for a while now, ian’s had scars on the palms of his hands. one hand has a pale slice from his time in the army, and the other has wrinkled and calloused skin from the cooker at Patsy’s Pies.
he still has no problem shaking people’s hands. he doesn’t seem to think about it much, at least from what mickey’s seen. when he’s bored or stressed, he’ll spin their wedding ring around and around in circles. He doesn’t realise he’s doing it, mickey knows that much.
mickey likes ian’s hands.
they’re bigger than his, a lot bigger, all freckled and pale. there’s a sweet warmth whenever ian grabs his hands, something attractive and heated about how mickey’s hands are swallowed up by Ian’s.
ian never minds when mickey follows the divots and bumps of the burn scars with his thumb and fingers. mickey’s not sure if he even notices. The skin is roughened and has bursts of raised tissue with bolts of white streaks running through them.
mickey recalls when ian did it. he remembers coming home to ian’s hand bandaged up and no explanation about it. not until years had gone by.
it reminds him, those burns, the scar from the army too, of what could happen if ian went off his meds again. it scares mickey, that thought, sometimes. but more often than not, he puts the fears aside and tries instead to consider how much mickey wants to keep ian from getting hurt again.
it’s dark in their bedroom, moonlight tipping in from the window. ian’s arm is slung over mickey’s shoulders and mickey stops gripping his wrist in favour of pressing his thumb into the coarse skin in the pads of his palms and fronts of his fingers.
ian hums, and mickey can feel his chest rumble with it.
‘you like my scars.’ ian points out, inebriated by sleep.
mickey grunts back in something between confirmation and disagreement. he doesn’t like them, because that sounds as if mickey enjoys that ian was hurt which he doesn’t. but he also does like them, because they’re a part of ian and mickey enjoys the closeness they have that mickey can run his fingers over them without any discomfort.
‘you like when i do this?’ mickey asks, running his finger tips along the scars.
ian leans into his hair, breathing him in and nudging his forehead against the back of mickey’s head.
‘mhm.’ he hums in assent. ‘relaxing.’ he explains.
mickey’s mouth breaks into a smile.
discoholicmusic
areudirty
jacobvanloon
