atehimrightup | (no subject)

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george

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Lee is very unused to getting cars to go places. He's always just driven himself if he could, or walked if he couldn't. Hitchhiked, sometimes.

But now he's in a place where he can summon a stranger to drive him somewhere by tapping the tiny computer in his hand. The technological advancement in this place stuns him every single day. He can't even imagine how George deals with it.

He looks over at George next to him in the backseat of their current ride, watching him as he watches a touristy horse drawn carriage go by them with a big dopey grin on his face and, well, George is probably doing just fine.

He keeps staring, letting his gaze drop to the thin silver chain around George's neck. His going out collar, they've called it. Tonight is its first night in play, and Lee is eager to see how it goes.

When they arrive at the restaurant, Lee thanks the driver and slides out of the car, holding the door open and reaching out to take George's hand. "Come along, darling."

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The way that George smiles at that is warm and genuine, a smile that not many before Darrow got to see on his face. He skims his fingers along Lee's bare thigh. "It stopped feeling right waking up without you here a while ago," he admits.

It feels like they’re dancing around something, tiptoeing cautiously right up to the edges, but Lee can’t bring himself to leap off of it. He leans in and gives George a kiss, curling an arm around him and holding the back of his neck for a long moment.

“I can bring some stuff over. Stay more often,” he offers in an almost timid voice. Lee’s things already litter George’s apartment. He’s unwilling to give up his own place entirely, if that’s what George is hinting at. If he’s hinting at anything at all.

But he needs his own place to go and hide sometimes. He needs a place to keep secrets, and it makes him feel like an asshole.

“If you want.”

George leans into the gentle touches, one hand skimming along the length of Lee's bare thigh where it's draped over his leg. He nods, lifting that hand to stroke his thumb along Lee's jaw.

"I'd like that, I think. If it would suit you."

“Yeah, it suits me,” Lee says softly, nuzzling into George’s hand. “I need time to myself sometimes but it’s not because I don’t wanna be around you.”

He smiles, wry and kind of sad. “I just get ornery sometimes.”

Lee is quiet for a long moment, holding George’s wristband and kissing his palm. “I was on my own for a long time. I got used to being alone all the time. Sometimes I still need that.”

"Your own space is important," says George, nodding. He'd always had rooms of his own at the palace, no matter how much time he'd spent in James' bed.

"You could have a key, though? So you could come and go as you please?"

Even though it’s what they’re talking about, the offer to give him a key still takes Lee by surprise. He almost says no, but not because he doesn’t want it. More like he feels like he doesn’t deserve it.

He feels like he shouldn’t be making himself so at home in George’s life. It’s going to make it so much harder to extricate himself when he inevitably has to.

But there’s no way to explain that, and when he looks at George’s hopeful face, he’s helpless. Lee’s pretty sure he’d do anything just to keep him smiling.

“Yeah, that sounds good. I’d like that,” Lee says with a nod, eyes shining as he puts his hand on George’s cheek.

"Alright. Good. There's a spare somewhere. I'll find it." He wraps his hand around the key on the chain around Lee's neck, stroking it with his thumb. "I don't think I'd ever owned a key to anywhere before I came here."

“You can have a key to mine, too,” Lee says easily. Maybe that isn’t wise, but Lee doesn’t really keep anything incriminating in his apartment. And he trusts that if he told George that he needed time to himself, George would respect that.

He wouldn’t take advantage of Lee. He never does.

“Now you’ll have two,” he says with a smile, leaning in for a soft kiss before looking down at the key around his neck as George touches it.

“This is the only one that’s ever really meant anything to me,” he says quietly, reaching up to put his hand over George’s.

"Good. It means a lot to me, too."

He lifts his head, frowning slightly. "Did you bring cake to bed?"

The question throws him for a second and then he laughs, looking over George’s shoulder at the takeout container.

“Yeah. I thought we could share it if you’re hungry,” he says with a little shrug, looking almost bashful. “It’s good cake.”

"That sounds amazing," says George and means it. He shuffles until he can lean back against the pillows. "Chocolate is another thing I hadn't had before I came here."

He's definitely developed a taste for it since then.

Lee grins, pleased to have done well, and reaches for the cake. He sits up against the pillows next to George. He opens the container and picks up the fork, licking his thumb.

“That sucks. What did you have for sweets?” Lee asks, always curious to learn more about George’s life back home. He cuts off a bite of cake with the fork and holds it up to George’s mouth. “Just regular cake?”

"Cakes. Jellies. Fruit. Honey." He leans in, taking the bite of cake and making a soft sound. "Custards. Ginger and cinnamon." George has always had a sweet tooth. "But chocolate hadn't made it's way to England, yet. I'm too young to remember the first potatoes in England, not not by much. My mother would have been nearly grown when she first had one."

“Ah, so you weren’t exactly lacking.” Lee smiles to himself as George lists off desserts with a passion he usually reserves for horses. It’s very cute. “What’s your favorite dessert?”

He takes a bite of the cake for himself, humming as the rich chocolate coats his tongue. Once he’s done, he cuts another bite to feed to George. Yeah, he could very well feed himself, but Lee is having a fun and it’s easier than passing the box back and forth.

“God, I ate so many fuckin’ potatoes growing up. They were cheap,” Lee explains, leaning in to lick away a bit of chocolate from George’s chin. “I didn’t get a ton of chocolate, ‘cause it wasn’t.”

Edited 2025-08-02 08:47 (UTC)

George takes the bite of cake, chewing meditatively, giving it far more thought than a simple question really deserves.

"When I was a little boy," he says. "The cook would make posset when we got sick. With lemon and honey and sack. And cinnamon. I think that's my favourite, even now."

George takes so long to consider it that Lee finds himself deeply invested in the answer, taking another bite of cake for himself.

When the answer does come, Lee doesn’t even tease him for having a cook like he normally might, because there’s something sad about a young boy being sick and looking to a cook for comfort and not his mother.

Lee can relate to that, except he only ever had himself to look to.

“I’ve never had it. That isn’t surprising,” Lee says with a self-deprecating laugh, feeding another bite of the cake to George and feeling so pleased by it. He really does like to take care of people. Certain people, anyway.

"It's creamy," says George, swallowing the mouthful of cake, chocolate smeared on his bottom lip. "And warming and it tastes like being five and not knowing that there was anything wrong in the world at all. I shared a bed with John when I was a boy. He's two years older than me."

Lee stares at George with an indulgent expression as he speaks, and he’d be surprised if there weren’t visible hearts in his eyes. His chest feels like someone took an eggbeater to the inside of it.

“Hm. I think the closest I have to that is s’mores. My dad took me camping sometimes and we’d make them,” Lee says after a moment, smiling sadly as he busies himself with cutting another bite of the cake. “There were good days with him, sometimes. They just made the bad days that much worse.”

He clears his throat and smiles wanly, lifting another bite of cake to George’s mouth. “Kayla’s four years younger than me. We shared a room when she was little, too.”

He hates the sudden sadness in Lee's smile, and he ignores the cake, nudging the fork aside so he can lean in and kiss Lee's mouth instead. "We could make s'mores," he says. "You've told me about them. They sound delicious."

Lee laughs softly, fondly, as George leans in to kiss him. He sets the cake down on the bed so he can touch the side of George’s head instead, thumbing in front of his ear while the delicate pearl of his earring rests against the digit.

“They are. And very messy,” Lee says with a wider smile, holding George’s head still while he licks chocolate frosting from his lip and chin. “We can make them. And I’ll learn to make posset so we can have that, too.”

Lee kisses him again, slow and deep and lingering. He never knew that he could be this happy.

"Sounds like a solid plan," says George, his lips brushing against Lee's. "You can bring some things over and get settled and we can eat nothing but dessert to celebrate." He grins. "I also remember you once saying you were going to do a shot out of my belly button, but we never got around to it..."

George grins that happy, boyish grin that shows all his teeth and makes his crinkle and Lee feel like he isn’t standing on the edge of a cliff anymore. He’s been pushed off of it, and now he’s in free fall.

“Oh, is that right?” Lee laughs and blows a raspberry against George’s neck, then kisses across his collar bones and mouths at his earring, tugging so gently before letting it go and kissing his lips again.

“I’ll slurp firewater out of your hair belly button any day,” he teases between kisses. “That’s how much I like you.”

"It was your idea," says George, with a gentle shove to Lee's shoulder that's all play. "Not mine. And, anyway, you've slurped worse from worse places. I've personally witnessed it."

George pushes his shoulder and Lee rocks back as if he had used great force, tossing his head back and laughing. “It’s true. I’m not very discerning with where I put my mouth.”

He kisses George again and slides a hand down his flank, fingernails scratching lightly over his stomach and ruffling the soft hair there.

“I like your hairy belly,” Lee assures him. “I can’t even grow a single chest hair.”

"You make me sound like some kind of beast," teases George, squirming a little when Lee scratches at his belly like that. It is, at best, a dusting of hair, and George has never really thought about it until now. He's never grown much facial hair and his chest is as smooth as it was when he was fifteen. "Can't all be smooth like a girl."