Turn Out The Lights

Meet Me In The Middle

I got tired of waiting for my blond keeper to tell me what his problem was, so I waited until we had to stay late at work to finish a few reports. I sat on his desk and grabbed his hand so he'd stop writing and pay attention to me. He tried to brush me off, but I told him I wasn't leaving just because he said to. He said he didn't want to talk to me, and I told him that shoving his feelings in a bottle and throwing it away wasn't going to solve anything, and he finally broke. "Fine June, what do you want?"

"I want to know what's wrong, Mirio. I want to know why you're acting differently, and why you don't seem as motivated on patrols."

He sighed and pulled his hand away from mine, "I'm doing perfectly well on patrols. Sir himself said so."

He tried to start writing his report again and I grabbed his hand again, "That's just because you follow his 'Perfect Hero Plan'. I'm the one who can see how differently you act. And I think we both know that it's beginning to affect your work, on and off the street. So, please, tell me what happened. Did I do something to upset you? I've tried to figure it out so I could apologize but I genuinely can't tell."

"Look, I don't know what you're talking about, so if you could just let me get back to work then-"

"Mirio." He stopped and looked at me, using his eyes to beg me not to press the matter, "Please?"

He was quiet for a moment, almost like he was lost in thought. I opened my mouth to speak but he beat me to it, "Why don't you ever heal me when we're fighting villains?"

"Huh? You've never been that injured when we fight. You're really good like that."

He looked away and scribbled on the edge of the report, "But you've never healed my little wounds."

"I can heal your wounds, I just didn't think it was that important to you."

"Yeah, well, it is." He crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair.

"Okay, I'm sorry that I didn't heal your wounds in battle. I'll check on you and heal them more often. Is that all that's bothering you?"

"Yeah, that's it." I sat for a moment, waiting for him to tell the truth. He said nothing so I nodded and got up to head towards my desk, but he grabbed my hand and stopped me. "It's not."

"Then what's wrong? I can't help if you won't tell me." I sat back down on his desk and he let go of me.

He pulled his hands into his lap and began looking uncomfortable, "I just wish you were more comfortable with me."

"What do you mean? I'm already comfortable with you, why would I need to be more comfortable?"

"You never act like it. Whenever I used to try to touch you you'd act like it wasn't happening."

"That's not true. I wasn't acting like it wasn't happening, I was just trying to take a moment to enjoy the contact."

He pulled his arms across his chest, "By ignoring it?"

"When did I ignore it? I would close my hand around yours or relax when you wrapped yourself around me."

"You'd close your eyes and sit still."

I was becoming exasperated, "Yeah? I'm enjoying it, not pretending like it's not happening."

"If you liked it then why didn't you ever initiate it?"

"Because I'm not like that. When I show affection to people I rest my head on them or place my hand on their back or something, not like hugs and hand holding."

He gestured at me, "But you never did that either."

Before I knew it I was gesturing back at him, "Because we were touching enough. I didn't feel the need to be touching constantly. Is that how you felt?"