Gallavitch Oneshots

chicago on high

Original Author: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotcuppa/pseuds/hotcuppa

Summary: when the quarantine started, ian didn't think it would be all that bad.

what he hadn't expected was the effect it'd taken on his mental health.

Text:  when the quarantine started, ian didn't think it would be all that bad. a bit frustrating, sure, since they'd both lost their method of income—but they were getting unemployment checks that were more than enough for the time being, and debbie still brought money in occasionally, so ian was mostly happy to spend his days in the house with mickey, liam, debbie, and his niece.

what he hadn't expected was the effect it'd taken on his mental health. going off of his routine and being cooped up in the house hadn't done him any favors, and of course he ran out of meds within three weeks and had to go out and get more. only, this time, the clinic changed his dosage and one of his meds entirely, and while ian hadn't noticed immediate effects within the first few days, the change was more than noticeable now. he was always tired, but couldn't sleep. he was sluggish and groggy all the time, felt like his brain was static and his limbs were moving in slow motion. sometimes, he couldn't even keep up with conversation, or stand for the entire duration of a shower.

it was frustrating, to say the least. over the years he'd come pretty far in managing his bipolar, and it felt like he was going backwards now. he felt almost as out of it as he'd felt when he was coming down off of lithium the first time, after he got out of the psych ward. like his bones are made of lead and his brain is styrofoam.

he knows that everybody notices, but they don't say anything. debbie just does this thing where she stares at him for a real long time, like she's trying to solve a math problem but can't quite find the value of x. and sometimes, she talks to him real softly, like she's scared to set him off. she goes to liam or mickey for things she might've gone to ian for, before. 

mickey doesn't treat him any differently, but ian sees the concern in his eyes. he doesn't know what he hates more—the fact that he can't manage his own shit, or the fact that mickey's pitying him because of it. he hates walking around feeling like a ticking time bomb, and he hates feeling like his family is walking on eggshells around him. he hates knowing that they'll never understand how it feels, that he can't tell them that his brain feels like it leaked right out of his skull and down his spinal cord, that he hasn't been able to taste anything for ten days and that he fell asleep in the shower the other night. he doesn't want to disappoint them. he doesn't want to give mickey a reason to treat him differently. not again.

he forces himself out of bed at 11am, even though it takes every scrap of energy in his body to do so. usually, debbie has him up by 8:30am, making breakfast for franny and liam. mickey's always up early, drinking coffee and watching some rerun on tv, pretending to read the newspaper. but today, ian slept in, and nobody came to wake him up. it makes him feel even more off-kilter, his stomach settling even farther down in his torso—even more lead weighing him down.

ian shuffles down the stairs and into the kitchen, making a beeline for the coffee pot. he knows the caffeine won't do anything to help, but he holds onto hope that this time might be different, anyway. the meds have to adjust at some point, right? he has to get used to them, eventually.

mickey is at the table pretending to read the paper this time, eating a bowl of cereal. franny is with him, coloring on the comics page that mickey had given her. ian knows he's not reading because his eyes aren't moving—he's cataloguing ian's movements, watching him without watching him. ian feels his skin prickle with irritation, like poison ivy spreading across his body. he tries to shove it down with a gulp of lukewarm coffee.

"morning," mickey finally says, putting the paper down and looking over at ian. "i know you didn't fall asleep until late, otherwise i would've woken your ass up. franny here demanded attention by 7:15, so you owe me."