#anyways go check out zo’s social media AUs they r the greatest!!

[unbridgeabledistances]

hi!!!!💘 here have another “ian processing things” ficlet inspired by this post i saw today by zo @grabmyboner <3

(contrary to zo’s amazing post, ian does not have a new instagram in this to fuel the slight angst🤕)

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He was having a weirdly good morning when it happened— it was Sunday, and he and Mickey had woken up late tucked together in a warm cocoon under the sheets, legs tangled and bodies pressed close, with Mickey breathing out huffy, just-waking-up breaths into Ian’s neck that tickled his skin until Ian had rolled onto his side and playfully shoved him away.

They’d laid under the sheets for what felt like hours, lazily scrolling on their phones, with Mickey letting out puffs of air through his nostrils in a silent chuckle every time a particularly outdated and stupid meme came across his Instagram Explore page— and of course Ian had to combat Mickey’s intense glee at holding up dumb Instagram memes too close to Ian’s sleep-bleary eyes by clicking open his own phone and thumbing over to the pink and orange app on his home page, to try and find some other stupid shit that would make his groggy half-asleep husband laugh.

It was then, when he opened the app and passively flicked over to his notifications, when he saw the memory:

See your post from 6 years ago today.

Before Ian even clicked on the thumbnail of the picture, before he touched the pad of his finger to the blurred, too-small image beside the words bolded in black, he felt the telltale tightening creeping into his chest— the one he couldn’t really explain most of the time, the one that snuck in and left his heart rattling and pounding against the walls of his ribcage despite the shaky, measured breaths that he tried to sip in and out to fight the rush of feeling.

But out of curiosity, or maybe a little bit of self-sabotage, he clicked on the image—with Mickey still obliviously smirking at his phone screen beside him in the bed, his free arm draped casually across Ian’s chest. So Mickey didn’t notice, really, when Ian pulled up the full post on his own screen— a pixely photo, taken on a now-outdated iPhone in the hazy darkness of the Fairytale.

Ian’s pale skin, the strobe lights bouncing off of it, was the only really visible item in the foreground— and in the shadows behind him, a group of unfamiliar faces. It didn’t even really look like him— his heavy-lidded gaze was murky, definitely hopped up on some bizarre cocktail of drugs quickly taken in a dirty bathroom stall with shaky hands. Ian— Ian in the photo, Ian at the club— was leaning sloppily against the chest of a grey-haired stranger in a dark button-up; glitter on his hollow cheeks, a barely-there mesh top, smudged eyeliner almost masking the purple shadows under his eyes. A black feather boa wrapped tight, too tight, around his neck— an older man with his hand snaked around Ian’s waist, another with his fingertips tangled in the end of the boa.

The tightness was still there, a rubber band wrapped snug around his chest. Aside from the shame and disgust swirling somewhere in his gut at seeing this stupid fucking picture, the thing that Ian felt most was the annoyance welling in him, thick and heavy— what fucking person couldn’t look at a picture of themselves being a stupid teenager? What type of person still felt the aftershocks, like fire and ice and fucking bee stings swelling under his skin, just by looking at a fucking old Instagram post?

“Hey man, are you good?”

Mickey’s phone was now face-down on the blanket, his body twisting under the sheets towards Ian. His eyes flickered to the phone clenched tight in Ian’s hand, undoubtedly searching for the reason that Ian’s heart was thrumming just a little bit too quickly under where Mickey’s hand was still limply resting on his chest.

Ian tried to swallow down whatever was in his throat, whatever was on his tongue. “It’s fine. Just thought I deleted all these old pictures and shit.” And despite that, he couldn’t really look away. “I guess I only got rid of the ones with the sleazy comments. And the videos or whatever.”

Mickey’s brows furrowed. They both weren’t really social media aficionados— if anything, they’d only really gotten into it recently, after the wedding and the move and needing some way to keep the rest of the Gallagher clan plus Kev and V in the loop about their various gardening endeavors and pictures of Baz sleeping, and to see Lip and Tami post baby pics of Freddie and his new little sister. Ian had rebooted his old Instagram account, the one he’d made in his final moments of high school and posted heavily-filtered pictures with Mandy on before joining the army. When he’d started working at the club back then, the Instagram quickly became a place to drum up business, to post specific photos and to flirt with clients in the comments— and he thought he’d deleted all of them when he redownloaded the app, keeping the pictures of a freckled 15-year-old Ian and removing the rest up through youth center brunches with Geneva. Apparently he’d missed this one, and all the memories that could come flooding back with it— and neither he nor Mickey had really noticed.

Mickey’s eyes stayed frozen to the screen— cautious, thinking. “Just fucking delete it, man.”

Ian thumbed over the red delete button, sending the picture into some sort of pixelated oblivion. But even that couldn’t really scrub the image out of his mind— the fingers pressed into his hip, the scratchy feathers tangled around his neck, the now-heavy boulder lodged in his chest. He ran his free hand through his hair, trying to ground himself in the face of whatever weird floatiness he was feeling—tugging at it, just a little.

“Hey.”

Mickey reached over— gently plucking the cell phone out of Ian’s white-knuckled grasp, placing it beside his with a soft thud on the bedsheets. Running his own hand through Ian’s hair— a hand that was gentle and slow, a hand that slightly dulled the buzzing in Ian’s brain, soothing the pain at the roots of his hair.

“Sorry.”

Mickey opened his mouth to protest Ian’s apology, but the words kept spilling out. “I don’t know why seeing stuff like that still makes me feel like shit. It’s like I forget it actually happened.”

He was healthy now— he was stable. He had an apartment with his husband, and a dog, and a savings account. How could he feel so fucking good one second, be laying in his bed from Ikea under a fucking duvet next to the love of his life, and feel so shitty in the next when he looked that version of himself in the eye?

It was stupid— it was so fucking stupid, but the feeling didn’t stop. He closed his eyes— he tried to focus on Mickey’s fingers, still scratching a slow pattern onto his scalp.

“You’re okay, Ian.” He let himself release a slow breath as he absorbed Mickey’s words. “You’re not there anymore. You worked fuckin’ hard to get here.”

Ian forced his eyes open. Mickey squeezed his wrist, tangled their fingers.

“I wish I could erase all that shit.” He hated how thick his voice sounded.

“You already did, Gallagher. Look where the fuck we are right now.” Mickey gestured to their white-walled apartment, their minimalist furniture.

Ian breathed out a throaty laugh. “Yeah. I guess.”

Mickey pressed a quick peck of relief to his temple, and Ian felt the warmth of it trickle down his spine. “You don’t gotta think about that shit anymore. It’s still gonna be there— but you’re filling everyone’s fucking Instagram feed with fucking tomatoes these days. You definitely ain’t the same person you were back then.”

Ian felt the corners of his mouth creep upwards. “You love my tomato pictures and you know it. And you love my captions even more.”

Mickey rolled his eyes— and leaned in close, settling again against Ian’s chest.

“Yeah, I guess I fuckin’ do.”