Chapter Text
Mickey didn’t really notice when it happened—when the silence between them stopped feeling comfortable and started feeling terminal .
At first, he chalked it up to the meds. Ian was tired all the time, or wired, or lost in some foggy in-between. But Mickey had promised to stay, hadn’t he? He’d said it—arms around Ian’s shaking body in a gas station parking lot at 3 a.m., the night after the diagnosis. “I got you,” he'd whispered, like a pact with God. “I ain’t goin’ anywhere.”
So he didn’t.
Even when Ian pulled away. Even when Ian kissed him like he was already saying goodbye.
“We hereby conduct this post-mortem
He was a hothouse flower to my outdoorsman”
Mickey had never wanted delicate things. He didn’t know what to do with them—couldn’t keep a plant alive, never held a baby for longer than five seconds, flinched every time someone cried near him. But Ian wasn’t delicate, not at first. He had fire. He had rage . Mickey knew what to do with that.
But now? Now Ian was all glass edges and soft apologies. And then, he wasn’t anything at all.
“I can’t do this,” Ian had said, standing at the foot of the bed like he was afraid to come any closer. “I can’t... be this person with you watching me become him .”
Mickey had just stared. Tried to get a read. “What the fuck does that mean?”
Ian didn’t answer.
“We were blind to unforeseen circumstances
We learned the right steps to different dances”
He didn’t slam the door when he left. He closed it carefully. Mickey sat on the edge of the mattress, listening to the click of Ian’s boots down the hallway, the low creak of the building, the hum of their now-extinct routine.
At first, Mickey stayed angry. That was easy. Anger was something he could hold. He punched a wall. He ignored everyone’s texts. He smoked until his lungs burned and then some. But underneath it all, there was a hollow place filling with something worse— confusion , maybe. Grief . He didn’t know how to name it.
Nights were the worst.
“Say it once again with feeling
How the death rattle breathing”
He started dreaming of Ian—not the Ian who left, but the one who looked at him like he was the only solid thing in the world. The one who laughed into Mickey’s mouth in the dead of winter, cheeks red from the cold, always asking for five more minutes under the blankets.
Mickey woke up from those dreams disoriented, hands clutching empty sheets, the echo of laughter still sharp in his ears.
Some nights, he sat in the living room in total darkness, phone in hand, staring at Ian’s name. Not calling. Not texting. Just staring , like maybe the sheer force of missing him could conjure him back.
“Silenced as the soul was leaving
The deflation of our dreaming”
He thought about the promise he'd made. How stupid it sounded now—“I got you.” Maybe Ian hadn’t wanted to be got . Maybe Mickey was too much reminder of what Ian was trying to outrun.
And maybe love wasn’t enough—not for people like them. Not when the world had taught them that needing someone meant weakness, and being needed meant a kind of responsibility they never asked for.
Still, Mickey waited. Quietly .
He didn’t tell anyone. Didn’t explain.
He just waited.
And somewhere deep down, beneath all the concrete and scar tissue, he hoped that Ian would remember the version of himself who once said, “You’re it for me.”
Because Mickey did. Every damn day.
And maybe one day, that would be enough.
Maybe.