Lee (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
atehimrightup) wrote2023-04-01 06:54 pm
atehimrightup) wrote2023-04-01 06:54 pm
Entry tags:
love will tear us apart
Lee knows what happened. Of course he knows. Maren wasn't taken from him. She didn't wander off and get lost like a fucking toddler. She isn't just around the corner somewhere, waiting for him to find her.
She left. She left him, very specifically and deliberately. She left him just like everyone else he's ever cared about, but this one hurts so much worse. It feels like she stuck a knife in his chest and twisted it, like he's being ripped open by her teeth. He thinks that he would have preferred that, actually. She could have eaten him up and it would have hurt less, because at least then he'd still be a part of her.
He drives through the dusty streets of whatever no-name town he's in, calling her name out of the open window of the truck like she's a lost puppy, and eventually he has to call it. She's gone, and she doesn't want Lee to find her. She made her choice, but that's the thing-- Lee thought her choice was him.
Lee keeps one hand on the wheel of the truck and reaches up to scrub the other over his face, wiping tears from his eyes before they can fall. When he drops his hand and opens his eyes again, he flinches so hard that he nearly swerves off of the road and he has to grab the wheel with both hands, jerking the truck out of the way as a little silver car zips around him, horn blaring.
Moments ago, he'd been the only one driving down a county road under a blazing afternoon sun, and now he seems to be in the middle of a city and it's nighttime. He blinks a few times and pulls over as soon as he can, clawing at the seatbelt to release it and opening the door. He gets out, feet hitting the fresh asphalt of a busy, well taken care of city.
"What the fuck," he mutters to himself, wondering if he's finally cracked. Everything is gleaming and shiny, with sleek, unfamiliar cars passing by. It feels like he's just stepped out of one of the shitty dime store sci-fi paperbacks that he shoplifts all the time, and he stumbles backwards until his back hits the side of his truck, hands pressing back against metal still warm from the sun.
The place across the street has a neon sign with a smiling cup above it, advertising some type of drink that Lee's never heard of, and he takes in a ragged breath as his chest seizes up with panic.
"What the fuck is happening?"
She left. She left him, very specifically and deliberately. She left him just like everyone else he's ever cared about, but this one hurts so much worse. It feels like she stuck a knife in his chest and twisted it, like he's being ripped open by her teeth. He thinks that he would have preferred that, actually. She could have eaten him up and it would have hurt less, because at least then he'd still be a part of her.
He drives through the dusty streets of whatever no-name town he's in, calling her name out of the open window of the truck like she's a lost puppy, and eventually he has to call it. She's gone, and she doesn't want Lee to find her. She made her choice, but that's the thing-- Lee thought her choice was him.
Lee keeps one hand on the wheel of the truck and reaches up to scrub the other over his face, wiping tears from his eyes before they can fall. When he drops his hand and opens his eyes again, he flinches so hard that he nearly swerves off of the road and he has to grab the wheel with both hands, jerking the truck out of the way as a little silver car zips around him, horn blaring.
Moments ago, he'd been the only one driving down a county road under a blazing afternoon sun, and now he seems to be in the middle of a city and it's nighttime. He blinks a few times and pulls over as soon as he can, clawing at the seatbelt to release it and opening the door. He gets out, feet hitting the fresh asphalt of a busy, well taken care of city.
"What the fuck," he mutters to himself, wondering if he's finally cracked. Everything is gleaming and shiny, with sleek, unfamiliar cars passing by. It feels like he's just stepped out of one of the shitty dime store sci-fi paperbacks that he shoplifts all the time, and he stumbles backwards until his back hits the side of his truck, hands pressing back against metal still warm from the sun.
The place across the street has a neon sign with a smiling cup above it, advertising some type of drink that Lee's never heard of, and he takes in a ragged breath as his chest seizes up with panic.
"What the fuck is happening?"
no subject
He's still trying, although he's losing hope that he'll be the one to find a solution. The more Joel digs, the more it seems like people have been trying to do the same thing he is for a lot longer, people who are smarter and stronger than he is by far. If they haven't figured it out, he doesn't know how the hell he expects to be able to do it.
"The way they tell it, we show up here in an instant, we got no control over whether or not we leave, and if we try, we just get sent back." He shrugs. "And I've tried. A whole hell of a lot."
no subject
Lee feels almost oddly calm, and he wonders if maybe he's in shock. Maybe he went through too much all at once and his brain just can't process it all, so all he can do is lean against his truck on suck on his cigarette, staring dazedly ahead as he processes what the man says, laying out the facts in his head like a neat deck of cards. Maren is gone. Missouri is gone. Kayla is gone. His mom-- well, fuck his mom, but she's gone, too. He's stuck here in some place he doesn't recognize. There's no way out.
"What do we do?" Lee asks after a moment, feeling utterly lost. Wondering why he keeps on fighting so hard. "People don't just get snatched up for no reason. What do they want from us?"
no subject
He should know, he was in the same boat not so many days ago.
"No one's got an answer," he says. "Just a bunch of 'I don't knows' and 'you make the best of its', which is a whole load of horseshit, you ask me." He pauses. "There's an apartment waitin' for you. I haven't spent much time in mine, kinda seems like a good way to get yourself in a bad situation."
no subject
"Is that so much different from everywhere else?" Lee asks with a shrug. The only tether he had to where he'd been had been his little sister. He thought maybe he'd found another in Maren, but she'd left him like so many others had, and maybe he's too heartbroken over that to really panic at his strange new circumstances.
"An apartment?" Lee asks warily, but with a tiny bit of hope. He's never really had a place to lay his head. No, this place wouldn't really be his, either. It'd be his cage, if anything, by the sound of it. But a cage with a bed and a shower sounds kind of good right now. "How do I find it?"
no subject
He's not so much of a dick to leave a kid like that with only hope.
"They got this envelope," he starts. "And before you ask, I don't know who they are, that's just how other people explained it to me. Anyway, the envelope has a phone, some keys, money, stuff like that. There's an address on a card, too, and that's your place. Mine was waiting for me at the info booth at the train station."