Work Text:
Lee’s head hits the wall with an audible thump. He’s slurring his words, breathing unevenly as he curses to himself. Maren flings herself forward, holding herself up on her hands as she inspects the stab wound on his chest. Fuck. Sully punctured Lee’s lung when he stabbed him, and he’s steadily losing more blood.
“Am I bad?” Lee asks, deliriously.
“No, Lee. You’re good.”
Maren grips Lee’s face in her hands, forcing him to meet her eyes. He’s not all there—his eyes are hazy and closing, and she has to pat his cheek to keep him awake. He’s losing a lot of blood, he’s going to black out—he might die.
Lee might die. It dawns on Maren, that she never once thought of it as a possibility. Even with who and all that they are, she never believed that Lee would die. Death couldn’t touch him, it was inside of him, it was around him, hell, he fucking reeks of it. But he’d never… leave her. Not on purpose, not forever.
They always find their way back to each other. That’s their thing—they’re Maren and Lee.
Death has touched so much of them, all of them, but Maren won’t allow it to take Lee away from her.
She places her hands under his armpits and begins to haul him up, searching for anything to stop the bleeding. The floor is drenched in blood, so much blood that she doesn’t even know who it belongs to. It might be hers, it might be Sully’s, but most of has to be Lee’s. There’s a steadily growing puddle beneath him, pumping out of the gaping hole in his chest. Fuck. It’s horrible. Maren isn’t easily sickened, but the sight of Lee so vulnerable pains her.
Maren covers the wound with her palm, pressing gentle kisses to Lee’s blood stained neck. She thinks she hears him hiss, and then his hand is in her hair, guiding her head toward him.
“I want you to eat first.” He whispers, kissing the top of her head. She can smell the metallic stench of his blood and her stomach flips.
“No. No you don’t get to leave, you don’t get to love me—to understand me, you’re the only person who understands me, you’re the only one who’s ever tried! You don’t get to know me and then—then, just leave. You aren’t leaving, Lee. I won’t let you.” Maren cries, pulling at Lee’s t-shirt in an attempt to haul him up. He won’t move, he stays where he is, immovable like a pillar.
Lee gently pushes at Maren’s shoulders, slackening her grip. She feels like a boulder is trying to make its way down her throat, but she can’t open her air ways enough to let it pass through. One of Lee’s fingers come up to swipe away a stray piece of hair on her forehead. It’s so soft, so loving that she begins to crumble.
“Maren—“
“No.” She snaps, choking out a sob. “You don’t—you can’t ask that of me. I won’t. I WON’T. DO YOU HEAR ME?” She turns her head up toward the ceiling. “I WON’T EAT HIM.”
Lee shakes his head, and watches her with a sad smile. There’s a finality behind his eyes that Maren doesn’t want to think about. She won’t think about it, about any of it. All she thinks about is Lee. Just Lee.
“We can’t call an ambulance,” He croaks, hitching forward with a cough. “We can’t—can’t let anyone in here. This is it, Mar. This is—this is our good thing coming to an end.”
“Fuck you! I won’t let you leave me!”
They’ve barely had any time together at all. It feels like it’s been no time at all since that day in the store. It feels like it’s been a thousand years. She isn’t ready. She’ll never be ready.
He gives a charming, beautiful half smile. His teeth are stained crimson red, and Maren has never wanted to kiss him more than she does in this very moment. Her beautiful, damned, broken boy. He’s so lovely.
She wants so desperately to keep him. Can’t she keep him? It’s all she’ll ask of the universe. Maren won’t ask for mazes and second chances, she won’t ask to be different, all she asks is that she gets to keep Lee.
“You left me too, remember?”
Maren digs her knuckles into her eye. “That’s not—that’s not the same thing, Lee! I came back. I came back to you.”
Lee reaches out, clasping Maren’s hand in his own. He brings her fingers up to his lips, kisses the inside of her fingers, noses up her knuckle bone and lets his head rest in her open palm. “I’ll always be part of you. Even when I didn’t know you I was with you, and you were with me.” It’s getting harder to breathe now, he can feel his insides seize up.
He isn’t afraid of death. Too desensitised, too much trauma. If it hadn’t been for Kayla, Lee would’ve offed himself at the first chance after everything went down with his Dad. But Maren.. lovely, lost Maren. He lives for her, now. He’d die for her, fight for her—he’d lay down and crack open the cavern of his chest if it meant she could feast on his flesh. He loves her in ways he doesn’t think he’s capable of. His love for Maren is strong, the strongest and truest emotion he’s ever felt. Lee has always been a good liar, good at detaching and leaving, nothing ever lingers on him after.
Maren does. She’s in the wind that rustles his hair, she’s the taste that stays in his mouth no matter how many times he’s brushed his teeth. All he can taste, all he wants to taste—is Maren. He can’t lie to himself about how he feels for her. He’d burn the whole world to the fucking ground to keep her warm.
Maren is all of the love that exists in the world, she’s a gift left at the alter of his withering soul. He wants to carve his heart up and drop it into her palm, beg her to devour it—so that he may live on forever in between her teeth. He wants to sink into her skin so that he becomes part of her.
I love you, so I want you to feast on me. He says.
I love you, but I can't bear it. She answers. I love you, and I don’t want you gone.
I love you, please devour me. I want to watch as your stomach stretches to accommodate me. Eat me and spit me out again. Kill me and birth me, breathe life into me as you drain it away. Keep me locked up in the prison of your love, wrap my hands in barbed wire so that every time I hurt you, it hurts me just as much. Put your heart on display in a gallery and watch me as I try to destroy it. Expose your neck to me and let me wrangle it, then let me kiss you tenderly and wrap you up in my arms.
Their love is violent, it’s volatile and lovely—it’s burning at the stake, impaled and gutted. Their love is seeping out, pooling onto the hardwood floors, their love is flowing between them—their love is drenched on Maren’s fingers.
“I’ll never forgive you.”
Lee could weep. His wonderful, headstrong, stubborn girl. He could kiss her until his mouth turns to ash. “I never deserved your forgiveness, or wanted it. I’m proud of who I am—what I am, because I’m yours. You’re mine. I want you to eat, Maren. I want you to feed.”
Maren leans in and closes the gap between their mouths, gripping the skin of Lee’s cheek right in her fingers, she wants to leave marks, she wants to indent him—a physical reminder indented into his flesh, so that even when he begins to rot, her touch will be there.
Lee’s teeth nip at her bottom lip, it’s rushed and violent—he’s trying to devour her with his mouth. A moan escapes his lips, pain and pleasure mixed so beautifully, it’s invigorating.
Maren cries as she deepens the kiss, stealing all of the breath from Lee’s damaged lung before death has the chance. If he has to go, He’ll go by her mouth, with her love on his tongue.
Lee will die knowing that he’s loved, that he matters—he’ll die knowing that somebody wants a funeral for him.
“I love you.” He whispers, detaching from the kiss long enough to swipe away falling tears beneath Maren’s eyes. His cheeks are damp, his lungs are empty but his eyes are bright. “I’ll never stop. I was born loving you.”
I’ll die loving you.
He doesn’t say it—won’t say it, but Maren aches anyway. Something in her will always ache for Lee, and she’ll spend the rest of her time trying to rebuild him so that they can get it right this time.
They were so close to normal. Inches away from happy. They were more than something, never nothing. It’s all they’ll ever be. They love each other, it’s enough.
“I love you, Lee. I’m sorry.”
Lee sighs, closing his eyes. His vision is beginning to blur but even like this, he can still see Maren. She shines so bright. “Don’t be. I’m not, I’m grateful. Feed, Maren. Show me that you love me.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Nothing you could ever do could hurt me.” He whispers, mouthing her name.
Maren’s eyes clench shut as he bites down into Lee’s flesh. She wants to pull away when she hears his agonising screams, but his hand on the back of her neck keeps her there. She loves him, so she eats. She eats and eats and eats, long enough for the tears to soak into the blood on Lee’s body and turn pink. She eats for long enough that it turns quiet in the apartment.
Maren crawls up the length of Lee’s body, cocooning herself at his chest. She brings his limp hands around her middle, running her pointer finger up his knuckles. He’s so cold. He’s never been this cold. He needs a blanket, she’ll get him one. She’ll make him tea, and kiss the tears from his eyes, and tuck him into bed at night. She’ll wake up with him wrapped around her, and it’ll all be okay.
She can pick up the pieces.
A knock on the door jostles her from her peaceful slumber. She couldn’t have slept for long, it’s still light outside. Lee is still cold beside her. He’s staring up at the ceiling.
She slides out from between his arms, unlocking the door without a second thought. Who could it be? Who would come searching for her, when everyone she knows is either dead or has left her behind?
Maren opens the door, still covered Lee’s blood. Sully’s blood from earlier and her own had dried long ago. Lee’s is still fresh, she can feel it in her nostrils, in her oesophagus, it’s strangling her heart and drowning in her lungs. If she holds her breath for long enough, she’ll be able to taste Lee.
“Maren?”
Maren stares at the person on the other side of the door. She closes it, locks it behind her and walks back to where Lee is slumped on the floor. Still cold. Maren slides down next to him, ignoring the thumping of fists on her front door, hiding her head in the crook of Lee’s neck.
See? Lee’s voice sounds from her memory. It didn’t hurt. I told you. I love you, Maren. Come and find me later. I’ll be wherever you are.
I’m on my way, Lee. I’m halfway there.