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It’s sweat and chocolate, stale smoke and cheap shampoo.
It used to be dirt too.
Sometimes, it’s the metallic tang of blood.
It’s raw and real and Southside. It’s the grime under his nails. The grease and crusted gel in his hair.
It’s heady and sometimes barely there. But it’s addictive. Each breath that Ian takes with his nose pressed into Mickey neck is like a hit. The best sort of drug.
And he clings to the memories of it, because later there’s just a fog of colognes, expensive and artificial. They layer on top of one another and Ian can feel the sleazy touch of them clinging to his skin for hours afterwards.
It leaves him with a headache and a sick feeling in his stomach after every night at work.
Everything makes his head pound, then there’s Mickey. Right in front of him, under him. And it’s all wrong. Each breath he takes doesn’t break past the scent of cologne and other. He can’t smell Mickey underneath it all, because Mickey’s adding to it too.
Soap, he thinks.
“Don’t,” he says as Mickey’s hand goes for Lip’s better deodorant.
Mickey frowns at him, but puts it down anyway.
“I like the way you smell,” he says, because he has to explain himself somehow.
Mickey snorts. “You’re a fuckin’ weird one, Gallagher,” he says, shoving Ian with his shoulder.
But later, when they’re side by side on his awkwardly narrow mattress, Mickey turns over and presses his face into Ian’s neck.
“You too,” he says, quiet enough that Ian thinks he probably wasn’t supposed to hear the woods. “You’re good too.”
Ian smiles into his pillow, gripping Mickey’s waist tighter where his hand was resting. They have their own language, Mickey and he. Ian can’t help but think it’s just another weird way they’re perfect.
“I like the way he smells,” he says to Carl later; because that’s really the only explanation that there is.