Love Will Keep Us Alive

By: esmtz

Ellis was once again having the same nightmare ever since he was six years old. He was in a burning building and he had lost sight of where his parents and his friend, Keith were at. He was huddled in a corner shaking and crying as debris fell around him. He watched wide eyed as the last of the few people that were in the building quickly got out not noticing the frightened little boy. Ellis hadn't noticed when debris almost fell on top of him when someone pulled him away just in time and picked him up.

"Are you alright, kid?" the stranger asked.

Ellis slowly nodded tears falling down his face as he clung to the person for dear life. The person looked like he was already in his late teens and started searching for a way out holding Ellis close to him in his arms.

"Don't worry I'm going to get you out of here…"

Ellis could barely see through the smoke that was everywhere around him, but he managed to see that on the person's right arm was a tattoo. He never saw anything like it before and immediately was interested in what it was.

"Hang on!" the person yelled and started running.

Ellis screamed as the rest of the building started falling down on top of them. Ellis immediately woke up gasping and sweating a little. He looked around and saw that he was back in the safe room with Nick, Rochelle, and Coach who were in the same room as him since the other room next to theirs was already occupied with other survivors that they had just met. Ellis let out a sigh of relief when he saw that he hadn't woken the others up and quietly got up and headed towards the door to the living room where someone last night had been keeping watch on the safe room door. Ellis made a face when he saw that Rochelle was snuggling up against Nick and reluctantly quietly closed the door behind him.

"About time someone else got up" the man with the tattoos on both his arms said making Ellis slightly jump.

"I'm surprised to see that yer not sleepin. Yer Francis right?" Ellis asked.

Francis smiled at him and nodded.

"I'm surprised you remember my name, kid." Francis said and stood up from where he was sitting and shrugged, "eh I couldn't sleep so I stood watch for the entire night."

Ellis blinked and looked at him.

"Well, you probably forgot mah name, it's…"

"Ellis, yeah I remember there's no need for you to remind me kid" Francis grinned as he saw Ellis turn slightly pink and nodded wondering why he was treating him better then how Nick ever treated him.

"Well, uh, ok then…" Ellis rubbed the back of his neck and watched as Francis headed to the kitchen.

"Kid, could you wake up the others already? It's about time we moved on out of here and I managed to find something edible for us to eat, but there's not a lot of it for everyone so we're going to have to share. I hate not having enough food." Francis said putting a couple of muffins on the table and started separating them into tiny portions and then brought out a couple of water bottles from the fridge.

Ellis made a face and walked up to Francis. Francis frowned and looked at him.

"Something wrong kid?" Francis asked.

"Can I just wake up yer group? I don't really want to go back in mah room to wake up mah teammates." Ellis looked upset.

Francis looked at him wondering what was going on and nodded.

"Yeah ok I guess." Francis replied and watched as Ellis went towards his teammates' room and opened the door.

"Y'all wake up! Breakfast time!" Ellis went in and started shaking Bill, Louis and Zoey.

"Alright, I'm up. I'm up!" Louis responded quickly sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

"Ugh why is this kid waking us up?" Bill asked sighing.

"Would you rather it be Francis, Bill?" Zoey asked slowly standing up just as Ellis was helping Louis to his feet.

"What's the difference? They're both loud." Bill complained standing up and started walking to the kitchen.

Zoey giggled and followed after him, Louis and Ellis. Francis went towards the other room and opened the door. He saw that Ellis's team was already starting to wake up and frowned even more confused as to why Ellis didn't want to wake them up.

"Goddamn, that kid is annoying!" Nick said agitated as he got up and helped Rochelle to her feet.

"Don't you dare start any shit about Ellis, Nick." Coach glared at him already knowing what was going to happen, "Every time you do, Ellis always takes what you say to heart. So why don't you just back off already?!"

Nick glared at him and then turned to look out the door. Francis turned to look behind him and saw that Ellis was listening to what they were saying.

"Because he's a stupid hick who gets on my fucking nerves and let's face it; he's nothing, but a liability on this team since he's almost always the one who gets us into trouble or we're having to make sure he's ok or whatever. Right now, Rochelle is the only one on this team that I give a damn about." Nick responded harshly.

Ellis looked like he was about to cry and Coach and Francis both growled at him. Francis closed the door shaking his head as Coach and Nick continued to argue. Francis looked at Ellis again.

"Let me guess, you like that asshole don't you and you're jealous of that girl right?" Francis asked trying to hide how hurt he felt.

Ellis obviously noticed because he had a confused look on his face. He was silent for a few seconds before finally responding.

"Yeah, was it really that obvious?" Ellis asked looking down at the ground sadly.

"Kind of, yeah. I hate assholes like that." Francis said grabbing Ellis's hand and leading him to the kitchen and gave him his piece of one of the muffins.

"Thanks, Francis." Ellis smiled at him and started eating.

"Is it always like that with your team…uh what's your name?" Zoey asked.

Ellis swallowed and looked at her.

"It's Ellis, Zoey." Francis told her.

"Oh, I'm sorry Ellis. I didn't mean to forget right away." Zoey said.

"Nah its cool don't worry about it." Ellis smiled at her.

"I feel sorry for you, Ellis. How do you guys manage to work together as a team to get out of tight spots?" Louis asked him as he and his team had their piece of a muffin.

"We manage. Hell we ain't that bad once we get out there and kick some zombie ass." Ellis smiled proudly.

"Still, you shouldn't be treated like that, Ellis." Francis told him looking at him with concern in his eyes.

Ellis was completely taken aback by how concerned Francis was even Bill, Louis and Zoey were looking at him in surprise.

"Francis, is there something you haven't told us?" Zoey asked looking at him and then at Ellis.

"Man, it seems like you know this kid, but we only just met him yesterday. What's up with that?" Louis asked.

Ellis looked at Francis wondering how he could possibly have already known him.

"Francis?" Ellis started to ask, but just then his team came out of the room and made their way to the table where the water bottles and muffins (what was left) were at.

"Nick, I believe you owe Ellis an apology." Rochelle said glaring at him.

Nick rolled his eyes and looked away.

"Nick." Coach growled dangerously.

"Alright, alright, fine. Ellis I'm…"

"Don't Nick, just don't. I know you hate me so how about you just leave me alone alright?" Ellis told him still feeling hurt, "I've had just about enough of yer insults."

Nick, Coach and Rochelle looked at him completely surprised while Zoey, Louis and Bill smiled at him.

"Well I'll be there's a man somewhere in that boy." Bill grinned.

"That's telling him off!" Louis said.

Zoey stood there smiling at Ellis and Francis couldn't wipe away the grin that was forming on his face.

Author's note: Ok here's my next story which this time will end up with FrancisxEllis. There will be mentions of NickxEllis and NickxRochelle (can't believe I'm doing it since it disgusts me a lot) and at the end of the story someone will probably die (kind of like the passing, but different obviously) anyway to all those who like or are at least kind of into this couple I hope you enjoy the story. Please leave me reviews to tell me what you think. Anyway I just wrote this late at night and it's almost 2:45 in the morning so I'm posting this right away and then going to bed. By the way the title is a song that the scorpions made if anyone's ever heard of it it's pretty good anyway I'll update again sometime this week I promise hopefully.