"Hey, Chickadee, you awake?" Matt asks quietly, raising his head ever so slightly from the bunched up jacket he's using as a pillow.
Matthew stirs and makes a somewhat muffled noise, almost acknowledgement. The corner of Matt's mouth twitches upwards momentarily.
"You're not too cold, are you?" he asks, concern lacing his voice. Matt himself is absolutely frozen, having wrapped most of their bunnyhugs and blankets around Matthew to keep him comfortable through the frigid winter night.
He receives little more than another dull noise and some shuffling. He frowns deeply, hoping the ropes keeping Matthew tied to the doorhandle aren't causing him any discomfort. Slowly, he sits up, and turns to face the back seat. "You're in pain."
This time Matthew's response is much more clear; moaning loudly and clicking his teeth together, he strains against the ropes.
Matt runs a frustrated hand through his hair, sighing. "Look, I'm sorry, okay. I can't let you go right now. Just get some sleep, please."
Matthew's glasses clatter to the floor as his struggling knocks them from the corner of the seat. They don't really stay on his face very well, so Matt would have no reason to keep them if they didn't remind him so much of what Matthew used to be. When, on occasion, he does manage to slip them onto his face, Matthew becomes Matthew again and really he isn't, but it completes the illusion. And that's enough for Matt, who reaches carefully between the seats to retrieve them and place them on the dashboard instead.
Matthew continues to click his teeth together insistently as Matt lays down again, staring blankly up at the roof of the truck with his hands crammed in his pockets in his attempt to warm them. He doesn't fall asleep when Matthew settles down. Instead, he chews the inside of his lip and wonders what intelligence Matthew has retained from his past state of being. Surely, if he knows when to give up on something, then he must not be the mindless creature Matt had thought all the undead to be. Perhaps he even remembers his past; perhaps he remembers Matt and what he means and he remembers who he is and is simply not in control of his actions. That must be it.
It takes until the sun has risen for Matt to move, and when he does Matthew starts up again. Matt peels back the blankets from his shoulders, now soaked in the scent of decay, and he pushes Matthew's hair out of his face for him. Matthew tries to bite him, but only succeeds in bumping Matt's hand with the muzzle a few times. "Love you, Chickadee," Matt mumbles, pressing a soft kiss to the top of his head. Matthew only whines gutturally, hitting him with the cold mesh again.
He is very much emaciated, and Matt feels absolutely terrible knowing that it's his fault Matthew is suffering.
Ensuring that the ropes holding Matthew in place are secure, he picks up his crossbow from in front of the passenger seat and steps outside. It's very still, but the cold is sharp nonetheless, and as Matt trudges through the brush, his fingers begin to feel numb.
He's starting to consider turning back when he sees movement. He thanks whatever deity must be watching over them that at least one rabbit hasn't taken shelter from the cold, loads the crossbow, and fires at its flank when it's in sight. It writhes and squeals on the ground as he approaches, but he can see that it's dying quickly so he picks it up by its hind legs and runs back to the truck.
Matthew smells the blood when he opens the door and begins to squirm.
Matt takes the precaution to lead him out of the truck with his wrists still tied together to avoid getting blood on the seats. He uses an extra bit of rope to tie him to the hitch by his neck, and grimaces because he's been reduced to treating poor Matthew like some fucking savage dog and it's cruel. But he has to, as much as he hates it, for his own safety.
He unties his hands and removes the muzzle, stepping back quickly from snapping jaws to toss the still-breathing rabbit into his lap.
Matt sits in the truck until long after the creature has stop squealing in pain. His hands leave small dents on the steering wheel, and he wishes Matthew would just eat something already dead for once, because no living thing deserves the pain of being eaten alive.
Outside, Matthew moans quietly.
When he is tied securely into the passenger seat with his muzzle back over his mouth, Matt starts the truck and leaves the woods, hoping to find supplies in a nearby town. Habitually, he keeps one hand on the lid of the compartment box. A few weeks ago, Matthew would be holding his hand, and smiling and talking and laughing, and Matt would run his thumb gently over the back of his hand as he drove to show him that he was paying attention. Now he just stares forward with dead eyes and growls occasionally, and Matt can't hold his hands when they're tied back.
There's not much in Essex, and there's no way he's risking the suburbs anywhere, so he only leaves with a few water bottles and some chocolate bars. Lakeshore is no different, but he sees a few zombies shuffling past a high school as he drives by, and bodies littering the playground of an elementary school just down the street.
They might still be people. If Matthew can still be a person, any of them can. They might have people worried for them. Family, friends, lovers, someone who hopes they're safe. If any of them pose a threat to him, Matt isn't sure he can kill them anymore. Not when Matthew is one of them.
He settles down for the night in Emeryville, as far as he can be from any houses and from the last place he's seen a zombie. Matthew whimpers and groans all night, and Matt wants to untie him and take off the stupid damned muzzle and hold him and kiss him but he can't.
In the morning, he realizes that Matthew is missing a shoe, and he must have kicked it off while he was tied to the truck back in Cottam. It's easier to think of Matthew as a toddler than undead when he behaves that way. Still, he unties one of his boots and slips it onto Matthew's foot. It's huge, of course, but he doesn't do much walking anyway so it shouldn't bother him.
He lifts him carefully and puts him back in the passenger seat, and their closeness has Matthew thrashing and whining and Matt has to pin him down to get the seatbelt on. He calms down once Matt starts driving, because he is still human and he knows when to give up.
Matt rests his hand on the compartment box, aching for proper physical contact with him.
..
Tecumseh is bad. Matt considered avoiding it because it's so close to Windsor and so many people lived there, but he's in desperate need of more supplies if he hopes to live much longer. But when his truck is swarmed, he knows he's made a mistake, and the commotion is only aggravating Matthew so that it's difficult to focus. A hand bloodies his windshield as he puts the truck in reverse and begins to back away. Another scrapes across the window beside him, and there's a dull thump from the bed of the truck.
He doesn't notice Matthew struggling to free himself. He doesn't hear the snap of bones as he breaks his own wrists, so caught up in being surrounded by others like himself that it excites him, gives him energy and determination and desire.
Matt gets them out of the town of the dead. He turns back toward Emeryville. He curses himself for thinking that he could even get near Windsor at all. And Matthew rips his hands from their bindings, somewhat mangled, but he still doesn't notice as he drives.
He isn't wrong in thinking that Matthew is still intelligent. Before anything else, he pulls the stupid muzzle off of his face and places a cold hand over Matt's. His lover jumps in his seat, but by the time he is able to react properly, Matthew's teeth are buried in his forearm.
"Oh, Chickadee, no. No." He pulls over abruptly, holding Matthew back with one arm while he puts the truck in park. Matthew growls as the muzzle is pulled back over his mouth, as Matt steps out of the truck to fetch more rope and pauses only momentarily to assess the damage to his arm. If he dies, no one will take care of Matthew. So when Matthew is tied down again, after much coddling of his injured hands, he tries to cut his arm off.
It's more difficult than he expects; in the end he's just losing a lot of blood and in a lot of pain, and he has most certainly not stopped the infection from spreading. Somehow Matt ends up back in the truck, pulling a relatively sober Matthew into his arms and stroking his hair. And he apologizes.
Not for letting Matthew bite him.
For letting Matthew get bit.
With the amount of blood pouring out of his arm, he expects Matthew to be trying harder to kill him, but he remains still. He must already smell of the infection. He wishes he could stop it. He wishes he could stay forever and make sure Matthew is safe forever and they could have lived forever.
With the amount of blood pouring out of his arm, he is feeling faint much sooner than he wants to. His head spins as he helps Matthew settle more comfortably into his seat, loosens the ropes, tosses the muzzle aside. He poses no threat anymore. Matt slips the glasses over his eyes and smiles, leaning back in his own seat and watching Matthew turn his head slightly and click his teeth together.
Matt aches for physical contact. He rests his hand on the compartment box.
Matthew doesn't take it.