So, I know it hasn't been long since I posted the last chapter, but.. SHIT, I couldn't stop myself from writing this so fast. I was just so pumped to see y'all's reactions to this chapter... I know GlassSoul is gonna kill me -hides in bunker- So... Without further ado...
OH WAIT.
I'm disappointed to announce that this is the next to last chapter. The next chapter is the epilouge, then "Of Conmen and Rednecks", my first Left4Dead2 chapter story, and the story I have with the highest reviews will be over. But no worries- I'll make sure to leave you with an ending you won't forget. Promise!
A little tip- up until the first page break, listen to "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)" by Nancy Sinatra. It was what inspired me, so I figured it'd help set the mood a little better... Anyway...
Now for Reviews:
Angelchan2012: Oh no ;~; I'm a terrible person -cries in corner- OMAI O_O -at your outburst- Isn't this what people normally say about, like, tragic books? Man I'm good.
GlassSoul: Yeah... And you scared the living shit out of me =_=
[Noname?]: Why thank you:D Here's you an update
karatekid369: Ohmy... Um, I look at some pretty mature stuff all of the time, so.. Uh, if you really want to... Go ahead and draw that and send me a link... Other than that... Wow. I really broke all of y'all, didn't I?
D-ZombieDragon: Oh gosh I did break all of y'all ;~; TERRIBLE TERRIBLE PERSON IS ME -hits in head wiht a newspaper- I'm glad I cheered you up :D
H3H3H3: O_O Miracles, brotha. Oh, sorry. Obscure references =_= Anyway... Thank you for the review:D
Space Oddity22: Yay for Happy Days! I do? Awww. I win:D AAAAH -hides and cries a little-
Rengoku Akashi: I'm a horrible person, I know ;-; Hard rain is my favorite, too, but... FF- All the witches. Hate. I just love the fact it can set up oh-so many Nick/Ellis fics =u= Of course the mud would be the worst thing to happen to him XD But thank you :'D I feel a lot better today, actually ^^
Mercs2Girl: I did leave you with a cliffhanger. I'm just that mean. Ehehehe.
DEADLYANG3L: Ohmai... No, no, it's okay. Vent if you wish. I love reading my reader's borderline murderous reviews ^^; Oh... Oh gosh xDD
Geira: Hopes... Oh my... You guys break my heart ;~; His breaking point was a bit easier thanks to Nick -looks at Nick with narrowed eyes- Aww, thank you ^^
Talie-Chambers48: Ohgosh. -tries to hide Keith away so no one will kill him- TANKS? -gets him in a bunker for atomic bombs- Thank you :D
Disclaimer: I don't own Left4Dead2.
Chapter Eleven: I Shot You Down
Bang…
The gunshot echoed over the field, and Keith's brown eyes went from psychotic amusement to terror, his Magnum falling from his hand and landing on the rain soaked ground below. 'No..' his mind said, and he started to choke on his tears. Nick's emerald eyes just stared at him, as the storm began to weaken, the gunshot still ringing in his ears, that awful sound he wished he could forget. 'Bang…'
Keith turned on shaky, unsure legs, staring into familiar blue eyes, those tear filled beautiful cerulean irises he had fallen in love with. Ellis shook, hands almost dropping his own pistol, face pained with anguish, his aim right at Keith. Keith looked down, noticing the darkening crimson stain on his shirt, right in the middle of his abdomen. He put a hand on the wound, feeling the slippery, silky texture of blood, baffled before collapsing back, staring up at the sky, rain falling onto his face. Bleak. Dull. Overcast. He scoffed.
"Oh god… What did I do…" Came Ellis' hoarse voice, caught in his throat behind tears and hiccups, dropping his gun and falling to his knees next to Keith, cradling his best friend in his arms. "Oh god… Keith… I'm so sorry… So sorry…" He cried, his warm tears clashing with the cold rain falling from above.
Nick got up, coming over to Ellis, putting his hands on his shoulders, green eyes sullen. "Keith… Why?"
Keith scoffed, smiling with exhaustion. Everything was going colder. "Because… I didn't want to lose Ellis…" he said, softly, but loud enough for Nick and Ellis to hear because their eyes widened. "He's all I have left, and I didn't want to lose that one shred of home I had left… Of normalcy…" He put a hand to Ellis' face, smiling a little more. "We only had each other for a week… But we were always best friends, yeah?"
Ellis' hand came up to cover Keith's, tears rolling down his face faster, staining his cheeks with salty trails. "Keith… I missed ya all that time…. I never did stop talkin' 'bout ya… Never could shut up.." The mechanic's hand tightened over his friend's, closing his eyes. "Oh don't die… Please don't die…"
"Ellis… Nick…" they both looked at him, at attention now more than ever. His vision was going dark around the edges. He could feel the cold embracing him like a long-lost friend. "I'm… sorry for all I did… I'm sorry for doing all of it, trying to break you two apart… I see now… I was wrong… Nick, protect Ellis, please…" The conman's face grew straight, and he nodded, solemnly. Shit he didn't have much longer; Ellis' face was going darker. "And Ellis…" The mechanic's sapphire eyes went wide. Darker… "Smile… One last time…"
Ellis' lips were forced into an ear-to-ear grin, teeth showing, but eyes still sad. Keith smiled to himself, slipping his eyes closed. "Thank you… Ellis… I love…" His hand relaxed, his heart stopped. "You…"
He was gone.
Ellis' eyes were wide, gaping at Keith's dead body, the first he ever loved, his best friend, his everything left from Savannah, now just a lifeless, cold corpse. He'd never be able to watch him play video games again, or help him work on a truck at the shop, see his beautiful smile again, or hear his laughter. The mechanic let his best friend's hand drop, and held his body close, sobbing and crying, every sorrowful shout only making his heart break more, his thoughts far from the blood staining his clothes, the zombies he knew were lurking, and the gunshots he could hear in the near distance- all that seemed to matter was his best friend, and how he shot him.
"Ellis? Nick? Keith?" Rochelle's voice didn't seem to sound very loud in his ears, only what sounded like a whisper. The can pulled back and she gasped, her rifle clattering to the ground. "Oh my god…"
Ellis' eyes lifted to hers, lost, broken, showing every emotion she thought he was otherwise incapable of. "I… I shot him, Ro… He had the gun pointed at Nick, and I… I… I just shot him…" He broke down again, letting go of Keith and latching onto Nick, hands holding the lapels of his jacket, leaving bloody handprints on the conman's suit, but his lover didn't care. Nick put his arms around Ellis, rubbing his back, trying to comfort the younger man.
"Ellis…" He said, quietly in his ear, getting his attention. "We need to move."
The mechanic's big, beautiful blue eyes met with Nick's, and he sniffled. "We're burying him… Or at least giving him a funeral."
Nick nodded, standing and helping Ellis up. "C'mon, Rochelle. Let's find some shovels."
The rain had stopped as the trio stood over a make shift grave, two shovels laying nearby. Rochelle let out her held breath, a sullen look on her face as Nick looked to Ellis, who seemed to be trying not to fall apart, holding himself together with his willpower, before he took a quick intake of air. "We gotta keep moving." He said, closing his eyes.
Nick and Rochelle looked ready to argue before he picked up his shotgun, ignored his pistol and started walking back toward their original path, and Nick only clambered after him. "Ellis, wait." Rochelle watched them before turning back to the grave and getting down on her knees.
"You were a good man," she said, softly. "A bit on the adventurous side, not always coming up with the best ideas, but you were a good friend to Ellis, and you proved it before all of this… Keith, you were a great friend, and a good teammate, too…" She sighed, picked up her rifle and stood, casting on sorrowful look to the grave. "And he never did shut up about you… He always had a story, and it was always about you… He loved you, Keith…"
"Rochelle!"
She jumped at Nick's voice in the near distance, and sent one last look to Keith's grave, before jogging out toward the source of the voice. "Nick?"
"Over here." Nick hand just went over the cane, and she made her way toward him, blinking at the personnel that flooded the road around them. "We found it, Ro… We found the evacuation center…" Ellis' blue eyes, the ones that had looked so broken to her only minutes before seemed to be alive again, with hope of safety without the infected. "We're going to be safe," Nick said, even a smile on his face, a genuine one that made her heart erupt with warmth.
Rochelle's mouth turned up into a huge grin and she wrapped her arms around both Ellis and Nick, holding them to her. "We did it…" She said, tears running down her face in happiness, both of them putting arms around her. "We did it…"
(Two Months Later)
Curly brown hair stuck out from underneath a blue trucker hat, sapphire eyes focusing on the book in front of them, a small, held out yawn escaping their lips. Ellis lowered the book and rubbed his eyes, checking the clock from his seat on the couch. Six. He put the his book on the table, cuddling up under the blanket he had brought from his room and laying his head on the armrest, closing his eyes to get some rest, when the front door of the apartment opened and he let his shoulders slouch. He was asleep, not awake.
"Ellis?" It was Rochelle's voice and he cracked open his eyes, looking at the woman with exhausted eyes. She smiled, patting his head. "Sorry. I didn't know if you were asleep or not."
He smiled. "I need it… I've been readin' all day."
The TV reporter nodded, putting her purse on the coffee table in front of Ellis and going off into the kitchen, and the mechanic just cuddled up a little more, trying to get a nap in before Nick got home. The conman, the second he walks through the door, would make Ellis get up off the couch because he's "twenty-three, not six, and shouldn't be sleeping all day". Ellis rolled over, facing the back of the couch. Rochelle was in the kitchen, most likely fixing dinner for them and Nick, whenever he got home. The mechanic frowned a little, his eyes closed tight. Hopefully that wasn't going to be for another hour.
The front door opened and he repressed a groan of frustration, listening to Nick's footsteps in the entryway, up until they reached the carpet, and then the mock-anger in his voice. "Ellis… What in the hell…" He moved to stand next to the coach, his hand coming down on Ellis' shoulder, gently shaking him. "Overalls, wake up. You're twenty-three, not six. You shouldn't be sleeping all day."
"I haven't… I've been readin'…" He complained, rolling over on his back to glare up at the conman. "Just a little nap, please?"
Nick's face was stern, before he sighed in annoyance and left Ellis on the couch. "I'm waking you up thirty minutes before dinner, Overalls."
Ellis smiled happily, watching Nick leave into the back bedrooms before springing up off the couch and following him stealthily.
Life had been like this for two months after being rescued in the cane field, finally returning to normalcy, although the trio decided to stay together for as long as they could. Rochelle said that they'd need help keeping track of chores and she'd also fix dinner since she was a fairly good cook, and Ellis and Nick hadn't argued. She worked for a news team, an actually reporter, while Nick still opted to gambling at the casinos. He didn't do anything rash or stupid though- Ellis and Rochelle put him on an allowance. Ellis, however, worked for a local mechanic's shop, still a grease monkey down in his heart, even after all the influence from Nick. Rochelle didn't like getting the oil out his clothes, but it brought home enough money to pay bills, so she really didn't complain.
Ellis peeked into the bedroom before turning the corner and tackling Nick, making him land right onto the bed. "Aw, fuck-" He complained. "Overalls! What the hell?"
The younger male smiled, toothy, sitting right on Nick's back. "Well, I missed ya all day, y'know." He said, sitting on the side of the bed so Nick could sit up, only for the conman to push him back, pinning him down. "'Parrently, ya missed me too."
"Mhm…" Nick mumbled back, a hand running up Ellis' shirt, lips pressed firmly against his neck. "I missed you more than you know…"
Ellis shuddered back into the touch, suddenly something going off into his head. "OH SHIT!" He yelled, sitting up and hitting his head on Nick's nose in the process. The conman held it gingerly, looking at Ellis with pained eyes.
"Ah… Ellis… What the hell…"
The mechanic didn't take a moment to answer, instead pulled on socks and shoes, rushing out the bedroom door and out of the apartment, startling Rochelle. "Ellis?" She called. Nick came jogging out after him, confused. "Where is he going?" she asked him. He shrugged, and then shook his head, following out after him.
Chilly autumn air blew past him, and he halted, seeing Ellis standing in front of two graves, and Nick sighed, walking up to stand next to Ellis. "So this is where you went…" He said, quietly, and the mechanic looked over at him, nodding a little.
"Yeah… It's been two months since their deaths…" Ellis looked back to the gravestones, bent down on one knee, and ran a hand over the tombstone that read "Keith Marshall", letting it linger on the engraving of the last name, before sighing. "I wish their bodies could have been buried, too…"
Nick took a knee next to Ellis, arm around his shoulders, focusing on the grave marker that just read "Coach", so simple and to the point, but mostly because they didn't know his real name- he had never told them. "Yeah… Me too. They were good people, El…" The conman stood, offering his hand to Ellis, who took it and stood himself, leaning his hand on Nick's shoulder.
"I'll miss 'em..." The mechanic exclaimed, softly. "I'll miss 'em, both…"
"I will, too, Ellis…"
The wind picked up and the two lovers looked to the sky, the sun setting lower and lower. Ellis' eyes caught sight of the necklace he had given Nick, the Tiger's Eye hanging from a gold chain around his neck, smiled. "Let's get home..." he said, and they turned from the cemetery, the dozens of graves laid out from victims of the Green Flu, and of the life they had during that monstrous month. They turned their backs on the Green Flu, the infection, but never on the people they lost, the people they cared about. They didn't turn their backs… They said goodbye to them.
"Here lies Keith Marshall. March 15th, 1987-August 23rd, 2010"