Work Text:
He messed up. He knew it was wrong to undo the wrist restraints, but he did it anyways. The lack of control over his mind should have been his first clue. His second should have been the late nights spent scrambling with an itch to do something, anything. Instead he chose to ignore the warning signs and wait until he messed up to do anything about it. And now he was stuck home from work for a week with nothing to do but readjust and listen to the thoughts swirling around in his head.
Ian had just gotten back from the clinic, where they gave him a new cocktail of meds that would hopefully balance him out. He hated going to the clinic. They always poked and prodded, asking too many questions, and he already felt like shit about even having to go in the first place. ‘Up my downers, Sleep it off, and see the shrink as soon as possible,’ this was the automatic response he had given Lip. They drilled specific things into his head when he was diagnosed that he was supposed to do when things happened. The worst thing about this disease is that things do happen. Just when you think everything is going well in your life a shit storm decides to stir up inside your brain.
***
Ian slowly made his way up the stairs. The upped dose of his downers made him low on energy so his plan was to dive right into his bed. When he made it into his room the first thing he did was strip off his old clothes to change into something more comfortable.
Suddenly remembering something, Ian pulled open the bottom drawer of his dresser. He hadn’t opened this drawer for a while, not since before he and Caleb got together, but right now he needed the comfort that he knew it would bring him. Once it was open, Ian closed his eyes and just breathed it in. The smell, although faint now after time, seemed to hit him in the face and went straight to his heart. Finally Ian reached inside and pulled out a dark green shirt with the sleeves cut off from the top of the pile of other things left behind.
He brought the fabric up to his nose and breathed in the scent again, this time being a bit stronger with it being so close to his nose now. Without thinking any more, Ian pulled the shirt over his head. He closed the drawer with all of the dark haired boy’s forgotten items, and went to lay in bed, allowing the scent of Mickey to fog his mind and provide the comfort he needed. It was in these moments of feeling low that Ian missed him the most. Throughout the years, Mickey had gotten pretty good at knowing how to comfort him in his time of need, and having been there through the worst of his bipolar diagnosis, Mickey was the best at helping him take it all in. He would just lay with him for hours during his depression, and still make sure he was being taken care of physically and that’s all Ian really needed. So now if the closest thing he could get to that, was the scent remaining on an old shirt he would take it.
That night was the first night that Ian slept through in a few days without waking to crazy thoughts, and the need to cook breakfast at 3am.
***
The next morning, Ian heard Fiona telling Lip in the next room about a family meeting so he climbed out of bed and tugged on a pair of jeans that were tossed on the floor beside him, while still wearing Mickey’s shirt from the night before. He made his way downstairs, rubbing the sleep from his eyes seeing that everyone was already gathered in the kitchen.
“What’s going on?” He asked.
“Called a Family meeting,” Fiona replied
“I’m not invited?”
“I just didn’t want to wake you,” Fiona assured him.
“How’d you sleep?” Lip asked.
“Good. I slept all night,” He replied with a tight lipped smile to his older brother. It was true he had, and maybe it was his downers really kicking in, but maybe the comfort he felt had a little something more to do with it.
