Damn. This is sad. And... surprisingly, pretty clean. I mean, there's very minimal cursing and the entire thing is pretty depressing. UGH. I wished for something that wasn't fluff, and I got it.
Inspired by "Angels on the Moon" by Thriving Ivory. If you want the entire experience, go listen to that song on repeat while reading this. It'll make ya break into tears, promise.
Also, kinda dedicated to SoulofGlass because she was the one who (indirectly) showed me this song. Love ya, Nick-buddy :D
Disclaimers: I don't own Left 4 Dead 2, the characters or the song. L4D2 is owned by Valve, and the song... Um... Thriving Ivory?
Don't Tell Me If I'm Dying
The static quiet of the hospital was starting to pick and probe at his nerves, the last ones left in his brain under messy, curly chocolate hair and a blue cap that he rarely left the house without. He wound his thumbs around one another, his blue eyes sad and downcast as his thoughts raced by at a mile a minute. His head hurt, his eyes hurt from a lack of sleep and his heart hurt from the silence that the doctors were supplying him with, the entire ordeal so easily avoidable…
Or, at least it was in his head.
He couldn't remember a moment in his life that a hospital stay had ever been so tense, other than that first time Keith had burned himself with the fireworks attempt. After his best friends stupid ideas and risky antics, the hospital was just like another home for the mechanic. It was never scary, never so tense. It was never these things before now, before he was sitting in the waiting room with other guests crying with the same look in his eyes he had. Ellis had to choke back his own tears, because men don't cry… That's what he had told him so many times.
"C'mon, kid! Real men don't cry! We're almost to the safe house, and you'll be fine!"
His eyes filmed over, his hands clenched together for sanity, for prayer, for the hope that everything will be just fine, as fine as it could be now. He could barely remember a time when life was so stressful, because all his life had ever consisted of was working on cars, drinking with some friends, trying to do the stupidest things in hope of gaining a little fame and, after the infection, killing zombies with the widest, most optimistic smile on his face. It was never about god awful hospital stays, waiting in the waiting room with tears in his eyes and not knowing whether or not the person he was waiting to hear back from was okay or not.
Ellis looked up as a doctor strolled toward him, his eyes widening as he was almost sure that it was for him, but the doctor headed to the woman to his right, whispering something low in her ear before she collapsed into tears and uncontrollable sobs. The doctor helped her up and out of the room, arm around her shaking shoulders. The hick's confidence and hope faltered, crashed to the ground in pieces, and he sniffled, wiping away the few tears that started to fall.
It was hopeless, so very helpless.
The same doctor appeared again, this time Ellis caught his name tag- Dr. Lane- and he headed for the young man. "Are you… Ellis?" He asked, seemingly to struggle remembering the name.
Ellis nodded. "Yessir, I am." He answered back politely. He's dead. He's dead. He's dead. His mind chanted, pessimistic and cynical thoughts flooding his once optimistic mind.
Dr. Lane handed Ellis a clipboard with a sheet of paper attached to it, but the hick stared at the man. "It's release papers. He's allowed to leave."
The mechanic's blue eyes filled with tears, hot and stinging as he signed the papers with sloppy handwriting and blurry vision. He's not dead. He's NOT dead.
"But, there is one thing that we have to tell you…"
His heart stopped. No.
The doctor handed him another piece of paper that he had tucked away under his arm. "We tested him for cancer."
Ellis blinked and looked at the doctor with a pale face and wide eyes. No, no, no!
"They… They came back positive."
~"Do you dream that the world will know your name? So tell me your name. Do you care about the little things or anything at all?"~
"Don't tell me what the doctor told you about my tests, Overalls."
Ellis looked over at eldest of the two; the city lights flashing by as they drove down the highway, the driver's face a clean stone face straight ahead. "I don't want to know my fate, okay?"
The hick blinked. "But, Nick…"
Nick slammed his hand down on the steering wheel, short temper flaring. "No, Ellis. I don't want to know." The conman sounded stern and strict, his voice one that put an end to the discussion. "I've lived my entire life thinking one day it'll turn around, that I won't be stuck between a rock and a hard place, between worse and worst, between stealing and murder. I did everything I did to be a high-roller in Vegas, to get my name up somewhere, in someone's mouth because I wanted the fame." He stopped, his breathing a little harder than usual. Ellis flinched. "The infection… After it, I didn't want to be a loner, be a high roller, the fame didn't matter… And everything, I now do because of you."
Ellis swallowed down a lump in his throat, turning his eyes out the windshield.
"So, please Ellis, don't… don't tell me."
The redneck looked down, face hidden by the bill of his hat. "I promise."
~"I wanna feel, all the chemicals inside. I wanna feel. I wanna sunburn, just to know that I'm alive. To know I'm alive."~
Nick was having another coughing fit, his chest rising and falling with heavy breathing as he held his clenched fist in front of his mouth. Ellis patted his back slowly, comforting him, even if his eyes betrayed the comfort he was trying so hard to pass. It had been a month or two since they came back from the hospital, unbeknownst to Nick exactly what he had, but Ellis' shoulders heavy with the test results that read positive with lung cancer. He didn't even want to bother wondering how he got it in the first place. All he cared about was if Nick was going to be okay for a little while longer.
But the conman refused to go in for treatment, because he didn't want to be reminded that he was sick, and he was getting worse. He was stubborn as a mule when it came to it, and he had heard that medicine just made you feel ever worse off. Ellis, after Nick left to go get food for dinner or went to the gas station to get a cola, would cry because Nick was dying, and he couldn't do anything about it other than get him to do the one thing he refused to.
The conman's rattling breath evened out again, and he looked at Ellis with a sincere face. "Thank you, Overalls." The nickname had stuck from the Green Flu, and Ellis couldn't hold back a smile. It was too hard to resist. "I think I should be okay. You can go back to bed now."
The hick watched Nick lay back down, back to him as Ellis' eyes shimmered with tears. He looked at the clock slowly; nearly three in the morning. They would get up in the next few hours anyway, so what was the point? He rose out of bed and searched around for a pair of boxers that got discarded during their nighttime activity, then pulled them on, then pulled on a shirt as well, standing from bed and blindly walking downstairs to the kitchen.
He flicked on the light above the island and walked over to it, sitting down on the bar stool and propping his elbows up, resting his head in his hands. Tears fell down his face. It was so overwhelming; the cancer, the coughing, Nick dying. He had known the conman for years now, it seemed, and now he'd lose him, just like he lost Keith. The preachers in Sunday school back in Savannah used to tell him that if a boy were to kiss a boy, or a girl kiss a girl that they'd be condemned to hell, because that's not what God wanted. Ellis knew he was already damned to hell for everything he had done already, but it's not like it mattered. Earth would feel like hell without Nick around.
He wiped away stray tears and sniffled a little, then stood up from his place at the counter, grabbing a glass that he had set out to dry earlier from the wash. Filling it with water, he took a gulp, then carried it upstairs with him, blindly groping for the railing against the wall. Nick was asleep when he came back in, and he sighed, putting the drink down on the bedside table and slipping back into bed silently, letting another tear fall as his mind slipped into sleep.
~"Don't tell me if I'm dying, 'cause I don't wanna know. If I can't see the sun, maybe I should go."~
He looked thinner now, his skin paler and his voice even huskier than usual. He wasn't ever up to going much of anywhere, and Ellis was sure he weighed less than him now. It was even scarier than the coughing fits every night, or the fatigue he obviously felt. He was loosing energy for everything, even making fun of Ellis for the littlest things like he used to. Tears were becoming more common.
Nick flipped through the channels as Ellis curled up against his side, blue eyes softly staring at the TV. "Overalls."
"Hmm?"
"Have you been okay, lately?"
Ellis looked up at Nick's green eyes, noting the unhealthy look in his brown hair, then smiled, even if it was fake and forced. "Yuh. I should be worried 'bout yew. Ya look sicker by the day, Nick."
The conman snorted, evidentially stubborn until the end. "I'm fine, kid. Don't worry about me, okay?"
The hick's eyes changed. "I'm gonna, Nick… I'm gonna worry 'bout ya 'cause I love yew, and ya look even worse than you did a few months ago…" He sat up, looking at Nick with sincere eyes, so sincere it was almost a shock to the hick himself, because tears formed at the corners and fell down his face slowly. "Yew're sick, Nick, and… and yew're gonna die…"
Nick leaned in to shut up Ellis, lips pressed firmly against his, mission a success. He parted. "Ellis, listen. I don't need the worries, and I don't need you to be the cause of them. I'm not fine, I know, but I don't want you to suffer because of it."
Ellis' last nerve snapped, and he stood, backing away from his lover. "Nick, yew're… yew're so stupid! Since yew're not takin' the medicine, yew're dyin', and that's what's makin' me so sad lately! Yew're gonna die, and I'm not gonna be able to do nothin' about it because you're so damn stubborn!" His eyes poured over with tears. He couldn't stop them. "If… If yew'd just care about how I feel, too, maybe yew'd go in to the hospital and try to get them to stop it… I… I love yew, Nick… I don't wanna lose you like I lost Keith…" He gathered up his spilled emotions and ran out, slamming the front door behind him, never stopping until his feet hit the snow in the park down the street, and he sat on a cold swing, slowly moving back and forth with small pushes from his legs. He just wanted to sleep, fall asleep and never wake up because his dreams would be filled with Nick, in the place where no one ever died… And he didn't have to lose.
~"Don't wake me 'cause I'm dreaming of angels on the moon, where everyone you know never leaves too soon."~
Overcast clouds hung in the late spring sky, his black suit nearly all-too uncomfortable as he fidgeted in it. On his right was Rochelle, her face buried in a pocket cloth ('What had Nick called them?') Coach had let her borrow, the other man on his left, staring sternly forward as the crowd moved forward to pay their last respects before the burial.
Ellis couldn't bring himself to look.
They lowered the coffin into the ground, then began to fill the hole back up, patting the ground as the finished and walked off to the back. Rochelle put a bouquet of yellow roses on the grave, right in front of the grave marker. She patted her eyes with Coach's hankercheif before handing it back to him with an apologetic look. "Ellis, sweetie." The sentence brought back so many memories. "We'll take you home, okay? Just tell us when you're ready to leave."
His former teammates walked off toward their car, leaving the hick alone in the empting cemetery with a bundle of red and yellow flowers as his own blue eyes filled with tears of his own as he stared at the grave marker, what it read.
"Here lies Nick Marini. Friend and lover. August 16th, 1974 – January 29th, 2015."
Ellis clasped the flowers in his hand tighter, then laid them down on the grave, sighing deeply. "I lost ya'll both… Keith died at the hands of the Green Flu, and yew at the hands of lung cancer…" He swallowed down his tears. He had cried enough. "I wish… I wish yew were still alive, Nick… I miss ya, bro… And… And I love ya, too."
He turned on his heel, heart heavy and broken, then made his way up to Rochelle and Coach's car, the memory of his last moments with Nick coming back to his head.
~"This is to all of us. To all of us."~
He coughed, blood seeping through his fingers this time. Ellis clutched his other hand, tears falling harder and faster than ever. "N-Nick…" He choked out, lower lip quivering as he pleaded with him. "Nick…"
"Don't cry, Ellis… Didn't I tell you real men don't cry?" He asked, voice a little more than a whisper than what it once was. "Listen, stay strong, okay?"
"But I'm gonna lose you, just like I lost Keith…" He choked up again, tears staining his sun-kissed tan cheeks. "I… I don't wanna say goodbye."
Nick smiled, then kissed him weakly. "It's not a goodbye, Ellis…"
Ellis held out his hand, tears still glimmering in his eyes. "Howdy. I'm Ellis Andrews."
"What?"
"Well, you said it's not a goodbye, so I'm sayin' hello. So, howdy. I'm Ellis Andrews."
Nick smiled, took Ellis' hand even weaker than he kissed him and shook it slowly. "Hi, I'm Nick Marini…" It fell limp in his hand. The steady beeping stopped. Ellis' eyes filled with tears again.
~"You can tell me all your thoughts, about the stars that fill polluted skies, and show me where you run to when no one's left to take your side. But don't tell me where the road ends, 'cause I just don't wanna know. No I don't wanna know. Don't tell me if I'm dying… Don't tell me if I'm dying…"~