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“Ian.”
No response.
“Ian?” Mickey says again, and this time he makes a pathetic attempt to keep his voice from shaking.
He touches Ian’s fingers where they’re peeking out from under the blankets. No response.
He squeezes the fingers this time. “Ian, please?”
No response.
“Ian, you need to eat something. You’re not gonna fucking starve under my roof.”
Mickey takes the fast food take-away bag and starts opening all the boxes.
“Look, I got us some fries. Burgers, I got pasta. You like pasta, don’t you? I remember you couldn’t fucking shut up about how good that pesto shit was.”
No response.
“Jesus, Ian. At least drink some water.”
Mickey shuffles closer to Ian on the bed and puts a hand on his hair. Again, he tries to keep from shaking.
“Fuck, Ian. Please.”
He runs his hand through Ian’s hair. Once, twice, three times.
“I told your sister that I’d take care of you. That means getting you to eat.”
Fuck, fuck. The silence is almost too loud to bear. The room feels quieter than it’s ever been in Mickey’s entire life.
“Look, I don’t really know much about this thing that’s got you sick. They’re saying it’s called bipolar disease or some shit. Something your mom has…” Mickey trails off and watches Ian closely as he shifts a little. But when nothing more happens, he keeps talking.
“I-I remember that time you came over, y’know, you were acting all panicked and shit. You told me you needed to see me.”
Mickey doesn’t know where he’s going with this. He wants to tell Ian about that time he was upset over something about his mom, and how Mickey remembers feeling like he wanted to protect Ian, even then. He wants to tell Ian about how much he wants to protect him right now, and how fucking useless he’s feeling because he can’t.
Mickey starts to say something else, anything else, but then breaks off when Ian shifts again. He turns around so he’s completely facing Mickey.
“Hey,” Mickey whispers.
Ian stares at him for a long time before mumbling, “Hey,” his voice is hoarse. Mickey’s heart almost lurches out of his chest.
It’s the first thing Ian’s said that isn’t a combination of leave me alone or go away.
Mickey waits a little to see if he’s going to say anything else. But Ian only stares at him with still eyes.
“Hey,” Mickey says again. He looks around for the bottle of water he’d brought with him earlier and opens the lid. “Drink this, sounds like you need it.”
For a moment it seems like Ian will be just as unresponsive as earlier, but he starts to slowly sit up from his sleeping position. He takes the bottle from Mickey with trembling hands and gulps down the water, spilling it down his chin and onto his bare chest.
“Ay, careful man.” Mickey takes a few tissues from the box sitting on his side table and gently dries Ian’s skin. “Don’t wanna fucking catch a cold in the middle of this shit,” he looks up and tries to crack a smile.
Ian watches silently as Mickey wipes the last of the spills off. Mickey tries not to feel fucking nervous like an idiot, but he does.
“Now that you’re up, you wanna eat something? Like I said, got some good food here. Burgers, pesto pasta –”
“You remembered,” Ian interrupts; his voice is so soft it’s almost inaudible.
For a moment Mickey panics, since he has no idea what Ian’s talking about and he’s surprised Ian even said anything at all. But then he realises.
“Yeah man, you discovered the world’s greatest pasta sauce and went on about it for so long. Hard to forget.”
Ian looks at him and gives what Mickey wants to believe is a half-smile. “That was almost two years ago.”
Mickey shrugs, “Yeah. Well.”
Ian’s looking at him, and yeah, that definitely is a half-smile. Mickey can’t stop himself from smiling back, even if he wanted to.
“Well, you want some?”
Ian nods.