myheadisaprison | {I might be lost, but I'm not a lost cause

The tension is thick enough to suffocate, and Leonard doesn't know how to make it dissipate. This was supposed to make things better, or at the very least easier, but none of this feels like either of those things.

The questions startles a realization from him, though. "Oh. Uh- no, I didn't," he mumbles, shaking his head a little. "But I'm...not really hungry." He shrugs a little, awkward, stiff, no clue what to do with himself, his hands or his head. He folds his arms across his chest, a silent and, admittedly, mostly subconscious, barrier from the awkward tension in the room, and the reason it exists in the first place.

"Probably can't sleep now, anyway," he adds, unhelpfully. He isn't sure what time he passed out, but he's willing to bet he got a good three or so hours and...Leonard knows himself pretty well. Sleep doesn't come often, and it doesn't happen quickly on the heels of a nap, either.

He's not sure what that leaves, given Mick's options, there, and he probably looks just as lost about that fact as he feels.

Mick almost wishes that Leonard had gotten angry, had picked some kind of fight. It would be easier than this.. mess. The kitchen is a wash of awkwardly uncomfortable tension and a part of him is tempted to just walk away before he goes and makes shit worse.

Again.

"Oh." He shoves the food back into the refrigerator. Suddenly he's not hungry and it at least gives him something to do with his hands. It doesn't last long and Mick doesn't look at Leonard when he speaks.

"'m sorry."

"For what?" The words tumble out of his mouth dumbly, like he doesn't know what Mick is apologizing for. He can't help it-- he said it was okay, he can t be mad. That's the mantra he keeps repeating to himself over and over. This was a way to fix what was broke. And he had given it the okay. He has to be okay with it.

He's sorry for needing things that Leonard can't give anymore.
He's sorry for missing the earlier years when things were so much easier between them.
He's sorry for wondering just why in the hell Leonard keeps him around.

But he doesn't say any of it. He just rests his forehead on the cool metal and breathes out. "You know."

Mick slips past him and heads for their room.
He's going to lay down and wait for sleep to eventually take him.

"Don't," he mumbles and catches Mick's wrist as he tries to brush by him, tugs enough to make him stop. Leonard's eyes slide up to meet his, "don't be sorry for something that-" he falters, the slightest bit before settling on the word, "helps." Maybe not the best word, but it's not exactly wrong, either. Tension in the air aside, Leonard sees it in everything down to his posture.

Or he did.

Before he spoke up and everything slammed back down on top of Mick's shoulders again. It makes something in his stomach twist as he considers that, in a way, he's the problem. "I mean, it was, until I--" he scoffs softly, no ounce of amusement in the sound at all and lets his hand drop down to his side again. "It's okay," he says quietly, and his voice drops even lower with the next words that come. "it's not cheating."

It takes everything in Mick not to protest when those fingers close around his wrist and bid him to stay, to try and hmmer home that whatever weakness Mick has it somehow isn't his fault .

He'd needed something so goddamn simple.
But it wasn't something he could get from his partner.

All Mick wants to do is hold him, tell Leonard that they're okay and that nothing about what happened changes anything between them.

But when have either of them been good with feelings lately?

"I know Lenny. I know."

He shifts uneasily. "Stay with me? Just until.. until I fall asleep."

Leonard presses his lips together at the uneasy silence that stretches longer than he would have liked. The request is so...simple it almost hurts. He nods, glancing down for a moment before looking back up at him, because he deserves that much as he answers with a quiet, "Yeah. Yeah, I can do that."

{I might be lost, but I'm not a lost cause

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