Work Text:
It's been six years. Six whole years since the best day of his life. He'd been married to Ian now for perhaps longer than he lived without knowing him, or knowing of him at least.
He wondered if the novelty would ever wear off, if maybe there would come a time when the words 'husband' and 'married' didn't steal his breath. He hoped not.
When he was growing up the idea of marriage was laughable. A marriage bed was just somewhere his poor, child bride mother did what she had to do to survive. A marriage bed was where his mother lay alone and strung out while Terry lay passed out on the couch. And then one day that bed lay empty, and his mother was gone.
The next time he even thought about marriage was when he got out of juvie the second time. Ian had been sleeping with married men in his absence, and it hurt. It hit at something buried bone deep to know that though these men didn't have all of Ian, they had more of him than Mickey did. They could take him to lavish hotels, they weren't afraid to be seen with him in bars. They kissed him like he belonged to them, like kissing was a given right, a foregone conclusion.
Clearly, marriage meant nothing to them. And for a long time Mickey assumed it had meant nothing to Ian too. Gay marriage wasn't even legal when this whole thing started, and the people Ian knew and affiliated with did not embody marital bliss.
But then Svetlana happened. And Ian had pleaded with him not to do it. He had said "not to me" in that broken voice, sounding so much like the damaged teenager he so often pretended he wasn't. Suddenly, making a commitment to Svetlana meant betraying Ian. But if he didn't sign that marriage certificate, he'd be signing his own death warrant.
And for months, his marriage bed had meant lying beside a stranger. It meant getting so black out drunk that he could forget. It meant missing Ian so fiercely with every wretched, trembling piece of him. It meant staggering back to that bed and passing out above the covers so that he never had to feel the warmth of a body that wasn't Ian's. He hadn't thought of his mother in years, but somehow, as he lay staring at the water-marked ceiling, he knew that they were kindred. Caged and shackled by a shared bed and a fucking piece of paper.
But then Ian had come back. They had always come back to each other. Gay marriage was legalised. His marriage to Svetlana hadn't even been legal at all. Terry no longer loomed like the spectre of death that had controlled his every breath for his entire life. And in the deepest recesses of his mind where Mickey dared to hope, he'd let himself think of a one day. He let himself dream of a maybe.
But that one day happened. That maybe was now six full, sure years. Ian was the first thing and the last thing he saw every single day. If Ian wasn't within reach, Mickey always knew exactly where to find him. Marriage was security, sincerity, a weight on his finger that reminded him that he belonged to someone. Marriage was forever with his best friend.
His marriage bed was a cocoon of warmth and safety and comfort. It was cold toes pressed to warm calves and stolen covers and entwined limbs. It was breathy laughter and soft snores and shouts of ecstasy. His marriage bed was home. And for the first time, marriage meant what it was supposed to mean, what it always should have meant: love.
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