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Ian's not numb anymore, not normal either; but better. There's no electricity running through the sinews in his head anymore, he wants to feel happy, but he dropped so low he can't comprehend what that is anymore. Mickey's on his mind, he feels his phantom warmth next to him in the bed; that's good, he thinks, that's regular and systematic; that's not crazy. He's not crazy.
/
Ian doesn't eat until the clock hits twelve. The planning helps him think, helps him keep track of everything. It's a system; wake up, eat, sleep, nothing can go wrong, nothing will go wrong. Except, as he butters bread and slices cheese; Mickey is sub sectioned into each part of his newly formed daily routine and, shit.
Ian used to watch this film, right, with Lip and baby Debs. Lip was obsessed with it, having read the book in advanced literature; the dude was on drugs or something. Ian can't remember the name though. It was bursts of colour and talking rabbits and a cat with a fucked up grin; he didn't like it, it gave him nightmares of falling down holes and waking up all fuzzy and sweaty. He feels like that now; he flew so high that when he dropped he didn't just hit the ground with a smack he was buried six feet under. Mickey's got the shovel.
/
Ian's smoking when Mickey bursts in at 6:07pm, he's on his third, one every three and a half hours. Five a day, he's figured, the last one after sex. He planned ahead.
"Mick," Ian pauses to take a suck of his cigarette, leant over by the window, shirtless. Mickey looks over at him and sees freckles at the corner of his mouth and at the point of his shoulder.
Mickey raises his eyebrows, he's got a headache from the cold outside but it feels like his hoodie is burning him from the outside inwards with how hot it is inside. Ian's up, he's out of bed; he's alive and Mickey feels dead with it.
Ian sighs, soft and drawn out, smoke leaving his lips. Mickey's never seen anything that makes his belly swoop long and hot like that does before. His mouth goes dry and Ian looks over at him, hair falling over his forehead, and flicks his cigarette out of the window.
Mickey looks down for less than a second, squeezes his eyes until all he can see are shapeless pools of colour then looks up through his lashes, blinking softly. "Kiss it better, please."
Kiss the weeks away, kiss away the sleepless nights and the crying, please, just, he wants to say. Kiss my fucking mind away.
Ian stays quiet through a haze of leftover smoke for a sickening moment with eyes that makes his stomach pulse and Mickey grins almost sluggishly. He's definitely proud of this. More than definite. He groans into the taste likes it been far too long when Ian kisses him, hard, dragging back Mickey's bottom lip with his fucking teeth and pressing his fingers too hard into the base of Mickey's spine. It hurts so much, Mickey loves it so much, god. Ian slows down suddenly and too fast, thumbing up over his shoulder and over his hoodie soft like he's scared to take it too far.
"Fuck, I," Mickey mutters softly, his cock twitches in his jogging bottoms and he pushes his a hand down to grasp it, dry and slow, unmoving, just a grip to keep him steady.
Ian grins half mad when they reach the bedroom, something short and sparky that Mickey would never miss because it's a look he's not seen in so long.
"Bastard--" Mickey's voice drowns out slightly with Ian shoving him against the door of his bedroom, the milky moon pouring through the open window and all over his eyes. All the breath has been shaken from Mickey's body and although his mouth is dripping with it already and his heart is beating double-quick, he feels wrong, out of place.
Ian stops again and Mickey wants to cry because it all feels too much like half-filled promises. He doesn't even kiss him; just stares at him, breathing hotly and wetly at his jaw. Ian pulls himself away fully, so far Mickey couldn't even reach over if he wanted to, he bends down to pull of his socks, it's not sexy or particularly riveting, yet it's so honest and so open that Mickey doesn't know how to react.
Mickey stands there, fully dressed for about a second, just observing the rise and fall of Ian's skin over his ribcage as he drags off his shirt. The tenseness of his stomach that's blushing pink. Ian watches him watching himself, jaw relaxed and eyes soft, before slipping off his boxers, leaving everything in a pile on the floor and getting on the bed. Mickey allows himself one more look before he trips over his jeans and scrabbles up onto the bed. Half mad with it.
/
Mickey wakes to the telly loud in the living room, a cramp in the base of his neck like he's slept all funny and an empty space next to him. The sheets are half thrown over the bed post and against his thigh, the room smells of them, curling in the air like sweat and come and sex, then Ian's brash, inelegant laugh breaks through the silence, and Mickey smiles.
Ian fucked all of the words out of Mickey's brain last night. All of the talks he'd had with himself in the mirror in the bathroom with Svetlana banging on the door, mumbled tiredly into his fourth boilermaker down at the Alibi when the rub'n'tug was particularly quiet, conversations over cold mugs of coffee and soggy toast as Ian lay away from him in the bed with Mickey on his back, near tears, staring at the ceiling, pretending Ian was listening, fuck. Ian didn't even let him breathe last night.
Mickey sighs, scrubs a hand through his hair; rolls out of bed, grabs his smokes and flings himself on top of Ian on the couch.
Mickey feels a little drunk for a minute. Ian's there, his eyes are open and alive and he's left that taste of beer and gum and smoke underneath his tongue.
"Morning?" Ian laughs, raising his eyebrows. There's cartoons on the television, and Mickey feels like cracking up laughing and crying at the same time; the wind gets knocked out of him, Ian's actually here. Pre-manic Ian, Pre-wedding Ian; the Ian who fucked Mickey in the cooler at the kash and grab. 16 year old Ian is back, and the wind circles the room some more in a fierce cycle of clarity before shooting out the open window by the telly and leaving Mickey on his own.
"Yeah, morning, firecrotch," he hasn't said it in so long that it feels weird on his tongue. Ian laughs again, not too loud, but low and brash and childish. They watch Tom and Jerry for another twenty minutes before Mickey's throat opens and closes sporadically and he knows if he talks he'll ruin the fucking moment, so.
He leans forward a little, elbow digging into Ian's knee. Ian turns and their noses bump. Mickey smiles, confident and dizzy, pushes his bottom lip out, then tips Ian's chin down to kiss him. The world floods, he can't breath yet his lungs expand with relief. Ian grips him hard, so hard; needy and groaning and, shit, he really is back.
Ian pushes him backwards into the sofa with a firm instinctive hand at his hip, and Mickey huffs out a laugh before Ian slides his tongue into his mouth. Ian tries to keep up because Mickey's a fucking good kisser, licking up into his mouth wetly, tugging at his bottom lip and slipping his hands into the back of his boxers to grab his cold arse. But he can't.
Ian has had many kisses from men in his lifetime but Mickey sounds like a bloody pornstar; moaning like he's near an orgasm already, fingers digging into his arse and tongue trailing hot and wet down his neck.
"You--you fucker, you--" Mickey gasps as Ian is forced to pull away, dizzy and lost after so long, he kisses down Mickey's stomach, hands slipping underneath Mickey to lift him up and slip into the back of his underwear to grasp a handful of his cold arse. He stops at his belly button having pulled down his boxers a few inches to reveal a smattering of black hair. Ian grins like it's his birthday, dipping down and running his tongue along the fat length of Mickey's dick.
Mickey tries not to think about how he got so hard from just kissing, normally he needs a sloppy handjob first, or even at least a half hour of heavy foreplay and lots of groping; but Ian's taking the tip of his cock into his mouth, licking away the pre-come and Mickey's mind goes blank.
Ian spits down on his cock and it's dribbles down his lips and down his chin, messily. Mickey gasps wetly, throwing his head back and Ian laughs something dirty into the air, turning it hazy through Mickey's rose tinted glasses. Ian clambers up over him, teeth biting into his lip. Mickey huffs out a second laugh, defeated and husky as Ian shoves him back with his nails as he tries to sit up, scratching long white lines down from his cheekbone to his nipples.
"You," Mickey mumbles into his arm as Ian starts to push their hips together, "are a dick."
Ian laughs into his collarbone, pressing warm wet kisses up to his chin. "That so?" He cocks his hips to left to knock Mickey's legs open wider
"Fuck." Mickey replies when their open mouths meet, eyes wide open. Ian winks before he puts his tongue into his mouth. He tastes of something sweet, and salty and salacious, and Mickey chases that taste, until it burns up in his throat and spills out of his fingertips when he scratches at Ian's back. Their cocks are hot and heavy in their underwear as they rock together, a messy rhythm that they can hardly keep up, eyes screwed shut.
"You gonna come, dirty boy. C'mon Mick come for me." Ian says, hitching up with a breath and moving his thighs wider even though they ache. He even talks like Ian at 16 years old, voice wobbly as he runs his mouth to see how far he can push Mickey.
Mickey screws his eyes shut, he's going to come in his pants like a sixteen year old, he's going to be sticky and gross and disgusting, but as his stomach clenches and his mind blurs, he can't seem to care.
"C'mon Mick, shit."
/
Ian wakes with a start, sitting up so fast in their bed that the width of his hangover hits him like a freight train speeding up head long. He lets out a long groan, scrubbing at his face. He doesn’t really have a hangover, not really, it’s more like an ache for home that has spread throughout his whole body and centered into the focus of his brain.
He doesn't wake Mickey up or anything, he just waits until the light shimmers through the dank window and the alarm reads 6:00am, because, stability. Then he butters a slice of toast, drinks half a cup of coffee, washes the dishes and covers up Mick's bare arse with the thin bed sheets before leaving.
/
The house is silent. Eerily silent, like everyone's just packed up and left. Except there's Lego all over the floor, and Carls ninja stars severed in the wall by the TV and Lips at the table in the kitchen surrounded by books and coffee and a restless nights sleep.
"Heya Lip," Ian half waves from the living room. Lip looks up like he's been shot, holding his hand over his heart like a dramatic fucker.
"Shit Ian, warn a guy yeah?" He laughs, pushing his books out of the way in an invitation.
/
"How's Mickey?" Lip asks, eyes soft and tired as he pours sugar into his mug of coffee and watches Ian do the same opposite.
Ian shrugs, licks his fingers of where they're coated at the tips.
"He's alright, you know, he-- he's just Mickey," Ian sighs, taking a sip of his drink, scrunching up his face, putting down the mug and forcing a smile.
Lip gets it, of course, Mandy's loud and mouthy and she wears tight dresses and lipstick, and Mickey, well he's a dick and he's a guy for one; but they're weirdly similar, in a way which they shut themselves in and shut themselves up. They leave those most important to them in the dark rather than talking about whatever's bothering them.
"Annoying right?" Lip says, under his breath. Ian looks up, raises his eyebrows in that gay way of his.
Lip coughs a bit awkwardly, and Ian catches up like a whip; Mandy always being a constant in his mind. Lip thinks she loves Ian more than him sometimes, she should as well though, Ian's never let her down.
"I knew you'd pull it together man," Ian says, with something that looks like relief. But it's also a warning at the same time. Lip doesn't want to start anything though, it's too fucking weird that he's here anyway. Fiona never said anything. Maybe Lip's just been too ignorant.
"How-- how you feeling?" Lip says after a few minutes of silence, the fridge whirring softly. Ian shoots him a look, and Lip's being his usual dickwad self so. Ian shouldn't expect anything less.
"I'm good. Taking my meds, don't worry. One after every meal. Mickey... Mickey's good," he takes a deep breath like it's an overwhelming thought. Lip just observers the twitch of his lips."He's good for me."
Lip nods, flips a page in his physics textbook to fluid dynamics and thinks about the last time he cried, the last time he went to the Milkoviches' and secretly watched Mickey keeping back tears when Ian lay away from him on their bed. He left before anyone could see him, it was too much intimacy; the hand on Ian's thigh, the lips against his shoulder, the tears muffled into his silly orange hair glinting in the sunlight. Was it aerodynamic, did it form a viscous medium; was it even fucking real.
As Ian stands up for the fifteenth billion fucking time to check the clock on the microwave, Lip blurts out: "you love Mickey?"
Ian doesn't move a muscle or hesitate or anything. He looks at Lip, scary and tangible and like the stubborn five year old who wouldn't give up the Batman doll that Lip insisted was crappier compared to Robin. Lip's breath catches short in his throat. "Yes. I do, I fucking do."
"'Kay," is all Lip can reply before Debbie comes down the stairs, stopping short at the bottom stop, dithering for a second before running towards Ian, screaming and crying like a hurricane.
Ian's back, and although it was always there, that look in his eye, Lip had considered it before, it's real now. Ian isn't his to protect anymore. Lip doesn't know whether his world has been smashed into the pieces or built up again.
/
"Christ Ian, you need to just, fuck," Mickey's actually dying, every breath being punched from his gut every time Ian's dick shoves into him. It's like a punishment; Ian's not giving him any space or breath. He's suffocating when all he wants to do is ask if Ian's okay.
Ian doesn't stop-- he's fucks him quickly like a madman, then goes slow and deep until Mickey's tearing up and his cock almost burns and his brain bursts into static noise. Mickey doesn't want to call him crazy, but with the way Mickey's whole body screams with his orgasm and the whole mattress seems to swallow up his soul; Ian's a fucking demon.
/
It's stopped feeling like his lungs have been opened. Whenever he tries to talk, Ian kisses the air from his lungs or sucks his soul through his dick and then disappears. It's been a week since Ian's got out of bed and Mickey would much rather prefer he be in it. He's scared, shit-scared of everything.
/
"Does he-- does he look in a, state?" She's not worded it right, she's confused, she's got enough on her plate but she gets it.
Mickey shakes his head. He doesn't know how to say it either. Ian's not got those manic eyes anymore, eyes that make Mickey think he's capable of grasping the world in his hand and crushing it slowly between his fingers. But he's not shivering like before, those shivers that rattled the bed and banished the light and made the house catch fire and fall all around Mickey.
He's not alone anymore, but he still can't tell.
Mickey shrugs, bites his lip and stares at the mug of coffee smoking at his chin.
Fiona sighs, then starts up a story about Monica, about how she woke up all the kids on Christmas Eve and shuffled them outside with the snow halfway up their pyjama bottoms to watch the sunrise. Ian was mesmerised apparently; wide eyed, frozen fingers tugging at Monica's tights.
"Then she just. She fucked up, she fucked up real bad. She never got out of bed on Christmas. Ian stayed outside of Frank's room all day just knocking and whispering, poor kid," Fiona looks terrified as she says it; Mickey screws his eyes shut and never wants to know how Ian feels.
/
Ian's not at home when Mickey gets back. He's not watching stupid cartoons, he's not making toast or tea or shoving Mickey into the wall and kissing him mindless. Mickey's heart drops to the bottom of his foot and his body shakes.
"Shit, shit, shit."
/
He's not at the Alibi. Or running down at that track at their old high school. He's nowhere but he could be anywhere.
Mickey finds him when his fingers are frozen and his heart is about to combust. He's sat at a bus stop past Kash and Grab on the route towards Kenwood.
"Gonna escape on me, aye' Gallagher?" He says, breathing hot into the frozen red shell of Ian's ear barely managing to keep his voice straight.
Ian looks up. There are tear tracks running all over his face; he looks distraught. He shakes his head, fast and starts crying again. He just wants Mickey to believe he's alright, the fogs coming back and it's scary and he wants to get away so Mickey can't suffer anymore.
"Shit, Ian please," Mickey begs. He's stopped thinking around about now, about the depression and the mood swings and the sex; like it's all been stripped to this one night. Ian shivering in the moonlight, face red and petrified and Micky on his knees, holding his hands, kissing his face.
I love you