AU - Evening at Lee's Apartment

[lee_fallon]

It's been a mediocre day. Lee'd gone for treatment, which had been more tedious than usual because of uncooperative veins (and he has a bruise on his right arm the size of a peach to show for it), but he'd also done a six mile run that had felt better than any recent ones he could remember. He had a feeling his extracurricular cardio (sex) had at least a little something to do with it, and thinking about it made him smile.

As soon as he got home, he sent Connor a text message, mostly to say hi and ask if maybe he'd want to come by later for dinner. Lee didn't cook much these days, but he had some packaged noodles and he was very adept at ordering for takeout.

He didn't do this much, invite Connor over for something that sounded like it could be a date more than a hookup. But they were friends (if the kind with benefits), and Lee felt like he could use some company. Connor had been busy lately with school (and what sounded like an unpaid job for a lawyer who frankly scared the hell out of Lee), so there was a good chance he wouldn't be available, but Lee had been thinking about it all afternoon and thought he might as well take the chance.

Comments

[goodforonce]

"Am I allowed to ask what the motivation is?" he asks, head tilted slightly. "Or was, at least? What made the pay-off worth it?"

[lee_fallon]

Here it is again, a question Lee can answer the easy way, or he can bite the bullet and tell Connor the truth. He has a bad feeling Connor won't like hearing it now, as long as Lee's been keeping it to himself, but eventually he's going to have to know, one way or another. And some of the alternatives would be much worse.

"It was a health thing," Lee says, starting off vague, because he can already feel himself shaking internally at all of the ways Connor could take this. He clears his throat. "I found out I was sick and my doctor at the time suggested I eat more cleanly. To give me a better chance of, uh... well staying healthier for longer."

[goodforonce]

One thought goes through Connor's head. HIV, like a bullet. He knows it's not such a big deal anymore, that PrEP is effective. He blinks, takes another swallow of his beer.

"Should I have done a course of PrEP before we started sleeping together?"

[lee_fallon]

The question isn't at all what Lee's expecting, and it catches him off guard entirely. Thinking about the things they've done together, what they let themselves do when they were on their vacation, even just the idea that Connor would think he'd do that if he had HIV makes him feel sick.

"No, no," he replies, setting down his wine. "I don't have HIV. I would have told you way at the start if that's what it was."

[goodforonce]

Connor lets out a shivering breath that he's ashamed of himself for holding. He sets down his beer and his plate, runs one hand over his beer.

"Not HIV," he says. "So...what is it? If I can ask."

[lee_fallon]

Lee takes a breath. He hasn't told anyone new about this in a long time. "I have cancer," he says, and the sound of his own voice saying it out loud makes his ears ring.

[goodforonce]

"Oh, shit," he says. He breathes out, staring at Lee for a moment. He's aware that he's supposed to be reacting to it - that there's a way not to be an asshole here. "What kind?" He frowns. "Can I ask that? Is that...shit, is that okay?"

[lee_fallon]

Lee nods, and he breathes a sort of laugh, one that doesn't have a lot of humor in it. "It's melanoma," he tells Connor, feeling bile rising in the back of his throat. "Stage four," he adds, because he might as well get that out of the way.