling and Ian watching Mickey like he was the most interesting thing he'd ever seen. Mandy could remember when she'd wanted Ian to look at her like that, sometimes she still did when she wasn't so caught up on Lip.

It was weird though and Mandy felt like she was missing some important part of this whole thing.

"Try and find a fucking normal looking cock then," Mickey instructed, making it obvious what he was trying to do and not seeming at all fazed by the fact Ian's fingers were actively running through his hair now. Ian didn't even seem to notice he was doing it for that matter.

Ian chuckled low under his breath. "Though you said stargazing was for fags, Mick," he commented, smirking.

"Fuck you, this is the badass kind," her brother shot back without missing a beat, "Least it ain't a fucking picnic."

Ian rolled his eyes, "Lloyd and I never went on a fucking picnic, Jesus, will you let that go!"

And Mandy thought it clicked then maybe. She almost felt stupid, because Ian had been talking to her about this guy he was seeing for almost two years now and she'd guessed Ian had loved him, but she hadn't guessed, hadn't thought for even a minute that it could have been Mickey.

How could she have done? She'd thought Mickey was straight.

But then, she also couldn't have imagined Mickey being this fucking happy or relaxed with someone before she'd seen it. A part of her still didn't believe it, but she also thought maybe anything can happen.

She thought it was sweet in a maybe really messed up way that Ian could get Mickey to be an entirely different person. That Ian could get him to be nice.

And apparently to admit he was scared of penguins and fat people with guns. Something she was so going to use to fuck with him later.