"Yeah?" Leonard finally put his elbows down on his knees, ducking his head low enough to make an attempt to see Mick's face again, although he didn't come any closer to him than he already was. "Try me."
Challenge extended. He watched Mick with an eyebrow arched, as if ready for anything. "Maybe you're just thinking that cause it's the easy way out."
"There's nothing I can ask you that would prove anything." He knew the answers to all their history questions, he knew what Leonard thought about most things and he had no way to confirm the things he didn't. There was no way to prove this was Leonard Snart, so naturally, he defaulting it to being a lie.
"I drank too much, it pickled my brain, you always said it'd happen." And look at that, now he was seeing dead people.
"Yeah, though I was really more thinking you'd start seeing those pink elephants." They'd grown up watching Dumbo, it was a reasonable enough conclusion to draw. Leonard pulled one leg up, now having turned completely to face Mick, sitting sideways on the bench. He looked at him, how he stubbornly refused to so much as glance at him.
"So the question is how good your imagination is." It was all he said. However, his hand was suddenly on Mick's shoulder. Not a tight grip, but an unmistakable presence.
"It's a little weird. I'm too dumb to be this imaginative." Or that was what Mick always said because it was easier to dismiss everything like that. Hell, he was pretty sure that's exactly what his teammates would say if he told them about this. Mick still didn't look at him, he couldn't look at him. Even when he felt something.
Snart was dead. He was gone and this was just him losing his mind. "I'm fucking cracked."
"You ain't dumb. You never let me or yourself think that, so don't try to now." Leonard's grip, light as it already was, relaxed even more, until he ran his hand down his arm and back up again. Not as if anyone else was about to comfort Mick in any way, especially with how he was denying himself every opportunity.
Mick grunted, clearly indifferent. He slid away from the touch because admittedly, he was feeling a little bitter. He wasn't just hurt, he wasn't just upset, he was angry. "I hate you." Hero or not, best friend or not, he hated him. And he was allowed to hate him. He could have found another way, he didn't have to do what he did and because of that, Mick was alone. And he hated him a little, just because of that. "You little fucker, you left me."
"You started it," Leonard pointed out, "Could have let Raymond blow himself up, but nooo." He pulled his hand back, turning it around and curling his fingers in one by one. "Don't make this so easy on yourself. I looked for a way out. Just wasn't meant to be." Alexa and he'd meant to pull out, but the stars didn't align that way. It happened.
"What did I have to live for? Less than you." Mick didn't believe he was the one that should have lived, given every option. What did he have going for him? What made him worth it? Just a fuck ton of Chronos baggage and no real direction. Not supposed to be part of the team, not able to leave and just stuck in limbo. Leonard should have lived, he should have died. That was the way it should have gone. "You had no right to make that decision for me."
"You were just fine with me making just about every decision for you for thirty years and the one that kept you alive you take issue with? I fucked up." Chronos was his fault and nothing would ever cancel that out. Handling Mick and the situation the way he had and assuming that he'd be able to come back for him, when clearly he could not. "I'd have never let you die. That's why I didn't come back for you. According to plan."
"Bullshit. I didn't always agree." He didn't agree with the lack of fires in most their plans, watching films without Chuck Norris or Van Dam or that whole Flash bullshit - though he just sort of let that happen. He definitely didn't agree with leaving 2046, which he still wasn't entirely over. None of this would have happened if they'd just stayed. The waverider had long since changed how Mick listened to Leonard and that wasn't going away, even in death. "See, that's the thing with you. You're selfish. It's okay if you die and leave me behind but I can't die and leave you behind, huh? Cause it all falls on me to keep going, to keep living and you get to abandon ship. It ain't fair."
It was just like 2046 all over again really - it didn't matter what Mick wanted, it only mattered what Leonard wanted.
"Still let it happen." Which was the point. Leonard shrugged his shoulders and watched him, frowning. Such a pointless discussion to have at this point, but in Mick's eyes just about anything was pointless now. "So, what? You'd not have stopped me if you could have? It ain't about fair. It's about doing what I was always gonna end up doing." Saving him, because he couldn't abandon him. Not again. He never should have let it get that far. "I just saw it coming. That's all."
"You clocking me in the face isn't 'letting it happen', genius." No matter how it was spun or told, Leonard never gave him an option when it came to things that really counted. Like life and death. Leonard always got to chose what happened, he was always in charge and while Mick had come to appreciate it, sometimes to burned. Like now. "Real or not, what the hell do you even want from me?"
"I want you to live, Mick. And you got no reason to follow the team around." Not as if his heart was in it. Not as if his heart really seemed to be in much of anything any more. "You don't need me." Would he have still done it if he'd known how rough things would be for Mick? Some questions weren't meant to find conclusive answers. "You don't want to be a hero, do you?"
Mick was silent for a while before he shrugged and got to his feet. He finally looked at Leonard and no, it hadn't got any easier to look at him. "I wanted you to live." And look how well that one panned out. "I haven't got much else to do, have I? I don't have my partner. I don't have anything to go back to. I just got this." And it was okay. Making a difference, doing something worthwhile, getting free booze. It was better than being alone. "I'm done with you now. Go away."
Leonard stayed where he was, simply adjusting so he could lean back again, looking at Mick. He moved his arms, folding them loosely. Holding himself as he watched his old friend. His partner. What else was there even to say? He finally lowered his eyes, in a way that was very characteristic for him, one hand slowly closing around nothing. "I loved you."
"Heh." Mick smiled a little as he felt a bubble of sick bitterness roll around in his gut, a weird crushing sadness he wished he didn't feel. Of course. "So you really ain't real then." That was -- strangely disappointing but Mick didn't expect any more than that. Those words were all he needed to hear to know this wasn't Snart. "Now I'm just hearing what I want to hear." He had lost it entirely. He was imagining things, he was hearing things he wanted to hear and clearly, that meant it had to be total bullshit.
There was an eye-roll and then Leonard got up, a sneer on his face. "If that's the case, maybe I ought to play more to your type these days." That said he stopped right in front of him. No hug, his arms stayed by his side, but he leaned forward and kissed Mick's cheek. He stood back on his heels, raising an eyebrow at him. "That do it for you now?"
So, hallucination or not, some things didn't change. Petty and jealous to the end.
"It's good to know I remember how jealous you always were. I couldn't so much as look at a chick in a bar without you poking at me over it for a week." Mick grumbled as he tried to shove the ghost/imagination/hallucination thing of out his way., trying to ignore how he could still feel those lips against his cheek. It was a lie. This was all one big lie. "You'd get jealous of my lighter."
"Because you've never been jealous a day of your life." Leonard did take a step back when he was shoved, lifting his shoulders in a halfhearted shrug. No, he couldn't bring himself to feel any shame over this particular character trait. "You sleep with your lighter. You ain't ever looked like that at me, that's for sure."
"Fire is special. No one is like fire, it's a unique thing. Powerful, beautiful, unstoppable. See, people like you? You go out there and you die and all I got left is--" He waved his hand vaguely around him. What did he have left? Himself and hallucinations. That was all. "She can't die. Fire is eternal." He pulled out his light and for old time sake, he sparked up a flame and held it out. "Though you're both dangerous. Can't get too close. Unpredictable." He put his hand over the lighter and felt the warmth. "And you really know how to scar a guy."
"Poetic." Leonard just says the one word at first and then he slaps the lighter out of Mick's hand, in a gesture both petty and immature. But why would he care? It still got him to stop staring at the flame. "I'm not done with you, Mick. You get that through your thick skull." Hard to dismiss something that was inside his head. A pause as he looked down at the lighter, moving to put one foot on it. He doesn't crush it, he just places himself above it rather deliberately. "I'm coming for you."
Why was his imagination being such a dick? Did it really hate him this much? That was a new lighter. He glared at the foot covering it and resisted the urge to shove Leonard in return. "I'm done with you. Like you were done with me. Don't say you weren't or you wouldn't have left. You did." His eyes were still on the foot, wishing he could just get his lighter back. Surely imagination couldn't crush his lighter. "So now I am too. Get that into your thick skull. Cause I ain't biting any more." He could ignore him. If he had to.
"We'll never be done," Leonard stated and then there was the sound of a lighter being crushed under a heavy boot. He moved his foot and use it to kick the crushed lighter a few feet away, his eyes on Mick the entire time. "Don't say I didn't warn you."
With that, while Mick looked at the lighter, he was gone.
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Challenge extended. He watched Mick with an eyebrow arched, as if ready for anything. "Maybe you're just thinking that cause it's the easy way out."
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"I drank too much, it pickled my brain, you always said it'd happen." And look at that, now he was seeing dead people.
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"So the question is how good your imagination is." It was all he said. However, his hand was suddenly on Mick's shoulder. Not a tight grip, but an unmistakable presence.
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Snart was dead. He was gone and this was just him losing his mind. "I'm fucking cracked."
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It was just like 2046 all over again really - it didn't matter what Mick wanted, it only mattered what Leonard wanted.
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"Like I said. I'm done. Get out of my head."
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So, hallucination or not, some things didn't change. Petty and jealous to the end.
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With that, while Mick looked at the lighter, he was gone.