A/N: I stand beside the firm belief that a zombie apocalypse would completely screw somehow up psychologically, and Ellis just so happened to get to be my victim as I explore that idea.
While browsing through the Left 4 Dead 2 Wiki in search of the plethora of Keith stories I noticed that a great deal of Ellis' description depicts him as practically oblivious to the horrors around him. While I can agree with that to some extent, I feel like there's a lot more to him that being a goof-ball that's fond of Kiddie Land and blastin' the crap out of zombies. So yeah, I guess Ellis kinda cracked here.
Initially this was meant to be a one-shot, but man did it get long. This 'story' only spans a few hours if not a few cigarettes and is pretty much just one long conversation, in a way. It gets a bit darker as it goes on, seeing as it touches upon what it means (to Ellis) killing zombies and fearing death and fear and some other things that aren't exactly glossed over, but aren't exactly elaborated on in the game either.

Rated T for cigarettes, potty mouth, and...yeah. XD
and uhh...I don't know how to smoke. I guessed certain actions and protocols when writing this. haha
Review if you feel like it-let me know if there's anything I could improve on!

Part [1/4]

He likes to shoot his gun, but he knows not what it means…

insomniacs with cigarettes.

As usual, Nick's the first one to wake up.

As usual, reality still sucked and his neck was cramped from the way he'd spent the night slumped against a wall instead of a real bed.

As usual, his frown deepened as he pushed off of the moldy plaster and stretched his joints, hearing the pleasing crack that told him he was still alive and human. Coach grunted softly from the recliner they'd stationed him in the night before with his wounded leg propped up as Nick stood, shaking out his own when he realized that it had fallen asleep.

He squinted in the darkness in Rochelle's general direction and tried not to look to appreciative of the way she was soundly asleep and curled against the arm of the couch she and Ellis had taken up residence on.

A second glance earned the narrowing of eyes again when he took in the mechanic's absence.

Multiple scenarios ran through Nick's head—not many of them pleasant—as to the whereabouts of the hyperactive young man that hardly ever shut up. (Not that the conman was supposed to really care, but Nick still did.)

He grabbed the bloodstained crowbar that had become his best friend the previous day and prepared himself for a little reconnaissance. He swore to whatever higher power there was that he was going to wring the kid's neck when he found him if he'd managed to get outside under his watch.

With that came a very short, very brief, and very painful pang of guilt that came with the notion that he'd fallen asleep when he was supposed to be keeping an eye on their surroundings.

The shifting of a humanoid shadow in the corner of his eye caught his attention, and he gripped his weapon that much tighter as he slowly went to step around the wall and bash in the brains of whomever or whatever had been able to make its way into the Safe Room.

He peered around the edge slowly, raising his arms and ready to take a swing before he found himself warily staring at Ellis' profile illuminated by the moonlight streaming in through the bars of the door's window.

The younger man's eyes flickered around the landscape on the other side of the door in search of any foreign signs of movement, calloused fingers curling and uncurling around his ever-present shotgun. His stance shifted slightly and Nick took a step back into the shadows encasing him, watching the surprisingly silent man roll back and forth on the balls of his feet gently as a vein in his neck twitched.

It didn't take Nick's sharp eyes to notice the dark circles under Ellis' own.

His brow furrowed at the notion that they looked a great deal deeper than they had the day before—shit, did this kid sleep at all?

They stood in silence for a while longer, one seemingly oblivious to the other and gently rattling like a ball of nerves about to implode on itself. Nick wanted to make a move but wasn't sure how to go about it.

"Didn' yer momma ever tell ya that it's rude ta stare?" Nick could tell Ellis was tired from the way he drawled his words more than usual and the grin that typically graced his features was faltering.

Nick in turn glared at him in his characteristic manner, shooting another glance at the shotgun Ellis was flexing his fingers around and briefly recalled the look of utter despair on his face when he'd lost his preferred sniper in one of the day's many scuffles.

"The hell are you doing up?" He asked gruffly, loosening his grip on his own weapon and lowering his arm back to his side. Ellis shrugged offhandedly, his gaze flickering to the conman and then back to the moonlit, decaying world.

"Couldn't sleep." The Southerner muttered, not verbally pointing out the fact that he'd clearly taken over Nick's watch when drowsiness had crept up on the older man. Said man gave a light sneer and couldn't refuse a jest.

"What'd you do, have a nightmare?" Ellis' back noticeably tightened, but he waited for Nick to finish. "Because I am not sitting with you until you fall asleep."

"Go back to sleep, Nick." The mechanic ground out, for that moment not having enough fire to retort with some scathing remark of his own.

The corner of his lip twitched, but instead he chose to go against the kid's wishes and take a few steps closer into the puddle of moonlight enveloping Ellis to stare down the young mechanic for a moment. His forced tone of voice and stature clearly stated that he wanted to be left alone, but Nick was no fool—it was all too obvious that the indifferent persona was a ruse and the last thing Ellis wanted to be was on his own with only his mind and fear to keep him company.

Nick leaned against the wall and out of the corner of his eye the Southerner watched him slide down it until he was seated on the floor with his long legs stretched out before him. The younger man heaved a sigh and turned just enough to keep the conman in his line of vision while he stared out into the morose landscape.

The silence between them was deafening, but Nick was a bit too preoccupied with digging around in his jacket pocket to really care. He glanced up again at the highlighted dark circles under Ellis' typically cheerful eyes only to find their light dimmed and too hardened for his twenty-three years.

"You look like shit." The words were out of Nick's mouth before he had a chance to think about them, but then again he never gave much thought to any of the insults that spewed from him at the early hours of the morning.

The agitated bobbing of Ellis' foot suddenly captured his attention, and it was seriously beginning to get on his nerves.

"Were you born an ass, or did ya have ta work at it?" Nick found himself being stared down and glared mockingly in the blue irises studying him slowly. He'd never been one to overly appreciate people looking at him for extended periods of time—for any reason.

He let out a humorless chuckle and successfully extracted a battered pack of cigarettes from his jacket.

"It's a gift." Green eyes flickered to the foot still uneasily shifting while a small white object was yanked out of its flimsy packaging. "Sit down, you're making me nervous."

Nick stuck it in between his teeth and then set to searching his other pocket for a lighter while he waited for his words to sink in. Ellis remained rooted to the spot for a bit and for a few moments it was quiet, save for the rustling of fabric as the lighter proved itself scarce. Nick was cursing to himself under his breath when Ellis finally loosened his shoulders and took up residence on the floor next to the older man.

The shotgun resting on top of his raised knees earned a look from Nick, who reached up to shove its mouth away from his own knee that he'd bent to prop his arm up on when his search for a lighter had proven fruitless.

"Blast my knee off, and you'll have your head on backwards."

Ellis let out a brief chuckle at the action and comment, but said nothing about it. He dug into his own pocket of his coveralls and held his fist out to Nick who in turn reached out a sneer that came across as more of a smirk.

"You smoke?" He asked around his cigarette, cupping his hand around the end as he tried and failed to light it a few times. Once it was lit he extracted another one and held it up to the twenty-three year-old between two long fingers, met with a negative shake of the head that turned into half of a nod. "Do you, or what?"

Ellis held the offered cigarette in one hand and his returned lighter in the other, looking down incredulously at both and then warred with himself as to his next course of action.

"Man, I haven't smoked since I was sixteen, and that was on a dare." With that, however, he shoved the small roll in between his dry lips and went to work bringing a flame to life.

Nick pulled his own away from his mouth to let out a small puff and ran his other hand through his hair. "Too afraid of what Ma would think?"

"Naw," The hick muttered, giving the lighter a shake before he tried again. "Gramp died o' lung cancer and we was all too afraid it'd happen ta us too."

"And you work in a garage." Nick mused, rubbing his chin and finding himself perturbed by the ease with which Ellis readily revealed so much about himself and his past. He rolled his shoulder back and leaned further against the wall as Ellis finally got his cigarette lit.

"Different fumes," He murmured, grabbing the shotgun and setting it aside in order to rest his arm across his knees. Out of the corner of his eye Nick saw his bicep flex with the action, making the unexplained tattoo all the more prevalent.

Nick had nothing else to say on the matter and figured they'd leave it at that, finish their smokes and wait until exhaustion finally took over Ellis. It took a minute for the conman to realize that the kid next to him had yet to actually do anything with his.

"If I knew you were going to waste it, I would've burned you with it." He scorned, bothered enough by the fact that he'd willingly pawned of a cigarette, but more so that it brought his already low count down to five.

Ellis held it precariously between the pads of his thumb and index finger, studying it carefully and then shooting a glance at Nick before deciding to 'man up' and shove it between his teeth.

He promptly let out a loud hack, coughing out smoke as tears stung at his eyes. Nick watched bemusedly and waited for the coughing fit to end.

"Don't breathe it in, dipshit."

Ellis glared at him and then cleared his throat a few times, blinking through the moisture that had formed under his eyelids.

"I don't make it a point to smoke, asshole."

Strange really, how their 'bonding' came through cigarettes and insults.

"Yeah well, cough a little louder, why don't you. Go ahead and sound like a Smoker. That'll go over well."

"Aw, go to hell." Ellis snapped, weariness obviously eating at him along with something else Nick couldn't quite name. To cover the way it irked him, Nick rolled his eyes and turned back to the cigarette he'd been letting burn in the air thick with silence, taking a puff and then letting it seep through his teeth.

Ellis would have said he looked similar to the devil right then with the way the smoke slithered out of his mouth, his dark eyes and slicked back hair accentuating that notion. The skin around his lips betrayed the laugh lines he'd acquired over the years he never spoke about and only made him appear all the more menacing in the sliver of light cutting across his face.

Unconsciously, the mechanic shivered and looked away, his mouth tugging down into the scowl he'd been meaning to hide and didn't want to burden Nick with. He would have tried to lighten the mood with another joke or crack at Nick's attire and Nick himself—heck, he even would have tried another Keith story—if it weren't for the fact that his heart truly wasn't into it.

Funny, Nick never thought that getting Ellis to shut up would actually bother him. If anything, the lack of insistent chatter and all of the unfinished stories about Keith or Dave or whatever the hell they called him was seriously getting to him.

He could already see himself going bat-shit crazy with the inactivity and sleep looked like something he'd never find right then. To fill that void, he shoved his cigarette back into his mouth and locked his fingers together to crack his knuckles.

"All right, what's your problem?" To say Nick wasn't good with this stuff was an understatement. Hell, he'd been pegged by his ex-wife as one of those guys who didn't talk or share enough. In his opinion, Ellis had talked and shared enough about himself in the past few weeks to make up for the years he'd spent with his wife glaring at him and criticizing his every move.

The reply he received was the quirk of a 'brow and the sudden flare of the illuminated end of a cigarette.

"What?"

Nick rolled his eyes at the otherwise incredulous look on the kid's face and flicked a glob of lint off his knee.

"You're not your usual god damn chipper, constantly running your mouth self." He sniffed and turned to face Ellis. "And to be honest, it's getting on my nerves."

The mechanic's brow puckered for a moment as he frowned. "Wait, so when I'm tellin' stories y'all get annoyed, but when I'm not, ya get annoyed still? Seriously?"

He frowned, grumbling something about 'can't win with you guys' and Nick sniggered softly to himself. Coach snorted somewhere in his sleep, and Nick peered around the corner carefully just to check up on the two he'd left in dreamland in order to sit on the cold floor with a depressed hick. Apparently Nick had priorities, as unknown and screwed-up as they were. He took another draw from his cigarette and briefly debated blowing it in Ellis' face.

"You haven't been sleeping." Nick stated bluntly, absently brushing dirt off of his sleeve and unable to see the war that went on in Ellis' suddenly aged eyes. "It's pretty obvious too, Overalls."

He waited for the boy to respond, for once telling himself not to make too sharp a barb. He was too damn curious as to why the man's mood was fluctuating to let him to suddenly get all uppity and close himself off from the other three.

Ellis let out a slow sigh which Nick initially mistook as a drag from the cigarette he hadn't exactly bummed off the swindler.

"If I don't sleep, I don't have to see it."

The confession caught the older man off guard, not prepared to discuss something of that caliber. In all honesty he'd just expected Ellis to admit that he was too damn hyperactive for his own good and just too busy running through the days' events or planning out his next zombie killing maneuver over the course of the night to sleep.

Of course, it was then Nick's turn to be baffled.

"What?" He let his cigarette dangle from the fingertips resting on his knee.

He stared at Ellis and not for the first time tried to figure him out.