Even though I've written a ton of fanfictions before (92 to be exact!) this is my first L4D one, so please excuse any mistakes; I have a habit of always trying to keep everyone in character.
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Disclaimer: I wish I was Valve, or at least Chet, damn; I need to meet him and have him give me the rights to do this…
Title: Hersch
Authoress: Tysonkaiexperiment
Warnings: Uh, Francis and Nick's language, is that enough? Well, regular L4D warnings, anyways.
Couplings: None
Summary: "I used to work for Hersch once, until some guy laughed at my little brown shorts and I beat him to death." Francis had morals; he would not hit kids or teens. The teen's jerk of a father though? He could handle hitting him.
Dedication: To a friend of mine, who was playing Left 4 Dead on Xbox Live with me since she never played Crash Corse and, when she heard Francis's line, said "I bet that was Nick's dad." And thus, gave me the insperation for a fanfiction.
Notes: As this is my first Left 4 Dead work, I'm not exactly sure how people will respond to this, but considerably since I play this game a lot (like, once a day a lot) I pretty much am used to the characters so I think I'll be able to write them decently enough.
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Hersch
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Francis hated many things, as anyone who passed by him knew considering he told everyone, but there were few things Francis truly liked.
This included his job, even if he dealt with that crappy uniform and the sniggering of people once they closed their doors, it still gave him a good amount of cash. And cash was something he needed, considering he always had his bike in a shop after he'd get into his weekly bar fights and people found it a target.
Sighing, Francis cracked his neck, listening to the sound before cracking the other side. He needed to stop falling asleep in the damn truck; his boss was going to hand it to him for sleeping so much. Not like he cared, but as long as the bike was in the shop he'd keep this damn job, which meant playing the good guy. Damn, he didn't know any good guys, well, ones that were on his side anyways.
"Francis!" His co-worker driving the truck hit him on the shoulder and ignored the glare Francis gave him when he whipped around. It was no use to glare considering they were part of the same gang, but it had become almost second nature to the biker, "The next street is our next delivery."
For a moment Francis glared at the red light they stopped at before he looked behind his seat to grab the package sitting there. In a moment the other stopped, Francis got out of the truck, raced up the steps and hurriedly pressed the call button on the apartment building's wall.
"I hear ya!" The old man on the speaker cried, sounding frustrated at the constant shrill of the button. Francis almost wanted to cackle in victory, "What'dya want?"
"Package!" Francis called out, ignoring the old man's grumble before the buzzer went off and he managed to slide through the door and up several sets of steps. He was going to tell that old man to get a damn elevator; this apartment building had five floors and stairs so tiny that he was lucky he wasn't an inch bigger. Finally reaching the third floor he took a moment to breathe out before he collected himself and knocked on the door.
A teen answered, he looked like he was attempting to look polished. "What?" His tone cold, eyes narrowed, this kid almost caused Francis to laugh.
"Package, for Frank." Was all he said, showing the brat his clipboard.
The teen looked unimpressed, he finished clasping his belt as he twirled around and cried out, "Dad, door!" into the apartment.
"Who is it?" A voice called from the house, the voice of a tipsy man, Francis could recognize it after it coming from himself so many times.
A pause before the teen looked back to him, an eyebrow raised before he looked into the room behind him, "Some asshole in ugly little brown shorts!"
He eye twitched then, shifting so he could glare at the teen, "Look here, you're not exactly wearing the prettiest suit, are you?" The younger's eyes swept down to his black suit pants and crimson dress shirt, "So let's try to make amends, at least I know better than to dress like this outside of work, what's your excuse?"
The teen flipped him off, opening his mouth to retort before a budging man came forward behind him. He wasn't as large as Francis but he was still slightly buffer than a normal man, actually he didn't even meet Francis' height, coming just below his eye level. "What?" He snapped while adjusting his white tang top and sweatpants and looking every bit the asshole Francis imagined him to be.
"Package." Was all Francis said before the man swiped it out of his hands like it was a pillow of feathers, the teen between them winced at the sound of something glass breaking. Francis ignored the look the man gave him and held up his clipboard and pen, unfazed. "Sign."
The man grabbed the items between his pudgy fingers and scribbled his name on the line before all-but-throwing it back to him, "Come back inside Nick, let's ignore the faggot and his gay shorts."
Francis raised an eyebrow and tightened his grip on the clipboard, "Excuse you?"
The man whirled around, completely ignoring the eye roll his son gave, before he met Francis' gaze, "Take your little looser ass and go back to your job or whatever. Only an idiot would be caught wearing those."
"At least I have a job." Francis snorted out coolly, smirking at the drunken blaze of furry in the man's eyes. The man roared something at him, then he grabbed Francis' shirt and began to spit cuss words at him, "You have five seconds to release me, fucker."
The man snorted this time, looking back to his son with a smirk on his face, "This is how you deal with trash, son." He turned around, fully set to do something to Francis but he didn't give the man much time to do it.
Instead he rammed his head forward, slamming into the other's head with the powerful head butt. Without wasting time to be fazed Francis jumped forward and landed on the man before he even hit the floor. Next thing he knew his fist was raised and he was beating the man's head into the ground.
"Francis!" His co-worker called out as soon as a minute of his blinded furry had gone by, the other made it up the steps before his eyebrows shot up at the scene. The man was gurgling blood, seemingly-near death; Francis' suit was stained with red; the teen looked a little surprised, amused, and confused all at the same time, "Oh boy are you in trouble, the boss got you this job."
"I know." Francis stood, looking up to meet the eyes of the teen, "Your father's an asshole, Suit."
"I was going to do that some day." The teen looked cross, like Francis had had just taken the only thing he looked forward to from him. Or maybe because he had already nicknamed him, and Suit wasn't too great of a nickname; oh well. "I'm not going to go down for this; I'm calling the cops on your ass."
"The lady's way ahead of you kid." Francis commented, pointing behind him to where a middle-aged woman was on her cell and attempting to discreetly peak from behind her open door.
"Have fun going to jail, you greased up monkey."
Before the eye-twitching Francis could make a comment his co-worker slapped the once-dropped clipboard into his hands and led him down the stairs and past the slamming of doors, "Dude, you're obviously fucked, what're you gonna do about your job and your cycle?"
"I'll have to do something else." Francis shrugged as they got into the truck and headed back to the main building of Hersch, "Maybe the boss will realize I'm not cut out for anything but fighting and have me do something else."
"You're lucky if the boss doesn't kill you the next time you go in." The man laughed, wincing when they caught sight of the front of the building and the several cops surrounding it, "Or maybe you won't even reach the boss."
"Tell my bike I loved her." Francis joked before sliding out; the man's laugh drowned by the sirens from the police cars as soon as he opened the door.
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"I'm telling you the last goddamn time, lower the goddamn bridge, you greasy, vest wearing monkey." Nick snapped, one hand pointed towards the un-amused Francis while the other gripped his pistol tightly.
"Ahhh go to hell, Suit." Francis replied back easily, leaning against the railing lightly. The female of their group yelled at them both, Francis only answered back once before he smirked down to Nick again. "See you joined the club there, Colonel Sanders."
Nick didn't even bother to glance down at his ring, just flashed a spiteful glare at him, "Thanks to you the gang forced me to join to avoid them getting in trouble."
The older man looked un-fazed, "Best not grow up that way or else I'll make your kid join too."
Zoey reached him just as Nick shot him a last glare before the others noticed he hadn't moved, her gaze focused on the hick with the hat, "Think he'll be okay?"
"I'm sure they'll be fine." He corrected her, turning to head back to Louis, "They have Suit and Suit learned from the best group there is."
She sent him a look then, one both amused and annoyed, but sighed anyways, "What should we do in the meantime?"
"I don't know about you, but I'm going to go put the pills just out of Louis's reach." Francis headed towards the other side of the machinery, fishing the pills out of his pocket just as they came in Louis's line of sight.
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Tke: Well, I'm not sure how everyone's going to take it, but I think I did decently for my first L4D writing. I honestly like every character and wanted to give everyone a line, but it just didn't work out that way. Oh well.
Reviews would be amazing, even if it's a little bit of criticism. Just avoid the flames please.