I Love You to Death and Beyond

The change doesn't happen in one day, not even in one week. Ryan just got bitten by some stupid monkey on their holiday trip to Amazon, and the wound doesn't seem to heal. The doctors can't do anything, so Ryan just resorts to covering it with a bandage and tries to live with it.

So, the first time Brendon wakes up and Ryan is staring at him, not blinking his eyes, from the other side of the bed, he isn't scared. He thinks Ryan just wants to sex him up - that's nothing unusual. So he rolls over to Ryan's side and kisses him, grinding against the boy's thigh, and Ryan finally blinks and kisses back.

Then there's the eating thing. Ryan suddenly finds a new interest in all things raw. Like those beefs Brendon was going to make for dinner - well, they disappeared from the fridge and Ryan looks at him innocently from the corner of the couch, pointing at the dog, even though Brendon can see the bloody streak on Ryan's cheek where the raw meat has smudged his skin.

Brendon doesn't know what to think about all this, but he figures it's not that dangerous.

That is, until he finds the damn dog dead on their living room carpet. Brendon is a big boy, a man, so he doesn't scream at the discovery. Okay, so his breathing hitches and he's this close to scream, but then he just blinks his eyes once, twice, then turns 180 degrees on his heels and escapes into the bathroom with his hand slammed over his mouth.

After gagging out the remaints of his lunch Brendon ventures to return into the room, carefully, inching up closer until he's standing at the doorframe again. The view hasn't changed. The dog is still on the white - well, previously white - carpet, and well, the body is the recognizable part of it. The head looks more like someone blasted it with a bazooka. Brendon swallows hard and tries to keep his insides under control, but what the fuck happened here?

He takes a hesitant step into the room and his stomach flinches again. Brendon circles around the remaints of the dog. How did this happen and who could've done this.

That's when Ryan walks in with an absent expression on his face and scratching the bandage on his arm.

"Itches," he complains as Brendon looks at him, shocked. "It's going worse by the day. It's spreading."

"Ryan," Brendon says. "Um. The. Well, dog? That. Um, there?" He points down, and Ryan's eyes shift to the dog. Eh, remaints. Corpse. Whatever. Brendon looks at him, terrified, and Ryan's expression doesn't falter for a second. There is something weird in his eyes, some odd gleam Brendon knows doesn't belong there.

"Uh. We need a new carpet?" Ryan looks at him with bright eyes, like it's an everyday thing to find your dog dead on the living room carpet. Looking like his head was blasted off with a bazooka. Twice.

"Ryan. But. The dog, I mean, what--?" Brendon's eyebrows furrow and he kind of backs off a step or two. Ryan looks at him, his expression a mixture of guilt and innocence.

"--Just, felt, um, like it." The words are barely audible.

"Just felt like it??" Brendon repeats. "Ryan, you just felt like it, so you. You-- You blasted the dog's head off with a-- Whatever you blasted it off with?!" Brendon is now by the door, ready to escape in case Ryan still has the bazooka in his back pocket or whatever, because what the fuck?

Ryan looks at him, and there's that look again, that flash in the boy's eyes, like he's hungry - starving - and Brendon is on the menu today. Ryan steps a bit closer. Brendon backs off equally as much. They continue this until Brendon has been cornered against the kitchen counter, and Ryan is still coming closer.

Brendon grabs a knife and points it at Ryan.

"Baby, I wouldn't hurt you." Ryan's voice is low and raspy, and Brendon suddenly doesn't believe a word he's saying.

"Stay away from me. I-- Just-- Ryan, the dog--!"

Ryan stops and looks thoughtful. "Yeah, I should probably clean up the mess."

And with that he turns and goes back into the living room.

That night Brendon sleeps right on the edge of the bed, clutching his comforter as he listens to Ryan breathing on the other side. He can't sleep and he doesn't venture to turn his back on Ryan, so he's staring at the narrow back in front of him all night, not able to fall asleep.

In the morning the living room carpet is gone as Brendon finally gathers enough courage to peek into the room. He hears Ryan rummaging through the closets in the bathroom, and the boy grunts something as he knocks on the door.

"You okay?"

Ryan turns and Brendon gasps as he sees the arm Ryan is clutching tightly to his chest. The skin on his arm is of unhealthy color - the wound on it is sickly yellow and oozing some nasty-looking fluid, and around the bitemarks the skin looks like it's slowly dying. The tissue seems loose and in some state of decomposing, and Brendon swallows hard so he won't throw up at the sight.

Then he looks up into Ryan's eyes, and there is something so very, very wrong in them. Ryan's eyes seem sick, too, and right now they are staring at Brendon, and Ryan isn't blinking again. Brendon wants to wave a hand in front of the boy's face, snap his fingers, anything to wake Ryan up from he trance he seems to be in, but something tells him that probably wouldn't be a good idea. So he just backs off slowly, leaving Ryan into the bathroom with his arm. Brendon is seriously starting to freak out here. He calls Spencer and says he's worried about Ryan.

"Dude, he's acting all weird. You should've seen the look in his eyes, like he wants to eat me, and not in a good way!" Brendon mutters as he stands on the balcony, holding the phone on his ear. "And dude-- the dog!" Spencer tries to calm him down and says it's probably nothing. Even though the dog thing concerns him as well, but Spencer says he should give it a few days. Brendon is silently wondering if he has those few days before Ryan goes completely nuts.

That night Brendon falls asleep despite himself, because he didn't get any sleep on the previous night. He wakes up to Ryan snuggling closer to him, but this time the boy just seems determined to make out with him, so Brendon allows his body to relax and receive the kisses Ryan is placing on his lips.

"I love you," Brendon breathes as Ryan kisses down his neck.

Then Ryan bites him.

And it's not that kind of light biting you play with during rough sex. No, this is more like that kind of biting which you give a juicy piece of meat you're planning to eat. Ryan's teeth bite deep into Brendon's neck, and Brendon's blood pounds in his ears as he tries to struggle free with a 'ow, ow, Ryan, that really hurts, ow!', and finally he manages to tear free and scampers off to the other side of the bed. Ryan is still sitting there, grinning as he stares at Brendon. There is a hint of red on his teeth.

Brendon lifts a hand onto his neck and wipes the sore skin, and as he pulls his fingers off they're covered red with the blood that's seeping from the bitemark.
"Ryan, ow!" Brendon shows the fingers to Ryan, but Ryan just stares at him blankly, like he doesn't understand what Brendon is saying.

t's like, now they're sitting on their own sides of the bed, Ryan staring at Brendon who is holding his neck, blood smearing his hand, and the next second Ryan is right next to him, fingers curling around Brendon's neck. Brendon's eyes widen in shock and he pushes Ryan off, jumping up from the bed. Ryan follows him, and then it's a race towards the small adjoining dressing room. Brendon makes it first but doesn't get the door locked before Ryan is inside, too.
So Brendon does what he has to. Thanking Ryan's weird taste for those heavy glass objects as decorations, he grabs the egg-shaped paper-weight sitting on the dressing table and smacks it blindly to the side of Ryan's head.

There is a terrible smashing noise and Ryan's head lolls to the side, his eyes rolling back, and then he falls onto the floor in a mess of long limbs.

Brendon stands there, holding the paper-weight in his hand for a while before dropping it with a bang. He lets out a deep breath and drops down to his knees to study Ryan's unconscious body.

"I'm sorry," Brendon sobs as he turns Ryan to his side and sees the contusion on the boy's temple, a small trickle of blood flowing down to Ryan's forehead. Ryan's eyes are closed and his breathing ragged, but at least he's still alive. Alive, yeah, and Brendon is kind of terrified of what's going to happen once Ryan wakes up.

So again, Brendon does what he has to do.

Ryan comes around about ten minutes later, and Brendon is sitting across the room, following the process cautiously. Ryan shifts slightly, then notices he's been bound and begins to struggle. His eyes fly open and focus slowly, and then his gaze locks on Brendon. Ryan growls something, and Brendon winces at the noise. He checked Ryan's arm while the boy was out of it, and the wound has spread up to the boy's shoulder and beyond, soon it will be claiming his collarbone and neck. Brendon shivers at the sight, and shivers at the unfamiliar look in Ryan's eyes as the boy tests the leather belts and scarves Brendon has used to chain him to the radiator that is attached to the wall beneath the window.

Ryan lets out a series of grunts and incoherent noises, and Brendon improves his grip on the baseball bat he's holding, just in case Ryan manages to escape.

"Ryan?" Brendon whispers, still kind of hoping there is a hint of Ryan somewhere under all that rotting flesh and weird noises. No such luck. Ryan stares at him blankly, and there is a trickle of drool dripping down his chin. Ewww.

Brendon sighs and blinks away the tears. "I love you," he mutters, but there isn't a spark of recognition in Ryan's eyes, no love, no nothing. Brendon crawls a bit closer, and immediately Ryan begins to struggle against the radiator, trying to free himself.

Half an hour later Ryan has apparently grown tired of struggling, now just letting out a powerless grunt every now and then. Brendon is sitting close - not too close for Ryan to reach, but closer.

"What the hell happened to you?" Brendon says more to himself than to Ryan. Not that his words would actually sink into Ryan's comprehension. It seems that Ryan does nothing more than grunt, growl and drool over himself. Brendon looks with some kind of fascinated terror as Ryan shakes his head suddenly, and saliva spatters to every direction. Few drops land on Brendon's thigh and he wipes them off with a grimace.

Eventually Brendon decides he has to sleep. He locks the dressing room door from the outside and pulls a few pieces of furniture to block the way. Just in case. He wonders if he should call someone, but then again, what would he say? "Hello, my boyfriend just turned to a zombie or something. Yeah, he ate our dog's head a few days ago, and now I think he's after mine."

Perhaps not.

Besides, Brendon really, really wants to believe Ryan could come back, and be... Ryan again.

***

Brendon wakes up to a terrible howling noise from the dressing room, and it takes him a while to comprehend what is it. At first he thinks Ryan has forgotten the dog into the dressing room and closed the door, but then he remembers that the dog is in no condition to howl much anymore. He cracks his eyes open and sees the furniture in front of the door, and realization hits him like a splash of cold water.

Brendon takes his time listening to possible movements behind the door before he ventures to crack it open. As he peers inside, Ryan is still slumped under the window, attached to the radiator, but he's letting out those terrible howling noises and pulling the belts. For a moment Brendon feels bad for Ryan's Louis Vuitton leather belt, because it is pretty much stretched and ruined because of the constant tearing and pulling, but then he resorts to thinking that maybe Ryan doesn't need it anymore.

Brendon flicks the light on and Ryan stills for a while, turning his bloodshot eyes to stare at Brendon. It takes all the self-control he can muster to not to flinch under the gaze, because Ryan's eyes are sort of empty and there is just some kind of flat wanting in them. Brendon doesn't go closer - he still remembers the dog. Oh, god, the dog. Brendon wonders if he could've stopped this somehow, prevented it from happening, but the if-thinking doesn't get him anywhere.

What the fuck is he going to do with-- that thing which is not Ryan anymore? Brendon's heart pounds in his chest as he wonders if he should turn Ryan in to authorities - "Yeah, it's my zombie boyfriend, please come and get him before he eats my brain!" And again, yeah, not so much.

"Ryan?"

The boy lifts his head and Brendon grimaces at the drool that is again dripping down from the corner of Ryan's mouth. The-- creature seemingly has no control over the functions of his salivary glands. Brendon just wants to reach closer and wipe the boy's mouth with a tissue or something - but then again, he also very much wants to keep his fingers.

"Ryan, can you understand me?"

The boy just grunts something and keeps on staring at Brendon. Brendon sighs. Apparently not, then. Now what? He knows he should call someone, get this thing out of his hands, but he can't, because it's Ryan.

Brendon sits down in front of the belt-chained boy - again, far enough to be out of reach but close enough so he can see the sickness spreading over Ryan's neck. Brendon wrinkles his nose at the sight, and he'd just want to spread his arms and close Ryan into a hug, but yeah, he's very fond of his head, too, along with his fingers, so that option is kind of out of the picture, then.

Ryan stares at him blankly and occasionally tries to struggle himself free, and Brendon really doesn't know what he could possibly do in this situation. He sees Ryan staring at him constantly, blinking very little, and Brendon looks back sadly.

Then there is a clear moment, all the sudden, a flash of recognition in Ryan's eyes.

"Bren..?"

Brendon has seen enough horror movies to know that if he falls for that he's going to end up dead. So he shifts cautiously, doesn't move closer.

"Ryan?"

But then it's gone and the blank expression is back. So is the drooling. What is with that drooling anyway? It annoys Brendon, but then he comes to think that it - him - Ryan must be thirsty. Meaning, losing so much saliva must effect to the percentage of body fluids.

How do you give water to a person who is incoherently mumbling and tries to kill you every time you go close enough? It's more than kind of difficult, Brendon comes to notice. If he sets the glass quickly close to Ryan the boy just slams it down as he tries to launch himself on Brendon, and as for trying to lift the cup to Ryan's lips himself? Brendon kind of values his life more than that.

Eventually he just settles for throwing water at Ryan from good four feet away, aiming at his mouth and hoping that the... uh, thing would understand to swallow at some point. And well, at least Ryan's face is clean now. Soaking wet, yes, but clean. The water is pooling on the floor, small droplets dripping down to the pond surrounding Ryan.

Brendon retreats to the corner of the room, just beside the dressing table and sits there, watching Ryan. Ryan stares back, and Brendon is more than a bit uneasy under the unblinking gaze. But he doesn't want to leave Ryan alone. Even if it is kinda horrid to follow the disease, or whatever, spreading all over Ryan's body. His injured hand is kind of-- eh, decomposed by now, whereas the other looks just like it used to - long, delicate fingers and the visible sinews on the back of Ryan's hand. Brendon likes to watch that hand - that way he doesn't have to look at the other, or worse - Ryan's face. Which is, yeah, kind of gross. The skin has turned to sick yellowish color and Ryan's hair is partially fallen off from the other side of his head.

Ryan is breathing heavily, never averting his eyes from Brendon, and Brendon just, well, stares at the hand that still looks at least somewhat human. Still he has no idea what to do.

Brendon drifts to sleep against the wall, staring at the hand.

***

As Brendon opens his eyes again there is no hand to stare at. The room is dark and seemingly empty, but the light seeping through the window reveals one barely recognizable hand hanging from a ruined Louis Vuitton belt, and there is a trail of blood on the floor, more dripping from the hand that is cut off - chewed off? - on the wrist.

There is ragged breathing coming from his other side.

Brendon turns to look, slowly. Then he screams.

***

Spencer arrives to see if everything is alright, because neither of his friends are answering their phones. He is met with somewhat gross sight.

In the dressing room there is a body that he recognizes as Brendon - even though there is no head. More like the head has been blasted off with a bazooka.

Under the window there is another body, so badly rotten that it's barely recognizable as Ryan. Spencer squints at it, stepping closer to see better - because it looks like the body is moving...

***

Brendon wakes up, soaked in cold sweat. He looks to his side and startles as he sees Ryan lying there, his body jerking away from the boy. He backs off on the bed, not averting his eyes from the sleeping form. Then he risks a quick glance at the digital watch on the nightstand, and as the date finally sinks in he lets out a relieved sigh.

Quietly as a ghost Brendon pads to the living room and flips his laptop open. He sends the e-mail and then returns to the bed, where Ryan is still lying, breathing evenly. Brendon wraps his arms around the sleeping boy and slowly drifts back to sleep.

He's woken up by Ryan jumping onto the bed.

"Brendon, what the fuck?" Ryan growls.

Brendon blinks drowsily. "What?"

"Care to explain why I have received an e-mail from the travel agency, stating that our journey to Amazon has been canceled due to our request?"

Brendon yawns. "Oh, that."

Ryan glares. "Yeah, that."

"I just, uh, there are many dangerous animals there. I mean, I wouldn't want anything to happen to you..." Brendon trails off and looks down. Ryan chuckles and comes closer, wrapping an arm around Brendon's waist.

"Silly."

Brendon smiles sheepishly. "I know. But you know, I've heard that big cities have all kinds of cool stuff as well, how about Copenhagen or London or Paris instead?"

All so far North that there are no monkeys around, he doesn't add.

Ryan drops his head down to the pillow next to Brendon and kisses the tip of Brendon's nose. "Fine, city is it, then. Silly."