Mickey. Mickey. Mickey.
All Ian could think about was Mickey.
The way his face had crumpled.
The breathy "fuck" that had fallen shakily from his lips, making Ian's heart drop into his stomach.
Mickey. Mickey. Mickey.
He hadn't seen him in weeks. Hell, he hadn't seen anyone in weeks. His family kept trying to rouse him, but there was nothing left for him anymore.
Ian was fucked up. Ian was fucked up in a way that could not and never would be fixed. He'd had no choice but to make Mickey know that. Mickey had needed to know that Ian would be like this forever. He was a different person. There was no shrink or pill that could make him normal. Ian did not just have a disease. He was a disease. He drained everything he touched. Tainted it. Hurt it.
But still.
Mickey.
Where are you Mickey?
I need you Mickey.
He wished he hadn't done it. He wished he was laying in his boyfriend's arms right now rather than curled up alone, his body shivering and shuddering. He couldn't sleep. He needed Mickey.
Mickey. Mickey. Mickey.
Was it the illness doing this to him? Was he having a moment of clarity now? Was he manic when he broke up with Mickey? Or was he manic now? It was difficult to tell anymore.
Up was now down and down was now up. It didn't matter. Either way, why the fuck did it matter?
Ian was losing it. He was fucking losing it. But Mickey wasn't there to ground him anymore. Mickey wasn't there to tell him it was okay, he was fine, they would get through it together, nothing was fucking impossible. Not with them. Never with them. Together, they were capable of anything. Even this fucking disease.
But Ian had given that up. Ian had broken that. He'd broken Mickey. And hell if that didn't mean he'd broken himself too.
It was getting worse. Every day it was getting fucking worse.
Ian felt like he could fly. All he had to do was just... inch... a... little... further... and he'd be over that edge, flying and soaring to oblivion.
"Ian!"
Mickey. The voices now, they sounded like Mickey.
"Gallagher! Get the fuck away from there! I swear to God, I'm going to fucking kill you my fucking self!"
Ian smiled. He leant slowly forwards, the weight of his upper body beginning to tip him just slightly over that beautiful precipice. That single point, the tipping point, that precise calculation of physics, of gravity, of weight, of force. Ian was swaying over it.
Until he wasn't.
Ian felt the breath knocked out of him. He opened his eyes and stared up at the grey, overcast, Chicago sky. And then. Mickey.
Pissed Mickey.
Eyes blue, stormy, feral, ferocious.
Shaky hands, crassly tattooed and scarred from one too many fights, seized Ian's face tightly. And then...
Warmth.
Lips, tongue, teeth. Mickey was consuming him.
Ian grasped tightly, the world finally beginning to shift back onto its axis, as he returned the passion with everything he had left in his damaged heart.
Mickey.
Mickey was here.
"I hate you so much."
Tears ran down Ian's face. They weren't his tears though. The tears fell from the blue eyes of a boy just as broken and damaged as the one cradled in his arms.
"I hate you too." Ian whispered.
Mickey looked soft in the warm glow of the morning. His hair rumpled, his eyelashes brushing his cheekbones, his chest rising and falling in a slow and steady rhythm. Ian snuggled closer to him, trying his best not to grin like a 12 year-old girl when Mickey's arms tightened instinctively around him.
Mickey.
Mickey.
Mickey.