Eat Shit and Die

by hanjuwonsdaddyissues

He couldn't scream. The tears wouldn't come, though the pain was worse than excruciating. It made the 14 or 15 days of hunger Lemongrab had put him through beforehand feel like a mere peck on the cheek. All he managed were a few sharp, guttural noises he couldn't recognize. A (mostly) canon compliant perspective on how LG2 got half of his head bitten off.

The idea came to me while I was listening to Eat Shit and Die by Harley Poe during a drive.

Can be read even if you don't ship Lemonzest, since the romance between them is really only implied in this one.

They call each other Lemongrab, but in the rest of the story they are:

LG1 - Lemongrab

LG2 - Lemonwhite

Lemonwhite awoke that morning at around half past 6 to an empty bed, just as he had every morning for the past…two weeks, was it? That, he wasn't too sure.

What he was sure of, had been that since his and Lemongrab's disagreement—that which left their dear Lemonsweets in shatters on the floor, and Lemonwhite with bruises and bite marks on his rind that were still somewhat visible even now—he was left to move through his morning routine alone, a void having formed where the older earl once dwelt, gathering his clothes to wear for the day, brushing his teeth, working in tandem with Lemonwhite as he did in most all other activities and occurrences of the day, right up until the moment they settled, one beside the other, to fall into a slumber.

Now, the pair had fallen into a different routine, cold and unfamiliar, with Lemongrab late to bed and early to rise, sometimes not even coming in at all, and very obviously taking his meals elsewhere. They'd barely shared a waking moment since the night of the incident–with Lemongrab going so far as to pick his paths so that they'd hardly pass each other in the halls.

He yawned as both feet hit the ground, searching with his toes for his slippers, the cold woodwork solid and sobering in his still-groggy state. Upon setting himself in front of the bathroom mirror, he took note of the striking change in his body's frame and the shape of his face, just like the morning before, and a couple before that.

He was dropping weight, unsurprisingly. The earls' kitchen, inexplicably, always seemed to be empty as of late. Upon inquiring about why the cabinets and shelves had been so desolate, Lemongrab brushed Lemonwhite off, offering explanations that raised more questions than they answered. The boys haven't yet finished harvesting for the month. There were a couple handfuls of Lemon Johns on the shelf above the sink, what happened to those? There should be a basket delivered with goods to fill the fridge, just wait, will you?

Lemonwhite knew they were well off as far as food went, he'd seen so himself. More was being produced now more than ever, due to their subjects having been assigned jobs planting, harvesting, and processing lemon candy. Nevertheless, the amount of food on his plate grew all the more sparing, and he found himself swapping a full-course royal breakfast with a mug of apple mint tea at least five times per week.

The younger earl knew better than to question his counterpart after how tense things still were. His previous attempt at making himself heard had been met with a violence Lemonwhite had never seen in Lemongrab before, or at least, not towards anyone who inhabited their earldom. He'd been ruminating on the course of events for the near fifteen days since they happened—but thinking too hard about the way his heart pounded out of his chest when Lemongrab sought to devour the clone, juice rushing to his ears doing little to muffle the pitch of Lemongrab's voice as he called for his brutal demise, 'ONLY ONE', sent his stomach turning as if he were falling down a sinkhole.

For the time being, Lemonwhite chose to believe that Lemonsweet's death had been the root cause of Lemongrab's emotional outburst. And that, sure, Lemongrab was still furious with him even now, evident by the complete lack of his presence by his side, but sometime, some way, there would be a break in his rage, and once more they would exist side by side, sitting at the same table, sharing quips with each other as they prepared for another day of co-ruling their earldom, and the black-clad earl would stop being so opaque as to why food had suddenly become scarce when it came to stocking their quarters, which, at this point, sat atop his list of desires for when Lemongrab, Glob willing, decided they were back on regular speaking terms, and that he would stop having to chase him down the hall as he was preparing to leave to ask whether he'd have a proper meal in the morning.

But this morning, he had breakfast alone, opting to let another day go by with radio silence between the two. If he gave the other lemon enough space, enough time, he hoped it would work him out of his funk. He started hoping even harder upon opening the pantry to a handful of empty shelves, save for one with a jar of what couldn't be more than 10 lemon Johns, and a fridge with just half a wrapped honey crisp apple in the door from yesterday. If things were to prolong this way three, no, two more days, he told himself, he would swallow the white knuckled fear he still had of his clone and confront him.

For now, the quiet tapping of raindrops on the window pane to his side kept the time, and he paced himself through what little scraps and scroungings he'd managed to find.

The rain stopped eventually, but the sun refused to show itself from beyond the blanket of gray clouds that seemed to span over all of Ooo. The air stayed cold and crisp, biting through the thin material of Lemonwhite's royal uniform.

He realized upon finishing his barely-complete breakfast and cleaning up after himself that he couldn't remember the last time he surveyed the earldom with his own eyes. He'd mostly just stayed in the palace, conducting his duties from indoors, only going so close to the elements as a few minutes' glance out the open window, or through loitering on the balcony. The lack of sustenance rendered him quite lazy.

He walked, his pace slow, taking advantage of the spike in the sugar coursing through his veins giving him the energy to venture past his quarters, but also trying not to push himself. Venturing through the halls, down the stairs, and through the wide double doors manned by two uniformed and armed guards, Lemonwhite made his way to the courtyard to walk among his subjects.

The earl was somewhat shocked to discover his earldom to be quiet enough to hear the residual drops of rain still dripping from the leaves of the various plants creeping their vines up the walls of the castle and those of the border walls. It was still early, and the weather showed no signs of clearing completely until at least the following day, but that was seldom ever enough to put a damper on the lemon people's routine caterwauling, screeching, and singing of the songs of their people.

Wandering through the lemon orchard, he passed many of his citizens, most hard at work. Upon relocating after the recent famine, the majority of the lemon people had been assigned their own ranks, their own jobs. Most did work in the orchard, cultivating, harvesting, and readying goods for distribution.

But what struck Lemonwhite wasn't just the pace or the uncharacteristic amount of focus his citizens had towards their tasks. A glint of light caught his eye as four, five, six of them passed him by. He stopped and stood for a moment by one of the taller candy trees—his body was somewhat desperate for a rest, anyway.

Each of their boys had a thing on their necks…something crafted of metal. They shone bright, like halos, even in the dense gloom of that misty morning. But several of them had it. Even some of the smaller or more misshapen lemons tending to the crop—on them, it seemed as though these halos were cut to their own custom fit.

He stared on, puzzled. One lemon boy glanced at him, fleeting, almost as if he were terrified of getting caught, and before Lemonwhite could even address him with a nod, a wave, a grunt, he was again fully enthralled with the lemon tree he had been pruning.

Continuing on with his walk, growing curiosity blotting out the fatigue he felt from days of inadequate nutrition. He counted the halos on those he passed. Twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four—and before he knew it, he almost smacked straight into the East wall of the earldom. Still, he couldn't make heads or tails of it.

An idea emerged. Lemongrab had seen more of their boys than he had that week. Perhaps this was some new fad among them—perhaps inquiring about it to him might break the ice a bit regarding their recent spat. Perhaps their conversation might end with the pair admiring their subjects' creativity, joking about the bizarre crafts they had gotten up to.

Perhaps this might be a step towards the continuation of Lemongrab's company, which was becoming an ever-deepening void in his life. The sole reason he'd been brought into existence, aside from co-ruling, was to be Lemongrab's devoted companion, after all.

So he changed his course, assuming Lemongrab might be in the throne room, or perhaps surveying their children as they worked, just as he'd been doing.

As he began to walk away from the East wall, he heard a loud thump behind him, a little to one side. It sounded like a falling tree limb, or perhaps even a brick falling loose from the top of the border wall. And before Lemonwhite could ever turn to investigate, he heard his counterpart from about 4 stories above—

"UNACCEPTABLE—!"

Lemonwhite turned to see Lemongrab atop the wall, screaming down at what he now saw to be one of their subjects, still clutching a strip of barbed wire in one of his gloved hands. It ran all along the wall for at least a hundred yards, now leading down the side nearest to Lemonwhite and straight to where their boy lay, staring up at the gray sky, breathing hard.

"YOU GET THAT STRAND BACK UP HERE AND SECURED TO THE WALL OR DUNGEON! THREE YEARS DUNGEON!"

Lemongrab glowered down at the pair, Lemonwhite filled now to the brim with terror and confusion, and their boy, writhing in pain as he struggled to get up. His burning black eyes passed from the fallen worker to his fellow earl.

His tone shifted as he bothered to address Lemonwhite, refraining from shrieking this time, words pointed and dripping with venom—

"And you…you're supposed to be back in the castle."

Lemonwhite's eyes were wide as he just stared for a few moments longer at his brother. Lemongrab stared back, eyes narrow. He struggled not to look away, hoping the look on his face might be enough to convince Lemongrab to care about their poor subject. His gaze was hot, intense, how staring into the sun feels in the throes of a long, relentless summer, as if every second of doing so caused exponentially more damage to his vision, the windows to his soul, the very whole of him in that damp, damp courtyard—

—and then Lemongrab whipped around, his long, black cape cracking audibly as he spoke to another subject still up there with him.

"WHY HAVE YOU STOPPED HAMMERING? WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?!"

The lemon boy, who stood about a head or so shorter than Lemongrab and had a face almost like if someone were to punch a slice of lasagna, stood in terrified silence at being addressed. The Earl in black didn't take kindly to his extreme reluctance to respond.

"I SAID, WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?! ANSWER ME WHEN YOU'RE SPOKEN TO—!"

Lemongrab fiddled with something in his other hand that Lemonwhite couldn't see, and the boy was sent to the ground, clawing at his neck, electricity visible in waves as he was absolutely engulfed with it.

Memories reemerged of the day the earls had assembled the boy by hand, arranging lemon candy into a pile, admittedly piling up a little too much at the top end of the table, and dousing it with a fresh batch of the life-giving serum they had mixed together, beaming as the boy took his first breath, sat up, eyes darting to every corner of the lab—

It was enough to get Lemonwhite's legs moving, despite his immense hunger, despite the fear burning in his ribs and causing his hands to quiver as he ran. He clenched those hands into fists, racing up the brick steps, determined to confront the earl on his sudden cruelty.

"Lemongrab!"

It was one thing to raise a hand to him in the seclusion of the castle, and during a tense moment between the pair in which one of their dearest possessions had been destroyed, but he refused to allow the earl to make their squabbling the problem of their children.

He froze in his tracks, staring at Lemongrab from 20 feet away. His breath hitched as he looked him up and down…he didn't know how, but Lemongrab was taller now, towering over a nearby flag that hung on a pole, near where the boy he'd just shocked was now hammering frantically.

And Glob, he was broad.

It was like staring at a tree. The kind that's been alive for nearly a century and has a trunk as wide as a house.

Lemonwhite was so sorry he'd come up there.

"What do yeeeeew want," Lemongrab growled, facing him head on, like an animal ready to charge. "Don't tell me you're here to help lay the barrier. You look so thin, your spine would snap at the mere lift of a hammer."

It sounded like somebody else was speaking when Lemonwhite just barely managed to fire the first load of questions that'd risen since he left his front door.

"Lemongrab…what is this? What's going on?" His eyes darted away, and he kept his clenched hands in the pockets of his uniform, trying not to let on that he was shaking. "Why are you making the boys put up barbed wire? Has something happened?"

"Yes…yes, something has happened," said Lemongrab. His shiny, leather boots tapped audibly against the wet concrete while he stepped closer, movements slow, measured, so exact, it succeeded in making Lemonwhite even more ill at ease.

"I woke up about a fortnight ago and realized that no one's taken my Lemon Empire seriously in a very long time." Step, step, step. The closer Lemongrab got, the smaller Lemonwhite felt. "It's not like I can blame them, anyway. After all, who could respect an earldom full of useless, bumbling fools?"

Step, step, step, step. STOP. Lemongrab was only a few feet away, now. Lemonwhite had to tilt his head up just to meet his eye.

"So, I made some changes to the way we run things. Particularly where the citizens are concerned. Equal portions of food, equal money, for equal work. If they don't do their jobs right, they don't eat." Lemongrab held up the thing in his hand from a couple of minutes prior for Lemonwhite to see—a simple remote, with a number pad on the bottom and one, glowing, red button at the top.

"Sometimes it helps for me to recondition them into more willing, focused laborers…"

"Brother, this…" the words came tumbling out faster than he could regulate. "This is horribly, horribly wrong. We can't expect our earldom to prosper if-…if we're torturing our citizens!"

Lemongrab stared down at him as if he were the detritus he made his royal servants scoop from his camel's stable.

"And what would you propose we do? Coddle them, sing to them six times a day? Shove meal after meal into their hands, let them get fat and rich off our lands, all while they contribute nothing to the growth of our quickly developing society?" He gestured with his arm, the whole earldom laid out in the near distance — the lemon orchard, teeming with citizens too scared of their leader to take a break, and waterlogged fields, and newly-built cement housing that looked like cell blocks belonging to a prison. It killed Lemonwhite to look at it now, thinking how he merely sat in the castle, almost blissfully unaware of how bad things were getting, staying out of Lemongrab's way and praying to Glob the change in him he'd seen back on Lemonsweets' final day would just reverse itself in its own time, and that they could get back to their normal activities, and that he could have Lemongrab back—his Lemongrab. The Lemongrab who loved their children, cherished them for merely being citizens of their earldom. The Lemongrab who loved him, woke up every morning with him, laid in bed every night with him, recounting the day's events in between lines of his nightly reading, taking the time to set his novel down and look at him.

Not this Lemongrab. Not this stranger with wild, beady eyes who hurt things and innocent creatures with reckless abandon, who let their precious creation go plunging from such a height, Lemonwhite was skeptical he had survived. Whoever this man was had such pride in himself, had so wholly convinced himself that he was doing the right thing, the only thing necessary for the lemons to thrive as a people.

This stranger who believed his subjects, simple of mind yet loyal to a fault, needed to work themselves half to death as a sort of penance for having the gall to exist on the same land as him.

This stranger, who'd taken joy from eating to excess while his co-ruler and partner starved to the point he could hardly make it across the courtyard without needing to stop, and made their boys slave away, electrocuting them over what were likely portions of scraps from his own extravagant feasting.

This corrupt, callous beast of a man made Lemonwhite sick to his stomach.

"When our reign ends, do tell those keeping track of Ooo and its monarchies that I wasn't the one responsible for driving the Lemon Earldom straight into the dirt." Lemonwhite spat, trying his damnedest to manage a fraction of the malice Lemongrab had been throwing his way for half a month. "When our children band together and overthrow your tyranny—which they'll inevitably do—and seek refuge elsewhere, I do hope you'll enjoy ruling over a population made only of lemon trees and weeds, again. Just as you did for all those years, before Mother Princess so foolishly gifted you with subjects whose devotion you squandered, opting instead to treat them like worthless playthings instead."

Lemongrab grew all the more irritated as Lemonwhite's initial fear and confusion turned to a smoldering, hot rage on behalf of the lemon children he so fiercely wanted to protect.

"I am the only reason why Castle Lemongrab still stands," he whined, clenching his fists. "I'M THE ONLY REASON HALF THESE MUTTS HAVEN'T DIED OUT! AND YOU! YOU'VE DONE NOTHING, NOTHING—! EVER SINCE YOU'VE GOTTEN HERE, ALL YOU'VE EVER BEEN," he began to trudge towards Lemonwhite, eyes narrowed, head sitting lower than his shoulders now, back hunched a bit to meet his gaze better. "—IS JUST ANOTHER NEEDY MOUTH TO FEED! YOU'RE WORSE THAN WORTHLESS AS A RULER—!" Step…step…step... Lemonwhite backed away to keep the earl from closing the distance. "YOU'RE A BURDEN! A HINDRANCE TO MY REGIME! I RUE THE DAY YOU EVER WALKED INTO MY RECONDITIONING ROOM! MOTHER PRINCESS SHOULDN'T HAVE BOTHERED WITH MANUFACTURING THE CANDY THAT COMPOSED YOUR DEFECTIVE SELF!"

The words hit him like a cast stone strikes a flying bird. Still, Lemonwhite refused to waver, to back down, the image of his gravely injured citizen practically cauterized into the insides of his eyelids, so that every time he blinked, he was reminded that the earl berating him now wasn't the one he'd fallen in love with the minute he strode, with a collective 3 minutes' worth of memories and yet not a single stitch covering his rind, into his laboratory.

"I won't let you ruin the one good thing you've ever had." He stood his ground. "If you don't release the children from their shock collars and undo all the damage you've done onto the earldom's grounds…I'll see to it myself that word of this makes it out to the Candy Kingdom. I'll devote the rest of my life to saving our boys from your reign of terror, even if I have to tear through the streets and scream like a lunatic for someone to come to our aid and help defeat you."

"You…YOU WOULD DARE TO USURP MY THRONE?" That struck the rawest nerve yet. "AFTER EVERYTHING I'VE DONE FOR YOU, AFTER EVERYTHING I'VE HAD TO PUT UP WITH—YOU'D SOONER SEE MY HEAD SERVED ON A PLATTER THAN DO WHAT'S BEST FOR US?!"

Lemongrab moved faster than Lemonwhite could think. Thick, cold fingers knotted into the fabric of his white uniform as the other earl snagged him by the shoulders, holding him with both arms, nails nearly scraping his skin into zest.

"YOU THINK YOU CAN DEFEAT ME? YOU'RE ARROGANT ENOUGH TO THINK IN ANY UNIVERSE, WE COULD BE EQUAL RIVALS? WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE—!"

"Brother, let go of me!"

"YOU'RE WEAK! YOU'RE SOFT! THESE FEEBLE-MINDED CRETINS WOULD CRUSH YOUR AUTHORITY LIKE A WET CARDBOARD BOX THE FIRST CHANCE THEY GET! I IMPLORE OF YOU BUT ONE MORE TIME, WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?"

Teeth gnashed in front of his face. The earl had screamed so hard he'd burst a capillary in his eye, and pale yellow, acidic saliva flew with each battered consonant. Lemonwhite's heart pounded as fast as it could go, but his breathing stopped. In his ears rang his brother's words. Even louder rang the sound of juice, rushing like a tidal wave, evacuating from his face and straight to his chest.

Lemongrab's head snapped to the right. Finally, he let go. He could still feel the pressure of his clenched hands deeply impressed into his muscles.

"WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT? GET BACK TO WORK! GETBACKTO WOOOOOOOOOOOORK!"

The remote was in his hand again. Five, six, seven of their subjects who had been staring at them through the height of the exchange were electrocuted at such a high voltage, Lemonwhite could hear the humming of their collars from 40 feet high.

"Lemongrab, stop!" He shrieked at an octave that nearly matched that of his brother.

The earl stood facing the tormented subjects with a grin that covered most of his face. Sharp, gleaming fangs laid out in two neat rows, making him look all the more sinister.

"I said, STOOOO-OOOOOOP!"

Without thinking, he lunged, taking Lemongrab off-guard. He'd just managed to flip the remote's off switch before the device was sent off the side of the wall, landing in a shrub.

A pin could have dropped halfway across the earldom, and everyone there would have heard it.

Lemongrab turned to him, the same look on his face as the night Lemonsweets had died.

"ONE RULER," he said. His eyes were the most terrifying thing Lemonwhite had ever seen. Glazed over, pupils narrowed, looking like they were about to pierce through his own sockets and right out the back of his skull. "ONE TRUE RULER."

He liked to think that, at the very last second, he took the chance to try and back away. Or, in reality, maybe he didn't. Maybe, deep down inside, he still had hope. Hope that the fear in his eyes would drag Lemongrab out of it, or that he'd take a more rational approach to having been disrespected by him in such a manner yet again.

He lifted Lemonwhite right off his feet, like one might do to a small, domesticated animal. And then, the worst possible thing happened.

His legs dangled, two or 3 feet now lying between him and the brick surface of the border wall.

The two sets of razor-sharp fangs he'd been acknowledging with dread not half a minute prior sank into the left side of his head with a squelch. Juice ran down his face, soaking the collar of his shirt, his chest breaking out in goosebumps as it warmed, then all too soon, cooled him. The sight in his left eye was gone immediately. Lemongrab had eaten through his rind, bitter, white connective tissue, and his rigid, yellow, fruit center in one fell hinge of his jaw.

He couldn't scream. The tears wouldn't come, though the pain was worse than excruciating. It made the 14 or 15 days of hunger Lemongrab had put him through beforehand feel like a mere peck on the cheek. All he managed were a few sharp, guttural noises he couldn't recognize.

Lemongrab pulled him back. Stared at the pitiful creature in his hands, bleeding out all over himself, all over him, all over both their uniforms. It dripped off them and mingled with the sheen of rainwater covering the brick at his feet.

They locked eyes for what Lemonwhite thought would be the last time. He was beginning to fall into a stupor, vital juice loss rendering him quite dizzy, feeling his head begin to tip back.

And then Lemongrab dropped him from the great height, like a soda can that'd been emptied and tossed as litter into a ravine. He fell almost straight down from where he'd been dropped. He hardly had it in him to break his fall.

His legs took the brunt of the hit, though his whole body was quite bad off. They hurt worse than his head, then not at all, as the cloudy sky he stared up at grew even darker, a thick, black static invading what was left of his vision. On the fuzzy borders of his sight, he could see the faces of a handful of his subjects as they clamored around him, wringing their hands, backing up and drawing closer at the same time, like frightened dogs, or otherwise trying to figure out what to do.

Rain fell on his face. It was starting up again. At least, he thought it was. Maybe it was his imagination. He was beginning to drift away, eyelids growing heavy, train of thought going dim.

The last sound he heard before he slipped fully unconscious was his brother's voice, shrill, grating, just like the start of the exchange. It was almost as if nothing happened, the way he ignored his brother laying, dying, on the coarse grass of the lemon orchard.

"NOBODY TOUCH THAT REMOTE, OR DUNGEON. 12 YEARS DUNGEON!...GET BACK TO YOUR POSTS!"

FIN