A/N: Fourteen hours later than I would have liked and not beta'd. Sorry. Enjoy?
Disclaimer: I do not own L4D/L4D2 or the world/characters therein.
30 Day Challenge 3: Gaming/Watching a movie
Searching for and collecting enough gas, having to take the extra time and ammo to clear out the area and then putting old mattresses and egg cartons and things against the shed walls that surrounded the generator they had found was well worth it according to Zoey and Louis, and a waste of time to Francis and Bill. Still, the four had banded together to get the generator they had found attached to a mess of a house working to be able to actually have electricity for a day. There was always the chance that the sound would draw a horde of the undead upon them. That was what Bill was worried about. Francis just didn't see why they would need a generator.
As was their usual routine, Louis and Bill took first watch when everything was set up and the survivors were as settled for the day as they were going to be. Bill had cautioned them that they wouldn't be getting any extra time to rest and told them to make sure they got some sleep. Francis had waved him off and made a jab at the other man's age, which earned him a glare. The eldest of the survivors was shaking his head and muttering about pains in the asses while Louis laughed and followed behind him.
When they were alone, Zoey was quick to break the silence, "They hav here."
"Yeah, so?" Francis was more occupied with using the place's small refrigerator to cool down the beers he had found laying around the place. There was no telling when he'd get a cold one again and he wasn't about to waste the opportunity, "I doubt there's anything good on."
The college student rolled her eyes, "They have a 360 and some controllers, too."
"What?" Francis wandered out of the kitchen and into the main room, idly kicking at some of the trash that littered the floor out of his way as he did so. Sharp gray eyes zeroed in on the white gaming box the youngest of them was messing with, "Oh." He crossed his arms as he watched her, paying more attention to her ass than whatever she was actually doing, "You used to play that shit?"
The ex-college student dug out a couple of controllers and fired up the console, "Yeah. I wasn't the best at it, but I bet I can kick your ass." She smirked and held out a black controller to the biker, challenging him.
Francis accepted, taking the thing from her and looking it over. It was covered in buttons and triggers and shit, but he figured it wouldn't be that hard to figure out. "Last time you said you could kick my ass at anything, I kicked your ass," he laughed.
"Yeah, well, this time you're going down, old man," Zoey laughed as she started up the game.
The biker rose a brow as the screen filled with zombies, because they haven't dealt with enough of those fucking things already, and some group of assholes running around with guns. It all looked too damn familiar for him. "Really, Zoey?"
"This was the only mutliplayer one they had. You aren't afraid of a few fake zombies, are you?" The brunette continued setting up, smirking at the biker as she did so, "You don't have to play if you don't want it. It's alright, it wasn't like you could win anyways."
"Fuck that," Francis growled, gripping the controller a little tighter, "I smoke you in real zombie killing, I can do it in the fake shit, too."
"Great," Zoey laughed, "Now pick a character. There're four to choose from."
Stormy eyes rolled as he looked over the choices. Some fat black dude, some cute black chick, some shady ass-hole looking guy, and some little hick guy. If we was gonna be staring at some character on a screen, it may as well be one he wanted to look at. He chose the black chick. To his surprise, Zoey went with the little red-neck dude.
As the game started, the characters on screen had some banter going on, but Francis didn't really listen to it. He was more concerned with figuring out how to move, shoot, punch things, and all that shit. He grinned when he picked up a fire ax, "Shiiiit... this gives me an idea. Next fire ax we find, guess what I'm doing."
"Gee, I wonder."
A couple minutes later found the two of them on the edge of their seats, shit talking the zombies and their team mates and each other as they fought their way through a virtual world that pretty accurately mirrored the one they were living. It was ridiculous that they could have any bit of fun playing a game about the things they feared in real life, but neither questioned it. They were too busy competing with each other for kills and head shots and who could beat the most zombies to death with a frying pan when found one.
"Nooooo..." Zoey murmured when the pair came up on an abandoned car auction under a highway overpass, "No no no..." they crept between the cars, trying to kill off any zombie in their way without setting off any alarms.
Francis wasn't as cautious about the situation when he got away from the small horde that his team mate had left him in the middle of. "Worried about that, huh?" He kept back, watching her wander about half way through the mess of abandonded cars, "It would be really dick if someone, I don't know..." He pulled out a pipe bomb, "Did this!" He threw the pipe bomb, getting a few zombies to wander away from Zoey. The bomb exploded, stealing all those kills from his team mate and setting off a few alarms.
"Dammit!" Zoey growled in frustration as she was suddenly swarmed by the living dead. "Thanks a lot, Francis!" She would have glared at him if she didn't have to keep her eyes on the screen. She settled for glaring at the undead jerks she was killing instead.
"No problem," the biker laughed, picking off a few zombies from his vantage point.
When the zombies were all taken care of, he caught up with his companion and the two continued on. Before too long, and after many bouts of shit-talking at each other and generally screwing each other over every chance they each got, the two had reached the last stretch of the level. It all came down to this. Get on the boat and live, miss the boat and die by undead freak. Neither of them had any healing things left and both were low on ammo. There was a wait between them calling the boat and the boat actually showing up- something both had dealt with in real life enough times to hate the shit out of. Wave after wave of undead showed up, but it all seemed manageable until the very end.
The boat finally showed up and the two made a break for it. The game, in a last ditch effort to fell the survivors, sent everything it had at the two of them. The two computer characters were the first to die off, but the other two kept going. They were close to the end, so close, and both out of ammo when a wave of enemies rushed them from every direction.
Francis threw his last pipe bomb and then switched over to the frying pan he had given up the ax for as the game threw a special zombie at them. It was just like the fucking tanks they both feared and hated in real life.
"Shit, shit, shit!" Zoey growled, having to switch to duel weilding pistols when her autoshotty was spent, "We're not gonna make it!"
"Sure we will," Francis growled back, "Just keep running! Ignore the big guy and keep running! We'll make it to the boat, don't worry!"
Zoey kept running, trusting that Francis would be right behind her. She got to the boat and turned in time to see that Francis hadn't been running with her. He had been distracting the tank with nothing more than the damn frying pan. His character was killed and the game ended with only her surviving. The room was silent save to the dramatic ending credit music of the game as the two came down from their gaming induced frenzies.
Soft brown eyes slid away from the screen and over to glare at the biker next to her. She glared and hit in in the arm as hard as she could, "Jerk!"
"What?" Francis smirked back at her, "You hit like a girl, by the way."
His comment earned him another hit in the arm as his companion continued to glare at him and said, "Never do that! If we run to that stupid boat, we both run to that stupid boat, jerk!"
The tattooed man waved it away, "It's just a game, Zoey. Calm down!" He didn't tell her that he would never, never run to the stupid boat with her if staying behind meant she would be able to make it. He wasn't sentimental enough of a guy to be able to say that kind of thing out loud.
"Yeah, yeah," Zoey got up from her seat next to the biker to turn the 360 off, "Whatever." She took longer than she had to in turning everything off and putting the game away because it meant not having to look back at the biker. It was stupid to get worked up over a game, and she knew that, but that didn't keep her eyes from tearing up at the thought of Francis doing something like that in real life.
The rest of their time was spent with some old movie on for background noise while the two slept. Zoey had never held onto the biker quite so fiercely in her sleep before, but Francis wasn't complaining. He made a mental note, as he fell asleep, to grab the first fire ax they came across. It would be so much more useful than that fucking frying pan was.