"Brian this is crazy! He's one of them, he can't stay here!" Michael's words were fast and frantic in their arrival. His sneakers squeaked on the tile as he paced through the diner. "He's going to turn in the next fifteen fucking minutes!"

Michael reminded those who may have forgotten. No one needed reminding.

"If you're not going to use your brain Mikey, those fuckers out there will take it." Brian quipped, his sarcasm betrayed by his choking voice. His heart just wasn't in it. His heart was slouching on a stool, bleeding, bitten.

"Who died and made you boss Brian?" Michael snapped, unthinking and afraid.

"Everyone Mikey. Everyone." The taller brunet responded, bringing Michael down a bit. He looked down suddenly saddened if not a little ashamed.

Brian didn't say anything to his best friend then. He didn't know what there was to say. What he did know was that for the time being, Justin was still Justin and he wasn't going anywhere.

"Carl." The blond's voice grabbed everyone's focus. It also further proved he was still human.

Brian stiffened and pulled him closer by the waist. Denial was a powerful thing.

Justin glanced up at him before he moved away. "Carl," he began again. "I want your gun." His throat rolled in a swallow.

Several heavy gasps joined the room. It felt crowded.

The blond hadn't thought the words before he'd spoken. He'd just craved an escape from the abject terror he was about to endure.

He knew the bite had released the virus into his blood and it would kill him as fast as it'd turn him. It was only a too short matter of time. He didn't know how long the newly hammered board would hold, he couldn't be an added worry.

"Justin, no." Brian took a step forward placing himself between the blond and Carl; who was in fact un-holstering his firearm.

"Carl." Brian and Debbie pleaded in unison. The Cop's eyes mirrored the worry in theirs.

"Okay, look. Let's think about this." Carl practiced being the voice of reason. He met Justin's look of fear and tried to push the boy from his mind. He didn't want to take him with him, to the horror filled thoughts he was racing toward.

A loud metallic crash echoed from somewhere nearby. Automatically his palm grasped the gun tighter.

"Oops, just me." Emmett chuckled as he emerged (Ted in tow) from the kitchen's door; sending a brief release of tension in the air.

Everyone exhaled with the diner.

Apparently the barrier was more sound proof than anyone ever realized. Drowning also the commotion, the portable radio Emmett had found and insisted on blasting at all hours.

A long dead D.J had left Gloria Gaynor's 'I will survive' (on a constant loop) to Em and his will. ("Maybe the zombie's will like it, a song and a snack can turn any moment into an occasion.") He's said and thriller danced around the dining room. It drove everyone else to almost wishing the zombies would eat their ears. Almost.

The two men held plates of steaming some-kind-of-meat sandwiches, unaware of the fight that had just occurred.

"What's wrong?" Ted asked lamely, as if there was only one thing.

"Everyone's so…" Justin almost laughed at the enormity of the situation. "dead silent." If you listened close enough you'd surely have heard crickets. You'd have to excuse him, he tended to make bad puns when he was nervous.

Every pair of eyes in the room did a square dance around to the others. Justin's wound was like an embarrassing secret no one wanted to acknowledge. No words came, around eyes went again. Dosey-Doe!

They all stared at Justin's wrist then. It's torn flesh slightly exposing muscle underneath. Gratefully, it didn't bleed as much as you'd guess. But it was still quite disturbing to look at.

Emmett was the first to speak again. "My Aunt Lula always said, when there's an elephant the room, give it a name and introduce it."

It lightened the mood a smidgen for everyone, except for Brian. He just stood slack-jawed, gawking still at what was surely not real. The first day they'd emerged from the loft in months and Justin was bitten. 'He had failed to keep him safe.' He looked at his own hands to shift the blame. They clenched, accepting fault.

"Stop it Kinney."

Justin's sweet human voice was music to Brian's ears even if it was scolding him. He brought his eyes to see those baby blues before they… 'No, he wouldn't picture that.'

"Stop what?" he asked, tying to grin but failing miserably. 'He knew what.'

"You know what." Justin confirmed. "You're wearing your blaming yourself face. You're thinking you couldn't protect me. Knock it off." He smiled but it was halfhearted.

Deborah Novotny's authoritative voice interrupted and talked over the tension. "Listen to me, someone has to wear the pants around here," she cast a glance to all, "some of you better put on a skirt." She was the boss. (Like she was used to.)

Debbie walked over to Carl and rested her hand on his half lifted gun. "Now look here Sunshine, there's no way I'm letting you put a bullet in any part of you." She gave her trademark scoff and smile and reached for something clipped to Carl's belt. Handcuffs.

Justin's blue eyes widened slightly but he shook his head in agreement. This was the best for everyone. Justin admittedly had had no real attachment to the idea of being shot. But he was also doomed to turn at any moment.

The cold metal of the last accessory he'd ever wear matched the temperature in his heart. The chill in his bones.

He clipped himself around the stem beneath a booth's table leg. He jiggled the other cuff toward his reluctant partner who'd followed.

Brian tried to recuse himself from clasping Justin to the table, from rendering him unable to move his hands.

Those talented hands he'd had memorized. How they felt as they wandered in search of the softest spots of Brian's skin. How strong they'd been when cancer had weakened Brian's own. The gentle way they ruffled Gus' hair and curled the kid's shoulders when they'd snuggled in to watch shows that generally annoyed Brian to tears. The fucking genius technique they executed when they held an artist tool. The way they fit so perfectly within his.

One of the very hands that was whacking Brian's thigh where he'd joined the blond on the floor. Down closer to hell, where their own world hovered just minutes above.

The click of the handcuff echoed it's hopelessness, chaining the blond to his last moments. The group of onlookers all appeared to have heard the resounding finality.

All focus withdrew from the thumping windows toward the metal. They stared as if it'd detach itself from Justin's wrist. A magic trick in reverse. Surely this devastating sight was but an illusion.

Justin hadn't noticed them notice him, hadn't noticed anything at all really. Except him. The air he'd still breathe long after death, his heart that'd still beat.

He wasn't afraid of dying or even of undying. He was afraid of leaving Brian.

He hadn't wanted to ponder how long his partner would live without him. If the situation was reversed, (Oh how he hoped that would never be. In the fleeting minutes he had left, he allowed himself one last hope.) He was sure he'd not last long alone without his partner beside him.

He needed to wipe the defeat from Brian's face. He offered a small grin in hopes of coaxing Brian's from it's hiding place.

"Slightly bitten leg," he offered an advertisement to lighten the darkness. "still runs…kinda."

Brian's face hadn't changed; then slowly it did. The ghost of a smile haunted his face. He felt the smile grace his lips but hadn't felt the joy behind it.

It was more so his mouth couldn't hold so much dismay building within him. A break in his face to release some pressure. 'How could Justin joke now?' he asked himself, knowing full well the answer. Even in this moment, the worst ever for Justin, he was determined to worry most for the brunet. 'Fuck.'

Blue eyes begged him now not to dwell on the inevitable in these last moments together. "Babylon bitters…they'll get you from behind." Brian said, more an echo of his own voice; a lost memory of a sound he couldn't quite find.

Unable to believe he wasn't already doing so, he pulled his blond into his arms, he leaned his forehead against his temple.

"Brian," Justin spoke, his body suddenly listless beneath Brian's arms causing the brunet to go rigid. 'He wasn't ready for this.'

He couldn't face the darkness, he was used to his Sun. He tightened his arms around him.

The held man coughed, a sickening wet thing in his throat. He coughed again, the severity lurching him forward. He wiped his mouth. Pulling back he noticed his hand, dark spittle peppered his palm. Eerily dark droplets of the virus, brutal in their presentation.

The rasping noise he was making sounded as if it belonged to someone else. It did. It belonged to the devil preparing to dance on the grave he wouldn't be in.

Back in the loft, he and Brian had discussed (all too briefly) the possibility of a bite. Of having to deal with it, with a trigger. Justin had wanted a plan, Brian pretended the conversation was moot. He knew too soon, he might not even know the man he knew so well. That, if nothing else, broke his heart.

No one in the diner had ever encountered someone still human about to turn. Always the infected were long past humanity. They practically gawked now as the boy they'd loved was a man about to become something else altogether. Shocked silence stunned the room.

A room that was quickly turning too small, it also was becoming blurred around the edges for Justin. His vision held a grimy haze, patina on an antique.

He tried hard to look at Brian who was staring at him in horror. Justin didn't have the energy to wonder what had him so spooked before the pain engulfed him and his scream pierced the night.

Brian debated pushing Justin away or pulling him closer.

His eyes had glazed in a blackening pool, then the offending color poured away. It traveled in the blond's veins, something everyone could see. Could follow the virus' journey, mapped beneath his pale skin. It stopped.

Justin stilled along with time and Brian's breath.

Tick. Tick. Tick time's up, pencils down. The blond's body trembled under Brian's hands, now holding him in his lap.

The blue eyes he'd fallen for flicked open. They stared up at him and Brian's feelings refused to define a single one. No longer the shade of yesterday's sky, but the color of today's. Gray.

He acknowledged that thought in addition to another, it was not white. It was not terrifying.

They were glistening, inquisitive, beautiful. Shining like the night, they transfixed him…like the first time.