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“You smile more than you used to.”
It’s said with that dumb fuckin’ smirk, same one this idiot’s been wearing since they were kids, stupid and so goddamn gone on each other that risking it all for love seemed like the most reasonable thing in the world.
Ian always did act like they were an inevitability, there at the beginning. A foregone conclusion that Mickey should just stop fighting, like he hadn’t had a very serious, very literal possibility of death hanging over him like that sword everyone talks about, the one that hot blond guy sings about in Rocky Horror, which Mickey only watched cause Ian insisted, said it was part of his “queer education” or whatever the fuck.
He’d loved it, had smiled the whole time, actually.
Same as he did when they went for brunch and got day drunk on that sparkling wine they couldn’t call champagne (”It’s prosecco, Mick, you know that”) and Ian got handsy and flirtatious, using every bit of charm in his big fuckin’ body to make his husband blush and squirm a little under his attention.
Same as he did when they sat on the balcony at their apartment and drank their coffee together, unhurried, hands linked and resting on one of their knees, the quiet of their life settling over his anxious, perpetually fight-or-flight soul like the balm Ian insisted they use when their roughhousing turned into rougher sex and Ian’s big hands would leave marks that would turn into bruises on Mickey’s ass; Ian would take his time and rub the healing salve into Mickey’s tender skin, never rushing, always making sure he got every single inch of pale skin now dotted with purpling finger-shaped marks, and it was something that felt a lot like love and tenderness, and Mickey would hide his smile in his folded arms, though he knew the slowly developing crows-feet at the corners of his eyes gave him away.
Hell, he’d even smiled his way through a trip to that kids museum last week, all the littlest Gallagher’s in tow, babbling on with their tiny voices and sticky hands and he’d not even bothered correcting the lady who thought Franny belonged to them, like, belonged belonged.
Well, fuck, he thinks, fidgeting a little with the realization that maybe his husband, the goddamn love of his life, is right. Maybe he does smile more. Maybe the weight of the band around his finger settled something in him, made him finally feel like there was concrete fucking proof that someone out there loved him enough to want forever, and that unlike what he’d been sure of for most of his life, he had a forever to look ahead to.
Maybe there was something to be said for the contentedness that came from stability, from comfort, from the man at his side who’d been right all along about their inevitability.
Mickey rubs his finger over his lips, trying to hide his smile and shoots his husband a look, failing immediately at the sight of him to keep his joy at bay.
"What, you trying to take credit or something?"