College AU Oneshot: Mickey is an art student at the University of Chicago and one day he (literally) runs into a very attractive redhead. They flirt briefly and then go their separate ways until the attractive redhead turns up in Mickey's life-drawing class... as the inspiration for that lesson's work. The topic? The human body.
It wasn't easy being an art student. For one, every time Mickey lit up a cigarette people kept expecting him to start sprouting some bullshit philosophical crap, which he just did not do. Another thing was that people kept asking him what he was going to do after college.
Apparently "fuck my way to the top" is not an acceptable answer to that one.
Not to mention, everyone always seemed to get him wrong, pegging him for some kind of engineering guy, sometimes even IT. No one ever guessed that the guy with 'fuck u-up' across his knuckles was a visual arts major.
But he liked it that way.
He was on his way to one of his art theory classes, late of course. Anything with 'theory' in the title was asking for him to show up twenty minutes late.
He had a large coffee in one hand and his books in the other as he tried to navigate his way across campus.
He may or may not have been rushing because while he hates being on time, he can't afford to have his lecturer snapping at him for the third time in as many weeks.
He turned a corner quickly and as he went he collided with someone else, his coffee falling from his hand and crashing to the floor, the lid popping off and spilling all over the pavement.
"Shit!" they both said at once, Mickey because that was his morning dose of caffeine and the other guy, presumably, because it went all over his shoes.
"Sorry about that," the guy said.
Mickey looked up from his spilled coffee grumpily and did a double take.
This guy was gorgeous, properly beautiful and with the most impressive bone structure Mickey had seen possibly in his lifetime. He was tall with striking red hair and as he looked up a few loose strands fell over his face.
"That was my breakfast," Mickey said quickly, hoping it hadn't been too long since the guy said anything. "Probably lunch if I'm honest."
"Yeah well now it's my shoe polish," he said with a slight smile.
Mickey shrugged. "They look like nice shoes, I'm sure you can afford to get 'em shined up nice."
"Just because I've got nice shoes doesn't mean I didn't work hard for them," he said and Mickey chuckled a little.
"Yeah, yeah, you owe me another one," he said.
"Is that your way of asking me to get a coffee with you?" the guy said with an arrogant smile and this time Mickey let out an outright laugh.
"Jesus, you're fucking bold," he said.
"You've got to be bold nowadays," he said. "I'm Ian."
He held out his hand and Mickey shook his head as he took it with his now coffee-free hand.
"Mickey," he said. "And I said you owe me one, as in you get one for me, not with me."
"Come on, you can't be that busy," Ian said.
"No I was just rushing around corners for the thrill of it," he said and Ian's lip curled into another cocky smile.
"So it was your fault?" he said.
"Hey, your seven foot ass should have been watching where it was going," Mickey said.
"I'm not seven foot, not quite," he said with a little shrug. "Besides, maybe walking into you was by design."
Mickey grinned, biting his lip as she shook his head. "That right?"
"No, but I'm thinking maybe it should have been," he said.
"What are you some sort of fucking pick up artist?" Mickey asked.
"Actually I'm a model," he said with a shrug.
"Oh well don't let me keep you from your big photo shoot," Mickey said, taking a small step around him.
"At least let me compensate you for the coffee," Ian said. "You know, on a later date maybe?"
"You don't quit, do you?"
"Not usually."
Mickey smiled again, ripping a corner off one of the pages in his scrapbook and fishing out a pencil to write his number with.
He handed it to Ian who smiled, popping it in his pants pocket. "I'll be sure to send you a message and let you know when I'm free to compensate you that coffee!" he called after him.
"If you're gonna be a jackass I just won't reply!" Mickey called and he could feel Ian watching him as he walked away.
Somehow being yelled at by his lecturer seemed to be far less intimidating than he though.
It's not like he gave out his number to random guys often, but they didn't usually show up and act so interested. Maybe that was because he never left his dorm room and when he did he was usually sitting around somewhere with his sketchpad out and completely oblivious to everything around him.
Still, if guys who looked like him were going to start showing an interest he might have to get out more.
He was in his last class for the day, his favourite one. It was less cramming useless information down his throat and more actually getting to do what he came to college for.
Practical Drawing, in other words: use up the better quality equipment that the school provides instead of wasting his own.
Granted, the first few weeks were boring, sketching things like fruit bowls and trying to draw from a 2D image but it was getting better, this week the topic was the human body.
Mickey sat in class with the chairs and easel's arranged in a semi-circle, he was sharpening up his pencils as his tutor, Ms Hockerman, walked in.
She was a tiny woman, only coming up to Mickey's shoulders, she wore giant spectacles and was always flitting about from person to person. She reminded Mickey of Edna from the Incredibles.
"Okay everyone, find your seats!" she chirped and Mickey just rolled his eyes as he tried to subtly drop the mess from his sharpener on the floor. "We have two full hours to use today, and use them wisely! I will be collecting some samples of your work to evaluate and compare with last week's, and I will be checking to see that you have used some of the techniques from our lectures, Hurley I'm talking to you!"
Mickey grinned because that guy was perpetually stoned and usually just drew pictures of whatever shit he was thinking of. The guy was gifted but he was going to be in this place taking the same classes for at least ten years.
"Alright so as we know this week for our study of the human body we have a live model, oh that sounds so morbid, as if we have cadavers lying around every other week... anyway! Everyone please make him welcome."
Mickey heard the footsteps as he walked into the room. There was an armchair in the centre of the room and a small pedestal for the guy to sit and stand in different poses over the course of the class.
Mickey couldn't think of anything worse than being a nude model and having fifteen to twenty people staring intently at you and drawing your junk. He didn't mind doing the drawing because usually these guys aren't too hard on the eyes.
"Sorry, what was your name dear?" Ms Hockerman asked.
"It's Ian."
Mickey's ears perked up and there was no mistaking that voice. He grinned to himself before sitting up so he could see over the tilted easel and his smile only got wider as he saw Ian, the attractive redhead with coffee stained shoes that he obviously wasn't wearing, standing by his tutor in nothing but a white bathrobe.
"Well we're ready whenever you are," she said, putting a hand on his shoulder before heading to the back of class.
He just smiled at her and Mickey sat back in his chair biting his lip with a shit-eating grin as he waited for Ian to look up and notice him.
He didn't know if it would be more amusing for him to notice before or after he stripped down to the bare essentials.
Mickey folded his arms as he watched him stretch a little, turning his head from side to side with a small crack. As he pulled at the tie around his waist he looked up at the class and almost instantly locked eyes with Mickey.
His eyes got wide and his jaw dropped a little before his face turned a bright shade of pink. Mickey flicked his eyebrows at him and put the end of his pencil in his mouth before making a motion with his hand for Ian to keep going.
Ian dropped his gaze, practically blushing all over, and shook his head slightly. He let out a loud exhale as he pulled at the robe tie and actually turned his back to Mickey before taking it off and putting it over the back of a chair.
He didn't turn back around, he just walked up to the pedestal and stepped up, putting one hand behind his head and letting the other hang, turning his head to the side.
"Alright let's begin!" chirped Ms Hockerman and Mickey just ran his tongue over his bottom lip before taking a good look at Ian.
It was, of course, purely in the name of art.
The guy was ripped, even just from the rear view. He had more muscles in his back and shoulders than Mickey probably had in his whole body. There was a slight curve to his spine but nothing anyone would really notice.
His ass was by far the pièce de résistance, it was honest to god perfect.
Mickey could still see the red flush on the side of Ian's face and smiled, focussing on the shadows that crossed his brows and the way the light accented the shape of his biceps. He tried to get his shape right, he would have hated to be drawing a less than adequate copy of the beauty that was before him.
If he had been doing anything other than drawing him, Ian would have been more than a little distracting.
"Remember we find the shape and then add feature!" came Ms Hockerman's shrill voice, breaking Mickey's fantasies about what he'd like to do with the redhead right there in the studio.
The wonderful thing about the art studio was that there was a large wall of windows to let in the natural light, only it was one way glass so those on the outside of the building could only see their reflections in the mirrored side.
Oh the fun they could have with that.
Mickey managed to get something rough down, erasing and re-sketching the bits that didn't look quite right, he'd never been much of a perfectionist before now. It wasn't long before Ms Hockerman was asking Ian to turn and face them.
Mickey folded his arms and leant back in his seat, trying to keep his eyes as high as possible.
Ian began to turn slowly, his eyes searching for Mickey as soon as he was facing the room. He stood in a similar pose to before and locked eyes with Mickey who just gave him a wink before turning back to his page.
He knew Ian was watching him, he could feel his eyes on him. The next time he looked up he made sure to meet his eyes and he saw Ian's mouth twitch, like he was about to laugh.
This time Mickey blushed, and he didn't even know why. He knew he had to look past his eyes and draw the rest of him for the sake of the class but how was he supposed to do it while Ian was looking at him?
Usually, having to draw a naked guy would have been Mickey's bread and butter, he already makes a habit of doing so, just not from real life models.
He let out a sigh and dropped his gaze down over Ian's broad shoulders and taut stomach, biting his lip at the gentle cut-lines by his hips, and there was definitely more flushing of the cheeks when his eyes made it further than that.
God he hoped Ian wouldn't be too freaked out after this to see him again.
Two hours seemed to be over pretty quickly, and when Ms Hockerman told them to pick the images they wanted reviewed Ian was quickly retrieving his robe.
Most of the students were out of class quickly, but Mickey took his time packing up as he waited for Ian to finish changing.
When he finally walked back into the room he shoved his hands in his pockets and looked down at his feet with an embarrassed smile. Mickey on the other hand, couldn't have been cockier.
"A 'model' huh?" he said and Ian grinned, shaking his head and looking up.
"Well technically it is true," he said.
"Oh we're gettin' technical are we?"
Ian laughed. "Come on, you think I go round telling every cute guy I meet that I do nude modelling for art classes? What would they think of me?"
Mickey shrugged a little. "You callin' me cute?"
"I don't want you to get the wrong impression, I usually buy a guy a coffee before I take my clothes off," Ian chuckled.
"Speaking of, you still owe me a coffee."
"Oh come on, you just spent two hours finely detailing my junk with a pencil, I think we're even at the bare minimum," he said.
"I was not finely detailing your junk," Mickey said. "And even if I was, that's a part of my grade and technically it's my tuition that's paying your naked ass to be here."
"Okay, fine, but how about I buy you a beer instead?" Ian offered and Mickey smiled. "You have a class now or...?"
"Nah, I got nothin' to do," he said. "You're not gonna buy me a drink and leave are ya? You know, to make you feel better about baring it all after just one conversation."
"Oh I fully intend to level the playing field in that department," Ian said with a smirk.
Mickey raised an eyebrow and opened his mouth to say something but nothing came out. He grinned before shaking his head and turning to walk out of the room, Ian hot on his tail and he wondered whether he was going to get to play out his art studio fantasies after all.