“But what if they’re secretly upset with me and are just claiming to be fine-” Then they have shitty communication skills and that’s not your fault or responsibility
you know what breaks my heart: ian has just left the love of his life at the mexican border. he doesn’t know if he will ever see mickey again or if mickey will even survive. ian doesn’t even have a chance to process that loss before he finds out monica has died. he has to watch the devastation of frank losing monica and ian know what that feels like first hand as he’s grieving for mickey too. ian then can’t cope with the grief and the isolation of not being able to talk about it as the one person he probably wants to speak to his also lost to him as mickey was a place of comfort for ian. i then think about how at some stage ian will have thought about how he chose to leave mickey at the border because he was stable and had a job he loved. how he had broken mickey’s and his own heart to say “this isn’t me anymore” for him to then become a felon and be sent to prison. he must have felt giving mickey up was for nothing in the end. only for him to find mickey in the one place ian doesn’t want mickey to ever be again, even is he’s so over the moon.
i think this is one of the wildest results of this being a television show and not a “planned” story (like a movie or book) because what they do in s8/s9 with ian is so obviously impacted by cameron leaving. i have no idea at what point the writers knew, but i’m guessing by the end of s8 for sure based on how everything with trevor fizzles out. regardles, it’s incredible how well that out-of-universe decision meshes with ian’s slow implosion post-monica & mickey. of course ian isn’t okay after that. of course the people around him suck at getting through to him. i think in particular given how badly trevor handled meeting monica, it makes sense that he’s a poor partner to ian once ian isn’t in a euthymic period. we already knew that ian’s family struggles to help him, but these seasons take it even further because now most of them don’t even have the time for him. i also think they’re less symapthetic to him because he’s doing it “again.” you know—much like monica.
so yeah—it REALLY, REALLY is painful that ian’s decision to part from mickey is almost negated, but the full picture of it is so moving to me? because ultimately it reinforces just how much better mickey is than everyone else. he’s not just the superior love interest of ian’s, but the superior love interest of the entire show. no one even comes close to matching mickey’s devotion. mickey proves every single one of his future wedding vows true. he’s there for ian for better or worse, for richer or for poorer, and in sickness and in health.
and i think no matter how ironically pathetic the situation might feel for ian, it doesn’t mean that going with mickey would have been the better thing to do. i think instead it rewards ian for meeting mickey at all, for loving him those briefs moments they were together, and for giving mickey everything he could to help him escape (his savings, participation, and silence). mickey is heartbroken when he parts from ian, but he does feel ian’s love. and that’s what carries him home.
Many thank you’s to @galladrabbles and @dreamjupiter for this week’s prompt, Date Night. Right under the wire this week because I was stupid and wrote one for the wrong prompt. Not even sure how that happened. I’m just glad I realized it before posting. Word Count: 100 ……………….
“Are we boring?”
“No—who said we’re boring?”
“I’m saying it. It’s Friday night—we’re sitting on the floor watching tv,” Mickey took the last wonton.
Ian growled. “You ate'em all.”
“You ate the eggrolls.”
“Gimme the wonton.”
“No.”
“Gimme. The wonton.”
“N.O.”
Ian lunged, grabbing Mickey’s ankles, dragging him over. Mickey yelped, quickly eating the wonton, victorious.
“Bitch!” Ian joked, flipping Mickey over. “I’m gonna fuck you on our boring carpet. In our boring apartment. In front of our boring tv. You’ll scream so hard the neighbors’ll call the cops.”
