Chapter Text
"Morning." Mickey croaked, rolling over and attaching himself to his boyfriend's back. Ian didn't move. "Hey." Mickey once again tried to get his boyfriend's attention. "Ian?"
He leaned over his naked torso. "What's up? You sick?"
"Gimme me some space."
"Why? What's wrong?"
"Mick, just leave me alone."
"Fuck no. Ya gotta get up and take your meds. And school starts in like an hour and a half."
"Go away." Ian growled.
"Shit." Mickey whispered. "I can't deal with this, man." He said without a trace of hatred in his voice, simply filled with fear. "I'm not strong enough."
"I'm not your responsibility." He heard come faintly from Ian's lips.
"You are if I make you my responsibility. I want to look after you. Like you did for me."
"I don't need you." He almost growled.
"Yes, you do."
"Go away!"
"I can't do that. I love you too much ." He said, holding back tears.
"I'm not getting up."
"Then I'll bring you your meds and some water. How much of what should I bring you?"
"I don't care."
"Fat lot of use you are." He tried to lighten the mood but it didn't work. He placed a kiss on his boyfriend's shoulder before rolling out of bed and grabbing the redhead's phone.
He left the bedroom and went to the kitchen to make the call. Cold kitchen tiles shocked his feet and, if the previous few minutes of the already torturous day hadn't already, it would have made him wide awake.
"Hello." He heard from the other end of the phone.
"Um, hi, Fiona?" He sounded unsure.
"Mickey?"
"Yeah."
"What's wrong?"
"I need a favour. Hate me all you want but Ian-"
She cut him off. "Ian what?"
"Do you know his dosage?"
"Of course. Is something wrong?"
"Um, yeah. He won't get up. I was going to take him his pills and a drink. Could you call the school and tell them he's ill so can't teach today?"
"Of course. I'm on my way over, too. I'll be as fast as I can."
"Thanks but I'll let you handle the six thousand kids you have there before you come help me. I got this for as long as you need."
"You don't know what you're dealing with."
"There's only one way to find out, right?" He said, voice dosed with uncertainty.
"Alright." She said, sounding even more uncertain. "I'll be over as soon as I can." She recited his dosage and Mickey wrote it down. "Don't let him do anything stupid."
"You mean don't let my boyfriend kill himself? Yeah, I don't plan to." Mickey sniped, remembering he didn't like the woman.
"Be gentle with him, okay? I've dealt with him like this before. He needs to know you care and don't resent him."
"Of course I don't fucking resent him. I love him. He knows that."
"Right now, he doesn't. He always thinks we hate him when he's like this because we hated Mocnica. I guess he's told you."
"Roughly."
"I'll see you soon and fill you in. I'm trusting you with my baby brother right now. You've got to know how important that is to me. An I trust you is more important than an I love you."
"I got it." He hung up and headed for the cabinet where the pill bottle were stored. After collecting what he needed and pouring a glass of cold water, he ventured back through to the bedroom.
"Hey, Sleeping Beauty." He sat on the edge of the bed nearest the depressed man. "You gunna take these or am I going to have to use force?"
"I don't need 'em."
"Ian, I know you're strong and determined and I love you for it, I but you need these to keep you that way. What have you got to loose?"
"What's the point?"
"Staying healthy? Being happy? Keeping a routine? Sex with your boyfriend?" Ian didn't respond. "Come on. For me."
'For me' was what got Ian to sit up and take the pills from Mickey's hand. The realisation that he'd do anything for his boyfriend washing over him.
"Right, what else can I do for you?"
"Give me some space." The redhead said with a little less hatred in his voice.
"Okay, I'll be through there." He gestured towards the living room.
"Don't you have work?"
"I'll take some time off. I want to be near you, if that's okay?"
"I'm not going to kill myself if that what you're worried about. I'm depressed but I'm not suicidal."
"That's not it. I want to be here for whatever it is you need. I want to show Fiona I can look after you well enough. I want you to remember I love you - like all the time."
There was no response from the bedridden man so Mickey chose to just leave the room after placing a quick kiss on his temple.
Fiona arrived about an hour after their phone call. Unlocking the door (with the key Ian had given her for emergencies), she entered and saw Mickey sulking on the couch. "How's he doing?" She said when the boy sat up straight.
"He took the pills but wanted space so I came through. I was about to go and check on him. You go if you want." He nodded towards the bedroom door.
"Yeah." Was all she said before heading in to see her brother.
"Ian." She said softly, cautiously, as she walked through the door.
"Go away." He growled.
"No. I need you to get up. Come on." She said as she sat on the edge of the bed "What happened?"
"Nothing."
"Something must've."
"Fuck off."
"I came to cheer you up and I'm not leaving until you smile."
"You came because you don't trust Mickey."
"That's not true. I came to look after my little brother." "I don't need you. I'm also 24, I'm not your little brother anymore. I have the right to tell you to fuck off."
"You'll always be my little brother." She straightened out the sheets at Mickey's side of the bed before laying in top of them. After a couple of minutes of silence she piped up. "Remember when you were younger and you stayed in bed for ages?" She didn't get a response. "I sat with you every morning trying to get you to talk to me. You never did but I never gave up. Remember what snapped you out of it?" Ian still didn't talk so she continued. "I got Lloyd to come 'round and he gave you some meds. I managed to get you to take 'em every so often and you began cheering up." She paused to let what she said sink into her brother. "But what really snapped you out of it was when Liam came to see you for the first time. We'd been keeping him from you to protect him but he came in without us knowing because he was worried about you. He started crying and for the first time in a long time you hugged someone. You wanted to protect him. You wanted him to cheer him up. You wanted him to stop worrying about you." She sat up and leaned over Ian's body, making eye contact. "Right now you've got someone else you're scaring."
"You've seen the shit before. You shouldn't be fucking scared." He managed to verbalise.
"I meant Mickey. You're boyfriend needs you to be okay. If anyone can snap you out of it this time, it's him."
"Snap me out of it."he parroted. "You make it sound like I'm just having a bad dream or something."
"That's not what I meant. To him it probably does feel like a bad dream though. You know what it feels like to see someone you love hurting." She left Ian quietly contemplating and went back through to Mickey, who'd been eavesdropping by the door.
They made awkward eye contact before Mickey took a few steps backwards before muttering: "I wanted to know if there's something important I should say next time so I decided-"
"I don't blame you." He interrupted.
"So what triggered it last time?"
"He's has his bad days but he's not been very depressed since before he was diagnosed. This should wash over soon enough. It's generally if he hasn't taken his meds, other than that, we don't really know what it is."
"So I didn't do anything wrong?"
"No." She sighed, realising finally how much the boy loved her brother.
"Has he been taking his meds all the time?"
"I don't think he did last night but other than that-"
"Why didn't he take them last night?"
"We'd been in bed since 7ish."
"Why?" She asked, bemused. Mickey just gave her a look; that look that means 'just think about it'. "Oh." She finally said.
"Yeah. And we just crashed straight after. He didn't really feel like getting up near midnight."
"You can hold out for five hours?" She said, slightly impressed, forgetting there was something more important going on.
"You wanna talk about your brother's sex life?"
"Good point."
"So he starts taking 'em again and he'll get better?"
"Hopefully."
"What do I do until then? Hide the knives and keep an eye on him?"
"Something like that. Don't think he'll go that far though. He doesn't want to be like the hurricane that we call Monica."
"I know. He isn't your mother."
"He needs reminding of that at times like these."
"So what shit did Monica do?"
"Slit her wrists on thanksgiving, almost jumped of the roof because she thought she could fly, ran off with Liam, kept coming home, leaving a baby and then leaving, tried to sell Liam, took Ian to a gay club when he was 13 and 15, tried to persuade him he didn't need his meds. I could list more."
"But he's never done any of that shit. Why would he think he's like her?"
"He ran off to join the army and then became a stripper."
"But turned his life around. What's she doing now?"
"God knows. We haven't seen her in about 6 years."
"So he's not Monica. He doesn't need to be treated like it. I'm going to talk to him like and adult." He took quick strides into the bedroom and sat down on the edge of the bed. "Could you give us a minute?" He said to Fiona, who was standing by the door.