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The way they loved each other was ugly.
Mickey wasn't sure if two people who lived lives the way he and Ian had lived lives could love each other any way that wasn't ugly- wasn't sure if they would ever love each other in a way that wasn't waking up at 3 AM covered in sweat and tears, kissing and holding each other and feeling their pain mold together into something greater but also something smaller, fighting it off together with whispered words and held hands.
He wasn't sure if there was a way to go besides giving Ian all of his ugliness, taking all of Ian's ugliness, cutting each other open to see the shit and mud and tar that clogged up their insides and kissing it, loving it, swallowing it whole. They swallowed each other whole.
It was gross, Mandy said sometimes, how much they loved each other; she said it to Ian when he looked at Mickey across the room and she didn't think her brother could hear her, she said it to Mickey when he texted her on a night out with Ian to remind her to make him take his meds, k? i don't need some batshit ginger coming in my house at 2 in the mornin. She just responded it's gross, yknow? ur like a old married couple or shit. Mickey wondered if love was always gross or just love that came from piss filled streets and back alleys and bloody mouths crashing together like waves.
Sometimes he thought that it wasn't worth it- that he was kidding himself, Ian was kidding himself, they were kidding each other. He'd sit on the El and look at all the people sitting around him and wonder if he could be like that without Ian- a normal person with a normal life, who didn't spend all his time drowning in someone else, who wasn't always ripping open his ribcage to let somebody else sleep inside there where it was warm. He thought, sometimes, when he was wasted, about living a life that wasn't about holding each others' tear filled bodies on the kitchen floor, feeling bones through thin skins and letting each rattly breath wisp onto his shoulder blades. He wondered if maybe, if Ian was with someone else, someone normal, someone solid, someone who could pay for his Prozac at a Walgreen's instead of on a street corner, maybe then he'd be able to sleep through the night and not wake up panicking about where he was, what he was doing.
Maybe he'd be better off if the person sleeping next to him wasn't always having bad nights at the same time Ian had good ones, if he wasn't always being woken up in the middle of the night because Mickey needed someone to hold him and kiss the back of his throat and let him wrap himself around their body the way Ian let him wrap himself up.
(He didn't care if they were bad for each other. Every time he came home drunk to their little one room studio apartment, sure he was gonna leave Ian for good and let him move on, he'd see a ginger head asleep on the couch or doing something dumb like cleaning their ceiling and he'd fall in love with him all over again.)
Mickey knows he should hate this, knows he should want Ian gone, knows he should shove him off when it's fucking 300 degrees because they can't afford the AC and Ian's wrapping his arms around him, pulling him close. They stick together like sweaty Post-Its and Ian's skin feels like a wool blanket, but Mickey finds himself, over and over, holding on tight like it's the middle of winter and he needs Ian to keep him warm. He waits for the panicky breathing every time Ian drills a nail into the wall, like he's nailing Mickey's coffin shut, but it doesn't feel like that at all- just feels like what it is, Ian hanging pictures, hang those little doodles Mickey does, so that the whole apartment is covered with things that are theirs. It should feel scary, knowing that if he leaves Ian he'll have to take down all the photos and doodles and there'll be round, deep little holes like scars marking where they used to be in each other's lives, but it just feels right and almost obvious. At night when it gets bad Mickey thinks about the extra lock on their door, thinks about himself in this little island of quilts and beer bottles that he lives in with Ian and wonders why it doesn't feel too small, waits for it to start feeling like he's crawling out of his skin, shakes his head when he comes in and it's smotheringly hot and Ian is fucking everywhere and they're tripping over each other in this tiny, tiny house and yet all he can feel is relief.
It's ugly, but so's life. It's dirty, but so's he. This one time during a blizzard when they were holding each other underneath blankets and watching old movies Mickey stole from some barely-out-of-bankruptcy movie rental place and waiting to lose power, Ian said something about natural disasters- "they destroy everything. It's like, we all think we're in control of our lives, but then some fucking storm comes along and we all have to huddle inside and hold on to each other and hope it doesn't drag us down." Mickey looks at Ian, with his barely-there freckles and his strong biceps clutching Mickey to him and his curly hair, and he thinks that he knows all about natural disasters. He has ever since he was 16 and a skinny little brat came into his bedroom brandishing a tire iron.
He kisses Ian right on the nose, and his eyes go wide like he's shocked. He looks like that every time Mickey kisses him, no matter how many times he does it, and it makes him feel happy but it also puts a hollow hole in his chest, like he'll never be able to kiss Ian enough to make him stop being surprised by it. Someday he wants him not to be surprised by it.
Ian rubs his nose. "What was that for?"
Mickey settles his face into the hollow between his jaw and collarbone, feeling Ian's pulse beat across his cheek. "It was for you, asshole." They stay there for the rest of the night and in the morning, the city is blanketed in snow like a whole new world.