you know how ian was all “i’ve been waiting to do this forever” before head butting terry
i wonder if manic ian was just telling all the other kids at basic ways he was going to murder/beat up terry. and when they ask who he’s talking about he’s like “my boyfriend’s fucking dad.”
Ian didn't see mickey as his boyfriend when he was in the army though?
like, the whole reason he ran away in the first place was because he felt he didn't have a place in mickey's life and couldn't stick around to watch mickey with someone else.
Like, he's literally running away from any reminder of their relationship. he's traumatized and doesn't know how to deal with the fall-out. He's not gonna be talking about the worst things that ever happened to him with a load of strangers. We can even go back and forth and headcanon whether or not Ian would have felt safe being out in the army at all.
even when he came back he was apprehensive of mickey's motives, and mickey knew he had something to prove to ian. that's why mickey basically moved into the gallagher house. that's why ian gave him the attitude and challenged him to 'suck my dick whenever i want'. ian was purposely pushing mickey's buttons, he was letting mickey know that something had to change.
up until that point their entire relationship had been on mickey's terms, and ian had gotten hurt or been dismissed. ian doubted if there was even a relationship at all. so, yeah, ian comes back from the army through no choice of his own. and isn't willing to fall back into the way things were.
i mean, when he was gone and had left the army and returned to chicago, he still didn't go home. he was manic and had been abandoned by monica and was being preyed upon by older men, but despite all of that he still didn't go home. MICKEY dragged him home. MICKEY found him.
And Ian doesn't really know why. He's still not sure what Mickey is hoping to achieve from it.
so, there's just no way that ian would have thought for a second mickey was his boyfriend at any point while he was gone. i mean, he kinda, sorta alluded to mickey as his boyfriend only once before this. and it was a year prior, and only a tentative 'i sorta have a boyfriend' to discourage Ned's advances, and long before any of the shit really hit the fan. And Ian also saw how Mickey reacted violently to the implication that he was Ian's boyfriend. And at the wedding, Ian says Mickey "called him a punk" for wanting a boyfriend.
I think Ian knows that Terry is responsible for practically everything that has happened. Terry's influence, and the fear of Terry is why Mickey behaves the way he does. On some level Ian knows that.
But Ian doesn't know a different Mickey. He doesn't know a Mickey who is not victim to that influence. He can only theorize how Mickey may act if he wasn't under Terry's thumb. Ian may hope that if Terry never existed then he and Mickey could've been happy long before this point, but he doesn't really know.
Mickey has played his cards close to his chest, and set impenetrable boundaries and has not been forthcoming with what he wants/feels. Which is why the dynamic shifts so dramatically when Ian does come back.
It's not just that Ian is manic. I think a lot of people put too much of Ian's behaviour down to his undiagnosed bipolar. When, at least some of it can be attributed to the fact Ian is just rightfully angry.
Ian is a little more demanding. He asks things of Mickey he wouldn't have before. And Mickey relents a little more, Mickey tries to meet Ian in the middle in a way he didn't before. Because Mickey knows what it's like to be without Ian now, and he doesn't want to go through it again.
"Are you gonna come back?" / "Depends, will you suck my dick whenever I want?"
"Just wondering if we're a couple or not..." / "Of course we are."
"It's working out so far, so good." / "I'm kinda sick of it."
"You don't want me to go?" / "Probably best if you don't, tough guy."
These are all conversations that NEVER would have happened before Ian ran away. And in each one, Ian is the one calling the shots, asking for clarity, and making his feelings known.
In conclusion: I think Ian's hatred of Terry is understandable, obviously. Because not only does Ian love Mickey, but he also loves Mandy.
Ian has been present while two of the most important people in his entire life have been hurt and controlled by this one man. Terry has held a gun in Ian's face more than once.
Ian has likely wanted to beat the fuck out of Terry since at least what happened to Mandy in season 2. But he also respects that in doing so he might be making things harder for Mickey and Mandy.
He doesn't understand the Milkovich dynamic or the weird loyalty they have to Terry. But he loves them and doesn't want to cause potential harm to the relationships he has with each of them by saying/doing something.
When Ian tried to get through to Mickey at the wedding and said 'your dad is an evil, psychotic prick', Mickey argued with him. Mickey said Ian didn't know what he was talking about.
When Mandy implied her abuse wasn't a 'big deal' and Ian just looked so sad for her and wanted to help her,, but she immediately thought that meant he was looking down on her.
Ian had never had the opportunity to truly say how he felt, or act on any of it, until Mickey comes out. Because Mickey's coming out results in Terry getting violent. The fight has already started, and Ian has just been waiting for a chance like this to jump in.
So when Ian says "been wanting to do this forever" before beating the shit out of Terry, he has. It's for Mandy, and for Mickey, and for himself. It's for all the times he had to bite his tongue, all the times he had to school his expression. All the times he was incredulous about the hold Terry had on his kids that Ian could do nothing about.