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At some point Ian opens his eyes and realises he’s not even asleep. When he sees the clock on the bedside table reads 3:57am, the dread settles in and he can’t help but replay the day before in his head.
It was a good one, he knows that. He’d taken Franny to the park so Debbie could go to the store and he’d pushed her on the swings until she’d announced she was bored. On the way home he’d bought her an ice cream and she’d told him that she liked him more than she liked her mummy which made Ian feel, not for the first time, like grabbing Debbie and shaking her until she realizes how good she’s got it, but it also made his stomach squeeze the way it does when he sees Mickey packing Liam’s school lunches on the days that he doesn’t work mornings. Like maybe one day they could have a kid and give it a good life.
It was a good day. But now all he can think about was whether it was normal that a 5 year old got tired before he did? Was he being too much fun? Would a little girl be able to tell if there was something wrong? His head spins. And he knows it’s always going to be like this, a bad day could never just be a bad day, and a good day couldn’t be too good either without him questioning whether he was still in control. He sits upright in the bed and wonders whether he can make it to the door without waking Mickey.
Mickey stirs where he’s lying next to him and Ian holds his breath, thinks he’s gotten away with it until he speaks, mumbled from where his face is pressed into the pillow, “‘Time is it?”
Ian let’s out a breath, “Like, four.”
He yawns, “How long you been awake?”
He could lie, but then he panics that the thought had crossed his mind, everything is a symptom if you try hard enough, “Don’t think I’ve been to sleep.”
He braces himself for the fourth degree, the worried eyes, the way Mickey twists his mouth when he’s nervous but trying not to be- but it doesn’t come. Mickey’s eyes stay closed, Ian thinks maybe he was sleep talking the whole time until he speaks again.
“Stop fucking shaking your leg, the whole bed is moving.”
He didn’t even realise he was doing that. He tenses, stills his leg.
Mickey cracks an eye open then, “You gonna lay down, or you gonna get up? Feel like you’re gonna kill me in my sleep.”
Obviously it’s a joke, but it hits a nerve that has Ian sucking in a sharp breath through gritted teeth. “Do you think something’s wrong?”
Mickey huffs a tired laugh, rolling onto his back. “Yeah, its 4am and we’re chatting instead of sleeping.”
Ian pushes his knuckles into his eyes, trying to make sense of what he’s feeling. “I’ve not slept yet, Mick, and I didn’t really sleep great last night. I think I felt a bit manic today but I don’t know, I felt okay at the time but I always do-“ he trails off, frustrated.
“Ian,” Mickey starts, tone much calmer than Ian feels, “This is probably gonna happen a couple of times a year, forever. Your meds cycle out or it’s just a bad day, and I’m sorry it sucks, but it doesn’t have to be a big deal every time.” He runs a hand over Ian’s twitching thigh, thumb tracing patterns softly.
“What if I’m having an episode?” He whispers, he’s not said that word out loud in a while. It’s weird to be the one asking that question, so used to being the one on the defence when others ask it of him.
“It’s not an episode, but maybe you are a bit manic. So then you just go get your meds adjusted. It’s only been one night, right? Sometimes people just can’t sleep, maybe it is your bipolar, but either way there’s no way to fix it tonight.” His eyes have dropped closed again but his hand still moves in comforting shapes on Ian’s leg letting him know he’s still listening.
“I think it’s just been one or two nights, but now I’m thinking that we’ve barely seen each other in the last few days, I was with Franny most of yesterday and she wouldn’t know if I was being weird. She said I was fun but could she have been picking up on mania, I think I’ve been tapping my foot more than usua-“
Mickey cuts him off with a groan. “It’s four in the morning, man, you can’t sleep because you’re being a psycho about having too much fun with your niece. Lie down with me for an hour and then go on a fucking run, see if you can tire yourself out. If you don’t sleep again tomorrow night we’ll go straight to the clinic before I knock you out myself.”
His tone isn’t harsh despite his words, its softer with sleepiness, a hell of a lot different to how he sounds in the daytime, but Ian feels a lump form in his throat all the same. He feels pathetic but he has to ask, “Why don’t you care about this?”
Mickey’s eyes open again, shuffling a bit so he’s more upright in the bed, and he searches for Ian’s hand, just holding it between two of his. “I do care Ian, more than anything. But this is our normal, so it has to feel normal. Something changes, we stay calm and we handle it. Way I see it there’s no point in two of us losing our minds over it, if you’re worrying then I don’t have to, right? When you’re talking to God and telling me you’re fine then it’ll be my turn to worry.”
That gets a small smile out of Ian, and Mickey continues, “I’ve said it a thousand times, sickness, health, all that shit – I’m here for it. But, you told me you didn’t want a nurse. So I’m not being a nurse, I’m being your husband, who wants to fucking sleep. And I want you to fucking hold me while I do it.”
God, Ian loves him. He squeezes his hand and thinks, far from the first time, that he’s so lucky. “If they change my meds, I might be useless for days.”
Mickey snorts, “You’ve always been fucking useless. If they knock you out for a bit enjoy it, you’ll get breakfast in bed and time off work. And I’ll enjoy having a househusband to come home to.”
He watches as Mickey snuggles back under the comforter obviously ready for the conversation to be over.
“You been talkin’ to a professional?”
“I am a fucking professional when it comes to you, ten years remember? Nah, just- I got it wrong last time, I was too young, and I thought it was up to me to fix you. I know I was suffocating you, and driving myself to an early grave too, it wasn’t realistic and you saw that.” He brings Ian’s hand to his mouth and brushes his lips against his knuckles, the gesture still makes Ian’s heart flip.
Mickey continues, voice soft and sure, and Ian thinks that he wants to live in moments like these when Mickey tells him exactly what he needs to hear. “I’ll always want to look after you, I know you’d do the same for me, but we have to do it right this time. This is gonna last forever, and so are we, so we can’t freak out every time you feel off. We’ll both burn out. You want babying every so often and I’ll do it, but for the most part we just handle it. No resentment, no panic, just handling it together.”
And yeah, Ian can do that.
---
They do go to the clinic and he does get an adjustment. The doctor makes a comment about how lucky Ian is to have a partner who goes with him, which seems to piss Mickey off, he sees his jaw clench out of the corner of his eye, but Ian still squeezes his knee and nods when she says it.
He takes the pills and gets into bed, and unlike years before, Mickey doesn’t check he’s taken them, just ruffles his hair and tells him he’s going downstairs to watch TV, but to text him if Ian ends up being sick like he was that time in prison that they changed what brand they gave him. Ian was right, they do knock him out, for about three days, but it’s not so bad.
In the daytime Mickey goes to work, but not before leaving a water bottle on the table next to the bed and kissing Ian on the crown of his head. In the evenings Mickey drags him downstairs to eat a microwave dinner on the couch, grinning and blowing gently on his face to wake him up when he inevitably nods off to whatever shit Mickey is engrossed in on the TV. At night Mickey guides him back up the stairs, and while they sleep, wraps around him for a change and, even though it feels a bit suffocating, it is kind of nice to be surrounded by warmth and familiar smell whilst his brain feels foggy.
It’s not ideal, he’s never not going to wonder what his life could have been if he didn’t have to deal with this, and although the shame he used to feel knowing that people know he’s not quite right has faded over the years he still doesn’t love talking about it. But it’s not that bad, kind of just feels like he’s had the flu for a couple of days, when he can hear Mickey chatting away while he gets ready for work, laughing at his own jokes and prodding Ian’s toes where they stick out the covers, he thinks that maybe it’s not the end of the world if this happens once in a while for the rest of their lives. He can handle it. They can handle it.
He wakes up on the fourth day aching from head to toe but joins Mickey downstairs for breakfast, he walks into the crowded kitchen to a table full of family members who barely glance up at him as they continue whatever argument they’re having that morning. Franny wiggles her fingers at him from across the room, something like jam smeared across her face, and Ian does it back. Its normal, not by most people’s standards sure, but its good enough for Ian.