Disclaimer: Left 4 Dead 2 belongs to Valve.
Setting: Ten years past the two previous chapters, five years past Apocalypse.
Part TWO
*) after the rescue in C 5, The Parish
"There are women like that, Ellis. She would've passed for ugly but for some reasons, you think she's beautiful. Then it'll always be that way for you, although you'll never find out what you exactly like about her face. It seems that her face comes altogether at once, and it becomes impossible to imagine her not owning that face," Nick explained in exactly the same way like years ago, when he had asked him about types of women in the chopper that would then carried them to four different places.
"Those survivors as carriers should be delivered in turns. Keep in mind that each Shelter has its special kind of test," the instruction was clear, although they had no clue what a "special kind of test" would be. They were curled up in the corners, wounds about everywhere, too tired to ask whether the "test" would possibly kill them. At least they were already inside the chopper.
There wasn't any window, all they could see was the thick steel wall and occasional light that would sneak out from a tiny gap around the latch.
"Probably you just like her face," Ellis said with a smile. He embraced his legs then let out a long breath. He was the most relieved among all. Twenty-three certainly wasn't a good age to die. At least make it twenty-seven, like Jimi Hendrix, he thought.
"I wonder," Nick said, averting his gaze to Ellis. "Anyway let's say, for now, that it's just something naïve which exists even for men: she would've passed for ugly, but you like her. Something about that face strikes you somewhere."
"Good one. Simple enough even for me," Ellis said, lifting his face.
"First Shelter!" the pilot notified.
Everyone snapped back to attention. A while later, when the chopper made its first landing, Coach stood up then said goodbye to everyone. He had a wide smile on his face.
"Figured that you young people could use a longer while of companionship," he said, keeping the smile.
"I'll see you again, Coach," Ellis said. Rochelle echoed the same thing. Nick said nothing, only smiled. He was the only person who knew that he would never see Coach again until a very long time.
Second Shelter followed. Ellis watched Rochelle went down. He had proposed to leave before her, but she waved it off with a smile.
"You guys can really be friends!" she said, waving away as the chopper started floating several inch above the ground.
Ellis waved back at her with an assuring smile. The relieved smile of a gamer who had recently passed an adventure in Survival Mode. The chopper reached the third Shelter an hour later, which had been passed in silence.
"This one's mine, Nick," he said, forcing a smile. When the stage lights are out, Nick once said, you'll find a part in you wishing the show would start all over again. After a while, he added: "You know, in games, the last Shelter usually turns out to be the safest."
Ellis jumped out of the chopper. When he turned to look at Nick, he saw on his face what could've passed as a smile. In the back of his mind, Ellis wished that after a blink they'd be back, four of them, at the hotel's roof level, preparing for the Apocalypse. If it was to happen again, they would certainly make a far better team, Ellis was sure. They would watch each other's back more than ever. Hell, we'd even make the best zombie-killing team in the world! Ellis smiled to himself as he watched the chopper flied away.
*) present day
Nick changed the CD into Pollini's version of Chopin Nocturnes. Ellis had remembered bits of them, so it felt easier to convince himself that he was actually listening to the nocturnes.
"Aren't we heading to your place?" Ellis asked. "I thought you said it's ten minutes away." His eyes had started feeling heavy.
Nick said nothing in reply. He was driving, physically, but his mind had returned to a safe room inside the music.
Ellis wanted to ask again, but he figured that it would be useless. Probably Nick wanted to drive around the city for a while, looking at the lights. He used to do that with his father when he was a little boy. That was then he learned to identify machinery with city lights, which turned out to be the best method for him.
"Hey, the 'ugly beauty' thing," Ellis said instead. "It applies for guys, too?"
"Depends on how you apply it," this time, though, Nick answered.
"Meaning when a dude would've passed as ugly, then someone thinks that he's handsome, that person will take the dude as handsome for ever?"
A short silence followed. The first song ended, followed by the famous Nocturne in E-flat. "Hey, I know this!" Ellis exclaimed, more to break the silence. "My old man used to listen to it sometimes, it was the only classical he ever listened to other than his regular jazz." Then to Nick: "You skipped that one at Via."
Nick bent his neck left and right, as if unperturbed. None of them popped, but they hurt when the muscles stretched.
"You know, I heard there were unlucky ones who didn't make it out alive from the Shelter," Ellis said to break the silence.
"Yeah?"
"You don't seem surprised," Ellis said, looking at an abandoned building which must've been a remarkable one back in the days. Standing there unperturbed, it reminded Ellis of the piano at the bar.
"CEDA made those Shelters for a reason," Nick said. "They may be about health, safety, and protection but they weren't thinking about us, they were thinking for themselves. They needed to secure themselves from the infection, too. At least the upper echelons were safe, even the lower ones weren't."
"Sounds rational to me," Ellis said. It was his first time he ever said that: rational. He never thought that it was that big of a word. This part of X machine is rational, he thought that it would sound pretty much off. When he finally pronounced it, sure enough, it sounded different.
After a while, he said again: "You know, there was this Doctor Mann who called me for a daily appointment since the day I arrived. I was healthy as a horse, of course, but dude kept telling me that I was sick, that I needed a sort of 'vaccine'. One day I heard from a dude at the lab that I was the source of the vaccine. The nice lab dude went missing the next day. A week later another survivor called Donnie started having bubbles all over his skin, three days later he blew up like a balloon. Man, it was the scariest shit I've ever seen. It went on until months later, until suspicious people gathered up to butcher Mann. There was a time of peace until Doctor Hank came. Dude was worse than Mann. More survivors died as experiments, died under the 'vaccine' pitfall. I got lucky because by then I had met someone at a bar who knew an underground hacker. Ellis was removed, for three years until I escaped the Shelter I 'lived' as Donnie." Ellis used his fingers for the quotation mark. "I was in the society and the system and I was supposed to be a part of neither."
"I was in the society and the system and I was supposed to be a part of neither," Nick mimed with a smile. "The smartest statement you've spoken in years."
"Anyway, it seemed to me that you lived just fine back then," Ellis said, turning to look at Nick.
"Marie helped with the forging of my file," he said. "She had worked as a translator for some time, getting friendly with some insiders along the way. I lived as Kafka Holden until it was declared safe to live outside the Shelter. The real guy died in a shady experiment."
"Funny that we shared a same fate," Ellis said with a smile.
A long pause.
"Hey, about the 'ugly beauty' thing—"
"Is the question supposed to identify yourself?" Nick interjected.
Ellis almost choked. Yet he managed to retained a certain composure by focusing on the buildings and street lights instead. He could hardly believe that there were still active buildings after the Apocalypse. Probably the Apocalypse wasn't all that grave after all, he thought.
"If that's the case, you're asking a wrong question," Nick said. After some time, he added: "You're very handsome, Ellis." The nocturne reached the passage in con forza.
When the song ended in time Nick made a second turn, he knew that it would actually be the time to return to the apartment.
Ellis had always wanted to make love in his car, Bob Dylan's rough voice in the background, but even for women it wasn't that cool of an idea. Now, thinking of the same idea, he found himself making love in silence.
What exactly about the smell of leather that turned him on? Probably it had taken Nick's natural scent. He imagined the older man read or slept there after hours of practicing. The more Ellis thought about it he realized that he was pretty much clueless. Just like he had no idea that the black sofa was a regular Ikea, he had no idea what exactly about the smell that made him kissed Nick even hungrier.
On the other hand, Nick was calm. He made the rhythm, he followed it, although Ellis thought that he was the only one who'd caused a stir in the older man. As he ran his oil-stained fingers on the back of the suit, he saw the surrounding like a scene disturbed by continuous blitz, a scene in a discotheque. He saw the grand piano facing a wide window. The lights made it looked afloat above the city lights. But then, to him it looked as orphaned as it could be, despite the lacquered surface that reflected every kind of light from outside the window. He would like Nick to play it for him, any song that he wouldn't understand, but when he felt Nick's fingers crawling under his old blazer then T-shirt, he eventually stopped thinking about the piano.
Ellis never had a clear idea about how making love supposed to be, even with women, because his instincts had always taken a better part of himself. All he knew was that he supposed to melt into a lump with the partner, to take the most he could've taken. This time, though, he learned that it was some kind of music, there were soft parts, loud parts, parts that are made fast, parts that are made slow. Nick kissed him on the neck, the chest, licked the collarbones, the nipples, then he realized that something had flushed down from his stomach: his fly was already rock-hard. He never knew that it could be that hard.
"Seriously, Nick?" Ellis asked, panting. His manly ego raved how he had failed. His face was warm with Nick's breath. He knew that in the end it was Nick's rhythm instead of his own that he followed.
Nick said nothing in reply. His breathing was still calm, which surprised Ellis. Although it wasn't surprising that the older man's body spoke different languages from different touches of random people, he had no idea that Nick was that accustomed. He looked particularly cool when it comes to sex, as if it was never a bigger act than eating or breathing. Ellis had always fantasized sex with Nick to be wild: he had thought about it since he saw Nick bandaged himself in the safe room at the swamps, not that he was gay, the thought just struck him because Nick exuded sexuality, out of all things. It was natural enough for him to be drawn towards it: he had fantasized Roger Moore as much as he fantasized Ingrid Bergman.
Nick unbuttoned Ellis's jeans then traced the toned thighs as he slid it down. Ellis moaned. He hated the fact that he just moaned naturally. He felt like a broken tape. He watched Nick as he took off his blazer, his shirt, loosened up his belt, and slid down his pants. That'd be great if that's me in his place, Ellis thought, but the chance had since long passed.
Using some highly efficient movements, Nick made Ellis sat on his lap. The mechanic wondered how easy it felt for him to follow the cues. As for himself, he wondered when he'd actually be able to come up with something like that. Thinking about it made his breathing heavier, like breathing underwater. Nick's breathing, on the other hand, had just started turning heavy.
So, it was music after all Ellis thought when Nick pushed into him. He clawed the back of Nick's thighs using his oil-stained fingers. He moaned louder, rhyming with Nick's rough moans before his right ear. The lobe was warm and moist from his breath. One time Nick even kissed then sucked on it, very gently. The trace of saliva made it cold, although the warmth would return in a very short while. Ellis touched his fly in rhyme with Nick's pushes.
Marie was right, with Nick there was no wrong or right: he simply made it seemed that it was always there, waiting to be called out. An attraction's an attraction, simple as that, he guessed that sex would've only meant sex. They came violently a while later.
Nick got up from the sofa to fetch a lighter and a carton of Benson & Hedges from the top of the grand piano. Needless to say, he already knew that it was good. Ellis watched Nick's sweaty flesh caught lights from both the halogen lamps and the ones from outside. When he returned to the sofa, he extracted a cigarette then passed it to Ellis, took another one for himself, put it between his lips then lit it after he lit Ellis's.
"Man, you have so much confidence," Ellis said, letting out a puff. The smoke caught in his pores. "I've always thought that it supposed to be a trial-and-error thing."
Nick chuckled. Smoke floated out of his thin lips.
"No, like other things, making love is all about methods," he said.
"You mean there's a certain method that applies for all types of partners?"
"Each partner a method," Nick replied, taking a leisurely smoke.
"Yeah, even so it wears out real fast," Ellis said, letting out a puff. The smoke got into his eyes, so blinked several times before continued: "Nobody wants repeats for something like that."
"Follow the language," Nick said with a smile. "Bodies are like scores, they have certain things you can think for yourself, but there are also fixed rules."
Outside, the sky was still dyed in strange colors.
Author's Note:
Something I wrote purely for fun. I'm currently taking a break from my original writings, so it's pretty much important to keep the fire and the ideas alive.
Compared to the previous two chapters, this chapter seems to me like a "real fan fiction", since only the roots of the characters are borrowed. The added traits are something I address as "transposing"; possible things that will happen based on the characteristic roots. This is about the perfectionist versus the easygoing, classical versus rock, metropolis man versus small-town dude.:-)
