Casual Sabotage

19 - Why?

It took until late September until Ian's depression faded again, which was good timing because Mickey was at the end of his strength.

Ian had made progress throughout the week, talking, walking around more than before. That afternoon in late September, Mickey came home from Work and found Ian in the kitchen cooking dinner.

"Hey, you're out of bed", Mickey said to him softly.
Ian looked at him and smiled lovingly under his red beard, he ignored the food, came up to him and hugged him tightly.
"I love you", he whispered and it sounded so desperate as if he had wanted to say it for weeks now, but couldn't, "I love you so much, I'm so sorry."
"Shh, we talk about it later, upstairs. The food is burning."

Ian stepped back and looked to the ground in what Mickey could only describe as shame. So Mickey stepped closer to him again and kissed his cheek, "Show me what you're having there?"

Ian nodded and went to the pots, "Made your favourite, tried at least.", he mumbled.
Mickey's favourite food, outside of greasy fast food and jello, was pasta with a special pepper-tomato meat sauce with Ukrainian influences. He had the original recipe from his mother, who made this for them all the time, usually, she made it in bulk and froze the rest of it, so they still had something to eat, when she wasn't there or they had no other way to get their hands on new food. When people talked about "comfort food" in cooking shows, Mickey thought about this sauce his mother made. He also used it to actually "comfort" people, Ian learned the recipe from him when they were living in the Milkovich house together and Mickey cooked for him when Ian was upset about something.

Mickey took a spoon and tasted the sauce. Ian looked at him in anticipation. Mickey smiled at him, it tasted pretty good.
"You're getting better at this", he said with a smile, "Burned the peppers a bit though, huh?"
Ian shrugged and looked at the ground again.
"It's pretty good, Gallagher.", Mickey assured him.

The whole evening, from cooking over dinner where he had to answer a bunch of questions from his siblings, Ian looked extremely nervous and ashamed, always glancing at Mickey and moving his hand towards him to touch him, but then pulling back again, not daring to touch him after all.

Mickey stopped the siblings from talking about the bipolar disorder though. He told them, he wanted to talk about it with Ian alone at first, hear how he experienced the time and what he thought was going on.

Eventually, they were both in their room with brushed teeth and in their sleeping clothes. Mickey sat on the bed, leaning against the headboard. Ian was sitting on the edge of the bed by Mickey's feet.

"We have to talk about it now, don't we?", Ian mumbled.
"Yeah", Mickey sighed, "So, about the job and the money-"
"I'm sorry", Ian interrupted him, he pulled his knees to his chest, "I'm so sorry. I don't know what was wrong with me. I just felt so happy and... light. Like nothing could go wrong. I thought people find me hot at the club anyway, so I could also make money with that, right? I know it was wrong and also that I spent our money, I'm sorry"

Mickey looked at him sadly, he tipped his foot against Ian's body. Ian looked up, Mickey spread out his arms and Ian crawled over the bed to him. Ian put his head against Mickey's chest and Mickey wrapped his arms around him.

"Do you know... why you did all that? Why you felt like that?"
Ian shrugged, "I was just happy. I just felt good and I wanted you to feel good too, and I thought giving you a nice birthday present would make you happy too."

It was such childish logic, but Mickey almost felt bad when he thought about how angry he had gotten when Ian bought the car.
"I know it was wrong, I should have never done that, we had plans for the money", he mumbled, "I promise it won't happen again", he looked up at him, "I promise I will never do something like that again, Mickey, just please don't leave me", he pleaded, "Don't leave me, I love you so much."