He never saw or heard from him again, but it made it easier.
In some ways.
Once El disappeared and left him with a raging creature in his form, he had had to use the shock collar so much that he replaced the batteries frequently to make sure they wouldn't give out at an inconvenient time. The first day he had to utilize it once every five minutes or so. The next day rewarded him with a 100% improvement– once every ten minutes. Unfortunately the curve didn't hold– for the next week he kept having to shock the kid those every ten minutes to keep from being pounced. His yelps were angry, distraught. He'd sink into a brooding silence, sometimes growling under his breath, sometimes giving a high-pitched whine of hurt for many minutes afterward.
To sleep he had arranged a room with reinforced metal walls– originally some kind of storage room for refrigerated meat, but it made a good pen. It gave him time away from the kid, though his sleep was fitful for all the banging on the echoing steel walls as he tried to escape.
But whenever he had secured enough rest for himself, he always let El back out. He hadn't decided to keep him just to have him permanently locked up; he wanted to spend time with him… despite the kid's constant interest in murdering him. Getting him back out of the room wasn't always an easy process. Often the hick would be prepared to leap when he opened the door, having heard him coming. On days when they would be going out to look for supplies, he often had to shock him upon entry and keep the shock prolonged until he got the leash on with gloved hands. He hoped it wasn't damaging to his mind to have the shock extended like that, though the thought seemed silly on its own all things considered.
He fed him flesh. There were plenty of zombies to drag back (if they didn't just come straight up to the house), cut into hunks and feed to him. Ellis made it plenty clear daily that he'd rather be chewing on Nick's living flesh, but without anything else to fill his tummy, he ate what he was given. Nick tried to keep the meals infrequent at first, and only as a kind of reward for good behavior. But reward or not, he seemed to have to keep his hand on the button, ready to apply the next shock. Dully he had consigned himself to the existence. El would be this way forever.
But hope shined through the day the kid didn't try to pounce him for a full half hour. He couldn't scarcely believe it. As the twentieth minute had passed, double– DOUBLE– any previous times, Nick had grabbed a large leg and set it in front of him. The hick had gobbled it up greedily, and as Nick bent to clean his face and hands of the mess he had made of them, El's nostrils flared and he knew it was coming.
The shock he had had to give him sent them back into the pattern the rest of the day, but Nick kept the incident firmly planted in his head and heart, refusing to give up on his little lover. Day by day the intervals grew. Half an hour became common. Then an hour. Eventually a few hours at a time. Ellis grew accustomed to his scent and resisting it.
As it was, he treated the boy with as much normalcy as possible. Never once did he allow himself to think of him as a monster. He was El and that was that. And he talked to him. Asked him questions. His favorite question was "Are you hungry, El?" to which he would lift his arms and tug on his hat– he did still love that hat. Nick wasn't sure where the hick put all the food. He always ate like he was starving, and no matter how much he ate there was always room for more. Or at least so it seemed. He wasn't getting any fatter and he didn't defecate all that much.
One night, as he was eating from a can of ravioli, the kid tilted a curious head at him, watching him eat. He gave a little low growl, but it wasn't the kind of growl to be concerned about, Nick had learned, then crept forward to place both hands on his thighs. Nick had tried not to tense at Ellis' proximity… at the feeling of those claws just fabric's length from his flesh… as the kid sniffed at the can. He recognized eating. Eating was something he knew, and Nick watched as Ellis' wide yellow eyes blinked, as if he were attempting to figure out why he was eating this instead of hunks of flesh.
"Want some?" he had asked, carefully holding out a forkful.
Ellis opened a tooth-ringed mouth and Nick placed it in. The kid's nose wrinkled at the taste and he drew back with what seemed to be shock. Nick couldn't help but laugh. It felt like the first time he had laughed in forever.
But Ellis hadn't been appreciative of his laughter, slinking back to his corner with an annoyed growl.
Nick finished his can complacently. The moment had been, honestly, touching. But such moments remained few and far between as weeks stretched into months.
The first thing the kid learned– could he call it remembered…? he wanted to– was his own name. When Nick said "El", the hick would look up, or peek out of his little dark corner, wondering why he had been called. It pleased Nick very much that this small bit of recognition was there.
Things did change slowly. Patience and consistency payed off. For one, the kid stopped attacking unless he was hungry. Nick kept him fed and Ellis kept from trying to kill him. Certainly an acceptable compromise in his book. Naturally he still had his moments. If Nick stayed too close too long, he couldn't resist trying to take a bite. Which made keeping him clean difficult, but he managed in snippets to keep him from getting too filthy. For the most part he had to try and keep his contact with the kid to a minimum, letting him approach on his own time instead. As it turned out, Ellis-turned-hunter was reasonably inquisitive about his living partner, and would often come out to watch him.
Not that he did much. A lot of the time he read whatever he could get his hands on. He had nearly finished filling a bookcase, placing the things he had finished in it. Sometimes when the kid would join him, he'd read out loud to him and Ellis seemed to listen, blinking and watching and waiting for his next meal.
The metal room became less of a necessity. A nice big meal before bed and one in the morning seemed to suffice to keep him from attacking when he opened the door to let him out. Nick was nervous to make the switch, but he wanted to. He could recall the blatant surprise on the hick's zombified face the first time he didn't put him in the room. He had given his usual proclamation: "Bedtime, El." and obediently, the ex-mechanic had scurried over to the door, but Nick didn't open it, motioning instead at the couch. He seemed to understand and crawled onto it, curling into his typical ball to fall asleep.
For a while he alternated nights, keeping El in the fortified room one and staying up all night the next to watch and make sure the kid didn't wake from the couch and try anything. But he never did, so at last he let the kid stay out, going to sleep in the bedroom, and happily, but with a touch of mild surprise, he woke up alive.
A couple weeks later was when Ellis really surprised him. Scared the shit out of him too. He had been asleep when he felt something crawl onto the bed. His hands had flown for little remote– almost lost and forgotten on the bedstand– but as it turned out, El hadn't been interested in attacking.
Instead he just curled up at the foot of the bed.
The kid had just wanted to be close to him.
He had had to resist sweeping him up into his arms and hugging him tight. But before too long, it had become the new pattern and Ellis dutifully slept by his side, sometimes even snuggled up under the covers when the nights were colder.
So each day the kid grew a little more like a dog and a little less like a murderous monster.
But not like El.
