"Tunnel of Love? Jesus Christ.." Nick said all loud enough for everyone to hear.

"Awe, come on Nick. It ain't so bad." Ellis chirped. "This one time me and Keith--"

Nick stopped him immediately, having the feeling this would be way too revealing for his fragile ears. "Ellis..no."

"What?" the mechanic asked innocently.

"I don't want to hear about your stupid fucking stories about this mysterious man named Keith." he paused. "Ellis...are you...are you gay?" he was genuinely curious. The man seemed like it the way he talked about Keith.

"WHAT?!" Ellis shouted, offended. "Of course not! What makes you think that? Me 'n Keith were just best buds is all."

"Whatever you say kid." Nick shrugged and continued to walk down the river of frozen swans. "Hey Ellis, you could almost call this the cement river."

"Ha-ha-ha.." the mechanic fake laughed as they continued on.

Nick had grown increasingly tired of hearing about Keith. He knew what the problem was too, and it irked him more than anything.

He was jealous.

This hit him like Ellis' frying pan to a infected's head. Hard. He lingered behind the group, not bothering to speak to Ellis as he blindly shot everything in his path or got in trouble somehow.

"Alllll my exes live in Texassss~"

Nick thought he heard the mechanic sing that rather familiar song, but he soon realized Ellis was too busy sniping a spitter from her perch.

He looked to his right at the board that had a scene of some sort that was supposed to be love themed. For a moment, he was about to conclude he was hearing things until he saw a flame flicker behind the board and then went out.

Nick walked behind the board, noticing his companions calling to him but ignoring, and saw something quite startling. A man sat there. He had the regular hick facial hair going on with the beard which connected to the moustache and whatnot. He wore a cap like Ellis', just black, and a simple T-shirt. He also wore those long shorts you would prolly see on a Southern fisherman. Tan, they were. Had a lot of pockets too.

The guy was just sitting there, sucking on a cigarette, and blowing out at the end. He turned to Nick slowly and held up a hand in silent greeting. "Hi?" he said in an unsure voice thick with accent.

"Um..hi." Nick responded back. "And who are you?"

"Just passin' through. Kinda' hard though with all 'dem critters runnin' about." the man continued, not taking his eyes off of Nick. "What's your name, stranger? You don't look local ta' these here parts."

That was kind of a good thing, he concluded. "My name is Nick. What about you?"

"Ma' names Keith." the man said, turning to look blankly back at the board. "Pleased 'ta meet ya', Nick."

Wait.

HO-LEE FUCK.

"What did you just say your name was?" Nick inquired, his eyes getting wide. He also felt his grip on the trigger of his gun get more intense.

He had no time to answer as apparently Ellis was so worried about him he came to look for him. He caught the conman's white jacket poking out behind the board and quickly approached him. "What 'cha doin' back here Nick? We gotta--"

Ellis stopped as he saw Keith sitting there with the same wide eyed expression.

No way.

It can't be THAT Keith!

"KEITH!" Ellis cried out to the man sitting down while this Keith guy responded the same. "ELLIS!" they ran up to each other and gave a big, hopefully manly, hug while laughing.

Nick had this expression as if his face was melting off. It was apparently very noticeable as Rochelle approached him and whispered, "Fix your face."

He did as he was told, and turned on his heels to walk away. Fuck those two. Hillybilly love..ew.

As he strayed from the group, he didn't notice the Smoker coughing in the corner. With a cry, it's tongue lashed out and took hold of him. The slime got all over his jacket, making the conman really angry.

"HELP! SMOKERS GOT ME!" he cried out, but as soon as he did, he felt smoke explode into the air as the creature was apparently shot and killed.

He looked for his saviour, but then scowled as soon as he saw that rifle on Keith's shoulder and Ellis beaming at him as if he were a God. Keith had a smug expression as a cigarette hung limply from his mouth. "Be careful there, eh?" he said to Nick before the conman walked away angrily.

Nick kept throwing hate glares over his shoulder at their new team mate.

Team mate. Bullshit. Not his.

Ellis clung to him like a fucking growth and it was soooo..stupid and annoying.

"Looks like your jealous." Rochelle chirped, making Nick cough as he choked on his own spit.

"Need CPR now, conny?" Keith called to him. That bastard gave him a nickname.

He just ignored that dumbass hick. He heard Ellis giggle in response. Other than that, the mechanic hadn't spoke to him since he found Keith. What ever.

"'Ey lookie there. Safe room." Keith pointed ahead, much to Nick's dismay. QUIT BEING THE HERO..

"Awe, shucks Keith." Ellis said oh so happily. "Yer' better at this than anyone else."

Nick could not believe those words just came out of the mechanics mouth.

"Had practice, Ellis." he replied back. "Lots 'an lots of practice."

Nick didn't miss the weird, menacing smile on Keith's face.

--------------

When they were in the safe house, Keith and Ellis went upstairs while the rest of them stayed downstairs. Nick's annoyed expression turned to an almost sad one as he watched Ellis go.

But there was something about that Keith..

He seemed a little weird.

Well, it may be because he apparently had burns once over ninety five percent of his body..

In his thinking, Nick had a thump upstairs. His paranoia of Keith made him jump up and run up the stairs with just his blue, short sleeved button down shirt on and those white slacks. Rochelle reached for him, but was too slow.

He threw open the door to see something he totally wasn't expecting.

Keith had Ellis pinned on the floor in a..seductive way. They looked at him with surprise, but Ellis looked taken back while Keith smirked at him. This made Nick want to punch him so fucking hard..

"Sorry." he said, turning around. "Thought something happened, Ellis."

His voice held in it a lot of malice, and hurt. Ellis could hear it and was about to cry out for his friend until Keith put his sweating hand over the mechanic's mouth, silencing him with a look that for some reason, made Ellis' want to rip off his pants.

Nick slumped against the door outside, his eyes looking down sadly.

No wonder Ellis was so defensive earlier.

Next morning, Nick had not spoken to anybody. Not even to the other survivors.

Ellis kept his chocolate eyes on Nick, his expression very sorry for last night.

In all truth, he couldn't remember what happened after Nick left. He assumed he and Keith well..you know.. He kind of woke up only wearing his pants.. That was a good enough reason to assume things.

"Come on Ellis." Keith motioned towards the door.

Ellis nodded, his auto shotgun hangingly limply from his hands.

"Nick.." he murmured.

As they made their way to the evacuation point, which they established was the stage where the Midnight Riders did their show, all of them got excited except for Nick.

"They any good?" the conman asked quietly.

"Hell yeah, boy. They got the biggest light show in all of Atlanta." Coach replied with a smile. "Surely the chopper will see those fireworks that go off in the second half of the concert?"

"I think youre right, Coach." Ellis nodded.

"Good, that's the plan then." Rochelle turned to walk out and towards the stage.

Nick set up gasoline tanks and stage lights to make fighting the horde easier. Also the same with the extra stage lights.

"All good to go?" Rochelle asked, walking up to him with a smile.

Nick happened to look past her and caught Ellis and Keith talking about something funny as they laughed despite the situation they were in.

Nick looked away angrily. Rochelle caught on to this, and merely left him be, knowing he was too much of an asshole to accept her help.

They positioned themselves in corners of the stage for better cover over the horde. Nick stood in the loneliest corner where usually he and Ellis would be back to back, but not this time. He watched the lights go out and center themselves on the stage. Coach went to go start the concert, but he saw something out of the corner of his eye that made his heart leap.

Keith coughed very loudly. Not only that, when he pulled his hand back, there was blood. Ellis didn't notice.

"ELLIS!" Nick screamed his name but at about that time, the concert came on in full blast, the light show was something else.

Resorting to option two, he began to run to the mechanic but was blocked out as the horde came in well..a horde. And did he really just see Keith's eyes glint a mischievous red before the horde swallowed him?

As they thought their way through, they already made it through the first Tank. The gas tanks helped. He continued to watch Keith as he fought, fearing more and more by the minute and questioning if they should really be rescuing him as well.

The helicopter was here.

Nick and the rest of the gang ran up the bleachers with plenty of adrenaline coursing their veins. He looked to see Ellis, which of course he was with Keith. Wait, then who was that?

He looked behind him to see a Smoker hobbling up to the strange hick. He about shouted to him, but felt his mouth drop as the Smoker took a long look at Keith before turning around and walking away. Now that he thought about it, the horde seemed to be going for Ellis, not Keith.

What was going on?

"GET IN THE CHOPPER!" Rochelle screamed, holding out a hand to the rest of them, which included Nick, Ellis, and Keith.

Keith pushed him back as Nick went to get in between him and the mechanic. "HEY!" the conman growled at the strange man, who merely climbed aboard.

"C'mon Nick!" Ellis held out his hand, which Nick hesitantly took a hold of.

It happened as if in slow motion.

Nick looked at Keith to see if he was jealous, but didn't see his eyes anywhere near their location. He was looking..behind Nick?

And that's when he heard it.

The coughing.

Ellis and Nick looked back simutanelously as the creature wrapped it's tongue around his waist and yanked him off of the edge of the chopper. Their eyes met, Ellis not intending to let go, but Nick did so he would not drag the mechanic into anymore trouble.

Plus, he was being rescued.

He saw Keith hold Ellis back from jumping out of the chopper, as it was clear Ellis wanted to stay as he fought to get out, even after the chopper took off.

Nick looked to the Smoker that entangled him, and the closed his eyes, waiting to die.

And it never came.

A rush of smoke blasted in his face and he heard that familiar dieing wheeze. The tongue loosened and fell off. Nick looked up to see Ellis, whom had took Keith's sniper rifle and was just now looking away from the scope to look at Nick.

Hah, the kid was getting the hang of this.

He looked around, and sadly sighed, seeing the horde rush at him in incalculable numbers. Frowning, he closed his eyes once more, awaiting the death to come..again. But who knew he would get so lucky as to be saved twice? He felt his arm being pulled, and thought it to be a Jockey at first but as he turned he was met with the chocolate eyes of Ellis.

"Come on Nick!" the mechanic dashed across the bleachers and aimed for the bolted door at the bottom from whence they came.

"Wha..? ELLIS WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" Nick yelled at the mechanic. He was taken back, however, when he smiled back at Nick.

"Savin' ya. What else?" Ellis laughed.

"What about Keith?" Nick asked being genuinely curious.

Ellis didn't answer, just looked back to the safe house. Once they were in, he blocked the door with a steel pipe. Nick relaxed, even though the horde banged on the door furiously. He heard their strained cries, as well.

"Ellis--" he began but was abruptly stopped as he felt lips crash into his. Nick's back was slammed into the wall, knocking over a couple of trinkets just laying around, but it didn't bother him. His eyes looked forward until they closed, and there he saw it was indeed Ellis doing this to him. He wasn't imagining shit from being in this damn zombie apocolypse for too long.

"Nick..I'm so sorry." Ellis pulled away, his hat had fallen off and laid there on the floor, forgotten. His hair was actually sort of long. "Keith..he's not the Keith I once knew."

"Really?" Nick asked, kind of suspicious. "You two sure looked like you had no problem being on top of each other."

"..." Ellis was very quiet and Nick DID NOT like this.

"El?" he used the nickname Ellis mentioned at the mall, hoping that would make him talk.

"He, uh..he kinda' pushed me onto the floor." Nick blinked. So that was the foreign thump. "When you came in and then left, I don't remember what happened after that.." the mechanic seemed sort of shaken.

"So..." Nick stated. "..by you being here, does that mean I'm better than Keith?"

"Well..yeah. Now you are." Ellis smiled. "The old Keith was a lot cooler, but you and the old one are pretty much equal when it comes to being better than the other."

Nick frowned, and then shrugged. "I guess I'll take that." he paused. "How did you get off the chopper, by the way?"

"I jumped."

Nick's eyes widened at the realization of how far that fall was. He looked at Ellis's legs and realized how he had them slightly bent, as if it hurt to put his full weight on them. He knealed down and touched the bend, to which Ellis winced. In his inspection, he heard Ellis laugh.

"You know Nick, your in a funny spot.."

Please let me know if you want me to finish this. xD

There is a severe lacking of EllisxNick fics.

THEIR PARTNERSHIP IS INEVITABLE

Writing this was to shamelessly advertise my own L4D Roleplay site on proboards.

Replace the 'dot' with actual dots. c:

We have eighteen members, and would love for new people to join us.

Coach is the only avaible canon at the moment unless someone else has interest in an inactive canon.