Despite any lack of mirth, her fingers respond in kind by idly tugging at the fabric of his shirt to keep him close. Were she a more settled person, perhaps the affection would be enough to alleviate her prevailing emotion, but all that does is compound the fear of losing Tiko to the jaws of their mutual demons. Turns it over, twists it into something ugly. A bit like rage. “No, but you want to go back in,” Lena reads him like her favorite book, for once wishing that the pages weren’t permanently seared into her brain. “Look at you! You’re completely loaded off this shit. Unreal.” Her nose burns and she hates that almost as much as this realization, finally pushing away to create the distance so fervently needed. It’s been a long while since their last argument, but any previous dramatics pale in comparison to the gravity of this one. “That’s the fucking problem, Tiko! We agreed–– we’re out. You should’ve told them already, but you didn’t. So what now? They say jump and you’re ready to ask how high?” Why wasn’t this enough? Why wasn’t their new life able to keep him on the right path? And why, deep in the core of her chest, did she understand his dissatisfaction? Perhaps the true question lay in who Lena was actually angry with tonight.
He won’t lie to her. He knows that their lives revolve around so many other sins, but he won’t lie to her, and when she knows him like she knows her own palm, it’s hard to shake his head and deny what she says as truth. Because he does want to go back in. He does want to feel that adrenaline rush. He does want to feel powerful whenever others cower and he hates himself for it. “Yeah,” the word is a quiet agreement, and he wishes that he wasn’t agreeing, but there’s no use hiding. Not when the truth is so clearly painted across his slightly flushed cheeks, and beneath the bloodied cuts and bruises. His lips are lifted in a soft grin. But he knows it no use. “I know, trust me, I know, and I just wanted it to be one more, clean the slate, and not owe anyone any more favours but-” he stops himself when he registers her words. “No, it’s not like that, nobody’s even called, it was just one more,” he feels desperate, like an addict justifying their rebound, and he knows that neither of them believe him. He gives up, shoulders sag, his arms tightening around her waist. “I just miss it. But just tell me to stop, I’ll never answer another call from them ever again, I wasn’t thinking about anything but that feeling, you know?”
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