What about an au where Ian broke it off with a long-term boyfriend (over cheating) and goes to Mickey for a cover-up for a couple's tattoo he got with his ex. Imagine Mickey telling Ian he deserves better while gently wiping excess ink from his skin.
YEAH YEAH YEAH this is so so good little grayface!
Mickey asking why he's covering it up (I imagine something that without the context of the former relationship is just a runn-of-the-mill tattoo) and Ian taking a deep slow breath so it doesn't shudder even though he's feeling real emotional about everything still (they got TATTOOS! They were COMMITTED!!!) and beginning to explain why he got the first one and how the relationship was and Mickey picking up on some red flags about the former partner that Ian didn't catch (frog in the boiling water situation, tbh) and then The Discovery and how Ian tried to work it out and do the work because he is that kind of guy and the former partner not wanting to and Ian feeling so upset that he's got this constant reminder (the tattoos gotta be in a place where Ian sees it a lot, he'd absolutely want to be able to Stare Fondly whenever he wanted) and now he needs it to be something else.
And Mickey would just let him talk and talk and work through it, gloved hand moving slowly over Ian's skin (which Mickey is low-key obsessing over, the freckles drive him crazy, he wants to tattoo the constellations on this man, use them as built in shading for classical painting type tattoos, outline the three he's picked out that look like hearts, add a little snake near the ones that look like puncture marks), the machine buzzing lowly under Ian's story, the soft swipe of a paper towel revealing the new lines, the fresh start, as Mickey and his art help Ian move forward from this bad relationship.
And after a little while, when Ian's talked himself out for now, when he's just kind of sniffing wetly, Mickey will murmur about how no one deserves to have their love and devotion tossed aside like that, like it's nothing, when the most amazing thing one person can offer another is seeing them wholly, knowing the good and the bad of them, the extraordinary and the mundane, and choosing to take it all, to love them Because Of, not In Spite Of. Mickey would point to the curling letters that wrap underneath his collar bones, "Because Of, Not In Spite Of" inked forever into his flesh, a declaration to himself and whoever came along that he would settle for nothing less.
"I'm not one for religion or god or whatever," he'd say, almost a whisper as he goes over the last of things, the little detail touchups to make sure everything about this new ink and new beginning is as perfect as he can make it, "But love like that? That's the only kind of sacred there is."
He'd look up at Ian, eyes wide and sincere and Ian's breath would catch at the unshakable belief radiating from this man who's spent the last hour and a half with his hands all over Ian's skin, helping him close an old chapter and start a new one, facilitating this monumental moment of growth, and he would have a flashing thought that whoever this guy eneded up with would be the luckiest fucking person on the planet.
He'd wait the required amount of time for his tattoo to heal and then he'd call Mickey up, thinking that maybe if he played his cards right, that lucky sonofabitch could be him.
