Listen To Your Heart

By: esmtz

It didn't take Ellis long to figure out that Nick hated him. Even when they first met he knew exactly how Nick felt the moment they looked at each other. Nick's eyes had been filled with hate and Ellis had flinched from both the look he was getting and the nickname he immediately had gotten from Nick; a stupid hick. Ellis had immediately felt isolated from the group since the others had gotten along better with each other then they did with him. Even now after spending a couple of weeks with them he knew that none of them really cared about him especially when he tried to tell them a story about his best friend, Keith. He was always being interrupted and told not to continue and he understood that they were in a zombie apocalypse and all, but shit couldn't they at least let him finish one of his stories? He also hated the fact that they were treating him like a kid who didn't know better. Rochelle and Coach were always telling Nick to be nicer to him and Ellis frowned thinking about telling them to stop acting like he was a victim, but because of how he was raised he never once brought it up how much he didn't like them always taking his side over Nick's. What made him feel worse was how much Nick kept complaining about how Ellis always needed to be looked after since he was always getting himself into trouble with the zombies.

"First it was that fucking Charger and then it was a fucking Jockey. Jesus Christ, Ellis do you even know how to survive?" Nick had yelled at him as Rochelle was patching him up in one of the safe houses.

"Nick, leave the poor kid alone. It ain't his fault the zombies have taken a liking to him." Coach told him glaring at him as he finished stitching up a wound on his right leg as he was sitting down on the ground his back against the wall.

Rochelle sighed not taking her eyes off of Ellis's wounds that were on his back as they sat on the couch close to the door to exit the safe room.

"We were all in trouble back there, Nick. With the tank showing up it's no wonder Ellis was distracted when the charger ran into him especially since the tank was on your ass." Rochelle replied.

Ellis was looking at the ground and heard the disappointment in Coach's voice.

"Well y'all looks like we're going with only one health kit again." Coach sighed.

"Thanks to Ellis who used up our last one!" Nick said.

"Nick, you had to use one too so shut up!" Rochelle replied angrily as she turned her head to look at him.

Ellis turned his head to look at Nick and had started to say that he was sorry, but Nick interrupted him.

"Don't even start you stupid hick. I don't want to hear it because all you'll do is start up one of your stupid Keith stories!" Nick said glaring angrily at him who immediately closed his mouth and looked away completely hurt.

"Nick, you went too far!" Coach growled as he slowly stood up careful not to tear his stitches he just put in on his leg.

Nick rolled his eyes and look at him.

"Coach, before you tear your stitches sit back down. We can't afford one of our best shooters to be hurting when we leave from here." Nick told him.

Ellis closed his eyes as he felt Rochelle finish healing him and he quickly got up and went to one of the rooms. As he closed the door he could already hear the others arguing again and he sighed as he went towards the bed to get some rest. That night Ellis couldn't sleep right away because he kept hearing Nick's voice in his head and he felt himself tense up. He looked to his side to see if anyone else had come in yet since there were only two rooms in the safe house and saw that no one else had went in yet.

'Nick's right. Why do I always hafta be the one using up everyone's health kits?' Ellis sighed looking at the ceiling and pulling the covers over him 'it's been what three weeks now and all I've done is been more of a burden then an asset to the others.' Ellis thought of the time he accidentally shot Nick and tried to heal him, but Nick refused right away and instead had Coach heal him. 'I'm no good to these guys. I was never taught how to survive something like this let alone use guns.'

Ellis had been raised by his mother all by herself since his dad had bailed on them years ago when he was only five. He had no other family besides his mom and the few friends that he had like Keith and Dave.

'They had been planning to take me out to teach me how to use guns, but then this stupid zombie apocalypse started.' Ellis's eyes started filling up with tears as he remembered coming across his mother's and Dave's dead bodies just before he met up with Nick and them. He hadn't seen Keith anywhere so he could only hope that the last person who cared about him was still alive somewhere looking for him.

Ellis reached for his hat that was on the table next to the bed and looked at it and that's when he finally heard someone approach the door. Ellis put his hat back down and turned to face the other way as the door opened. Ellis's eyes went wide as he heard Nick's voice and he felt his heart pumping hard in his chest.

"I fucking hate you guys right about now!" Nick yelled.

Ellis tried to hear what the others were saying, but he couldn't.

"Whatever, next time one of you guys have to share the room with him." Nick sighed closing the door.

'Oh you gotta be kidding me!' Ellis asked feeling himself start to turn red 'It's bad enough he's in my head and now he's gunna be in the same bed as me? Who's idea was that?'

"You better be fucking asleep, Ellis." Nick said as he pulled the covers up and quickly got underneath them and tried to keep his body from touching Ellis's as he covered himself up.

There was silence for a few minutes before Ellis swallowed.

"I'm sorry, Nick. You know for causing y'all a lot of trouble. I know how much y'all hate having me around because its like having to look after some little kid right?" Ellis whispered.

He felt Nick move obviously feeling uncomfortable. Ellis looked out the window trying to keep himself from crying right there.

"You've never once healed me and whenever Rochelle or Coach heals me it's almost like a pain having to do it at all." Ellis continued remembering the look on Coach's face when he had to be the one to heal him.

Nick didn't respond and for once he didn't seem to know how even if he wanted to.

"I also know that you don't want my help either since I'm nuthin but a 'stupid hick' to you and I just wanted you to know that I don't hate you." Ellis swallowed again knowing full well that what he was feeling for Nick was far from hate, "I'm also sorry how Coach and Ro are defending me when they shouldn't because you were right, Nick. I don't know how to survive in a world like this and I also need to apologize for accidentally shooting you before since you know you didn't want me to say anything before or hell you probably want me to shut up right now right?" Ellis asked, "Well I promise you, Nick that as soon as we get rescued I'll get mahself as far away from you as possible. You ain't the only one who said they hated me so I'm used to it."

There was silence between them again and Ellis curiously slightly turned his head to glance at Nick who was facing towards the door. Ellis didn't expect that Nick would reply so he turned his head back and snuggled inside the covers of the bed and closed his eyes. For a second he thought he heard Nick say something, but figured that he was just hearing things and tried to get some sleep.

Author's note: Hey I know it's been awhile. I wasn't sure if I was going to make another L4D story or not, but I decided I should. This is going to be another NickxEllis story, but will also contain FrancisxEllis. I don't even know if im going to continue or not since I'm really not so sure about this story because I have no idea where to take it and I've been busy playing Gears of War 2 to get my level to 100 before next April when Gears of War 3 comes out. Right now I'm working on being an 84. If you've read my previous story you know you'll probably want to review at least once in awhile if you like this story enough for me to try and continue it you don't have to if you don't want since this time it depends if I'm not too lazy to stop writing and if my laptop doesn't decide to die on me. It'll probably be discontinued if I don't write for a couple of months just so you know.