Take-Two [ Tragictrees & Annyeong Bunny ]

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Austin didn't speak for a moment, looking over at Lee and studying him- though, he couldn't do so all that well, considering he didn't have his glasses on. Then, surprisingly, he grinned at the other detective, a little lopsided but overall as genuine as the offer that was made. "Man, and I was the awkward one? Come on." He said, absentmindedly bumping his shoulder against Lees "Look, I'm not going to leave this undercover fiasco just because I fucked up with my medicine. If I did that, Evelyn would also bail, and I can't imagine what'd happen if you're left in the house with Daniel. Plus, I don't mind rooming with you. I haven't slept this well in a while. Unsurprisingly, considering the couch, but all the same."

He shrugged, stretching his arms in front of him with a yawn, before continuing "I'll rework the formula or whatever with my doctor when we get back to Detroit, and deal with the pills I have now until then. I'm not considering jumping off a bridge quite yet. Evie's just- surprise! -paranoid as hell. So, uh, no pressure on you to do anything. I appreciate it, but I've pulled you further into my bullshit than I wanted to already." He admitted, rubbing the back of his neck "I mean, seriously. You have to deal with me more than I have to deal with you. No idea where you got the 'repay' thing from. Buuut...." He glanced back over, looking sincere "If you ever wanna talk about that paranoid insomniac thing with someone, probably awkward, I'm all ears."
 
Lee blinked a bit in surprise as Austin bumped into his shoulder. Now, he was embarrassed. The detective turned his gaze to the side and cleared his throat, feeling his body heat up. "It's fine if you don't mind." Lee muttered as he crossed his arms, turning his gaze back to his partner. At the whole 'bullshit' comment, Lee scoffed a bit before rolling his eyes.

"You kind of signed up for that when you became a detective. It's an unwritten rule somewhere that all partners are involved in each other's lives. It's why I've never had a partner for so long. Unfortunately, that means I'm stuck with you for now, so it's just something that we both have to deal with." Lee faintly teased, raising an eyebrow. However, as the topic became more serious, the detective pressed his lips together and blinked, feeling his stomach turn a bit. Nobody really knew about his insomnia except for his parents, but even then, they let it be.

So, Lee paused. He hesitated for a few moments as he looked over Austin, weighing the other's sincerity. It had been a while. Too long since he's had to think about why he was having this paranoid insomnia. Maybe a pair of ears would benefit him...

"Paranoid insomnia..." Lee sighed, unconsciously pulling at both of his sleeves as he spoke, falling deep into his mind. "I'll be honest. I don't remember my childhood. Like, anything before I was twelve is a blank." the detective paused as he spoke the beginning of his past out loud. Knowing he couldn't turn back, he simply looked up at the ceiling, recounting it all for Austin. "All I remember is being in the dark and seeing a door open, and my parents running toward me, followed by the police. Apparently that was on my 12th birthday, so I guess it would make sense to remember that."

Lee then locked his gaze with Austin's once more, leaning his chin against his fist. "All my parents would tell me about it was that I was gone for 6 years, and they just found me finally. They thought that if they kept the truth from me, then I would be fine and a normal kid, which, surprise, was the worst thing they could have done." Lee paused and gave a lazy shrug, moving to lean back, his hands holding him up. "So, being a psychology major, I had learned that I must have went through something, but to have my memory block it out means it was probably traumatizing. Which, in retrospect, is why my parents screwed up when they decided I didn't need to see a therapist or psychologist." Lee paused, exhaling a bit as he tilted his head to the side, eyeing Austin.

"That, detective, is where the paranoid insomnia comes from. My hidden memories must be repeating and reenacting themselves while I sleep, and I only know that because I can never remember my nightmares when I wake up. That, and research. So, when I'm at home, I have to lock my windows and maybe doze off now and then, but never sleep." and with that, Lee sat back up into his sitting position, a bit of a relieved look crossing over the detective's features. It was... a relief.
 
Austin stayed quiet as Lee spoke, not daring to interrupt him. He knew that this want something to take lightly; he hadn't been expecting to be trusted with this information. Information which happened to be extremely concerning and eye-opening. Austin, of course, had gone through some shit himself. That was clear. He had assumed Lee had as well, but not to this degree. He let the other man finish, then sat in silence a moment, trying to figure out something to say.

"....That really sucks, dude. I'm sorry." He said, wincing at his own wording "See, now we're both bad at talking about one another's emotional trauma. What a pair we make. Anyway...it's, what, 3 AM? And I'm pretty sure you have a student to catch tomorrow. You're going to use the note, right?" Austin tilted his head slightly as he asked the question "By matching up the handwriting or something? Wait, no, not talking about work right now. Point is, insomniac or not, you gotta get some rest. Not sure how much comfort this'll be, but I'm not going anywhere, so...I'll wake you up if you start freaking out in your sleep again, if you want."
 
Lee couldn't help as a ghost of a grin pulled his lips, rolling his eyes. He looked at his phone to see the time and nodded, realizing he had to be up and at the school by 1. Continuing to listen to Austin's rambling, Lee raised an eyebrow at the other, snapping his fingers when he had mentioned the note. "Bingo. Thinking like a detective." the detective pointed out as he stood and walked to the lamp switching it off.

"I wouldn't worry too much about it tonight. I feel like after talking about it, my brain might calm down for once. Plus, I've noticed that it's been better since coming here..." Lee pondered as he walked back to his side of the bed. He pulled the blankets over him and pushed his arm under his pillow. "But the thought was appreciated. You need sleep too, with your whole organ-theft situation. Let me know how that goes, by the way." the detective spoke, a yawn interrupting him before he could finish. And with that, Lee closed his eyes, and hidden by the darkness of the room, he let the smallest of smiles pull the edge of his mouth. Soon enough, he was out, sleeping peacefully for the second time since being there...
 
Austin got to sleep fairly easily. He seemed to sleep a lot better in beds, as anyone would (the assumption that the bed was the reason he was sleeping better was, of course, to avoid thinking of what the other option was). He ended up waking up 6 hours later, at 9 AM, which was luckily not cutting it close to his 12 PM shift. He, of course, also found himself directly against Lee again, which was a hassle. He didn't to be as stealthy as he had been the first time, figuring Lee had already caught him doing it once, so he just rolled on his back, away from the other man, stretching out a little bit. He laid a moment longer, staring at the ceiling, before grabbing his glasses and putting them on, getting out of bed.

He had a bit of time, and looking around the wrecked room, he had an inkling it was going to be spent cleaning.
 
When Austin had woken up, Lee was still in a deep sleep. He hadn't been able to sleep like that for the past few days, so he was thankful that it was undisturbed. However, as the other got off of the bed, his eyes slowly opened, and he stared ahead, a bit dazed. He knew that if he were to sit up too quickly after sleeping so long, it would make him dizzy. So, he took a few moments before pushing himself up, groaning slightly. Then, as Lee began to stretch his arms in front of him, he looked at Austin, seeing him inspecting the room.

"I forgot the house was a mess..." Lee gave a sigh, his voice crackling a bit because he had just woken up. Slowly moving to the edge of the bed, he yawned and looked at the floor of the room, still lamenting over his books. "What time do you have to go to work?"
 
"I was planning to leave at 11:30. So, I'll probably get ready at 11. I have....2 hours, basically." Austin answered, glancing over, before going to his bag, which had been torn apart. Not literally, but almost everything had been tossed around the room. He frowned, looking through what remained in it, before rolling his eyes "Yea, okay, this isn't surprising. Why am I shocked? Hey, if you see a pill bottle lying around, let me know, because it has a 99.99% chance of being mine."

He began to pick up the things lying around, carefully avoiding stepping on the books in the area, just to avoid destroying them further. "Anyway....I'm gonna start cleaning up this disaster zone. When do you have to get to work?" He asked, beginning to fold some of the clothing, separating it by who it belonged to.
 
"I'll be sure to keep an eye out." Lee spoke in a bored ton as he got on his hands and knees, looking under the bed. He saw a book and a few more items of clothing, so he grabbed them. Tucking the book under his arm, he separated his and Austin's clothes before standing and putting Austin's in his bag.

"The class starts at 1, but I'll have to leave at 12:30 in order to meet with the college president. I have to let him know that I'll be figuring out who the thief is today." Lee explained as he walked around the room, gathering the rest of his books on the floor, some of which were thankfully not damaged. The detective then walked into the hall to grab the vacuum from the closet, leaning it against the wall so they could use it after cleaning up the clothes and such. As he walked back into the room, a flash of orange caught his eye, so Lee walked into the bedroom closet. There was a pill bottle, stashed in the very corner. "I guess someone assumed that one of us needed the medication, since they hid this to sabotage whoever they thought it was." Lee sighed, bending down to grab the bottle. He shook it a bit, hearing some of the pills move around inside. Tossing it in Austin's direction, he then moved on to more clothes.
 
Austin caught it, looking at the prescription to make sure it was right. He was relieved to see that it was. "Thanks. You're, quite literally, a life saver." He said, uncapping it and taking one, before stashing it in his pocket "Man, criminal college kids are the worst. Anyway, nice, nice. Once you do that, we should be able to leave this place, right? Not that I don't love having a bed, but there's only so much I can handle when it comes to having passive-aggressive chats with soccer moms."

Once he got all his clothes, he zipped up his bag. The room was already looking better, and it made him feel a little less bad, surprisingly. He picked up the scrubs, and sighed, looking at them "Bummer that this is probably the last time I'll get to do anything fun for a while, though. Beggars can't be choosers, I guess."
 
"Yeah, hopefully. While this is a nice house, so much shit's been happening that I just want to go back to Detroit." Lee commented as he started to fold another of his dress shirts. "At least I know the layout of the city better there." the detective added as he paused his folding, turning to watch as Austin took his medication. A bit of relief washed over Lee and he started folding once more. After the talk from the night before, he was glad that they had found Austin's medication, even if it wasn't working very well anymore.

"What about the whole organ-theft thing? Don't you have to finish that up too?" Lee questioned, raising an eyebrow as he moved on to the next shirt. It seemed like the clothes were never ending, but at least folding kept his mind busy. He looked back up to glance at Austin, scratching the back of his neck as he did so.
 
"Oh, yea, but that's easy." Austin replied, placing the work clothes down and taking out the medication, slipping it into his bag so he wouldn't lose it "I have all the information I need, and I know the whole 'who-dunnit' part. It's just a matter of getting there and getting them caught." He shrugged his shoulders, walking over to where Lee was "After that, pretty sure they're gonna send me on my way, and that'll be that. Need help with your packing? Not with the books, I'm afraid if I touch them they'll fall apart more."
 
"Ah, I see." Lee turned back to his folding and sighed. He knew he wanted to use the note to match the handwriting, but he needed to come up with a plan to get handwriting from everyone. Perhaps he could do a pop quiz? That could work perfectly. Then, after finding out who it is, he could tell the college president and set up a one-on-one with the student. That way he could read his behavior and such for antisocial personality disorder.

Lee was pulled from his thoughts as he watched Austin walk toward him, offering help with the packing. "Sure, an extra pair of hands would be great." and with that, the detective moved himself over so that Austin could have enough space to sit and work next to him. "So was it really the staff of the hospital that ended up stealing the organs?"
 
Austin moved into the space Lee had vacated, beginning to pack. He figured it gave him something to do, rather than just sit around. Besides, if he was just sitting around and Evelyn happened to come in, he had no doubts that she would put him to work elsewhere. "Yea. Well, some of them, at least. Just one wing. They have access to the files, and they fabricate them themselves, but they seemed to forget that I can see who created the files. So, one thing led to another and I now have a list of people who are involved with dealing organs." He responded, nodding "What about your college kid? You have any idea who they might be?"
 
"Not a clue. All I know is that they might have APD, which is even harder to pinpoint. Luckily, they were stupid enough to leave a note, so I have that to go off of." Lee explained as he finished folding one more shirt. The dark-haired man then turned to look at his phone, looking at the time. He sighed and moved to stand, grabbing his clothes that were folded to put them away.

"It's almost time for us to get going. You said you had to be there around 12, right? I still need to take a shower and get ready, so good luck if I don't see you before you leave." Lee spoke nonchalantly as he picked out a wine colored dress shirt and a pair of black slacks. He glanced at Austin before leaving to take his shower.
 
"Same to you!" Austin called after him. Afterwards, he just stood in the now-empty room a moment, contemplating it. He knew they probably wouldn't be staying another night. While he was happy to go back to his office, he had also enjoyed having a bed, as well as an excuse to talk to Lee. Unfortunately, he could only fix one of those problems when they got back to Detroit.

Maybe it was time to invest in a pull-out bed.

He got his things together, and got ready to go. He grabbed his folder of evidence from the kitchen table as he passed it, waving to Evelyn as he went. He had a granola bar in his pocket, and figured that it would hold him over until he was able to get some real food. After all, he expected the case to go quickly; there wasn't much to it. He just had to hand over the incriminating evidence, and then go.

Which, as expected, was easy. Soon after he got there and handed over what he needed to, police cars were pulling up. He was content to just watch from the sidelines as everything went down. He slipped his phone from his pocket, deciding to text Lee the news.

Text From: Austin
Text To: Lee

organ problem fixed

Text From: Austin
Text To: Lee

so as soon as u finish ur thing with the student, we can get back to detroit and u can have the comfort of not sharing a room w me again :P
 
Quickly after getting dressed, Lee grabbed the note and headed out the door, voicing a goodbye to Evelyn as he left. Once at the college, he hashed out his plan to the college president and told him to get the police ready. He would have the suspect by the time class was over.

Lee pushed on his fake glasses, thankful that after today he wouldn't have to wear them again for a while. He walked into the classroom where his class was waiting, and sent a piercing gaze over the room. Closing the door, he smirked slightly as he held up a stack of papers. "Some of you can guess, but today, we have a short answer pop quiz. It'll be over the disorders we've covered so far such as Angelman syndrome, Alzheimer's, and Antisocial personality disorder." as he said this, the class expressed their distaste, to which Lee shook his head, passing out a quiz for each student.

"Stop whining like a bunch of kids, you're all adults. It's not the end of the world." the detective spoke in a monotone as he scanned each student, one of which catching his eye. It was a boy who seemed to keep making eye contact with him. Pretending as if he didn't notice, Lee walked back to the front of the class and sat in his chair, crossing one leg over the other. "You can leave only after finishing the quiz. It's a short class today, so be thankful. However, if I ask you to stay, then go sit back in your chair." the detective turned his eyes to his book, which, of course, he was using to hide the note.

After each student, he checked the quiz before sending them on their way. Then, he found the match. Lee held up a finger as the student began to walk away, pointing to the student's desk. He watched as the same boy making eye contact earlier went back to his desk, sitting down. Then, as the rest of the class finished, it was only the two of them left.

"Mr. Kyle... Xander Kyle. Do you know why you're the only person still here?" Lee asked nonchalantly, not lifting his gaze from the boy's quiz, double checking the similarities. Not hearing a response, he looked up to see Xander looking at him, his face blank. So, he had decided to drop his facade. Lee stood and made his way over, giving a poisonous grin. Once reaching the desk, he slowly pushed the note toward the boy, watching as the other read it with no reaction. Typical APD. "Mr. Kyle, unfortunately, you chose to broke into the wrong house. You trashed the belongings of two undercover detectives, on of which that just so happens to be good at his job." Lee spoke in an innocent tone as his grin grew. The boy just simply looked at him, a small grin of his own pulling his lips. Mimicking. "I hope you like the color orange."

Right as he spoke that sentence, three police officers rammed through the door, one lifting their gun as the other two ran forward with handcuffs. Lee backed away and watched, the boy keeping eye contact with him before finally speaking. "How did you know?"

The detective slowly let his grin fall as his usual grimace pulled his features. "It was child's play. It doesn't take a lot for me to pinpoint people like you anymore. Try harder next time." Lee gave his answer before leaving the school. The president had told him beforehand that he would send payment in a few days, so he didn't bother with speaking with him again. As his phone buzzed, he pulled it out, reading the texts from Austin. His eyes rolled at the second one and he quickly responded back before getting into his car.

Text From: Lee
Text To: Austin

Same here, case finished. And does that mean you're going back to sleeping on that old busted couch of yours?
 
Text From: Austin
Text To: Lee

well ya its not rlly like i have another option other than 'floor', 'dumpster', or 'office chair'

Text From: Austin
Text To: Lee

might invest in a pull out couch but idk seems like a lot of effort and probably takes up a lot of room

Austin typed out his messages, raising an eyebrow. He wasn't sure why Lee was implying he could do anything else. He didn't have an apartment, and he didn't have any other furniture that would be more comfortable. He intended to sleep on the couch until another, better option that didn't ruin his back appeared.
 
Once Lee pulled into the driveway, he glanced at his phone to read the texts, feeling slightly irritated at the other's sense of logic. Comfort should be taken into account when working long hours. He sighed and typed out a response as he stepped out of his car.

Text From: Lee
Text To: Austin

Why don't you just put some money toward a larger living space? It wouldn't be that hard to save up.

Text From: Lee
Text To: Austin

Plus, I'm sure Evelyn could help you find a place to stay. I think she's staying in the flats where I am, but I'm not too sure.

Lee stepped inside the house, looking over to see Daniel cleaning up the last bit of mess in the living room. At hearing the door close, Daniel looked up and smiled at Lee, standing to his full height.

"So, how'd it go? Did you catch him?" Daniel inquired, lifting an eyebrow as he took a few steps closer to the detective. Lee nodded a bit before pulling the fake glasses off, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

"Yes, so I recommend packing so we can leave sooner than later." he responded, walking past Daniel to head into his room. Daniel blinked and shook his head, grinning a bit. He didn't know why, but Lee amused him quite a bit, especially when the other disregarded him. With that in mind, the lawyer went into his room and began packing as well, grinning a bit more than he usually would.
 
Text From: Austin
Text To: Lee

ur more bent out of shape than i am over my living sich

Text From: Austin
Text To: Lee

i like my office and paying for another place seems weird bc like im going to b moving as soon as I solve this cold case

Text From: Austin
Text To: Lee

its my back I can ruin it how I want to lol u dont have to coerce me into a better living place

Austin rolled his eyes a bit, pocketing his phone and heading out of the hospital. He didn't need a new place to live. The office worked fine for him; if he could continue to live there, he would. It was a money saver.
 
Text From: Lee
Text To: Austin

Whatever you say. It's your life, but I figured I'd just try to give some advice.

Text From: Lee
Text To: Austin

So hurry and get back so we can leave. I'm done with Rochester, and I want my study back.

As Lee sent the texts, he continued to pack his bags. It was going to be weird going back to an empty flat, but he missed it nonetheless. He had always been an outcast and a loner, so he missed his lifestyle. Maybe he would try sleeping again, since he knew not doing so was bad for him mentally. His mind also kept going back to the murder case they had let behind... it always bugged him when he couldn't finish a case, but this was what he had to do in order to get the partnership back in order with Austin. That, and because they had to be away from that Kevin guy for a while...
 
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