Author's Note: I wrote this while listening to Finale, a completely instrumental piece written by Danny Elfman that was featured in Rango. If anyone has seen that movie, perhaps you'll know where I got the idea for this fanfic.

Oneshot. Tragedy/Angst. Ellis' POV. Slash. Gay Buttsecks, 'cause that's what slash is all about, amirite?

Disclaimer: I don't own anyone mentioned … but I truly wish I did.

Acknowledgements: Thanks, as always, to Amanda and Sean for reading this.

Summary: "… death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it." – foreword in All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque.

Second Chance

The road was dusty, dry. It hadn't rained for a few weeks; the famers at the market on Saturday morning were getting nervous. They whispered about how this had been happening more and more frequently, maybe a summer drought was now a for sure thing, not to be wondered about. Cars whizzed by, red, white, and blue. Black, yellow, and green. All sorts of colors, all on their own journeys, their drivers not paying attention to the world that was flashing by; they viewed the other vehicles as obstacles, not as people.

There Ellis stood, feeling the hot wind whip his clothes as he stood with his toes on the edge of the road, about six feet from the line that separated the driving lane from the shoulder. From one part of life from another – that of motion and that of stillness.

The few short hairs below the brim of his hat moved restlessly against his forehead with each vehicle passing by. If he let his eyes go out of focus, they all became one multicolored stream in front of him. It was hard to let his vision relax, though. The world seemed overly bright and extremely sharp. He blinked rapidly in the scorching afternoon light, his tongue slowly moving across his cracked and crevassed lips. He didn't even know how long he'd been standing there, just watching. Looking. Waiting.

His heart pounded out its ceaseless rhythm in his chest. Beat after beat. Night after night, he'd lain in his bed, wishing that it would just quit, that it would give up. He tried, God knew he did, but he couldn't control his heart beat, just like the farmers couldn't control the rain. It was something that was left up to a higher power, one who knew more than the entire world's intelligentsia combined. Ellis prayed each night, with every waking thought, really, to have some release from the unendurable hell he was somehow living through.

He couldn't comprehend how he still existed when that which had been so vital to him, so imperative had been ripped from his grasp so easily, like his grip on those he loved was comparable to someone holding out their hand and letting a breeze blow away a piece of paper on their palm.

There was nothing he could do. Keith, his buddy, his best friend, was gone. Ellis had never told Keith how much he loved him. He'd never said thank you for being there when he needed a shoulder; he'd never thanked him for all the laughs they had; he'd never asked those questions that always slipped his mind when he was with Keith – those questions that kept him up at night.

He'd always wondered about Keith. Every night after he turned off the light, slid into his bed, and stared at the ceiling, he'd always asked himself if tomorrow would be the day that his queries would be answered. And then it became too late to ask.

Ellis had sat by Keith's bedside until the very end. Whenever they were alone, Ellis would hold his best friend's hand, gently thumbing the calloused and rough palm. He'd look at all the scars and remind himself how they got there. He wanted to always remember.

There was that half-moon on Keith's right hand, on the pinky knuckle. He'd gotten that when he'd burned himself on that camping trip to California.

There was that long, thin, ropy one right across his left wrist. He'd received that when they'd been playing with Ellis' cat, back when they were eight.

Keith never woke up. His mother, sobbing, told Ellis that they planned to take him off of life support within a few days. Ellis pleaded with her, telling her that he might wake up. What if he was meant to regain consciousness on the day that they were going to kill him?

His mother flinched at that word: kill. Her face white, her cheeks swollen, her eyes red, she told Ellis that there was no brain activity. He was already dead. Dead to the doctors, dead to the world, dead to them.

Ellis, trying to control his quivering lower lip, informed her that Keith wasn't dead to him. Not yet.

Three days later, Keith was pronounced deceased after they'd taken him off of the artificial breathing apparatus. Ellis didn't join the family that day; instead, he stayed in his apartment in his bed, staring at the ceiling with the blind pulled down, blocking out the rays of sunlight.

Life was difficult. Many people would rather face the fear of the afterlife than continue living. Ellis never knew why until he lost Keith.

There was no more smiling. No more random knocks on the front door. No more laughter, phone calls, Facebook statuses. No more hanging out, no more fixing cars, no more Call of Duty on the Xbox. No more late night discussions. No more happiness.

The world became a gigantic weight on Ellis' shoulders. Instead of being a place of optimism and new experiences and new faces, it became a place of negativity, depression, and isolation. He had other friends who told him to call if he ever needed anything, but he couldn't pick up the phone. He didn't know if he could open up to them. The only person he'd ever let in was Keith.

His heart was all scar tissue, and yet it faithfully continued to do its one job: keep him alive.

Ellis took a step onto the road, his nostrils fleetingly stinging, his eyes filling up with tears, his shoulders trembling uncontrollably. Somewhere within his mind, he knew he was throwing away that which could never be replaced. He briefly wondered if those who commit suicide regret their decision right before they hit the pavement, or right before the bullet enters their temple, or right before they start shutting down because of an OD, or right before the chair they were previously standing on hits the floor with a bang.

He hadn't even had a chance to say goodbye. How fair was that? Why couldn't Keith have died of cancer or something like that, a slow disease that allowed time for all those things that had remained unsaid for so long?

There was no justice in the world.

He took another step just as a truck rolled by, blaring its horn. Adrenaline shot through his system as he lost his balance and fell over, landing on his ass. He was sobbing unrestrainedly, the salty tears streaming down his already blazing cheeks.

A few more steps and he would've died. He got to his feet, gazed at the vehicles loudly zooming by, and he turned his back on the sight.

"Ellis, what're you doing?"

"Mm?" Ellis asked, blinking a few times, pulling himself out of his recollections. He stood a few feet onto the shoulder of a long deserted highway. In his mind, fading swiftly, he could still faintly hear the sounds of cars going by, the rush of the wind, the crunch of tires on random pieces of gravel.

Nick walked up to him, standing side by side with the twenty-three year old. "Any reason you've been standing here for five minutes or so?" He turned his body toward Ellis, and froze. There were tears on the younger man's cheeks. "Ellis?"

"Uh," Ellis said gruffly, wiping at his eyes, "I was jus', uh ..." he stopped, took a deep breath, and asked softly, still looking out at the empty road, "Have y'ever fel' like there was this – this definin' moment where everythin' changed?"

Nick's eyebrows contracted a miniscule amount, and there was concern in his rich brown eyes when Ellis glanced at him.

"Yeah," he finally answered slowly, still staring at Ellis in a strange way. "I've felt that once or twice."

Internally, Ellis smiled bitterly to himself. He had the feeling that Nick was humoring him, and that was fine. They didn't need to go any further with the topic. Ellis was afraid to open the floodgates on those memories anyways. Afraid of what they might unleash, of what they might stir up: incredible sadness, more tears, forgotten memories, and awkward questions.

Nick didn't need to know. Not yet. Before it was too late, though, Ellis knew he'd open up, tell the older man everything. He'd share the truth about Keith, that he was dead and had been for years. At least the other survivors would stop suggesting that Ellis might one day find him again. But until then, they didn't need to know about the sharp, stabby pain that got him right in the heart whenever they tried to give him hope.

It didn't matter to Ellis that Nick knew nothing of moments in one's life where they're given a second chance. A second chance at happiness, at love. Ellis knew that he'd been given another shot. He might not have known it that day, standing by the busy road, but he finally caught on when he met Nick, and he knew he wouldn't make the same mistakes with Nick that he did with Keith.

Life's too short.