atehimrightup | for george

"Perhaps," says George, leaning forward to snag the bag and rifling through it, coming up with a burger wrapped in greaseproof paper. For all the things that he misses from home, he has to say that he enjoys this modern food, which tastes different to anything he had ever experienced at home and in his own time.

"Like any man, my stomach is a reliable way to my heart, anyway."

"Good to know," Lee replies, reaching over to snag a few fries from the bag and shove them into his mouth, amused that George tears into his burger immediately. Classic rock plays low on the stereo as Lee navigates them toward the woods on the outskirts of town, eventually pulling into a small dirt turnout and cutting the engine.

"I'm afraid we have to walk from here, your majesty," he teases before hopping out of the truck and leaning in to grab the bag of food. He stuffs it into a duffel bag that he lifts from the bed of the truck, slinging it over one shoulder as he comes around to open George's door for him. "It's not too far."

"You acf like i never walked anywhere before I found myself here," he says, rolling his eyes fondly as he climbs down out of the truck. It is true that he would always have preferred to ride, if given the chance, but there also hadn't be the vast array of options enjoyed by the modern world. "Where are you taking me, anyway? Or is it a surprise..."

“You weren’t carted around by horse and carriage?” Lee quips, waiting for George to join him at the tree line and laughing at the question.

“I guess you’ll just have to follow me into these deep, dark woods and see what happens,” he says with a wolfish grin. George has no idea how dangerous such a thing would be for other people.

"Sometimes. But I grew up riding, and James often preferred it, too."

He doesn't comment on the rest. He's content to follow Lee wherever he leads, and they both know it.

“I don’t think I’ve ever ridden a horse,” Lee muses, brow furrowed as he thinks. Maybe when he was a kid, but his childhood is sort of a blur that he doesn’t want to examine too closely. “Only rich people had horses, and that sure ain’t me.”

There’s a faint path leading through the trees, one that looks like it might have been heavily trafficked at one point but is now somewhat overgrown. Still, it’s an easy walk and Lee makes sure to pull aside any branches hindering the path so they don’t hit George as they pass. It’s dark in the trees, but the moonlight is bright enough to see by.

After about ten minutes of walking, Lee perks up and bounds ahead, gesturing for George to follow him toward a large rock formation. Around the side of it and through some trees is the waterhole, small but big enough to swim in, with clear, cool water. The moon is reflected in the calm surface, and Lee turns around and gestures to it proudly, happy to share his find. “I found this place awhile back. I don’t know if anyone else knows about it.”

"We were...comfortable when I was a child," says George, still following. Lee doesn't talk much about his childhood and George won't push him; he sees the shadows in the other man's eyes when he's reminded. "Rich came later."

When they round the corner to the swimming hole, George's smile broadens.

"This is wonderful," he says, and means it.

When George genuinely smiles, his whole face changes. He looks almost like a different person, bright and carefree and maybe even a little goofy, and Lee has become quite fond of seeing it.

"Yeah? I thought so, too," he says happily, setting the duffel down and taking out the food. Inside the bag is a large blanket that he spreads out on a clear, flat spot of grass. Along with the food, he has a few bottles of beer and a couple of joints, one of which he lights as he kicks off his shoes. "I thought we could make a night of it. I needed to get out of the city."

And he didn't want to be alone. More specifically, he wanted to be with George.

He takes a deep drag from the joint and turns his head to exhale the sticky sweet smoke, tugging open his button fly with one hand while holding the joint out to George with the other. "You want some?"

Before arriving in Darrow, George had never experienced any such thing but, since meeting Lee, he's grown quite used to the warm and floating feeling of it. He takes the joint smh slips it between his lips, watching at Lee unbuttons his shorts.

"A night of it sounds like a plan."

Lee watches George's cheeks hollow as he sucks on the joint, distracted momentarily by the obscenity of his wet, pink mouth before tearing his gaze away to pull his shirt over his head and toss it aside. He steps up to George and takes the joint from his lips and puts it between his own, keeping eye contact as he inhales deeply.

He holds the smoke for a moment and then reaches up to gently grip George's chin between his thumb and forefinger, closing the distance between their mouths so he can exhale the smoke into George's mouth with their lips barely brushing, sharing the hit with him. He's always found shotgunning to be stunningly intimate, and doing it now makes him shiver pleasantly.

"Good," he says as he steps away again, taking another deep hit while shoving his shorts down over his hips, leaving him in a pair of navy blue boxer briefs. "Wanna swim?"

Lee exhales the smoke into his mouth and George inhales, his head swimming pleasantly, a flicker of warmth in the pit of his belly.

"Yes," he says, when Lee's shorts hit the floor. "Absolutely, I do."

He unbuttons his own shirt and shrugs out of it, almost shivering when the fabric brushes piercings that are still sensitive after weeks. He's sure that swimming is against one of the many rules that he was given, but he also grew up in a very different place to this one and he's survived all of the things that have tried to kill him so far.

He bends to unlace his sneakers so that he can toe them off. He assumes that Lee will swim in his underwear, but George still prefers not to wear any. Still. No matter.

Lee is taking another long drag, standing there in just his underwear, when George shrugs out of his shirt. Immediately Lee’s eyes are drawn to his nipples, and the way the moonlight catches on the shiny silver barbells through them. He’s so distracted that he inhales a little longer than he means to, nearly choking on smoke.

When George straightens up, Lee twists the cherry off of the joint and tosses it aside, once again moving in close to share the hit with him. He exhales slowly, draping one arm over George’s shoulders. This time he kisses George once he’s done, one hand on his chest right between his nipples to feel his lungs expand beneath it.

“Now give it back,” Lee murmurs, parting his lips expectantly, wanting badly to swallow the air right out of George’s lungs

It's the easiest thing in the world — to part his lips and exhale violet smoke into Lee's mouth. His eyelashes flutter.

"Swim, you said," says George, his hands going to his waistband. It's a balmy night -- naked won't feel bad. He unbuttons and lets his shorts drop to the floor.

“We’ll get there,” Lee assures him, holding the last of the smoke in his lungs until it starts to burn and then exhaling slowly through his nose. George isn’t wearing underwear, which is about the least surprising thing Lee has seen all day.

“Slut,” he says fondly, reaching down to push his own underwear over his hips. This puts his face level with George’s chest and Lee purses his lips to blow cool air on one of George’s nipples, wanting so, so badly to drag his tongue over it. But he can’t, and that only makes him want to do it more. “How are they feeling?”

He straights up and puts his hands on George’s chest, framing each nipple between his index fingers and thumbs. “Fuck, they really do suit you.”

That word is almost a pet name between them, now, and George smiles, quickly slipping into a shiver when Lee blows across his nipple. His cock twitches, filling against his thigh. He smirks when Lee puts both hands on his chest, flexing just a little.

"Sore," he admits. "Sensitive."

“I can honestly say that I’ve never wanted to play with any pair of tits more,” Lee teases, kissing lightly just above George’s nipple and then biting the spot gently, more just letting George feel the pressure of his teeth more than anything else. “Soon.”

He straightens up and cups George’s cheek, pressing a hard kiss to his mouth before turning to head toward the water. Instead of wading into it, Lee climbs up onto a cropping of rocks and stands at the top of it, standing under the moonlight for a moment before letting out a wild cry talking a running start to leap off of the rock.

He cuts through the air and then points his toes, slicing cleanly through the cool water and disappearing into the depths below.

"I'm glad you're pleased. You're the one who talked me into it, after all."

He makes a soft, pleased noise into the kiss and then watches as Lee clambers up the rocks. He stands there for a moment, naked and beautiful in the moonlight, and George doesn't have words to explain how he feels right then.

He doesn't jump, choosing to wade in instead, the cool. water a relief from the humidity of the night.

By the time Lee comes up for air, George is waist deep in the water. Lee keeps his chin above the surface, treading water as he watches him. He looks like something out of a storybook, too pretty to be real. It's astounding that someone could just walk around looking like George, and crazier still that Lee gets to touch him.

He swims toward George until his feet touch the rocky bottom and his shoulders are above the water. He stays a few feet away, and then sweeps his arm along the surface of the water to splash him, smiling widely as he does.

When Lee splashes him, George can't help but return the grin. It's infectious. He takes a step forward, careful on the uneven rocks.

"Oh, it's like that, is it," he says. "I see." Using both hands, he splashes Lee back.

"It's like that," Lee confirms, splashing him again as he moves closer. "Did they teach you to swim in that fancy castle of yours?"

Once he's close enough, he reaches his foot out under the water to hook an ankle behind George's knee, dragging him further into the water as Lee drifts backwards. This swimming hole would be the perfect place to make a kill. He hates that he thinks that, but it's a part of his brain that's always working. It's the animal part of him, the predator always on alert. He could lure someone out here, eat his fill and wash up, hide the bones at the bottom where no one could find them.

But he doesn't want to do that. Not here. He wants it to be theirs. He wants it to be a good, happy place, with no pain at all.

"I knew how to swim before I set foot in a castle," says George, not fighting the way that Lee draws him further into the water. "We had a lake. My older brother and our sister never got the hang of it, but Kit -- my younger brother and I -- my mother used to say that we were like fish."

He sinks further into the water, until it covers his shoulders, the moonlight catching his earring.

"I didn't know you had siblings," Lee replies, and it makes him realize how much they don't know about each other. "I have a younger sister, Kayla. She's a fucking brat but she's the only one who ever--"

He cuts himself off with a sigh, smiling wanly. His sister is the person he loves most in the world, but she isn't like him. Dear old dad didn't pass whatever's wrong with him to her, too. She was spared, and Lee will always be grateful for that. She was spared from so much because Lee threw himself in front of whatever threat came to her, even their own parents. Especially their own parents.

"I miss her," he admits, lowering himself into the water enough to hide his wobbling chin. "I didn't see her a lot even back home. I got out of there as soon as I could. Once my dad wasn't around, I mean. I wouldn't have left her with him."

It's probably the most he's ever said about his upbringing to anyone here, and he blames the weed and the ease that George makes him feel. He can't tell George everything, but he can tell him more than anyone else.

"I'm in the middle of four," says George, drifting closer, matching Lee's posture in the water. "John, me, Kit, and then Susan as the baby." He listens quietly to what Lee tells him, what Lee trusts him with. "My father died before I went to France," he says. "But he beat me enough before he went. My mother never raised a hand to me, but..." He shrugged. "She had her own machinations."

Lee stares at George's face as he speaks, taking it all in, and his eyes widen a bit at the part about his father before his expression hardens. He's angry at this man he could never meet, and he opens his mouth to tell George that he killed his own father. Not the how, but just that he did. He feels like George would understand, but the words get stuck in his throat and he can't seem to get them out.

"My dad is the one who did this," he says instead, lifting a hand from the water to brush his wet fingertips across the scar on his cheek. It's all he can seem to manage for now, and he lets out a shuddering breath.

George comes from a time where people carry scars. There's the one in the bend of his elbow, faint, where James bit him in the dark...another across his ribs where a mock duel got too enthusiastic. He'd never really thought about the scar on Lee's face -- it was as much a part of his face as his nose or his eyes.

"I never asked," he says, softly, drifting a little closer, his hand coming up out of the water and tracing the scar on Lee's skin. "I should have."

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