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The final stretch to the last safe house before they reached the Burger Tank building had been intense to say the least. A boomer had managed to sneak up on them and covered two of the four survivors in its putrid green vomit, attracting a rather massive horde. To make matters worse, the storm had worsened and limited their vision to being able to see not even a metre in front of themselves.
Despite the initial chaos spurred by the immense number of infected that came at them, the survivors managed to make it to the safe house mostly unharmed. Or so they thought they did. Coach and Rochelle made it into the safe house first, followed by Nick; who had been shoved in by Ellis. As soon as they were in they barricaded the door and slumped against the wall.
“Fuckin’ boomers…” Nick almost wheezed, leaning forward against his propped up knee as he tried to catch his breath. “Hey, El, why the hell did you—El?”
Dread began to seep into the room, it took them a moment to realise that the youngest survivor in their group was till outside.
“ELLIS” Was the only thing the survivors said before tearing the barricade away from the safe house door and rushing outside.
—
“…think he’s going to be okay?”
“Dunno baby girl, that hunter got him pretty good. We’re lucky we even got to him in time.”
“I know, I know. Its just… god… I didn’t even hear that hunter Coach. If I had—“
“Ro. None of us coulda predicted that hunter would be on top of the roof. All we gotta do now is sit tight and hope he makes it through tonight.”
Nick leaned against the wall opposite of Coach and Rochelle, pretending to be asleep. Truth was, he couldn’t get to sleep, not when he could hear the muffled groans from Ellis, who was resting in one of the bedrooms in the safe house. Mind wandering, Nick thought back to when they had pretty much thrown themselves into the house and closed the door, when Ellis had practically shoved him in—
Then it hit him. The hunter had been aiming for him, Ellis had been the only one to notice this and so he took matters into his own hands and pushed Nick out of the way. Leave it to the mechanic to do something like that. ‘You dumbshit…’ Was the last thing Nick thought as he repositioned himself and made another futile attempt at getting some much needed sleep.
—
“Why the hell did you do it?”
The young mechanic did a double-take at the abrupt question from the conman. The two men were sitting on the edge of the bed in the room Ellis was recovering in. A day and a half had passed since the hunter had pounced on the mechanic and while the fever that had rapidly come on had all but disappeared (they still didn’t have a clue how it came on in the first place really) the gashes from the hunter’s claws were still there. While they had been cleaned and covered up it still hurt Ellis to move much, as they covered the expanse of his chest and then some on his unmarked shoulder.
“Huh? What do ya mean—“
“Why did you shove me into the safe house, you dumbshit,” Nick snapped. “It really was a stupid thing to do y’know. I—god damn you’re an idiot, you know that?” He’d been lucky, for the most part Nick would probably get away with a few small scars on his chest and one on his forehead but Ellis… If they got out of this whole mess alive he’d have an ugly reminder every time he took his shirt off.
Ellis chuckled, wincing at the pain that shot through his chest. He rested a hand on Nick’s thigh (he was going to go for shoulder but arm hurt enough as it was) and gave the conman a smile. If there was one thing the younger man learned in the week he had known Nick, it was when he was worried. Yeah, at first he was just an outright asshole but after fighting through so many zombies… he couldn’t put his finger on it, he could just tell when Nick was worried for one of the other survivors in their little group.
“Y’know what? I really don’t know,” Ellis leaned in as much as his sore body would allow and rested his head on Nick’s shoulder. While the conman did freeze up at the contact at first, he didn’t make any attempt to push the kid off, mainly out of fear opening up the nasty gashes that were spread across his chest. That, and the fact that this would probably one of the only times they’d have a moment to themselves until they reached rescue in New Orleans. Ellis chuckled again. “It might have somethin’ to do with not wantin’ ta hear ya bitch about yer suit bein’ ruined or somethin’.”
Nick swiped his hand up the back of Ellis’ head for that.