a/n: This isn't exactly an original line of plot or anything. I didn't want to submit this at all, but I figure, hey, whatever. Here goes nothing.
Judas'
by Kiss Off
It was one of those famous October nights that really weeded out men from mice in the local populace. Now generally most of the Savannah natives didn't live out in the neighbouring bayous, which was their current position, so the typical standards didn't exactly apply. But if the air was intolerably humid and sticky in the city, then it was twice as insufferable and vindictive in the swamps. Add the bonus of having to defend yourself from something other than gators and you've got yourself live-action Southern Jumanji: zombie edition.
It was actually a pretty cool concept, Ellis mused.
Of course, they needed to continue moving—darkness was inking away what remained of the marginally blue sky and none of them had seen any safe-house marquees or shelters that didn't look to have been hit by a bomb. Being out of their element was a painfully obvious understatement. The thick quagmire proved to be little better than an open field with a big red target locked on their position. Then again, in an open field at least they'd be able to see the mud men sons-of-bitches before their eager, sticky hands grabbed at whatever they could and clung on like ravenous glue. Ellis kept his head down, rubbing absently at the peeling sunburn on his neck while they roamed through knee deep swamp-water, following the arbitrary houses and woodwork paths.
And things are quiet for a long while. Night falls quickly but is merciful by granting them relative peace. Of course, peace was a concept redefined (in layman's terms: whenever they weren't being blitzed by a horde or special infected) however Ellis speculated that everyone could agree that, yeah, it could be a hell of a lot worse given their average luck.
Knock on wood, right?
Right.
And that's when Ellis decides the silence is unbecoming.
"You know, I done been thinking—"
"Oh this will be good." Nick intercepts, sounding a tad more ornery than usual. Ellis figures it has something to do with the all-consuming muskeg…also the fact that Nick mentions some irritable comment (to himself, he's sure) about his suit every time he misjudges a step and sinks into to the marsh some foot deeper than he'd anticipated— which naturally happens at least once every seven minutes.
His bitter remark does not deter Ellis' train of thought, however, and the Southerner continues: "Nah, you see, I'm thinkin' that, what, with this damn infection that the blood-suckers here are infected, too, because damn! I feel like a human Golden Corral."
Rochelle's short laughter is the best thing he's heard all night. Nick expresses his amusement with a strange noise that sounds like an eye-roll made audible mixed with the potential throes of a chuckle. It was encouraging nonetheless. Ellis realizes he's grinning stupidly for it but he doesn't care.
As Coach goes on a tangent about how he's going to pray that there's an operational two-star buffet at the quarantine zone, Nick turns to him, smirking in a way which surely makes all the dames' knees weak because Ellis feels like touching his shoulder or something like that, just like when Keith used to wink at him whenever they were about to do something stupid and exciting.
He doesn't take it for the invitation that it is; he doesn't have the chance.
A charger's roar splits through the air like thunder and the Doppler effect shoots past him before he can register that Rochelle is on the blunt end of the charge. Nick reacts like lightning and turns his axe into a makeshift baseball bat, the sound of steel meeting skull mimicking the collision of bat against ball. Ellis' stomach lurches as he rushes to pull Rochelle up onto her feet. The moments mould together into milliseconds and Coach is pointing off into the distance, yelling something indiscernible. Instinct is the autopilot and they run like scattershot among a maze of stilted shacks and flooded houses until their legs burn and their lungs fail. Ellis takes point in a high window, bruising his eye against the recoil of his scoping lens.
The tank falls in a heap of burning flesh and a horde comes to fulfil its efforts. His sniper rifle weighs like a fully stuffed pig and just about as easy to aim.
"Shit, look, safe-house!" Nick's voice is far off. He sounds like he's laughing or crying: maybe some strange mutation of both although Ellis never took Nick to be capable of shedding any semblance of crocodile tears. The thought is momentary, oddly fleeting yet intrusive and all it takes is a matter of seconds before a familiar unearthly growl whispers soft-nothings not a meter behind him. He turns ('s'like slow motion') and becomes acquainted with red eyes, black teeth, and long nails. The scream is knocked out of him as he's slammed and pinned to the floor of the shack like a cheap whore, throttled with no exits, and it's a moment before he really understands—his shirt tears open like onion-paper. Ellis watches his hands flail as if tied by puppet strings to innately impede the torrential assault of frenzied claws and the blood flows like a malfunctioning sprinkler.
His voice finds words. "No gawd get'it offa me!" He doesn't have the strength to keep the hunter's talons away, let alone its gnashing rows of shark teeth, and the shriek that comes from his lips when broken and razor-like molars sink into his jugular is foreign to his own ears. He feels the blood slough beneath his nape ('huh kinda feels good 'gainst the burn oh god') and blinks at the droplets that fall on his face when the hunter pulls away and Lord if it wasn't grinning at him. He coughs as the bile crawls up his throat and blood pools in his mouth like a fountain and he doesn't think about the pain, no, not much, why he even believes it's better already. In an instant, the hunter is gone and someone's screaming in the background and God he hopes Ro isn't in any trouble, that'd be bad, yeah, that'd be real bad on account he can't go help her. He tries to move but his arms respond like dead weights. The sky looks so nice, he realizes, and it's been a long while since he had the time, or rather opportunity…to…reminds him of the time—oh, hey, Nick, you look like you've seen a ghost.
Ellis giggles — gargles — mentioning something about a cartoon ("fortunately, I keep my feathers numbered for just such an emergency") while Coach hoists him onto his back.
There's a lot of fuzz in the between breaks of his memory. He doesn't remember arriving at a safe-house (though the wooden floor seems awful familiar) however that takes a second chair to the hard-to-miss bandage devouring the left side of his neck and the aching it brought with it. Sitting up, he catches himself before the pain renders him on his back, paralyzed. It's still dark outside, and in an overwhelming sense of bizarre circumstance that offers more comfort than Rochelle's smile as she crouches by him, pills distinct in her palm.
"Hey, sweetie, how are you feeling?" Hesitance.
"Been better." He's sheepish to admit it. "Well, shit, now I know how Keith felt when he gone and went fly fishing with one of them gator hooks." He didn't catch the dry tone in their consensual laughter, or the nervous glances passed between Coach and Rochelle, or the fact that Nick won't quite make eye-contact.
Coach takes it upon himself to digress into the now. "Ellis," he begins in his no-nonsense voice that typically commands their immediate attention. "are you fit to keep going?" It isn't a question, not exactly. Ellis, unsurprisingly, doesn't miss a beat and nods his head, accepting Nick's proffered hand and steadying himself on his feet. Their eyes connect for a moment, but Ellis cannot see the repressed emotion leaking from the corners of Nick's eyes. His head feels dizzy, like it was left swimming in the marshes behind them, abandoned in a perpetual soaking. He almost feels the water behind his eyes.
They file out like soldiers marching to Thermopylae.
"Ellis?"
He starts, looking up beneath the sheen of sweat beading on his forehead and it's all accusations from Nick, Rochelle, and Coach. He'd dazed for the past mile — or was it two? — and, evidently, his silence hadn't settled well with them in spite of numerous protests prior or otherwise. Go figure. Then again, he knew better; it wasn't the quietude that concerned them, no, not at all. He may have been bred a country-boy but that didn't mean he didn't know how other people think. He'd been pounced already two hours ago and, despite a medkit and an all-you-can-swallow buffet of pills, he walked with a stagger and the headache was becoming a little bit more than white noise. Nothing to be too worried about though, it'd been a long, long day and he just needed to…rest his eyes some.
He'd walked right into Nick doing just that and now he had to explain before the conman strangled it out of him. He blinked stupidly, feeling his face grow hot under the pressure of three pairs of eyes, all depicting something else: impatience, concern, scrutiny. Whereas Coach and Nick were just waiting for some quick justification, he answered then to Rochelle; she was most understanding and looked like she needed (and wanted) to hear this the most. He didn't want to worry her for no reason, after all.
"Mmm'sorry, jes' tired, you know?" He managed to connect the fragments together into an acceptable excuse, also prompting a smile for good measure even though his mouth stretched past comfortable boundaries. He resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose or rub at his temples…at least until they'd all turned their backs in dispassionate approbation. He understood.
Nick shoots him a look—it goes unnoticed like the verbalized thoughts on the younger man's lips. The hick's not aware he's talking aloud, but nobody's objecting and they're all fuelling something beyond what anyone is really worth risking by thinking about it too much. Deal with it later, deal with it later.
Later isn't so far off.
The plantation house is large and threatening and creaks and moans with age like every old-fashioned building is expected to. It's also full of surprises. They find relatively practical blankets and the main floor has ample supplies. Also a whopping total of three zombies are found meandering the halls and they're taken care of without panic. It is good for morale and gives them strength as they board the doors and windows for the remainder of the night. It is a haze and the silence is uncomfortable.
Coach and Nick are quick to scatter off for the night, whereas Rochelle prods Ellis with the butt end of a bottle of pills, offering it with a thin smile.
"Ohuh? Oh, I'ma be okay, don't you fret. Sleep well, ya'll."
It wasn't an intentional lie.
He chooses a room nearest Nick's but he doesn't suspect to see him tonight. He stays awake for a while regardless and eventually falls asleep thinking about leaf piles and large dogs. For the few hours of sleep he gets, it is peaceful and uneventful and it shatters like a dropped mirror in a fraction of a moment.
Suddenly he's awake and aware but feels separate from his own body, like a bystander seeing things in the same perspective. He looks down. This stranger's arms are mottled and ridden with blemishes, his fingertips are black and his nails are green and he's seen so many hands like this but he cannot picture when or where.
His headache rolls into him like a wave, slowly but crushing. It is worse than when he caught hay fever from Dave's garden in his backyard. But he can smell the daisies.
In weakness, he downs the pills. They do nothing.
His blood is brought to a gentle stew until it bubbles, causing erratic gooseflesh across his arms and face. He's boiling beneath his own skin, clawing violently at his arms and face for release and his tears simmer on his cheeks, and in all of the pain and fear in his heart and mind, the only thing he can bear to think is disjointed lyrics of an old, popular song he had not heard in two years. It reminds him of the sun.
He doesn't see Nick until he's right in front of him, clutching at the sides of his arms but they've gone too numb to register his fingertips digging into burnt skin are like wasp stingers.
"Jesus, Ellis—" The conman mouths, voice reverberating thickly as if underwater. Nick looks afraid or maybe sad and perhaps that is what makes his words fail before he expresses something worthy of a compromise. Ellis isn't upset with him; he understands it is easier like this.
The morning light filters from the windows and shines brilliantly on the grifter's tarnished face, and he's still movie-star handsome even when he's dirty and looks so, so sad. Ellis wants to touch his face but doesn't; it's not nighttime when emotions are raw, undeveloped, and what's spoken between them is through grazing and caresses, not words. When the sun rises, they become strangers again and he's not allowed to feel or hold until the light disappears and the darkness brings out the impure candour in both of them. No, he won't do that, but this would-be embrace…it is enough.
Nick's eyes are large and glaucous and Ellis tells him that but what he means is his eyes are like the earth and they will be the last good thing he'll ever see. Green eyes; an exhibition into all the intimacy and fear they shared and didn't and something inside him breaks.
And he — hurts, god— takes it in his hands, jade and white and blue, tearing, ('sweat Jesus, what am I doin—') and skin comes loose, red pooling beneath his nails ('stained christ i am so sorry no no so nice') spills down his mouth — bleeds — and it's
('forgive m—')
undone.
a/n: Thanks for reading.