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It takes effort not to slam the cupboard door. It takes effort to pour a glass of water and drink it slowly. It takes effort to turn around, calmly, and look at Mickey rather than, say, storm past him and sulk on the balcony.
”What?” Mickey asks.
He's leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed and staring at Ian with eyebrows raised.
It takes effort to just grit his teeth a little and to keep his voice steady. ”Think maybe you could stop doing that?”
”Do what?” Mickey asks.
It takes effort not to snarl you think you're playing dumb but you really are a fucking idiot, you asshole.
Ian closes his eyes for a moment, counts to three. They're adults. They're married. They need to talk about this stuff, and he won't let Mickey goad him into having a fight (likely to end in angry fucking) instead of discussing it like responsible, mature people.
He opens his eyes again and fixes them on his husband. ”Telling people that you used to steal shit from the store where I worked and that I got pissy when you punched my boss and took his gun and when I came to take it back you pounded the hell out of me and then I pounded the hell out of you, 'if you know what I mean'.”
”Least I leave out the part where you were fifteen and sleeping with your married boss.”
He does, and Ian supposes he should be thankful for small favours, but he doesn't feel like being thankful. He feels like throwing his empty glass at Mickey because he knows that Mickey is doing this shit on purpose. Mickey might not give a damn about what people think but he knows that Ian cares, at least a little, and Mickey isn't actually stupid so he knows how people react when he tells them stuff like that too.
And still he keeps doing it, whenever any of their new neighbors or the guys from their pilates class or one of the other security teams running weed asks about how him and Ian met. This time it had been the couple living two doors down; last week it was bartender at the pub they'd started hanging out at when they couldn't be bothered to make it over to the South Side and the Alibi.
”I don't know what the big deal is,” Mickey insists, with dogged casualness. ”I mean, it's the truth.”
”Yeah, but so is we met through my sister, she and Ian are best friends, and that doesn't make people feel so uncomfortable they start avoiding us.”
”No one's avoiding us, man.”
”No? What about Mrs. Jensen on the third floor? She practically threw herself down the stairs yesterday when she saw us coming.”
Mickey scrunches up his face. ”That old bat? You really wanna talk to her?”
And no, not really, since she yaps on endlessly about her dead dog and seems like she's secretly a racist, but: ”That's not the point. We–
”Isn't it?” Mickey interrupts. ”Listen man, if they can't deal with the way we got together, they ain't gonna like us in the long run anyway. Isn't it better to weed out the losers straight away than to waste time playing nice with people ain't ever gonna accept us for who we are?”
Oh. Ian blinks, because put like that...
”I mean,” Mickey presses on, ”unless you're fucking ashamed of it or something.”
He still sounds perfectly disinterested, like the topic doesn't concern him in the slightest, but he's suddenly avoiding Ian's gaze and rubbing at his eyebrow.
Oh, Ian thinks again. Okay, maybe he should have seen this coming.
”No,” he says carefully and with great emphasis as he takes a step closer to Mickey and tries to catch his husband's eyes. ”I'm not ashamed, Mickey.”
Not of how they started and not of anything that they are.
Not of Mickey, not ever.
”Just figured it might be easier for us here if we don't go out of our way to tell everyone how different we are,” he continues as he reaches out to put a tentative hand on Mickey's neck and run his thumb over the back of his head.
Mickey still doesn't look at him but he doesn't shy away from the touch either.
”Like, we don't have to be friends with anyone, but it would it really be so bad to be friendly with them? Make them less likely to complain to Melaine when we fuck too loud.”
Maybe it's cheap and sneaky to use that as an argument, but it seems to do the trick – or maybe Mickey's just reassured by Ian's professed lack of shame – because Mickey makes a face, but moves a bit closer so that Ian can wrap his arms around him and put his chin on top of his head.
”I guess,” he mutters into Ian's shoulder – but after a moment he pulls back to stare up at Ian with an intent look on his face. ”But you really think it's worth pretending to be some normal fucking Joe just so assholes you don't give two shoots about don't look at you funny?”
Ian frowns. There's no trace of feigned nonchalance in Mickey's voice now; there's no attempts to avoid Ian's stare. His husband is completely serious, and it occurs to Ian that maybe this isn't just about Mickey and Mickey's insecurities, but about Ian, too, and Mickey's concern for him.
Mickey's concern for Ian, who has tendency to conform to expectations of others, sometimes to the point of losing sight of his own wants and needs.
For Ian, whom Mickey never wants to see make himself small and bland and anything less than himself.
Letting go of a long sigh, Ian smiles, though the shape of it tastes bittersweet in his mouth, and he pulls his arms tighter around his husband and drops a kiss on his hair.
”I guess not,” he allows. ”But maybe we find some sort of middle way? A compromise?”
”Yeah? Like what?”
”I don't know. But we can think about it, maybe?”
”Yeah, okay.” Mickey sounds decidedly put-upon, but that's just Mickey. He makes no move to break away from the embrace.
Ian smiles and runs a hand through his husband's hair and loves him and it takes no effort at all.