A man can only take so many hours of an immature boy doddling on and on about nothing, drugged out of his mind on morphine meant for three people, not just one. It was Nick's fault, but he kept denying that he cared about Ellis being in pain or not, but Coach and Rochelle weren't buying it. So he gave up and just let it be, knowing he couldn't convince them.

Ellis finally came off of his morphine-high and sat up, looking from Coach, to Rochelle, and then Nick. A smile formed on his lips, remembering that Nick had been his savior and doctor this time around. He literally had saved his life, inches from death. "Nick…," he said softly, almost affectionately.

Nick looked at him and furrowed his eyebrows, confused. "Whaddya want Overalls?" With a sigh, he crossed his arms over his chest and waited for Ellis to answer. He had to admit…Ellis looked a lot better now, as if he were refreshed. Still, the aching reminder of the overdose-age of morphine knocked at the back of his head, racking his brain slightly with guilt.

Ellis just shook his head and took his hat off, ran his hand through his hair, put his hat back on, and slid off of the table with a soft 'thump' as his boots hit the floor. "I feel real good…kinda hungry though. Where we goin' next?" The dirty-blonde haired boy rubbed his hands together and looked at Coach, expecting an answer, but got none.

"We…ain't leavin'?" Ellis' smile disappeared from his face. He had been expecting to leave as soon as he was feeling better, but apparently they weren't going to go anywhere for a while. There went Ellis' plans, and so close to Savannah too! He had been looking forward to going home for quite some time now, just wanting to see how things were since he had left. Of course Ellis knew that his home would be in shambles and the memories would be too much to bear, but he just had to see it. It'd been too long.

In complete understanding, Coach walked over to Ellis and put his hand on Ellis' shoulder. "I want to go to Savannah too…but we can't. Not just yet. I miss my home too. You know that playground on Kingston Avenue, the one with the broken swing? I want to sit on those swings again." Coach was originally from Savannah, Georgia too. Coach and Ellis were the only ones who could truly relate to one another—who understood one another.

The mechanic smiled widely and nodded. "But there's only one swing! 'Member? It had two swings, and one of them was broken." The statement from Ellis made Coach smile widely and laugh. "I know. I'll push you, Kiddo. Aw, the hell with it…let's go home!"

A few days of travelling passed flawlessly with the usual fighting off zombies and taking whatever was needed from the houses that lined the roads they walked along. They made sure to avoid an incident like the one Ellis had by taking precautions and avoiding large sums of zombies walking about aimlessly. Finally, they were in Savannah, Ellis' and Coach's hometown. It was pretty quiet, abandoned, and seemed like a dream with how each house looked so nice, even after the zombie apocalypse had struck.

Nick whistled in amazement and put his hands behind his head as he walked, admiring the beauty of the southern town. "Not bad. Still, it ain't no home to me." He turned to Ellis, noticing the others had stopped and were staring at a blue house with old working cars parked to the side of the house. This must have been where Ellis had lived. "Ellis…?"

Ellis walked up the stone-embedded path to the front porch and sat on the porch swing for a minute, then got up and went inside, the others right behind him. No one dared to say a word. They would just let him think and remember the good times he had had in his home. Deciding to give Ellis room, Coach and Rochelle decided to wait outside. At an attempt to tell Nick to do the same, they shot the idea down and decided it was best Nick go with him in case Ellis tried to kill himself at such a harsh realization of their new reality.

The mechanic walked around the house silently, touching pictures and picking up knitted items his mother had made. Sure, he was a Mama's boy, but so what? He had every right to miss his mother, just like anyone else. He had that right especially if he was the one who had to put a shotgun shell through her head to save her from becoming one of them.

Nick examined each room they went into silently, then finally would look at Ellis afterwards, trying to empathize with the young man. He just couldn't. That didn't mean he couldn't try.

"Ellis, I get it…it was a bad idea to come here, alright? Can we just go? Stopping here and remembering what happened won't help us get to a quarantined area any sooner."

That was the breaking point.

Ellis turned around and rushed up on Nick and punched him in the face. "You didn't have no fam'ly! You don't know how hard it is jus' ta go on each day! Don't you go tellin' me it was a bad idea! It is fo' sure worth the damn time! God dammit Nick! You don' understand nuthin' 'bout me." Ellis immediately felt bad about his actions and got into his first-aid kit to patch up Nick's bloody nose.

"I'm so sorry Nick…" Ellis pressed a cotton-ball to Nick's nose, standing a few inches apart from him. "I jus'…got angry. You hate me more now, huh?"

Nick had to admit he was angry at him, but he couldn't hate him. He never did hate him from the start—he just got annoyed at Ellis sometimes. "Ellis, I don't fucking hate you. Cut it out." He snatched the cotton-ball from Ellis and gave Ellis a shove. "If you want to mess with the big dogs, then bring it on. You're gonna lose." He gave Ellis a glare and sighed as the cotton-ball soaked up the blood and his nose kept dripping blood. "God DAMMIT."

The younger man laughed and grabbed a few cotton balls from his first-aid kit and waved for him to follow. "If ya sit with yer head titled back, it'll stop. My Mama taught me that, and it works, believe you me!" He got comfortable in a chair and pointed to the floor between his legs.

Nick quickly understood what Ellis meant and sat between Ellis' legs, his head tilted back onto his lap. "Whatever. Just fix what you broke." He shut his eyes and waited, crossing his arms over his chest with his legs stretched out. This was an odd position for two men to be in.

Ellis pressed the cotton balls to Nick's nose and put a hand on Nick's forehead to keep his head tilted back. Wow Nick's face was so soft. A slight smile played on his lips as he watched Nick breathe, suddenly interested in the man since there was nothing else to pay attention to while waiting for Nick's nose to stop bleeding.

Five minutes quickly slipped by and Nick's nose stopped bleeding. He had had his eyes closed the entire time, quite a relaxing stance, but too relaxing. The gambler had fallen into a light sleep and was quite comfortable with Ellis touching him so gently. It felt almost like a woman's touch, like his dead ex-wife's touch. Exactly like hers.

Not wanting to wake the exhausted man, Ellis leaned back in the chair and waited, having discarded the bloody cotton balls via throwing them behind the chair childishly, and moved his hand to the side of Nick's neck. He knew well that lying with another man was a sin, and that he'd go to hell, but this wasn't lying! They were sitting.