He doesnât understand it when it happens, or more accurately is too afraid to look up what it means â not the Mick Rory way, you see, to look anything up, whatâs teaching to a slab of meat â but he gets this buzzing under his skin from time to time. An itch he canât scratch. Usually, when it happens he can light the flame and ignore the way that eventually, something burns. Usually, it works. But every once in again, recently again and again and again and again, thereâs a feeling in his chest thatâs too big for him that he doesnât know what to do with. Sometimes he tries to feed it or burn it, or try and strain himself until itâs gone, but itâs no use, here. He doesnât really know why he thought leaving would leave in the first place.
But Snart snarling at him makes it worse. Not for the usual reasons, no, Mickâs gotten over him looking at him and spitting his worse to some extent. Itâs just every time he does itâs usually some kind of play and heâs supposed to be the one who goes along with it, but none of itâs coming out. All his thoughts are shortened, barely able to be finished before they build and topple over each other, until heâs left with absolutely nothing. It doesnât help that he wasnât really working with anything to begin with, and he knows heâs getting old, but itâs too early to start fizzling out. He arguably needs it the least and the most with Snart, his thoughts, but heâs fucked. Not in the fun way.
âYâknow whatâs a coward move, Snart? Knockinâ me out, kissinâ a pretty lady, kickinâ the bucket.â See, theyâre just words. Words he knows can possibly hurt, but just words. Words mean nothing to Mick, but they mean next to something to Snart. Snart actually thinks about whatâs coming out of his mouth. This is a cheap blow, and Mick knows this. So why do it? Because itâs too much. Mick just wants to scream at the sky. âYâgonna be a clingy lilâ kicked puppy about it, donât be so transparent.âÂ
Mick moves. Close to the fire. Close enough so he can feel a little bit of heat on his skin. Still, even when heâs trying this, he doesnât face away from Snart. He owes him at least to look at him. âAm I supposed to⊠t'coddle ya, lick your wounds â yâknow I donât pull off nurse as well as Blondie does, so I hear. I can drag ya over to âer. Then youâll be her problem.â
And thatâs certainly not something he wanted to address today, so Mick plows right over it. It, being the unfortunate fact that he canât just leave him. Mick swallows his pride, gets in Lenâs space, offers a shoulder. It takes him a moment, be that several and a lot of deliberation on Mickâs part, just staring at Len and wear on him and his body and face. Sometimes Mick is used to seeing his friend coming back having aged without him. Mick doesnât have to know every wrinkle or line on his face to understand him. Heâs largely the same as heâs always been, as is Mick. But Lenâs looking like heâs got a few too many days disagreeing with him. Dammit.
âYouâre gonna pass out. If yâdie âcause yâslammed your stupid head on the counter Lisâll kill me.â
He knows it wonât fix things. Especially after what he said, but heâs weirdly afraid of him rejecting the offer even if heâd been ready to leave literally moments before. Mickâs never been good at timing. But if they can just manage to bicker on the way to the bed â now Snartâs â things might just resemble something okay. Glazed over until they crack again.
That's when it splinters, small shards like the ripples of a changed timeline, like two pieces moving in perfect sync, dancers spinning effortlessly past eachother, security covering the front and back entrances. The perfect line of cross hairs on a target. It's like blurred out half smudged lines smeared across his vision, and he blinked under the force of it. Eyes shut for one tense pained moment, forehead furrowed and eyebrows drawn taut as his mouth wavered like a climbing, reaching,greedy wave before it smoothed once again. The calm ocean surface. Light piercing as far as the ocean deemed fit and not further.
His Captain Cold persona pulled over him like the tattered wreckage of what had been left behind at the Oculus. Countless days spinning endlessly into a place where time doesn't exist, half thought and half said apologies tripping over a tongue that hasn't been this clumsy since childhood and his father beat it out of him. Nothing said weakness faster than indecision. And Leonard is decisive, deliberate in everything he says and does. Every move he makes, every half aborted gesture and unspoken word.
Leonard doesn't reach for him, doesn't say a word, not yet, let's Mick's roiling eternal fire exhaust it's flare up, doesn't flinch when he recognizes what Mick's doing. His tactic, trying to set him on edge. Trying to hurt him, and he doesn't flinch when Mick succeeds, despite knowing. Despite counting along the three syllable word tripping off his tongue like running from the CPP, adrenaline and has sickening anxiety clutching at his insides and refusing to let go. This is Mick.
And he's speaking again, talking about Sara, about Lisa, about himself, pulling at the stitches just barely starting to heal, fresh in the wound and slowly bleeding again. And it's only when Mick is in his space, offering a shoulder that the tense line of Len's shoulders relax. Because that's the way of things. Give and take and Len let's out a rusty I'll used laugh, nasal and just a bit hysterical, leaning up against him, the solid bulk that's always been, not at his side, than at his back, at the the very least.
"First you'll have to tell her I'm alive, no way am I doing it." He doesn't comment on the rest of it, knows Mick is right, too transparent, too attached, he might be a thief and a liar but he tried, at the very least, not to be a hypocrite. "'Sides, you really trust the half dead possible hallucination with that job? I'm thinking that's a bit much even for me."