Work Text:
Jeremy’s been sick for three days when his skin starts to turn green. Matt hadn’t even known he’d been bit. They’d fought that night- that wasn’t something to hide. It just wasn’t. The next morning they’d moved on like the fight had never happened- they didn’t have time to be upset. Jeremy already had an entire green arm.
They make it another three days west before the first scare happens. Their nights have been spent curled up around each other- praying and pretending that nothing would go wrong. Matt wakes up to Jeremy staring at him. The man doesn’t respond when he asks him what’s up. He just stares, like he’s in some sort of trance. A few minutes later Jeremy finally blinks again and apologizes. Matt’s terrified for him.
With the change already developing so quickly, Matt refuses to press on. They can’t go clear a field like this, they can’t build things together like this, and- most of all- they just can’t keep living like nothing is wrong like this. He builds them a pretty wooden house and spends days collecting the iron needed to make a door.
Jeremy’s half green and his words are slurring by the time he’s got the quarantine room built. There’s a bed, a chest full of steak, a couple of paintings, an ocelot Jeremy tamed, a glass wall, and an iron door that only opens from one side. Matt’s got the lever to put on the other side but Jeremy makes him promise not to put it there.
Neither is really ready to put him in there. The room’s ready, stocked, and absolutely ignored. Jeremy gets worse quickly. There’s no patch of skin that’s not green on him. His words aren’t words anymore. They’re groans, moans, and gestures that are slowed so much more than they should be. He’s not gone completely though. Jeremy still smiles at him, still defends him, and still tries to comfort him. Jeremy can’t talk but he’s lucid and in pain- Matt’s not dumb, he’s seen the wincing.
Jeremy locks himself in the room one night. Matt can’t figure out what happened, but any time he tries to enter the door Jeremy just shakes his head. Matt spends his time trying to find a way to help and whispering promises to Jeremy. Ones he gets increasingly sure he can’t keep.
Jeremy’s completely turned and no longer turns to his name after a few days. Matt tries to keep talking to him but it makes his chest ache when there’s not even a grunt in response. Kdin finds him sitting in front of the glass, watching Jeremy stare at him. The man pulls him away and tells him about a group who managed to fix a zombie. Matt begs Kdin to lead him to the group. If there’s anyway to help Jeremy- if there’s any way it’s not too late already…
They find the group after two weeks. They were farther north than last reported, but Matt doesn’t care because they know how to fix it. The group introduces themselves, offers Matt a place to stay for the night, and promises things he’d not sure he can believe. There’s no way this will work, but Matt’s too desperate to not believe in it.
Ray- the one of the group who was actually the zombie- asks him to lead them to Jeremy. The man looks strangely lost in thought and keeps tripping over calling Jeremy a zombie. Matt appreciates that a little- even if he’s turned, it’s still just Jeremy right? It has to be. He leads them back to his little home and the containment chamber. Jeremy launches at the glass when he gets home, scratching at it like he could get through if he just keeps trying.
The men he brought home avoid looking at Jeremy. All except Ray who looks on with such pity that it makes Matt queasy. Jeremy doesn’t need pity right now. He needs help! He needs some way to be able to use his brain again because Matt doesn’t care how long he’s been changed- that’s still him in there. That’s the only fucking reason he’s even taken any of these people here!
It seems like forever before anything is actually done. There’s so much talking that Matt can’t follow. He doesn’t care about their morals. He doesn’t care about how long they can stay. He doesn’t care about their conflicting risk levels. All he cares about is whether or not they’re going to help him. His answer comes in a very short answer- they need to make a trip to the nether to finish the ingredients list.
Matt spends the entire day they’re away in front of the quarantine room. The one who claims to have been a zombie sits with him. Tells him all about what it was actually like for him. What Jeremy’s probably going through right now and how talking won’t actually help, but the noise will give Jeremy’s decaying mind something to focus on. Even if it’s all one big lie, Matt finds comfort in it anyways. He wants to trust them- he needs to believe them.
Their ‘treatment’ looks like it shouldn’t work. It looks and sounds like an old witch’s tale that won’t get them anywhere. It’s not something he can even speak against- he was the one who came begging for their help. If he says anything against it now, it may risk everything. So he takes the golden apple and walks with Ray to the pressure plate.
Jeremy tries to launch himself at Matt. He doesn’t have the muscles too, so he ends up lying on the floor for a good bit. Ray nudges him forward and he finds himself kneeling pretty quickly. It’s terrifying having to dodge your boyfriend’s teeth on your skin. Matt lodges the apple in Jeremy’s mouth when the zombie moans, and watches for it to be bitten into.
The scream Jeremy makes when the apple rolls away from him is painful. He wants to leave the room and scoop the man up all at once. Ray just keeps him back for a minute. “Dude’s in a lot of pain right now. That shit is like drinking poison straight. Wait until he faints.”
The other five don’t seem to like Ray’s words. Matt barely even takes notice of them. They’re just background noise as he focuses in on every movement Jeremy makes. The treatment couldn’t have just been something nice could it? No, of course it’s got to be more pain to end months upon months of pain. Fucking ridiculous. Matt rushes forward the moment Ray’s arm drops, bringing Jeremy’s head into his lap.
If this cure is bullshit… If Jeremy doesn’t reverse and bites him.. Well, Matt can’t care anymore. He’d rather be a zombie with Jeremy than a struggling human without. Ray stays with him the whole night as they wait up for his boyfriend to wake up. Jeremy doesn’t. It’s only supposed to take one day but Matt can feel the breathing.
“Maybe…. Maybe it’s just taking longer because he’s been one longer?” One of the five outside the quarantine room says.
“It only took me a day, but I’d only been craving flesh for a week tops.” Ray says quietly, but neither comment is soothing.
It’s three days before Jeremy opens his eyes. Three long days that Matt stays like that, in the quarantine room, with an ex-zombie who promises the miracle cure really works. Three days that he just whispers nonsense and promises new starts to a comatose body that’ll never hear him. Three long fucking days where food is always forced upon him and sleep seems unimportant. Three days until Jeremy’s opening his eyes with a groan and asking Matt to break their windows.
It’s three days until Matt cries, holds his boyfriend close, and tells him he loves him as many times as days they couldn’t speak.