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This is the longest that Lee has ever gone without Eating. He isn't sure why he's doing this to himself. Well, that's a lie. He knows damn well why, and he also knows, deep down, that it's futile.

He hasn't seen George in two days, told him he wasn't feeling well and needed some time to himself. Which is true, he supposes. He wants so badly to never have to lie to George, and there it is. That's the reason.

Eating has always been a difficult thing, no matter how good it feels in the moment. Now the thought of luring someone into some shadowy alley and ending their life just so his can continue makes him feel sick. He can't put his hands on someone, seduce them into a false sense of security, and then go look George in the eye with their meat in his belly. He just can't.

But he can't let go of George, either. Even though that would probably be wisest. Safest. It would be what's best for George, but Lee thinks about breaking his heart and he just can't. He can't Eat, can't face George, can't leave George, can't sleep and can't think about anything other than how hungry he is. He's stuck and he has no idea what to do.

He glances at himself in the mirror in the bathroom at his nearly empty apartment, noting that he looks sallow, more gaunt than usual. His eyes are so dark that they're almost black, lips pale and chapped. His jaw aches from how much he's been grinding his teeth. His belly aches with hunger, his blood burns, his mind races.

This isn't sustainable, but he has no idea what to do. He has to Eat or bad things will happen. But Lee is the bad thing that will happen. He's always the bad thing that happens.

He lets out a frustrated snarl and slams his palm into his own reflection, splintering the mirror until he can't make out his own face anymore. His palm is sliced open when he pulls it back but his blood is dark and sluggish. Unhealthy.

He leaves the apartment so he stops pacing a track into the carpet like a caged animal, wondering if maybe fresh air will help. He puts on one of George's hoodies and feels like he's drowning in it, like his skin is stretched tight over his bones. Earlier that afternoon he ate four double cheeseburgers and it didn't even make a dent in his hunger. It isn't what he needs, and Lee is so frustrated that tears spring to his eyes.

He finds himself cutting through Petros Park in the crisp fall air, breathing in deep, but the walk doesn't help. Each step makes him feel weaker and he stops in the middle of the path to pinch the bridge of his nose, waiting out a rush of dizziness as his stomach clenches.

It's been weeks. It feels like he's going insane. It feels like he's dying.

But he thinks of George's sweet, trusting face, and he wants to keep trying.

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"Jesus Christ, you'll catch a fucking chill," snaps George, shrugging out of the jacket that he'd picked up at the surplus store. It's got blood on it, dried crusted and dark, but not much, and it's better than nothing. "Put this one. Now."

Everything he feels when he looks at Lee is complicated. He just needs to get somewhere quiet so he can think about it. They both just need to get out of here. They both just need to get home.

Lee flinches when George yells, suddenly feeling like he's right back to walking on eggshells in his childhood home. He blinks and then looks down at the jacket like he's confused by it, but doesn't argue. He just takes it and puts it on, blinking out a fresh set of tears when he realizes that it already smells like George.

He still doesn't look George in the eye, and he can't seem to get his throat to work. It feels like he's shutting down, like each step is harder to take than the last, but he manages to make it to the stairwell and trudge his way down, not stopping until he's in the lobby. The sky outside is cold and gray, and somehow Lee knows that it isn't going to take them very long to find a way out of here. The damage has already been done.

It occurs to him that he should probably just stay here, in this land of monsters. Maybe it's where he belongs.

It occurs to him then that he might have to bodily drag Lee out of this hellscape. He's never seen him act like this, like he's barely functioning. George's head is all noise but that doesn't mean he's got any intention of leaving Lee here to die. There's no way on earth that he could let that happen. Last night, Lee has talked about killing himself and George had been too angry, too wrapped in himself, to say anything about it. But he'd heard it, all the same.

"Come on," he says, wrapping his arm around Lee's bicep, to keep him upright and to keep him moving and everything. "You don't get to die here, Lee. We're both getting out."

George grabs his arm and Lee blinks, staring down at his hand as he's all but dragged out into the street.

"Why?" He says once they're out on the sidewalk, voice low and rasping. Even through the jacket, George's hand feels like it's burning and he wonders if this will be the last time they ever touch. "This is probably where I should be."

He swallows hard and looks up the street, anywhere but at George's face. "I don't belong anywhere."

"Shut the fuck up," says George, but there's a soft, almost plaintive note to his voice because, angry as he is, he hates to hear Lee talk like that. "I don't know what I want, and I don't know what I think, but I don't want you dead, Lee. I can't bear the fucking thought of it." A muscle in his jaw ticks. "So keep moving." He squeezes Lee's arm. "How sick you were. That was because you hadn't..." He falters. "It had been too long?"

Well, that's something. It makes him feel like his heart has been dropkicked, but at least it's beating.

"Then I won't die," Lee says, because it's in his nature to do his best to give George whatever he wants. They walk together, with George still holding onto his arm, and Lee tries his best not to lean into that small flicker of hope. George doesn't want him dead. That doesn't mean he wants anything else.

"Yes," Lee replies simply, because he's not going to lie to George anymore. He's not going to dance around it or evade the truth. There's no point in it anymore. "I tried very hard to be good. But I'm not."

it makes sense, now -- the times that Lee looked him in the face and asked him if he was bad. At the time, George hadn't hesitated but, now, he can see how it would feel more complicated. Lee had said that he understood that George had done the things he'd done to survive.

Did that make them so different.

"It would have killed you," he says. "And I wouldn't even have known."

"Or I would have snapped and hurt someone who wasn't trying to attack my--" He cuts himself off and presses his lips into a thin line because he has no idea what George is to him anymore. "I don't know what would have happened. I had never made it that long before."

He clears his throat as they walk, letting his gaze sweep around the area to look for any signs of a door. He still does not look at George. "I-- I was going to tell you. I realized that ignoring it wasn't working and that I couldn't fight it, so I was going to tell you. I had decided, but just didn't know how." He shrugs and wrinkles his nose. "But that was taken from me, too."

They keep walking, and he blows out another breath. "I felt guilty every time I looked at you but I knew that you wouldn't-- I didn't want to lose you. I was scared and selfish, and I really am sorry." He opens and closes his mouth a few times, sniffling as yet another set of hot tears roll down his face. He has no idea how there's still moisture in his body. His eyes feel like someone has taken sandpaper to them. "You were never in any danger with me, George. I-- I know you probably don't believe me, but I promise you that it's the truth. I can usually control it just fine, but it had been too long and everything happening was too much."

"You looked about as good as I did the time I nearly died of smallpox, so...nothing good," says George, and he doesn't look at Lee, but his hand stays firm on his arm, keeping them both moving. "It's...difficult to believe that," he says. "I grew up somewhere where we believed in monsters, Lee, and then I saw..." He swallows. "I don't know if I can...I don't know how." He pauses for a second. "That's why blood, too, isn't it?"

Lee wrenches his arm out of George's grasp at that but says nothing as he keeps walking, breath hitching as he clenches his teeth. George has all but called him a monster, doesn't believe Lee wouldn't hurt him, and he truly has no idea how he's supposed to go on. His heart feels like a dead thing in his chest.

"I don't have any delusions that you'll love a monster, George. I never did," he says dully, shoving his hand into his pocket and clenching his jaw. He wants to argue about the blood, to remind George how he tried to keep it to himself, but George kept pushing. It wouldn't be fair, because George didn't know the whole story. "Part of it, but it's not the only reason. I told you that I didn't want to indulge in it, that I was ashamed."

Lee wrenches his arm away and George shoves down the anger he feels in response. He has, he thinks, every right to angry. He was the one who lied to, wasn't he? He doesn't reply to the comment about loving a monster because he did. He does. He shakes his head.

"I don't know what the fuck I'm supposed to do about any of this," he says. "Does anyone else know?"

"No," Lee says flatly, then thinks of Lestat. "Only other monsters."

He sighs, and it comes out on a broken sort of exhale.

"You don't have to do anything, George. I'll get you home and I'll never bother you again," he says in a hollow voice. "If you don't believe anything else, believe that."

George does wince at that, his head dropping for a moment. "I didn't mean..." But he did, in the moment, even if he regrets it when he hears it come back out of Lee's mouth. And he can't take it back. He swallows back a sudden ache in his throat, and nods. He should have more to say, he knows.

Ahead, he sees a shimmer, and he raises his free hand, pointing.

"There?" he says, finally looking at Lee for reassurance.

"You did," Lee says plainly, feeling that desolate numbness wash over him again. He lifts his head when George gestures and can only nod a little, feeling his steps falter. He sniffs and looks behind him, then at George's feet, and then at the door again.

"Go ahead," he says quietly. "Go home."

"Fuck that," says George, shaking his head. "I told you, Lee -- you don't get to die here. I'm not...I can't." He takes a step foward. "I said that I wasn't leaving here without you and I fucking mean it, alright? Whatever else happsn, I mean that." He swallows. "I don't know what happens next. I don't know...how. But I know I'm not leaving you here."

"I told you I wouldn't die," Lee replies in a low voice, willing to doom himself to a lifetime of misery if that's what George wants. "I just don't see why I should get to go back. Maybe this is where I'm supposed to be and I just dragged you here with me because I fucking ruin everything I touch."

He sets his jaw and looks somewhere in the area of George's chest. "You keep saying that you don't know what happens next, but I do. I keep on being a monster or I die. All of it without you. And I can't die, as we've established, so it's probably best that I stay here with the other monsters. So just go, please."

That, as it turns out, is the thing that breaks through the wall that's he's desperately scrabbled up around everything he's been thinking and feeling. It feels like a punch to the gut and he actually almost doubles up around it. When he pulls his shoulders straight, his face is set but his dark eyes are welling tears.

"You could at least look at me when you say it," he says. "And you might be able to live here, Lee -- might be able to survive it -- but I, monstrous as I surely am...or will be, one day, it seems -- will not. And if you stay here, then so do I." He swallows. "I'll die here."

"I think I'm gonna be selfish one more time and just remember how you looked at me when you still loved me, if that's okay," Lee gets out in a thick voice, still staring stubbornly at George's chest. "I don't want to see however it is that you're looking at me now."

He crosses his arms over his chest and grits his teeth, huffing at the threat. He doesn't understand why George just can't let him stay here. Surely he knows that Lee going back means that other people in the city will die, right? Because that's how it works. For Lee to live, other people have to die. Why would George want that?

"That's fucking low," Lee grits out brokenly, then walks past George and through the door, blinking against the harsh sunshine on the other side.

Edited 2025-10-23 18:42 (UTC)

Lee stalks past him, arms still folded and George lets out a shivering breath of relief that sounds almost like a sob. He drops the knife he's carrying in the dirt and steps through into the autumn sunlight. He wipes his face with both hands. The smell of that other place clings to him. He's like this sweater, but he's going to have to burn it.

"Promise me you won't go back on purpose," he says, addressing the words to Lee's back. "And, if you do go back, you'll find a door. On my life. Promise."

"I will suffer here for the rest of my life if that's what you want," Lee says flatly, dropping his own knife and hanging his head. "I promise."

He sniffs and looks around, confirming that they're really back home. They are, and just up the street from George's building. Most of Lee's things are in George's apartment, but Lee's used to starting over. He doesn't need them.

"I'm sorry," he says one more time, though he's sure it means very little. "Goodbye, George."

And then he starts walking, away from George and away from their building, putting more and more steps between himself and the only place that's ever felt like home.

George stands and watches him go, and he hasn't felt so close to flying apart since his first days at court when everything felt helpless and the blade beside his mother's bed had felt like his only answer. Turning towards his building, he digs in his pockets and, instead of his own keys, he finds Lee's necklace instead. The sight of it is too much and a sob spills out of him, fat tears rolling down his cheeks.

"Fuck," he mumbles, as he lets himself into the building and trudges up to the apartment, full of Lee's things, the remnants and ruins of a life that he'd loved with a man that he loved. Still loved.

Fuck.

He just needs to think. He needs to clear his head. He needs to make sense of it, impossible as that feels.

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