Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Ellis was just 23 when the apocalypse started. He was a young, virgin and gay young boy trying to survive whatever mess the entire world has gotten into. The first time Ellis met Nick at the burning hotel, he couldn't take his eyes off of the elder man as much as he wanted to. Nick was... different. Not bad, just completely different from what El has seen in his entire, short life. And it was exactly the reason why it had gotten the younger boy so drawn into Nick.

El couldn't help but stare into the elder's big, muscular arms and the way that blue shirt hugged him in all the right places. Of course he tried to be as discreet as he possibly could because it made him feel ashamed. Even if the world was going to hell, it wouldn't change the way he was raised. It was conflicting for him. On the one hand, he couldn't get his grandfather, uncles and cousins’ voices telling him “those fucking gays and their agenda". It was no secret most of El's family -besides his mom and sister- was homophobic. But on the other hand, that stupid blue shirt with the open buttons revealed how buff and strong Nick was.

As much as he wanted to hide whatever he was feeling, Rochelle was the one who noticed how much El was into the elder. "There's no such thing as bad thoughts" She smiled, looking directly into Ellis' eyes "Only your actions talk" she sentenced. She knew that nurture couldn't be changed in a heartbeat but still, as lovingly as she could, she tried to encourage El into accepting his feelings.

What worried Ellis the most wasn't his gay tendencies, it was not being reciprocated by the conman. Those times when peace and quiet settle during their journey and Nick was really in a bad mood, he spoke about the bitch of the ex wife called Elisa. That fucker took his Jaguar and Ferrari and ruined his credit in the divorce. And whenever her name was mentioned, Ellis' heart sank.

To make matters worse, pretty quickly the survivors' dynamic got established and Ellis had to stick to Nick while Rochelle and Coach were paired together. It was really hard for the savannah man to simply function next to the elder.

Most of the time, he started rambling about his two best friends out of nervousness or just making a few mistakes here and there. Nick, not only irritated with the zombies, would snap at El and tell him to shut the fuck up or call him names like hillbilly and overalls. In the beginning, it would really bother Ellis and caused him to shut up immediately. But the more he spent time with Nick, the more he realized it was the conman's defense mechanism when he was stressed.

But outside of the snide remarks, Nick could and would be tender with Ellis when the situation required to. And to a young, infatuated and horny savannah boy, it was hell. All the times that Ellis needed to be patched up, Nick was there and it killed El. He tried so many times to think about anything but how holy was the way Nick was holding him. He would think of his dad, his best friends or his job at his dad's mechanic shop. Hell, he would even think how boring his math classes were at school and how he would stare at the moldy ceiling of his high school.

Still, it didn't really manage to do much. Every single time Nick touched him, Ellis' entire body would scream. He would recall things he never did with Nick. Imagining how good a messy top lip kiss would feel, or much he wanted Nick to write "mine" on El's upper thigh.

One of the lucky nights he was able to stay on his own, Ellis suddenly woke up with a hard on and panting after a fantasy of him and Nick doing it. He attributed it to the fact that during the entire day, both men had spent way too many times brushing each other. It could also be they were secluded in tight spaces waiting for the crying witch to pass by them. While it made El feel ashamed to be feeling that about a possible straight man, he also admitted to himself that his feelings were normal. If long suffering propriety is what God wanted from him, the man in the sky didn't know how Nick was haunting him so stunningly. As much as sinful (according to his family) as it was, Ellis chose Nick religiously.

Something that actually captivated Ellis so much about the conman was how paradoxical the elder man was. Nick was a man that cracked so many societal locks. He was somewhat "feminine" to the south standards but still, that man exudes so much sexual tension and dominance that made Ellis blush each time those green eyes met his blue ones.

Embarrassingly so, most of Ellis' dreams consisted of him grabbing his sheets tightly while the elder ministered much needed attention to El's growing. He would just melt and scream the elder's name and battle with a labored breath. "Oh what a way to die" Ellis thought time and time again after waking up from a wet dream.

Depending on how to see it, it could be a blessing that Nick did in fact start to notice how El was looking at him. And the elder man, while at first didn't really care about El, slowly started to take notice of how good looking the kid was. When Ellis, rarely so, didn't wear his cap, you could see how those beautiful blonde and pronounced curls would fall on his face and partially hide his eyes. And for Nick, it made him want to just pull that hair tightly and trail kisses on the younger's neck.

It didn't really take much time for both men to fulfill their fantasies. During one of the nights when both men were left alone, El had accidentally trailed his eyes to Nick's chest hair and sighed. Nick, confused about what exactly was happening to the mechanic, looked up from the table and realized what El was doing.

"El..." He started, moving himself close to the younger man. El started to blush and looked away, not daring to meet the elder's eyes. "Ellis McKinney" Nick said firmly this time and took El's chin with his fingers to turn the younger's face. He carefully studied El's blushing face and smiled. "I know the way you look at me, kid."

Ellis didn’t know what to say. His breath hitched when Nick touched his chin, and his whole body went rigid under the weight of the older man’s attention.

“I—I didn’t mean to stare,” he whispered, voice cracking, eyes still avoiding Nick’s.

“Yeah, you did,” Nick said softly, not unkind. “And I’ve been staring too, kid. For a while now.”

Ellis’s heart felt like it was going to burst. He blinked hard, still unsure if this was real. Nick wasn’t pushing him away. He wasn’t laughing. He was still there, standing in front of him with that half-smile and eyes full of something Ellis didn’t dare name.

The silence stretched between them, heavy with all the things they’d never said. Then, slowly—carefully—Nick leaned in. His hand moved from Ellis’s chin to his cheek, rough thumb brushing along soft skin. Ellis swallowed hard, lips slightly parted.

“Tell me to stop,” Nick murmured, their foreheads nearly touching.

Ellis didn’t answer. He couldn’t. He just looked up at Nick, eyes wide, and shook his head.

That was all it took.

Nick closed the distance, pressing their lips together—tentative at first, just the barest brush. But Ellis responded immediately, clumsily, like he’d been waiting forever. His hands gripped the sides of Nick’s shirt, holding on like he might float away. The kiss deepened, slow and heated, and everything around them—zombies, fear, the end of the damn world—just disappeared.

When they finally pulled back, Ellis’s cheeks were flushed, his breathing uneven.

Nick looked at him with something new in his eyes. “Well,” he said, a little breathless himself, “guess the world’s ending after all.”

Ellis laughed, a short, nervous sound. But then he smiled, really smiled, and for the first time in a long time, he felt like maybe something good could survive the end.

Chapter Text

Nick didn’t expect to kiss him. All those nights guarding the door together, listening for the moans of the undead just beyond the walls, Ellis would talk—softly, like sharing secrets in a blanket fort. He’d confessed a lot over time, but one thing stuck with Nick:

He’d never had a partner. Never kissed anyone. Never fell in love.

Nick had felt pity for Ellis, initially wanting to give the boy a hand or two in that department but something stopped him. He looked at El, seeing how his eyes shined bright with illusion, like hoping one day to find his prince charming. And Nick was far from that. He told himself he wouldn’t be the one to take something so sacred from the kid. Ellis deserved more than that—more than him.

But over a year of running, fighting, and surviving together changed everything. The chances for them to survive were getting slimmer and further in between. Lady luck wasn't in their favour. A few nasty encounters had led the four survivors to have close calls with death.

One of those many days where everything was going to shit, Ellis lost his cap for good, the one his best friend had given him. He cried for a while, trying to negotiate with the others to go back out and search for it. But eventually, acceptance was his last step and he said he wouldn’t replace it—out of respect. That’s when Nick really started to notice him. It wasn't like he didn't look at the younger man before. But with that cap most of Ellis' face was kept hidden and he couldn't be appreciated in all his mighty glory.

The soft curve of his face. Those unruly, golden curls. The ocean-blue eyes. And that grin—God, that grin could charm every Catholic mother-in-law into thinking he was the one.

That same grin made Nick forget every damn rule he’d ever set for himself. He never thought he’d fall for someone like this—in a world so ruined, so rotten—but he did. Even after the divorce with Elisa a year prior and the promise to shut himself for the rest of his life… Nick found himself yearning for someone, to love them wholly and earnestly. Whatever he had going on with El was something out of the ordinary, it was electric, freeing, love without bounds and conditions.

It felt like passing notes and kissing behind lockers. Even if the locker was a looted safehouse and the note was an energy drink with “for El” scribbled in Sharpie.

That night, he was just sitting there, bored, half-distracted by the weight of survival and the ache of wanting something he couldn't name. Ellis sighed—eyes flicking to Nick’s chest like he was reading a poem on his shirt.

And the next second, Nick leaned in. His heart was thudding like a goddamn marching band. He searched Ellis' eyes, whatever he was trying to find made its way. And he kissed Ellis, leaving all his fears, promises and rules behind.

And Ellis? He kissed back. Timidly, clumsily—then fully. Like it wasn’t a question. Like it was a yes. Like he’d been waiting a whole damn year to do so.

A month or so had passed since that kiss. Even though they didn't have the chance to repeat it yet, they still found subtle ways to show each other affection. Nick would brush Ellis’ hands here and there. He would be the first to patch Ellis up when El needed help. He was the one protecting the younger man from all the special infecteds, apparently El was magnet to those fuckers. And Ellis did it too, he would be the first one to tender Nick's wounds. Whenever Nick was in a snippy mood, El would just lay by his side quietly and listen. He would be the first one to inform Nick if any med kids or ammunition came across on their way. Sometimes, after a long and hard day of fighting and screaming, the two men would lay next to each other, holding hands and staring into their eyes.

——————

The single night they were on their own, they found themselves in a high school waiting for his teammates to regroup and go to a safe house. Ellis was sitting on top of a teacher’s desk, swinging his legs like he was fifteen and not carrying a loaded shotgun at his side. He was eating the candy they found in the school halls in the broken machines. Nick watched him from the doorway, heart doing that dumb flutter thing it started doing ever since that first kiss.

“You ever gone to prom?” Ellis asked, out of nowhere.

Nick scoffed. “Yeah. Got kicked out for spiking the punch.”

Ellis laughed loudly, echoing in the dead halls. “Course you did.”

“What about you?”

“Didn’t go,” Ellis shrugged. “Didn’t have anyone to go with.”

Nick looked at him then—really looked at him. Blonde curls, bloodstained boots, the grin that could charm the undead. He felt angry, not at Ellis but at his situation. He couldn't understand why no one in his school would decide to ask the young, beautiful boy to prom.

"I'll tell you what..." He said, turning his head to face the dark, isolated hallway. "If we ever leave this... if one day things go back to normal and Ceda doesn't turn us into swedish cheese" He paused, turning his head back to El and staring into those beautiful baby blue eyes. "I'll take you to prom. Photos, dances..." Make out session in the back of the car, he thought to himself "Everything you want to have"

Ellis blinked and turned his gaze towards Nick. The one and only that, in the first few weeks of the apocalypse, had called him "hillbilly, moronic, stupid" or snapped at him and told him to shut up. "Are you serious?" he asked in disbelief.

Nick shrugged, trying to play it cool. "Sure. As long as you don't make me wear one of those dumb boutonnières"

"A boutonnie-what?" Ellis responded confused. He has never heard that word in his young life. Not even Dave, Keith or their girlfriends had that type of vocabulary.

"You know... those flower things" He sighed. "Just please don't make me wear one. Only did it one time with Elisa and had enough of them for the rest of my life"

Ellis smiled and approached the elder man. Placing his hands on top of Nick's chest and looking at those beautiful emerald eyes. "You'd look hot in one of them." Ellis teased.

Nick rolled his eyes and groaned "Christ El" His cheeks went pink, he slid his arms around Ellis' waist and planted a tender kiss on El's forehead. Ellis was grinning, and Nick felt hopelessly and stupidly in love.

—————

Nick and Ellis just wanted a piece of serenity and quiet. Even though it's quite impossible when you're going through the zombie apocalypse, they managed to make do. They decided to climb up one of the fire stairs in an abandoned apartment and stay on the rooftop. It was beautiful, as beautiful as it could be in the middle of the blood, guts and boomer vile.

They stayed quiet for a moment, enjoying each other's presence and laying on the surface looking at the bright night sky and admiring the stars.

Ellis' arms folded behind his head, holding part of his messy blonde curls so the breeze wouldn't make them get in the way. He took one glance at Nick, the man was sitting beside him with one of the last cigarettes on his pack. He took a drag and exhaled. Turning his face towards Ellis and giving him a genuine smile.

It was quiet. Peaceful. Almost normal.

Then Ellis said, “Y’know, my dad used to say: ‘If a girl wears a belt and jeans tighter than your lug nuts, she’s trouble.’”

Nick blinked. “What the fuck does that even mean?”

Ellis turned his head to the sky and grinned. “No clue. But he said it every time we passed a woman at the gas station.”

Nick led out a short laugh. “Your dad sounds like he came from a bad country song.”

“Oh, he did.” Ellis cleared his throat, then deepened his voice into a gruff Southern drawl. “‘El, you can’t fix a girl like you fix a car. But you can try.’”

Nick burst out laughing and shook his head “You’re an idiot.”

Ellis turned back to the sky. “You ever seen American Pie?”

Nick groaned. “Unfortunately.”

“That was the first R-rated movie I ever saw. Thought it was a porno. Turns out it’s just a bunch of teenagers being bad at sex.”

Nick chuckled, shaking his head. “Fitting.”

“Fitting?”

“I mean…” Nick leaned back on his hands. “The apocalypse. You and me. Feels like one of those dumb teen movies. Just with more guns. And trauma.”

Ellis grinned. “So, Left for Dead: The Coming-of-Age Story?”

“More like Zombies and Hormones,” Nick muttered.

There was a pause. Then:

“Alright,” Ellis said suddenly, eyes still on the stars. “Kiss, marry, kill—me, Coach, Rochelle.”

Nick choked. “Jesus Christ, El.”

Ellis smirked. “C’mon. It’s just a game.”

Nick tilted his head like he was actually thinking about it. “Fine. Marry you. Kill Coach. Kiss Rochelle. But only if she lets me live after.”

Ellis burst into laughter, eyes squinting from the force of it. “You’d kill Coach?”

“He’s already halfway dead inside,” Nick said. “Man can’t run ten feet without wheezing.”

Ellis was wheezing now too, rolling onto his side, hand over his stomach.

Nick just stared at him, trying not to smile. Trying not to feel so much.

But God, he thought. I’m so fucking gone for you.

Ellis’s laughter faded into a quiet, content sigh. He lay back again, looking up at the stars like he didn’t just wreck Nick’s entire heart with a single sound.

Then, after a beat: “You’d actually marry me?”

Nick blinked.

It wasn’t said in a teasing tone. It wasn’t a punchline. Just… a question. Soft. Hopeful.

Nick swallowed. “What, you ask that to every guy you get paired up with in the zombie apocalypse?”

Ellis huffed a laugh through his nose. “Nope. Just the ones who patch me up, steal candy for me, and say they’d take me to prom if we ever make it outta this shitshow alive.”

Nick didn’t answer right away. He didn’t trust himself to.

Because the truth was: Yeah. Yeah, he would.

He glanced at Ellis, saw the way he was tracing constellations in the sky with one finger, like he was building a future out of burned-out stars.

Nick looked away again. Back toward the edge of the roof. Back toward the world that was still trying to eat them alive.

“Ask me again when we’ve survived the last Tank,” he murmured.

Ellis turned his head. “That a yes?”

Nick smirked, just a little. “That’s a maybe with a hell of a lot of interest.”

Ellis grinned so wide it made Nick’s chest ache. “You romantic bastard.”

“Don’t tell Rochelle,” Nick said. “I’ve got a reputation to maintain.”

Nick smiled, he knew tomorrow they would still have to fight zombies and deal with guts, blood and infection. But for a brief moment, in the quiet of the night, Nick decided he wanted this. He believed that, no matter how hard the future was going to be, he wanted El by his side in all steps of the way. Not temporarily, just forever.

Chapter Text

Another summer, taking cover. Rolling thunder, she don't understand me.

Inexplicably, in the city of lights, Nick's apartment was dark and quiet. The conman was in the comfort of his living room staring into nothingness with a bottle of vodka in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Elisa had run once again to her lover and left the elder man on his own. Even though they were in a loveless marriage on the brink of divorce, it pissed Nick off to know his wife was with another man. She was always with him, even in dreams.

He didn't understand exactly why he married her. Seven years ago it seemed that his life was finally falling into place and he could call himself a lucky man despite his past. But Nick couldn't really do much for Elisa. She was a demanding woman with a finesse taste and the need to be at every social gathering she could fit in.

Nick detested her every single time she made him waste his hard earned money into those pointless designer bags and expensive jewelry. And it was not only her demands that bothered Nick, it was the fact that the woman was blatantly cheating on him with her best friend.

Nick had fucked it up and did it good. He felt trapped and exhausted and so much bitterness. He was now looking down at the coffee table, staring directly into the divorce papers she had ambushed him with. Unfortunately, the man had been convinced by the woman to not sign a prenup and now she was demanding everything she could for emotional neglect, Nick's addiction with gambling and some more.

In the beginning, the conman really enjoyed spending time with her. He didn't love her, but at least he liked her enough to tolerate her presence. At first she didn't really care if Nick went to the casino or had his poker nights as long as her platinum card wouldn't decline at the store. But when the reckless spending, losing nights at the casino and the mortgage... Money started running thin. That's exactly when everything between them went to shit.

Nick just couldn't take it anymore. He was tired. The few and far between friends he had in his shady life, would watch him slowly disappear into alcohol. He got up off his seat and walked to the bedroom. The one that was decorated with the picture of his marriage. He couldn't recognize the man he saw. That Nick, despite being a wreck, still had an air of hope that things will get better. He bitterly threw the bottle, smashing it into hundreds of pieces and went to the bathroom.

The sound of the glass breaking caught Nick's attention. He got up from his studio and went to the kitchen.

"Shit, shit, shit," Ellis muttered under his breath, blood dripping steadily from his palm onto the tile. Glass shards glinted in the overhead light, scattered like stars across the kitchen floor.

"El?" Nick’s voice came out rough, lined with panic. He crossed the room in three long strides, ignoring the sting of his bare feet against the shards. "What the hell happened?"

"I dropped the mug," Ellis muttered, trying to press a dish towel against his hand. His voice was strained but tight with embarrassment. “Your favorite one. The poker one.”

Nick took the towel from him gently, wrapping it around Ellis’s hand with practiced care. "It's just a mug, baby." His voice softened. "Don't care about the mug."

Ellis looked up, startled by the tenderness.

Nick didn't say anything else. He didn’t need to.

Because this was the part of himself he never thought he’d get to be—the man who used to destroy everything he touched was now kneeling in the kitchen, bleeding feet and all, just to hold someone else’s brokenness with care.

He tightened the towel, carefully applying pressure. "You need stitches?"

Ellis shook his head. "Think it’s shallow."

"You always say that, then bleed through three damn shirts."

They both laughed—softly, a little breathlessly. The sound curled in the air like something sacred.

Nick helped him up, still holding the towel in place, and led him to the bathroom. He didn’t say what he was thinking—that seven years ago, he would’ve walked out over broken glass. But now, he’d walk through it for this boy. Nick opened the bathroom's cabinet and searched for antiseptic and bandages.

Nick leaned over the sink, gripping the edges with white-knuckled fists. His reflection looked tired. Older. Like a man choking on his own silence. Years of labor, locks and ceiling for nothing.

This is what I get for being me. A bitch of a wife and a job I hate. He thought. He didn't understand why exactly he deserved this. Whatever God was up there had the job of making his life miserable. Nick didn't know peace and quiet since he was ten. Most times he was the one who had to intervene when his father tried to hit his mother. And in retaliation, his mother would scream and insult him for getting in the way. It wasn't really his fault, it was more that Nick's face was the spitting image of his father. And his mother wasn't afraid of Nick like she was with her husband.

He sat down and hugged his knees tightly. His life was nothing but a cruel joke. He was divorcing, he hadn't spoken to his parents in fifteen years and he was drowning in a corporate job he despised only to maintain his wife's spending habits.

He had no one but himself and he was drowning. He wanted out. He wanted to be free again to do whatever the fuck it pleased him. He was disinterested in life, the typewriter he kept from his grandfather was sitting in his studio collecting dust. He took the ring out of his hand, it was taunting, mocking him for not being able to be a good husband and provider. His hand was shaking, his eyes filled with tears from rage. He just wanted out.

The same hands that once shook with rage now moved with quiet care.

Nick dabbed antiseptic onto Ellis’s palm, his touch so gentle it barely felt like him. Ellis hissed slightly, but didn’t pull away. Instead, he looked at Nick—really looked at him—and saw it. The weight. The ghosts behind his eyes.

"You alright?" Ellis asked, his voice low and hoarse.

Nick didn’t answer right away. He just kept his head down, focusing on wrapping the bandage like it was the most important thing in the world. Maybe it was. Maybe this—this boy, this moment—was the only thing keeping him grounded.

“I used to look in the mirror and not recognize myself,” he said quietly. “Didn’t think I’d live long enough to end up… here.”

Ellis tilted his head. “Here with me?”

Nick finally met his eyes. “Yeah. Here with you.”

There was a pause—soft, but charged.

Nick sat back slightly on the bathroom floor, the bandages done. Ellis scooted closer, knees bumping against his. The glow of the vanity light caught in his curls, in the glint of that ridiculous “World’s Okayest Mechanic” pin Nick had given him last Christmas.

"You still look in the mirror and not recognize yourself?" Ellis asked, almost like he didn’t want to know the answer.

Nick nodded. “Sometimes.”

Ellis leaned forward, pressing his bandaged hand to Nick’s cheek. “I recognize you.”

Nick’s breath hitched.

“Not the conman, not the guy with a typewriter and a fuckload of sarcasm. Just… you. The one who stayed. The one who cares when I bleed.”

The words wrapped around Nick like warmth he hadn’t known in decades. Something in his chest cracked open just enough to let a little light in.

He leaned forward and pressed his forehead to Ellis’s. “You make me feel seventeen again,” he whispered. “Like I could start over.”

Ellis smiled, and it wasn’t a cocky one. It was quiet and full of something that could’ve been forever.

“Maybe we already have.” He whispered back, now placing his left, uncut hand on Nick's cheek and brushing it carefully and tenderly. Nick smiled and placed his own on top. The cold sensation of Ellis’ emerald ring the conman had given him made Nick's heart ache.

"and no matter what I've done, it wouldn't matter anyway. Ain't no way I'm gonna screw up now that I know what's at stake here”

Chapter Text

Ellis never knew people still used typewriters. But then again, Nick was just different from everybody. The first week they moved in together, Nick had come with that thing holding it so carefully and precociously. Ellis thought that if he were to breathe wrong, that thing was going to break.

But now, right in his apartment, in the middle of the night, he couldn't help but look at that thing with pure hatred. "Who the fuck uses typewriters anyway?" He muttered to himself drunkenly. He was not only angry, but sad. Nick and Ellis had a nasty fight a few days ago that led to the elder man leaving their apartment and going to who knows where. Ellis didn't really fight him with that anymore, he chose that cyclone with the conman. But then again, that didn't mean he had to be content with it either.

He was at his seventh or eighth beer when, suddenly, passing by Nick's studio he saw that stupid thing. And the only possible thing he could do, besides breaking that old machine, was lay on their bed and wonder. Nick was a crazy man, he had a horrible temper when things didn't go his way. He was stubborn, mean and sometimes a plain jerk.

Even with all that, Ellis still loved the elder man deeply. When Nick was in a good mood, he could be tender and loving. He could hold Ellis tightly in his arms, kiss him just right, tell the savannah boy he loves him with his whole heart. And that was what made Ellis furious.

"Who's gonna love you like me? Who's gonna hold you like me?" Ellis said sadly. He knew he was the only one who could put up with Nick's mood swings and it made the mechanic feel downright wrong. Why did Nick need to take his bad days on him? What was the need for the older man to pound nails in his head? Ellis just couldn't tell why. He had seen every single one of Nick's episodes and still chose him.

He remembered those days, in the middle of the zombie apocalypse, being the one running after Nick when the conman just for the millionth time ran away. He fought so many tanks, witches, jockeys and who knows what else only to catch up to the elder. He had given Nick proof after proof that whatever thing they had, El wanted it to be forever. And still, the Catholic boy couldn't make the northern person understand that.

Ellis, unfortunately, was the only one who decoded Nick. He knew Nick's episodes were temporary, he knew what exactly to say and do when Nick came back from his poker nights with less money than the conman went to. He knew to just listen when Nick, out of the blue, decided to open up to the young boy and tell him about his messed-up past. Ellis knew every single position Nick wanted him to be in when they were having sex. The right amount of pressure Nick liked when getting a hand job. Ellis knew how to be obedient to Nick and treated his man right.

And still, El couldn't help but feel jealous that some day someone else was going to come and take his Nick away from him. Sometimes, after a nasty fight that led Nick to leave once again, the mechanic just flatly wondered if Nick was going to screw this thing up with him. But then again, why would Nick do it? El had once read on that stupid typewriter that Nick was gonna kill himself if El ever left him. And Ellis felt the same. He did tell Keith one night he wanted to die if Nick ever left him and Keith didn't judge him for that. It made him feel seen. So, what was the need to be in that unholy sabotaging mode?

Maybe it was the fact that he was drunk but El just started silently crying. The only thing he wanted right now was to have his lover's head on him and scratch it until he fell asleep. He wanted Nick, with all his mood swings, all his anger and angst. He wanted the conman and only the conman. It could be because they had been in this cycle for what now it was reaching the fourth year mark or the fact that Nick was his first relationship. Ellis had never had a partner until Nick came. While yes, he did have a crush here and there on the high school's football captain, it could never in a million years relate to what he had with Nick.

Nick was not only his first relationship, but the conman was also the one person El lost his virginity with. And, as much as he wanted to forget that, he really couldn't. His mind would take him back to that first night. He was scared but also felt at ease. He was losing it with the guy he had been dating for a solid year. It felt magical. Nick was tender, kind and patient. Nick didn't pressure El to do it because he wanted to, he left that decision to the Catholic. And El, just said yes. It was something the savannah man might never forget unless, magically, he developed a seven-year-old amnesia and only stayed with the fact Nick was just that man he met at the burning hotel.

What made things worse, is that whenever Ellis cried, he wanted to be held tightly by Nick. He wanted comfort, closeness, affection just like his family had been throughout his entire life until that zombie apocalypse came. Ellis wanted the Nick that, during a dinner between them and the other survivors in a normal, fancy restaurant, secretly took one of his mafia rings and put it on Ellis' ring finger. Ellis felt his heart exploding, he didn't say anything at that time but he did look up at the elder man with tears in his eyes and just grabbed his hand under the table. He wanted the Nick that loved him, that without words promised him forever. El just knew they were two idiots, not Dylan Thomas or Patty Smith at the Chelsea hotel. Just two modern idiots.

The mechanic couldn't take it anymore. He wanted to curl in their bed and grieve what he thought was the end of his very first relationship. This time was different, it wasn't a normal fight between them. It was a four hour long nasty one where the conman said so many hurtful things that Ellis couldn't count with his fingers and toes combined. It was Nick grabbing a suitcase and taking all his fancy suits with him and leaving his phone behind so Ellis couldn't reach him in any way. It was, to what that drunken Ellis felt, the climax to this weird relationship they ever had. And it was the saddest moment of his entire life, he didn't remember feeling this much in years. Maybe the last time El grieved like this was when his first dog died of cancer or when his dad died in a car accident when he was fifteen. Ellis just wanted to die, he felt asking whatever God was up there to let him die.

And in all this sulking, what El hadn't realized is that the front door was opening and the one fucker that has given him such a needlessly amount of pain... was stepping inside. Nick didn't exactly come back unscratched either. His eyes were puffy and red too. The last time he showered was five days ago. He called out for El but no sound came. And he had only himself to blame. On the usual days when things were fine between them, whenever Nick came back from his job he would be greeted by the mechanic with a kiss and a smile plastered on his face. He cursed himself for that and left the suitcase in the hall. Slowly walking up to each one of the rooms, he silently scanned them for Ellis. It was only after Nick reached the bedroom, that he saw what a mess he had done. He found El lying on his back looking at the ceiling and crying his heart out. And Nick's heart felt small. He cautiously called out to El and waited for a response. The savannah man timidly looked up and started crying even more if possible. He got up from the bed and ran to his lover, hugging him tightly and hiding his face in the crook of Nick's neck. "I'm sorry" was all that the elder had said while he returned the hug. And El just shook his head and buried himself deeper in the smell of the conman. And they held the other like that for what seemed an eternity. Crying silently and caressing each other's back.

Ellis thought so many things but never said anything. It wasn't because he didn't want to, it was because he wasn't as smart as Nick was. Ellis wasn't like the elder man who knew four different languages and had so much knowledge about everything. El was just the guy who knew about cars, God and how much he loved his family and friends. He simply squeezed Nick, planted a kiss on the older man's neck and let his tears continue to dampen Nick's suit. And the conman just let him, he just let Ellis take it all out while he moved his hand to the younger's curls and played with them.

"Please never leave like this again" Was all that Ellis could say to his partner's shoulder while moving his left hand to Nick's chest. And Nick nodded, kissing El's head and caressing that one ring El still had on his ring finger. It wasn't a perfect relationship but it was theirs and theirs alone. "No fucking body is gonna love me like you do" Nick replied back after a while and made a long pause "And nobody is gonna hold you like I do" And in that moment, each one understood why their relationship was meant to be. Cause they were crazy but they were crazy in love for the other.

Chapter Text

I just learned these people only raise you to cage you

He always told himself that. But who was to blame him? Ellis deep down knew what he was getting into the second he saw those bright green eyes. He knew the man in the pristine white suit meant danger. Did he care though? Absolutely not. The more he spent time with him in the zombie apocalypse, the more he got infatuated with him. Of course, knowing he was a young 23-year-old catholic boy who never left Savannah, it was only natural he was going to be drawn into the conman.

Nick was chaos, revelry, bedroom eyes like a remedy. He was all the things his mother had warned him about the north. Ellis was a dutiful son, he was a mechanic just like his father was and his grandfather was before them. He read the bible. He went to Church every Sunday. Even though he had friends like Keith or Dave, he was still the responsible son his mother had raised him to be. Whenever his friend had gotten into a nasty accident with their moronic actions, he was the one talking them to the ER and staying until one or both parents of their friends came to see their sons. But something that made El particularly different from the sweet American boy was that he was gay. And everyone in town knew that. What gave it away, El didn't know but he knew the whole town understood El was gay.

The day Ellis introduced Nick to his mother and sister, the whole room went quiet. As soon as El saw the unmistakable look of pure hatred she gave Nick, he knew he was in trouble. And his sister, rightfully so, kept her safe distance from the stranger and barely engaged in conversation during the entire dinner night.

When it came to Keith and Dave, the story wasn't too far off from his family's reaction. Keith didn't give a damn who Ellis screwed or not as long as that partner bought him a nice cold beer and let Ellis out on the weekends. It wasn't really a surprise considering Keith's uncle was a raging bisexual who did drag. But the problem wasn't exactly what gender Ellis was screwing, it was who he was screwing. Keith, just like his mother, put his foot down and told Ellis to stay away from Nick. He hated the way Nick spoke, his slick back hair, the fact that this man was probably capable of stealing his own grandma if that meant having money for gambling. And Ellis, stubbornly, fought with his best friend and told him to fuck off as loud as he could because he couldn't do that with his own mother and sister. And the only reason Dave didn't like Nick was because El had told them everything that happened in the apocalypse: from Nick's nasty remarks about the south, the comments about how Ellis was a moronic hillbilly with no future to all the times El had to risk his own life to retrieve Nick from all his escapades from the group.

Hell, if the zombies could talk they would too tell Ellis that Nick was far from a good match. But, once again, Ellis was willing to fight them and tell them it was his choice and his alone. Ever since he and Nicked moved to Savannah, El started giving fake pleasantries and lifeless smiles to the people who judged him for dating Nick.

Since the two started dating, Ellis hadn’t gone to church because he couldn't stand half of the people there. But the guilt still knelt on his chest like a sermon. His mother's friends would just tell El on passing that they were praying on him for the best and wished him well. And the mechanic, just saw red. He wanted to scream to God, to his guardian angel, to everything and everyone that got in his way. The kind of rage that El faced had been simmering since the day he first brought Nick home. Apparently to the entirely town of Savannah, El's destiny was predetermined. But sometimes growing up precocious meant not growing up at all. Ellis couldn't even breathe without someone praying he would go back to the boy everyone wanted him to be.

Soon enough all the people that loved and cherished Ellis had convened at the city hall. All, but especially his mother, wanted to tell Nick to stay away from El and go back to whatever hole he crawled out of. But what they didn't understand was, no matter how many sermons they would tell Ellis... The boy would rather burn his entire life than listen to one more second of all their bitching and moaning.

Every time Nick laughed—really laughed, that sharp-edged kind of joy that made Ellis’s stomach do backflips—he was brought back to the happiest days of his life: His first time riding a go kart with his dad. The times he spent staring at the high school's football captain pretending to be interested in that sport. All the times he did reckless things with Keith and Dave. The first time his dad had given him a golden retriever. Finding his family safe and sound after the zombie apocalypse. While to others Nick meant danger, to El he meant destiny.

That week, Nick was out of town—some poker game upstate, or something he said would help "keep the lights on." Ellis stayed behind. He wasn’t in the mood to travel, and he didn’t want to pretend to care about cards.

He should’ve just stayed in the apartment.

But guilt is a damn loud thing when you’re alone, and Savannah wasn’t short on ghosts. So Ellis did what he thought was the right thing—he stopped by to see his mother. Just for a visit, he told himself. A short one. Just to show her he hadn’t forgotten.

She made tea. Sat him down in the same kitchen he’d done homework in, where she used to hum gospel songs and braid his sister’s hair. Everything looked the same. Nothing felt the same.

And then she said it.

"El, I think you should reconsider this whole..." She moved her hand in circles nonchalantly "dating thing with Nick"

And El lost it.

“I’m tired, Mom! I’m sick and tired of all these judgmental creeps!” Ellis slammed his hand on the kitchen table, voice shaking.

His mother flinched but didn’t back down. “I just want what’s best for you.”

“No, you want what’s safe. What’s comfortable for you to explain at church on Sundays.” He was breathing hard now, hands clenched. “You raised me to be good. Obedient. And now I finally want something for myself, and suddenly I’m broken?”

“You don’t have to throw your whole life away for him,” she whispered. “You can still come back.”

Ellis shook his head. “Back to what? Back to pretending to be that obedient boy you wanted me to be? To Sundays and small talk and people telling me they’re praying for me like I’m some lost lamb? No. I’m done being what makes you proud. And I'm tired that you, out of all the people in this god-damned town, are the one pressuring me to go back to be the Ellis before the apocalypse."

His mother looked at him like he’d just shattered her heart. Maybe he had. But Ellis had been shattering quietly for years—this was just the sound finally escaping.

“I love him,” he said. “I love every fucked-up, broken piece of him. And if you can't stand that, then go ahead and disown me." He threatened "I’m not asking you to like it. I’m asking you to live with it"

She didn’t respond. She just looked away. Ellis didn't want to hear any more scolding from his mother. He just grabbed his wallet, got up from his seat and left his mother's house slamming that beautiful yellow front door.

After the apocalypse, Ellis had changed. They all had. What no one really expected was that for El, it would be to be able to get rid of people in his life for not accepting the person he loved. No one had ever made El feel like his ribs were a ribbon to be pulled apart. He loved Nick with every fiber of his being and it wasn't going to change any time soon. No one but him knew how his heart melted every time Nick touched him. No one in his town had been there during those apocalyptic nights when he felt he was going to die. Only Nick was.

————————
The rain had stopped, but the blood hadn’t.

Nick’s hands were slick with it—too warm, too red, too much. Ellis lay in the mud beneath him, half-conscious, his breathing ragged and uneven. His shirt was torn open, soaked through, and Nick was pressing down on the wound like his own life depended on it.

“Stay with me, kid,” he murmured, voice trembling. “Come on, El. Don’t start taking naps on me now.”

Ellis’s eyes fluttered, unfocused. His lips moved, but no sound came out.

Nick clenched his jaw. He didn’t yell. Didn’t cry. Just held tighter.

There was no one else around. No Coach. No Rochelle. Just them. Just this.

He looked down at Ellis’s face and—God—he looked so young. So damn breakable. Nick hadn’t realized how used he’d gotten to hearing Ellis’s voice fill up every quiet moment, to watching those dumb curls bounce, once he had lost his cap to a hunter, when he ran ahead, to the way the kid always smiled, even when he shouldn’t.

And now… now he was cold and pale and barely there.

Nick lowered his forehead to Ellis’s. His voice dropped to a whisper.

“You can’t die, okay? You hear me?”

No answer.

“You don’t get to make me fall for you and then check out. That’s not how this works.”

Still nothing.

Nick swallowed hard. “I don’t pray. I don’t do that. But if someone’s listening…”
He closed his eyes, breathing hard through his nose. “Take everything. Just—don’t take him.”

He stayed like that for what felt like hours, hands shaking, pressing into Ellis’s wound, begging silently.

And then—finally—a sound. A shallow, wet breath.

Nick pulled back. “Ellis?”

Another breath. Weak. But real.

Nick exhaled like he’d been underwater for days. “Atta boy,” he whispered, lips brushing Ellis’s forehead. “You’re not going anywhere, sweetheart.”

————————

Ellis, as soon as he opened the door to his apartment, ran to his and his lover's bedroom and broke down crying. He was drained. He wanted his mother to understand but the poor woman was stubborn. El just took one of Nick's sweaters and jugged it close to his chest, inhaling his lover's mixture of cologne and Nick's natural scent. He wanted to tell Nick everything, he wanted to be the one to disgrace his own name. He buried his face in his lover's sweater and closed his eyes. He felt... safe. In the comfort of his lover's smell, he felt loved and safe and wanted. He sighed, got up and began doing the chores before Nick arrived.

It started with the laundry.

Nick came home to find Ellis folding towels in the living room, the TV playing something he wasn’t watching. The lights were on, but the room felt dim anyway.

Ellis didn’t look up when Nick walked in. Just kept folding.

“Hey,” Nick said, dropping his bag. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Ellis answered quickly. Too quickly.

Nick didn’t press—not yet. He just walked into the kitchen, grabbed a beer, and leaned against the doorway, watching the way Ellis folded a towel like it owed him money.

“You saw her,” Nick said eventually. Not a question.

Ellis froze for half a second, then nodded.

“She said I should leave you,” he said. Voice low. Almost like he was embarrassed.

Nick didn’t move.

“She said I was better before. Before you. That I should find my way back to the boy I used to be.”

Ellis looked up, finally. His eyes were glassy, red-rimmed.

“But that boy’s gone,” he said. “He died somewhere between the safe house in Atlanta and the gas station where he thought he was gonna bleed out. And I don’t miss him.”

Nick walked over slowly, knelt in front of him, and cupped his face in both hands.

“I love you, you know that?” he whispered. “Not in spite of who you are. Because of it. Because you’re stubborn and good and brave and you never stopped choosing me—even when it would’ve been easier to walk away.”

Ellis closed his eyes. “It hurts.”

Nick leaned in, rested his forehead against Ellis’s. “I know, baby.”

They sat like that for a moment, breathing each other in.

Then Nick tilted his head, kissed him slow—tender and steady, like a promise. Ellis melted into it, hands gripping the front of Nick’s shirt like he was afraid to let go.

“I don’t care if your whole town hates me,” Nick whispered between kisses. “Let them. I’ve never wanted anything the way I want you.”

Ellis laughed softly, watery. “You’re such a damn romantic for a conman.”

Nick smirked, brushing his thumb along Ellis’s cheek. “Yeah, well… turns out I’m only honest when it counts.”

And they stayed like that—wrapped in each other, surrounded by the quiet hum of the world outside, both of them choosing love like it was the only thing they’d never lie about. Turns out scandal brings lovers closer.

Chapter Text

Nick was halfway through folding laundry and cleaning the bedroom when the knock came. It was sharp. Impatient. Demanding. Out of all those times Ellis forgot his keys, he would knock softly and yell a tender "Baby?".

He wiped his hands on a towel and opened the door, only to be met by a face he’d only seen in old family photos and occasional tense visits —except now those eyes were locked on him like a loaded gun.

“Mrs. McKinney,” he said slowly, already knowing this wasn’t a social call.

She didn’t ask to come in. Just stepped past him like she’d lived there once and owned the place. Her purse landed on the counter. Her eyes scanned the room—Nick's shoes by the door, Ellis’s one of many overalls hanging off a chair, the half-assembled typewriter on the table because Nick wanted to write in the comfort is his living room.

“So,” she said, with that Southern drawl that Ellis never quite grew out of. “This is where you keep him.”

Nick blinked. “Excuse me?”

“My son,” she said, turning to face him. “This is where you’ve been hiding him. Keeping him locked in this… mess. With you.”

Nick crossed his arms. “He’s not hiding. He lives here. With me.”

She gave him a tight, dry smile. “He used to live with people who loved him. People who raised him with values. With faith. And now he’s—what? Playing house with a gambler and an ex-convict who can barely keep a roof over their heads?”

That hit. Not because it wasn’t true. But because she said it like Ellis hadn’t chosen this life. Chosen him.

Nick didn’t raise his voice. He just swallowed hard and said, “Ellis is a grown man. He makes his own choices.”

She stepped closer, voice dropping low like a prayer gone sour. “He thinks he does. But he’s never had a real chance to become something better, not with you clinging to him like a leech. You knew my poor boy was a naive, young virgin who never knew better. Every time he calls home, I can hear it in his voice. That boy's trying so hard to believe in you.”

Nick’s jaw clenched.

And then she said: If you love him, as much as you say you do, let him go. Let Ellis be happy, choose a young respectable man that would give my son the life he deserves.

He hesitated.

“I know I'm not what you wanted for your son, but I've changed. He changed me. I'm a far better person now”

Silence thickened the air between them. Nick couldn’t look at her.

"El doesn't know any better. He's just young and naive. I appreciate what you have done for him in the past but please" She paused, tears in her eyes "Please Nicholas, let my son go. Let him be happy with someone his age. With his values. I don't want Ellis to end up like you"

Nick couldn't breathe right.

He just nodded once. Slowly. Quietly.

Then he helped Ellis' mother out the door.

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

Ellis came home late.

Keith had kept him too long at the garage, and by the time he was trudging up the stairs to their apartment, arms full of takeout and shoulders aching, all he wanted was to kiss Nick’s cheek and sink into the couch with him.

The door was unlocked.

That was the first thing.

He blinked, pushed it open slowly.

“Nick?” he called out, voice hopeful, casual. “Babe?”

Silence.

No music playing. No typewriter clacking from the living room. No smell of cigarettes, no heat from the stove, no sarcastic remarks waiting to greet him.

The place wasn’t messy. It was… still.

Too still.

The kind of quiet that meant something had ended.

Ellis walked in slowly. Set the food down on the counter. His eyes swept the room, not really seeing at first. It took him a full minute to realize the typewriter was gone. So was Nick’s leather jacket from the hook by the door. His boots, too. His shaving kit. The box under the bed with the loose poker chips and torn-up letters.

Gone.

“El,” he whispered to himself.

It was how Nick said his name when he was tired. When he was in love. When he didn’t want to say goodbye.

Ellis stood in the center of the apartment like a ghost.

He walked to the bedroom. Opened the closet. Half empty.

Not a note. Not a message. Just the leftover shell of a man who used to stay.

Ellis backed up slowly and sat on the edge of the bed, hands trembling. The sheets still smelled like him. The pillow was indented where Nick’s head had been the night before.

He pressed his fingers to his lips and waited for it to hit.

And when it did—it didn’t come gently.

It came like a hurricane.

The sob caught in his throat before he could stop it. One hand clutched his chest like he could hold the heartbreak in place, like he could physically stop the feeling from tearing through him.

He opened his phone. No messages. No missed calls. Only the last text from Nick: “Buy milk if you pass the store.” The mundanity of it made him want to scream.

Ellis sent one message. Then two. Then four.

"What the fuck are you doing?”
“Tell me this is a mistake.”
“Nick?”
“Please, baby.”

But nothing came.

And Ellis sat there, shaking, still wearing Nick’s emerald ring, still thinking maybe he was dreaming. Maybe Nick was just out. Maybe he’d come back any minute now and say “Don’t cry, sugar. I just needed air.”

But hours passed.

And nothing came.

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

In the end, it was just Ellis on his own trying up the pieces of his heart back together. He didn't understand what caused it or what he did to make Nick pack up and abandon him like he was just some replaceable object. Of course, at the beginning of the non-existence break up, he was told it was going to pass on. Those things will eventually get better when enough time has passed. But this was different.

It wasn't just sad. It wasn't just a normal type of break up. It was soul wrecking, bone wrenching and everlasting pain. It wasn't just four years of spending time together planning forever, having normal fights as a couple and making things right. It was more than that. It was the nights when Nick held Ellis tightly during El's nightmares about going back to the apocalypse. It was Nick leaving all his past and fears behind to commit to something for good. It was Nick's emerald ring still on Ellis' ring finger with the promise of marriage. It was Ellis' opening up like he had never done before and sharing his most intimate secrets, fears and hopes. It was Ellis defying his faith and losing his virginity with Nick back when Ellis didn't know if the conman wanted him for forever or not.

And for all those years of that relationship Ellis had never questioned Nick. He had followed him devoutly. He loved him unconditionally. Of course he knew he would have his ups and downs with the conman. He always knew it was going to be hard to settle down with someone who, for the most part of his life, had run away from every single person he had ever seen. But still with all that knowledge, with the understanding that whatever they had could and would be fragile, it did hurt to be left on his own out of nowhere and with zero explanations.

He spent so many nights calling Keith and Rochelle to come down to his apartment to keep his company, not knowing if he was going to survive the night. He vividly remembers the night when he found Nick had left him. He felt the entirety of the world collapse and his breath becoming short. He cried, he wept like a haunted soul in the middle of the night. He tried every single possibility to reach his lover. He sent so many texts telling Nick "you're abandoning the ship, us, me.". But hours later with no reply, El felt like was sinking, holding tightly to what seemed like a lost cause.

El had moved out of their apartment after a month of no signs of Nick. He couldn't take it anymore, he wanted to set fire to all his clothes and forget the smell of Nick. He wanted to hire a priest to exorcise all his demons, do whatever he could to forget ever meeting Nick. It wasn't fair, it wasn't humane. It was a downright cruel joke. What has been done to him was worse than his dad dying, it was knowing somewhere out there his forever was living their life without a glimpse of missing him. He couldn't believe the conman had played him so well, how fool and naive he was to believe someone who never stuck around would do now.

Six weeks after not knowing anything about the northern man, El accidentally entered the app they used to use to share each other's location. He saw Nick, entering a bar and he just wanted to scream. He wondered if the conman ever missed him, if he remembered all those times they took a shower together and Nick would just smile and kiss the top of Ellis' nose. Ellis wanted to know if Nick ever missed his body. His moans and whispers of Nick’s name during sex. His warmth, the sound of his heart, his smell, his baby blue eyes or blonde curls, anything.

"I hope it's shitty there, I hope they played our favourite song and you remember everything about us and feel like shit" He whispered, looking at the ring that still adorned his skin. He wanted the conman back but he also wanted to punch him in the gut for ever leaving him."I really hope the bar plays our song and someone starts singing it, and I hope it ruins your night. I hope you laugh at something stupid and then stop, and think of me. I hope the drink tastes wrong. I hope your hands remember what it felt like to hold mine. I hope you feel it. I hope it hurts. I hope you feel so much pain you forget how to breathe without feeling like you're dying inside."

He wanted Nick to feel the pain he was feeling. To be so desperate and heartbroken. He didn't get it. Nick had been the one who told Ellis he needed a brave man, someone who could see all the tenderness and awful side of El and still stay. And Nick played the part so well. He did it so well, he fooled Ellis. And now, all that El was thinking was that the magic fabric of their dreaming had burnt into ashes.

El just wanted to scream, to tell God he should've let him die the night he was bleeding out. Why would someone who gave him something so sweet and sacred could make fun of him like that?

Did Nick hate him? Was Ellis not enough for the conman? Did someone from Nick's past come to take him away? Ellis was drowning in desperation, in hopelessness, in pain. He missed the cigarette smell, the sound of the typewriter. He wanted to hear Nick singing while cooking pasta, to be told sweet nothings in Italian. He wanted to be held, to be put back together and not feel like he was dead inside. He wanted to bury his head in the crook of Nick's neck and smell that mixture of expensive cologne, cigarettes and love.

Ellis cursed, wishing to go back. Wishing, hopelessly wishing to understand why Nick left. Wishing to know if someone younger was touching his lover, kissing him, marking him like El used to do. He just wished to go back to that one faithful day he met the conman and tell the younger version of himself to never trust that man with the emerald eyes and dangerous smile.

Chapter Text

Oh here we go again, the voices in his head called the rain to end our days of wild.

Ellis didn't cry anymore. Not the loud, and desperate poetic sorrow of a widow waiting for their partner to come back from war.

The first month of Nick's disappearance hit like thunder. Ellis would lay awake at night plastered on his phone. Waiting for a phone call, a message, anything that indicated what Nick's whereabouts were. And staying in that apartment wasn't helping his case either. Every little thing that made that house theirs, was a cruel reminder of a life they will now never have.

Ellis didn't know how to exist without Nick. That man was his anchor, his peace, his happiness, his answered prayers to a god he once believed in. He couldn't bear the thought of living without his boyfriend. Everything was bleeding but there was no wound.

While he was quiet, his soul was not. He had a cathedral of grief, echoing endlessly inside his ribs. No amount of sunlight could reach the corners where sorrow made its home.

He didn't spill his tears into the pillow Nick had once slept on but still, the wound was there. It wasn't external, it wasn't something that could easily be fixed with some antiseptics and stitches. Inside Ellis there was a battlefield of unanswered questions and silent goodbyes.

Nick was incomprehensible. He was a fucking moron who should've grown up long time ago. But how much growing up were you supposed to do at thirty-nine when you had a father that would beat you, a mother that cursed you and an addiction with gambling?

And Ellis didn't say Nick's name anymore, not aloud and not in front of the people who once judged him for dating him. Whenever his friends would ask for that man, El changed the subject and turned his face to the side, hoping no one saw his hands trembling and wishing he didn't start crying right then and there. The best that Ellis could do was bury himself in his job, in his beers and faith. He would go back to praying, wishing the man up there gave him a sign, to help him understand, to make sense of what his plan was.

But you should've seen him when he first got me.

He remembered the first time Nick looked at him like El mattered. Not as a stupid hillbilly whose sister was probably his mother. Not the kid that spoke about Keith and Dave. No. Nick had given Ellis that look. The one that screamed “you're mine” without having to utter a single word. Nick had looked at Ellis with love, hope and desire. Like he was a revived man that could take the entire world just to hear Ellis say his name.

Ellis back then, at his young and naive age, still believed if true love existed, it wouldn't bleed or cause as much sorrow as his pain did now. The misplaced objects in his house, the creeks of the wooden stairs, the coffee mug and cigarettes that were left untouched still waited for Nick to come back. And God, did Ellis really want that motherfucker to come back home.

My boy only breaks his favourite toys.

He walked like a man, but felt like a fragile child. With that one unceremonious goodbye, Nick managed to destroy every single little piece of life he built with Ellis. Nick didn't know how to love someone without breaking it first. He didn't know how to stick around without fucking things up. And Ellis now had to carry the ghost of a man who had been loved and left behind.

No amount of bible studies and Sunday school would ever prepare El to face the fact that sometimes love walks in wearing heaven’s smile and leaves ash in your lungs. It had broken Ellis in so many indistinguishable parts.

How could Nick sleep beside him for four years? How could he dance and humble in their kitchen while making Ellis breakfast? How could he look into the younger's eyes and say “I love you” like it was gospel? How could he disappear like that, with no note or explanation?

I'm king of sandcastles he destroys

The lament in his soul was not loud or fast. It was slow, softly humming in the background only Ellis could hear.

He didn't cry because he didn't want to. He didn't cry because his chest was torn apart and his heart smashed. His pain was buried so deep within him, he became one of the many monsters he used to kill in the infected lands.

He was lost. He was comfortably sure he was finally enough to the conman. El had been so obedient, so faithful and patient with Nick. He was a kind man, a therapist, a rehab centre, a friend and a lover. He was everything that Nick needed and more.

It wasn't supposed to be a fling, it wasn't supposed to be something so disposable. What made him furious wasn't the fact that the two had ended. It was how easily Nick had vanished. As if that man was nothing but a flick of his imagination, a ghost hiding in the shadows of that haunted house.

Cause I knew too much. There was danger in the heat of my touch. He saw forever so he smashed it up.

He disappeared like he never meant a single word during those long four years of their lives. It didn't settle. Part of Ellis was just repeating himself that he was going to come back. But the other part had it settled in the bones. It had dwelled on Ellis' darkest parts of his heart that Nick had run away because he was a coward and a conman. A liar and a manipulator. It was all a strategy for the elder to survive long enough until he could go back to his older ways.

Some days, Ellis swears he can feel it gnawing at his ribs. Some others, he laid on the couch holding that one last piece of garment that had Nick's smell. His chest still warming up to the memories of the older man. How they loved each other so endearingly while the world around was falling apart.

Just say when, I'd play again. He was my best friend, down at the sandlot. I felt more when we played pretend than with all the Kens

Ellis remembered all the mornings he woke up tangled in sheets and limbs, Nick’s arm across his stomach, breath soft on his neck. All those mornings when he had woken up only to find that pair of emerald eyes looking down at him. All the nights when the two had held the other and said they wanted this forever and some more.

On Ellis' part, he had handed Nick forever— wrapped in devotion and soft kisses, in loyalty and late-night prayers— and Nick had dropped it like it was nothing.

But Ellis, still as deeply in love as he was on the first day, would’ve forgiven anything. Cheating. Running. Hurting. Anything.

He would’ve stitched every broken part of Nick back together if only the elder had stayed by his side and asked. He would have forgiven and forgotten the conman's past, the stories about the robberies and the gambling, the hookers he used to hook up with before the infection happened. Ellis would have fixed all that, but Nick didn't ask nor stayed for it.

Once I fix me, he's gonna miss me.

And now Ellis prayed not for healing— but for forgetting. He was praying to be brought back to life and believe in love once again.

Because to remember Nick was to reopen every wound with the same trembling hands that once held love like it was holy.

And El, deep down, knew that by the time the elder man came back, he was going to be a new different guy.

Chapter Text

It's been months since the two had seen each other but that didn't stop Ellis from loving him. From hoping. Sometimes he walked past the coffee shop where Nick told him he wanted them to be something real, tangible, forever worth keeping. It made his heart ache, he knew it was hurting him but that didn't stop him.

El spent most of his nights dreaming of him, of the time when they were together and he felt alive. He used to wake up in the middle of the night and looked to the side, waiting for his ex-lover to be there. Hoping, wishing it wasn't just a dream and Nick was really there.

Sometimes, Ellis would close the garage earlier and walk around town. His feet taking him to those places they once shared without realizing it: the park where they would spend their summer evening having a beer and eating french fries. The diner where Nick used to steal unwrapped chocolate bars to have something on him whenever Ellis wanted something sweet. The gas station where they had that one fight about Ellis not wanting to introduce Nick to his family, afraid of what they would say. The fancy restaurant where he was given that ring.

Other nights he hopped on the truck and drove around town, no place in particular. Every once in a while, he would park in front of his old home and wait, looking inside and hoping, wishing to see just a glimpse of Nick.

He still paid the lease, he wanted that place to be left untouched once Nick came back. But even though he still had the keys, Ellis didn't want to go back inside. It was too painful. Because for four, long and beautiful four years he had a home. He had someone with gorgeous emerald eyes he would call home.

He started wearing headphones whenever he went out. He couldn't stand the sound of laughter, the strangers' declarations of love and adoration, the hope in their voices. Ellis couldn't watch other people's lives pass by while his was falling apart without his partner by his side.

His mind would go back to the nights he traced the scars on Nick’s knuckles while the world ended outside their windows. Where they would lay on dirty mattresses and stare at each other with love and admiration. Where they would just hold the other's body in desperate need of intimacy.

Ellis could recognize Nick's laugh in three different rooms. He still remembered the smell of their bedsheets—cigarettes and expensive cologne and something sweet underneath. He remembered how each morning he woke up early and snuggled with the elder. Ellis would play with Nick's chest hair and plant soft kisses on the elder's shoulder until Nick woke up and kissed him deeply, lovingly and without fear.

Whenever El decided to spend his time walking, he looked at people's windows. He wondered what it felt like to be loved, to be held and wanted. He started looking, searching for that unachievable chance he saw his ex. He wondered if all those people knew how lucky they were, how torturing was the not knowing where and who Nick was with.

When time came close to a year, Ellis avoided his reflection. He couldn't recognize himself from that young boy, transfixed by the love he once had. Even after such a long time, he kept wearing the ring like it meant something. It reminded him what it was to be wanted. Hoping one day, one fateful morning, Nick would come back.

And it wasn't just the memories that haunt him. It was the vivid dreams where he saw him again and he was once again promised a forever. It was the tiniest hope that one day passing by the same places they once had, Nick would be there waiting for him. It was hoping those emerald eyes would look down and meet his baby blue ones one more time.

Ellis silently broke down when the smell of cigarettes entered his nostrils. It was the smell of cigarettes that Nick used to smoke—expensive, sharp, the kind that lingered in his clothes and on Ellis’s skin long after he left the room. He was too tired, too numb to shred one more tear for the man.

He still hoped. He was still afflicted by the not knowing. He would light up for brief seconds, when the strangers he met at bars or the supermarket resembled Nick. But his hopes would crash out once they turned their heads just fast enough for Ellis to see it wasn't Nick.

Not him.
Never him.

He’d hear a laugh at work, at his church gatherings, at all the parties his sister made him attend—low, gravelly, mean in a charming way—and feel his knees go loose like a goddamn prayer. He turned his head too fast, too hopeful. But there was no such luck. Wrong voice. Wrong face. Wrong man.

He passed by those expensive boutique shops and searched. Always searched. Once he caught the scent of Nick's cologne, it twisted his stomach into knots. "That’s Nick’s,” he whispered. “That’s his.”

He hated how the world hadn’t stopped. How people still moved on. Still kissed. Still held each other in quiet corners like nothing had broken.

Sometimes, he heard a song playing from someone else’s truck or a bar—something Nick used to sing to in the kitchen. Or he would go to the library only to find one of those fancy books Nick always carried around. And Ellis would freeze. Mid-step. Mid-breath. Like a ghost catching its own reflection.

"One last time" he whispered, decidingly walking towards his old house. He wanted to let him go, to build back his life without the love of his life, to find purpose in the smallest things he had once done.

He took the keys out of his pocket and pushed the door open..He didn't want to, but something inside his heart screamed at him to do so. So he did, kneed trembling and eyes watering, scared but determined to let his past finally go.

But instead of the loneliness, of the darkness, of the ghost of his memories... He saw the back of his head. Dark hair, streaks of silver. That leather jacket. Those damn shoulders.

And he couldn’t breathe. He tried stepping away, to leave without making a single sound but the figure had turned around and his chances to escape were gone.

And then Ellis saw it.

Green eyes.

That face.

Nick.

A sound caught in his throat—
not a gasp, not a sob—
just Nick’s name,
buried under a year of silence.

Chapter Text

And then Ellis saw it—
not just Nick, not just the coward that had abandoned him for a whole year without a trace. He saw him, the one and only he met at that burning hotel back when the end of the world started.

Pristine white suit.
Blue shirt, unbuttoned just enough to make Ellis insane. Fitting like skin, in all right places and making the elder man look divine.
Hair slicked back, like sin dressed up for a funeral.

Like he’d done it on purpose. Like he wanted Ellis to remember the reason why he fell in love with the man in the first place.

And God help him—it worked. It worked so good he just wanted to ramble the elder man.

Ellis’s breath caught. His heart stuttered. And he couldn't find the strength to speak or to move. He didn't know if he wanted to finally kiss the man or smash up his car. Maybe do both. He hadn't decided yet.

"El..." Nick started, taking two steps toward his ex boyfriend and speaking softly, afraid to break the younger man.

And somehow Ellis came back from his transfixion, he took two steps back and crossed his arms. Defiance in his eyes. "No, you shouldn't be here" He started, softly, scared "You don't get to say my name like it still belongs to you" He snapped, voice crackling and legs trembling.

"I thought I was doing the right thing" Nick said, barely a whisper, ashamed "Your mother—"

"No, you don't get to do that. After all those times I fought for you, for us..." Ellis's heart was pounding, he felt like a deer in the lights "You left,” he whispered. “No note. No goodbye. No explanation. I thought—God, Nick, I thought you were dead, or worse, that you just didn’t care anymore.”

"But I came back El, I came back for you."

Ellis laughed, incredulously and looked away “I spent a goddamn year looking at ghosts that looked like you. Smelling smoke and chasing strangers in leather jackets.” He felt his cheeks turned red and his chest rising. Not now Ellis, not now “You said you loved me. You promised me forever, and then you vanished like it meant nothing.” His voice cracked, his eyes glassy and dangerously close to breaking down.

Nick didn't say anything, shame shadowing his features. Ellis' hands turned into fists, his entire body trembling and close to breaking.

Nick stepped forward again. Determined but slower now. Careful, like approaching a wounded animal.

But Ellis didn’t move. Too scared, too afraid that if he made the wrong choice Nick was going to vanish from his life once again and never see those emerald eyes again. His body screamed, he wanted the elder man again. He wanted his touch, his kisses, he wanted closeness. He _needed_ to have the elder man inside him again and tell him how much El belonged to him. He needed all of Nick again. But he was also furious, he wanted to tell his ex to go die in a ditch and never come back.

His fists clenched at his sides, inadvertently revealing he was still wearing that one ring that Nick has given him “Every night Nicholas" his voice rising to a dangerous level "Every single night I dreamt of you. Every single time I could I spent my time sleeping just to see you again" He broke down crying " And what's worst is that I was not the sweet kind. Not the kissing-on-the-porch, love-song-on-the-radio kind. I mean screaming your name. Begging you once again to come back. Crying so hard I woke up choking. Wishing you were dead because it was easier than thinking you just stopped loving me.”

Nick’s hands trembled at his sides. Wanting to hold Ellis face between his hand and kiss his sadness away.

"El... I didn’t stop loving you,” he whispered. “Not for a second. Every single minute without you was torture"

"Then why did you leave me? Why did you walk away from us? From all those fucking promises you once made?" Ellis snapped. “You didn’t just break my heart, Nick—you shattered it. You left me with a ring on my finger and no reason why. You made a mockery of myself”

Nick’s jaw clenched. His voice was rough when he finally spoke.

"Because I was scared. Because for the first time I realized I had something to lose. Because I wasn't enough for you, not with my past, my fears and mistakes" Nick revealed, his eyes filled with tears too.

Ellis stared at him, too stunned to speak. He wanted to run to his ex lover and clean the tears that started rolling down Nick's cheeks but he couldn't. Not after everything that happened between them. Not after so many broken promises. After a pause, Ellis finally spoke:

"I still wear the ring too,” he said, extending his hand to show Nick. To show him he was as his as he was the first day they met. "I never took it off. I kept it, I stared at it every single time I wanted to be reminded of your eyes"

Nick just couldn't take it anymore. He stepped forward again, and this time, Ellis stepped forward too. Nick reached out, gently, and touched Ellis’s cheek first and El melted into the palm. Letting himself be weak again for the elder man, letting all his tears fall like they could wash all the pain Nick has put him through.

"I never stopped being yours.” Nick declared, his eyes filled with love, hurt, with some many emotions for the younger man. And as soon as Ellis saw that, he broke down. He let Nick hug him tightly while he cried silently and angrily. Ellis let out a breath like it hurt to exhale.

"I still want to smash your stupid Aston Martin. Even though I'm so mad at you, I still look at your stupid eyes and see my home"

Nick laughed, hugging Ellis tighter and kissed El's temple. And Ellis couldn't take it anymore. He looked up at his lover, moved his hands to Nick's shoulders and kissed him deeply, lovely and angrily. With every unspoken word they'd be buried under a year of silence. And Nick kissed back, desperate and dizzy, like he was home again.

Chapter Text

Nick sat on the grass of the park Ellis and him used to spend time in. Ellis was with him, his head laying on Nick's lap and looking silently at the sky while Nick played with his curls.

It felt fitting, intimate like they hadn’t missed a lifetime. Ellis didn’t say anything at first. He just stared at the stars and tried not to cry. His fingers were playing with Nick's emerald ring.

“Do you ever think about fate?” Nick asked quietly.

Ellis scoffed. “You mean that shit you used to call a moronic superstition only hillbillies like me would believe?”

Nick turned to him, looking at El's eyes apologetically. “Yeah. That shit.”

And Ellis looked back, meeting those green eyes he adored. He curiously examined his lover: the laugh lines, the soft spots of graying hair, his velvet lips. He sighed, content, feeling safe in the arms that knew how to hold and destroy him, with the mouth that once promised forever.

“Maybe we’re not supposed to make sense,” Ellis said finally after forever, voice low. “Maybe we’re just supposed to… exist. Be chaos. Be chemical.”

Nick smiled, tired but warm. “You know, that’s the smartest thing you’ve ever said.”

Ellis shoved him lightly, and it felt like forgiveness. Like they were going back into their comfortable routine.

Nick shifted slowly, pulling something from his pocket and hiding it between his palms.

"El..." He called out his name tenderly, filled with love and hope.

El blinked up at him, eyes lazy, lashes catching the glow of the streetlight. “Hm?”

Nick’s voice was quiet, fear starting to creep up “Sit up for a second.”

Ellis frowned, but obeyed. He sat in front of his lover and looked at him curiously. Wondering whatever had gotten into the man this time. And Nick's chest ache, he couldn't help but feel so much love for the younger.

"I'm sorry..." The command started. "For ever running away. For coming back the way I did. For putting us in such a needlessly amount of pain"

"Nick... I already forgave you for that" Ellis protested but his mouth went quiet as soon as he saw what was happening.

Between the conman's hand there was a small velvet box—worn around the edges, like it had been in and out of his hand more times than he cared to admit.

Ellis stared. And blinked again. “Nick…” His voice breaking, his eyes filled with happy tears and hopefulness.

“I’ve had this for a while,” Nick said, voice soft but sure. “Longer than I’ll admit. I bought it before I left. I was going to give it to you that night… before everything fell apart.”

El’s breath hitched.

Nick opened the box slowly. Two rings. Golden and simple. Two names engraved and the date where they met in that burning apartment. No emeralds, no flare. Just right. The kind of right that settled deep in your bones.

“I’ve been a coward,” Nick said. “But I’m not scared anymore. Not of you. Not of forever." His smiled reached his eyes and made him look so young, so peaceful and serene.

"I don’t care what your mama says. I don’t care how bad I fucked up." He continued "I just… want to try again. For real. This time with no running, no hiding.”

Ellis looked at the rings, then at Nick, then back at the rings.

He laughed. A watery, broken thing.

And then he said, “Do I still get to smash your car if you mess up again?”

Nick grinned, a little breathless. “You can set it on fire.”

Ellis sniffled and took the box in his hands. His fingers were trembling. “You idiot,” he whispered. “I’d marry you with a goddamn zip tie.”

Nick leaned in close, their foreheads pressed together.

“Lucky for you,” he murmured, “I’ve upgraded.”

And there, under the stars, in the park where they used to share fries and fake fights over who got the last sip of beer, Nick slipped the ring onto Ellis’s finger.

And Ellis did the same.

No preacher. No crowd. Just them. Just chaos. Just alchemy.

Just two idiots who’d gone through hell and somehow made it back. Because the type of love they had for each other only happened once every few lifetimes. Because the chemicals and the love and the desire of each other hit them like wildfire.

"I love you" Ellis whispered "I have loved you ever since I saw you in that apartment."

"And I have loved you back since that day too. Who was I to fight the alchemy?" Nick held Ellis' face carefully, caressing the younger's cheeks.

And El couldn't take it anymore, he leaned. He kissed Nick deeply, lovingly. And the northern reciprocated. They held each other like life depended on it. None of them care what other people think, what El's mother would say, if the world would end once again. Cause the sign of their hearts said it was still reserved for them.

Chapter Text

Nick and Ellis were sitting on the floor of their living room. It was a quiet, cold winter morning and the neighbour's kids were screaming and laughing. They were both looking at family albums that Ellis' sister, Isabella, had brought them the night before while cleaning their mother's attic.

It was peaceful, the two men had their own mugs with hot chocolate and in the middle, a trail of cookies Ellis' mother had sent to the pair as a piece of peace offering after Nick and Ellis got engaged. Nick still didn't forgive her, but under no circumstances he would say that to his partner.

Ellis was excited, quickly passing by each of the photos and smiling. He was mostly absorbed in the memories but once in a while he would tell his fiance about the strangers in the pictures.

It was strange for Nick, he was quiet. The kind of quiet that makes you realize how long you’ve been holding your breath. He never had these types of things in his own family. His mother and father never spoke about family outside of how everyone wanted to take money from them. They never took pictures either or, if they rarely did of Nick's childhood, they got lost. And after fifteen years he barely remembered the face of his own mother and father. He didn't even know if his progenitors survived the apocalypse but he didn't care. It was nothing but a bad memory to remember those two and the chaos of that cold, white mansion.

One of the last, older albums creaked open and Nick's attention was caught. There it was. He saw a man, a man that resembled Ellis too much.

It was William McKinney, Ellis' grandfather in a black and white photo. The man was in his army uniform standing next to a nurse. Nick didn't ask too much but he assumed that the nurse was Ellis' grandmother. The type of woman that would only smile for the camera or in the intimacy of her house with her husband.

Ellis didn't really see it but Nick noticed it right away. The jaw was the same as Ellis' one. And the eyes, it was uncanny. Both Ellis and William had storms behind their eyes. While William's were rougher, as if it showed a man who came back from the world war and never quite left it behind... Ellis' eyes were softer, still stormy but softer. Even after the young savannah man came back from hell on Earth, even after all those infected bodies they killed, piled and burned down. Ellis' eyes remained soft, as if his troubled past was nothing but a story he was told at bedtime.

Nick leaned forward slightly, brushing carefully a crumb off the photo sleeve with the side of his knuckle. The black and white image stared back—still, grainy, immortal.

“El...” he whispered, almost like he was testing the name out loud. Almost as if the figure in the photo would turn their eyes and face him. “You look just like him.”

Ellis glanced over, curious. “Grandpa Will?”

Nick nodded, still paying attention to the photo in the album “The jaw. The eyes. You have your grandfather's eyes but... not quite. Like you’ve seen hell but still decided to be kind anyway. Like the infection didn't affect you like it did for the rest of us"

Ellis huffed a laugh, and trailed his eyes to what his fiance was staring “He was always kind, you know? Strict, but gentle. Fixed tractors and some other machinery at war. He also made homemade pie with my grandma on the weekends and danced with her while listening to Elvis." He smiled at the thought of a young five year old Ellis looking at their grandparents dancing and asking him to join. The image of a strict man who would hide candy in his pockets so Ellis would find them when he hugged the man. The same strict man that held Ellis and repeated every nasty remark the south had about Ellis' sexuality "He died before I could remember him right. I think I was six or close to being six”

Nick didn’t speak right away. His eyes traced the man’s face again, then drifted to Ellis—alive and golden beside him. Ellis looked back at Nick and smiled “He came back from war and became a mechanic just like he always wanted to be. Hell, maybe if he had had the chance he would have tried to qualify as a mechanic for Formula 1" He laughed, shaking his head thinking of the old man plastered to the radio listening to the narration of the races.

Nick nodded and went back to the album, turning a few pages until he found another man. This time it was a picture of Ellis' dad, his overall covered in oil and grease. He was holding the hand of a toddler while his wife held a baby girl in her arms. The children were Ellis and his sister Isabella. The man had the same curls that Ellis had but his stare wasn't as sharp as William's. He was looking at a young version of Nick's mother in law with the kind of love and stupid joy only a young husband could have.

"Is this your dad?" Nick asked curiously, pointing at the man with the dirty overalls. He was wearing a golden wedding ring similar to what Nick gave Ellis a few nights ago. It was bright, shiny enough that it was caught in the light of the camera flash.

Ellis nodded. "Joseph McKinney" Ellis' voice trembled a little, his fingers gently touching the figure of his father. The pain of losing his father at a young age never vanished. "He too was into Formula 1. I remember when he bought us a tv, he made me sit with him every Sunday and watch each race. He had a beer in his hands and I had popcorn in mines"

Nick didn't answer. Joseph's grin was the same grin he’d seen on Ellis after their first real kiss. That grin that made him forget the end of the world.

"He was a mechanic too. Worked with Grandpa until he passed, then opened his own shop and married my mom when they were barely out of high school.” He smiled like the memory itself warmed him. “I remember when I was little they would always bicker and fight about me getting into Formula 1" He chuckled, his mother's voice about being dangerous still ringing in his ears "It wasn't that I couldn't get into it, it was more the fact that we were too poor for that kind of sport and I didn't have any sponsors"

Nick directed Ellis' attention to another photo, pointing towards a barely teenage Ellis wearing a Jimmy Gibbs Jr. hat with a proud smile "What about this one? What happened to Formula 1?"

Ellis thought for a second and shrugged, "I think my interest in European race tracks started to fade away as soon as we realized I couldn't get into it." Ellis looked down at his young self with kind eyes "That's when Jimmy Gibbs Jr. appeared and it turned my world upside down. He was fast, fearless, and reckless. He was everything I wanted to be" And was, Ellis didn't see it in himself but he tended, especially during the apocalypse, to be reckless with his decisions and cost him a few nasty scars to his companions and himself. He also was the one who recklessly went after Nick to retrieve him back to the group. "I remember I begged my parents for that cap for months until I got it for my birthday. I even wore it one time to church and my ma smacked me on the head for it and told me to respect God" He laughed earnestly and Nick shook his head smiling.

"And what about your dad?"

"My dad? Well, he looked at my ma like she was the winning lotto ticket. He was so in love with her. She was the sun and my dad was a sunflower"

Nick's heart melted. He flipped to another page, but his eyes didn’t stay on the album. They drifted to Ellis’s arm—bare from where he’d rolled up his sleeves to sip hot chocolate. The black ink peeked out from under the fabric. It was one of the older ones, a little faded now, just below his shoulder.

“How old were you when you got that one?” Nick asked, brushing his thumb lightly over the edge of it.

Ellis smirked, boyish and proud. “Fourteen.”

Nick blinked. “Fourteen?”

“Yup.” Ellis leaned back against the couch, cradling his mug in both hands. “Isabella was the only one who knew the plan, mostly 'cause she caught me forging our parents’ signature on the consent form.”

Nick barked a laugh. “And she didn’t stop you?”

“Hell no. She made me practice the signature until it looked real.”

There was a short pause, and then Ellis groaned, the memory clearly still sharp. “God, they were furious when they saw it. I had to sleep on the porch for two nights. Right next to the dog’s house.”

Nick raised his brows. “Did the dog at least share the blanket?”

Ellis chuckled. “Nope. Daisy was petty as hell. Took the whole thing and left me with just a chewed-up toy.”

Nick laughed softly, then looked over at him. The grin lingered, but his voice dipped a little gentler. “Still worth it?”

Ellis didn’t hesitate. “Absolutely. It was mine. Even if I had to sleep with the dog to keep it.”

Nick stared at him a moment longer. That same stubbornness, that same quiet fire—it had never gone out, even when the world did.

Nick exhaled through his nose, his heart squeezing. Nick saw it. He saw three men when he looked at Ellis. He saw William, the tenacious man who came back from the war and Ellis, the man who learned how to make something out of broken things, whether it was cars, animals or people. He saw Joseph, the man with the burning and devoted, faithful man and Ellis, the one and only Ellis who chose Nick.

"Ellis..." Nick said suddenly, moving his hand to take his younger lover's one "You look like your grandfather and your father but..." He paused "You're more than they could ever be the moment to chose to love me"

Ellis’s face softened. “Nick… you don't have to say all of those things”

Nick shook his head gently. “No, let me finish. You didn’t just inherit kindness or strength, El. You made something new out of it. You’re the one who came back from the dead and still knew how to love me. You’re the one who held me when no one else had. The one who saw my darkest side and remained kind. You're the one who stayed behind and waited for my return. You could’ve turned bitter. But you didn’t.”

There was a long, quiet moment between them. Outside, the wind swept up a child’s laughter. Inside, time seemed to still.

Ellis leaned forward then, forehead brushing Nick’s. “I was only ever gonna be this man with you, Nick. Because you are the life I never knew I could have"

Nick's chest ached with so much love for the younger man. Because after all the times he chickened out and then came back around, Ellis was still by his side holding his hand.

And Nick, who had lost everything and left even more behind, closed his eyes and believed him.

For once, for real—he believed him. He believed he could be loved unconditionally and earnestly. Past his mistakes, his mood swings, his escapades, his convicted past and gambling. Nick had someone that knew how to love despite the scars and the war, that was soft when the whole world told him not to be, that still reached for Nick after the conman gave him so many reasons not to do so. Even after all the name calling during the apocalypse, even after he left for a year without a trace, even after breaking the promise of loving Ellis forever.

Nick closed the album and looked up at Ellis with so much love. He tried to memorize each part, each scar and every smile line Ellis had. He looked at El for the longest time and smiled, genuinely smiled and leaned for a tender, loving kiss.

Even when all his past couldn't prove a forever, Nick's heart wanted to settle down. To be loved until his last breath. To be held like the tender soul he once was. Because their future was bright, dazzling.

Chapter Text

They weren't equipped to deal with the end of the world. No one ever was but Ellis was different, softer... He wasn't raised like Nick was, he didn't have so many skeletons in his closet. And that was something that Nick had failed to realize: Ellis wasn't raised like he was. Ellis was surrounded by love, kindness and tenderness. Nick wasn't. When his mother wasn't drunk, she would ignore him. When his dad didn't hit him, he was out with some regular hookers. The only thing close to affection Nick had was the love of the servants but it was something his parents paid to be given to him.

"Nick..." Ellis whispered, his voice trembling "Do you believe in prophecies?" He looked up, trying to find Nick's emerald eyes in the middle of the dark. He was desperate, desolate, trying to ask for help without saying the words.

"Yes and no" Nick answered honestly, without really paying attention. He knew he was cursed, after his divorce with Elisa two years ago he didn't believe he had a soulmate. He only had his useless money and his addictions with his many, many fucked up actions and tortured past. He recalled being in the bathroom in the apartment he had in Las Vegas, curled up on the floor crying and begging to please find someone that would love him despite his flaws but nothing came out of it. No one ever loved Nick, no one really wanted Nick and his past but they all wanted something from him. Whether it be sex, money, drugs, fancy cars. And what exactly was going to change now that the world was falling apart as they spoke? What sort of love could he find while he was killing and battling his right to live with all those zombies?

"I think it's just stupid things we tell each other to make life more bearable" The conman concluded, taking off his clothes and laying on the dirty mattress on the attempt of a safe house they had done in that gas station. If only Nick had known everything was gonna go to shit the day after.

It had been a hard week for Ellis, after a year and half of fighting the infection they didn't have chances to make mistakes. They couldn't be permitted to fail. But Ellis was clumsy and reckeless. He was young and naive, He did as much growing up and maturing as he could in the end of the world. But still, he made mistakes, he still risked his life, he still did actions that put him into trouble. And that week was no different, but this time something significant had changed. His teammates had stopped caring about being considerate. Nick wasn't the one that gave Ellis his first kiss, he was meaner and cruel. Yelling at Ellis to shut up, to be smarter. To stop being a liability to the team. Rochelle stopped listening to Ellis' stories and retreated, she wanted to be left alone and not put up with Ellis for a while. She was tired of fighting. Coach was still somewhat kind, but he also got tired. He gave his medkits to Ellis while making him feel guilty, gave the kid his protein bars with resistance, gave Ellis so many speeches about not being a fool in that infected land.

"It's just this week, just this week, just this week" Ellis told himself gently but slowly stopped believing his own comfort words and silently started to break down. It wasn't only this week, it was a year and a half of them fighting to survive. And even the bravest warriors would have left that fight with scars.

Wouldn't it be quiet?
Wouldn't it be peaceful?
Wouldn't it be better if I just stopped being a burden?
Wouldn't it be better to leave them alone?

He hadn't said it out loud but it was starting to resonate with the young boy. He was tired. He was alone in that gas station with his own thoughts and the glass shard from one of the broken windows. His hands trembled. It was dim and quiet, too quiet for his comfort and too still for his loud thoughts to be coherent.

He hadn't planned it. Not really. But he felt like he was cursed, like he had been stuck in that goddamn prophecy. He wanted to be loved, to be wanted like the rest of the world but who would do so? The others didn’t see him anymore. They only saw the consequences of his clumsiness, his endless hope, his mistakes. They only saw the same Ellis that spoke about Keith and Dave and perked up when he saw something that brought him back to his precious Savannah. They used to laugh at his jokes. Rochelle used to ruffle his hair. Nick used to look at him like he was something worth saving. Coach used to treat him like a son.

Now they barely looked at him at all. Now Ellis was a disturbance, an annoyance, a liability to their survival.

So Ellis sat alone on the floor of the darkened gas station, hands trembling. The glass shard was cold in his palm, jagged at the edges. The air around him was still, the world outside full of groaning corpses and flickering neon.

Inside, it was just him and the prophecy he had started to believe in.

You’re not meant to be loved. You’re a sin to God’s merciful eyes. You're broken, you bother everyone around you. You are not supposed to be here.

He looked down at his arms. Tan. Strong. Callused from holding weapons too long. But they shook. Without thinking it twice, he pressed the shard to his skin. Not fast. Not angry. Just hard enough to make it done. The first cut was shallow, it was scary. By the second— it was deeper. In the remaining ones, the tears were falling soundlessly.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, though he didn’t know to whom. “I tried. I really tried. I'm sorry mum, dad, Isabella. I'm sorry grandpa for not being enough of a man. I'm sorry.”

He curled onto the mattress, blood pooling beneath him. The light buzzed overhead, flickering. Thunder rumbled in the distance and rain started to fall, entering through the broken window and the holes in the ceiling making Ellis’ body wet and covered with mud.

“Please,” he whispered to whatever gods remained. “If someone’s listening... let me be loved next time. Just once. I don't want to be broken, I want to be enough.”

He wanted to go home. But there was none. He hadn't seen his mom and sister in a year and a half, he didn't know if they were safe, dead, or worse... infected. The last time he heard Keith and Dave's voice was them telling Ellis to run to the hotel and meet them there.

He felt weak and desperate. Praying, feeling like an infant lost in the sea of strangers with the very last drops of an ink pen. He looked at the sky, begging... wishing to go back to the arms of his dad, to his dog Daisy, to whoever out there who once loved him. He just wanted to let go, he was tired of fighting. He was tired of feeling like a mistake in God's eyes. To not be worthy of love. He was tired of Nick playing with his heart, of having and losing the conman's on his good and bad days. A greater man had faith, but Ellis feared he had sealed his fate and he begged to the sky for a release, for a moment of tranquility.

And then—darkness.

He saw Ellis and his entire world collapsed.

The rain had stopped, but the blood hadn’t.

Nick’s hands were slick with it—too warm, too red, too much. Ellis lay in the mud beneath him, half-conscious, his breathing ragged and uneven. His shirt was torn open, soaked through, and Nick was pressing down on the wound like his own life depended on it.

“Stay with me, kid,” he murmured, voice trembling. “Come on, El. Don’t start taking naps on me now.”

Ellis’s eyes fluttered, unfocused. His lips moved, but no sound came out.

Nick clenched his jaw. He didn’t yell. Didn’t cry. Just held tighter.

There was no one else around. No Coach. No Rochelle. Just them. Just this.

He looked down at Ellis’s face and—God—he looked so young. So damn breakable. Nick hadn’t realized how used he’d gotten to hearing Ellis’s voice fill up every quiet moment, to watching those dumb curls bounce, once he had lost his cap to a hunter, when he ran ahead, to the way the kid always smiled, even when he shouldn’t.

And now… now he was cold and pale and barely there.

Nick lowered his forehead to Ellis’s. His voice dropped to a whisper.

“You can’t die, okay? You hear me?”

No answer.

“You don’t get to make me fall for you and then check out. That’s not how this works.”

Still nothing.

Nick swallowed hard. “I don’t pray. I don’t do that. But if someone’s listening…”
He closed his eyes, breathing hard through his nose. “Take everything. Just—don’t take him.”

He stayed like that for what felt like hours, hands shaking, pressing into Ellis’s wound, begging silently.

And then—finally—a sound. A shallow, wet breath.

Nick pulled back. “Ellis?”

Another breath. Weak. But real.

Nick exhaled like he’d been underwater for days. “Atta boy,” he whispered, lips brushing Ellis’s forehead. “You’re not going anywhere, sweetheart."

The smell of blood, the silence of horror. Hands pressed to self-inflicted wounds. The sobs of Nick that followed, not quite of calmness but of desperation. The ones of a man who was howling at the moon like a madman, begging to not let the young boy die. Not him, to not let the prophecy be completed.

Time blurred after that. Nick stayed on the floor with Ellis for as long as it took for the bleeding to slow. He didn’t know how to stitch wounds or treat shock—not really—but he remembered enough from Coach’s instructions to keep pressure steady, to whisper, to not let go.

Rochelle and Coach came back an hour later and saw the scene. Rochelle gasped while Coach stared in horror at Ellis, barely alive, barely conscious and tired, and a broken Nick with dried blood in his clothes and tears falling from his cheeks. They didn't ask questions, they didn't have time to do so. Everything was blurry for the three, they didn't have enough time to let their feelings dwell. Nick hadn't moved from Ellis' side while Rochelle and Coach lifted the kid up and laid him on the table. Rochelle yelled something, but Nick didn't listen, he was too worried about finding something to help wrap the wounds. Coach dropped to his knees and opened the medkit. Rochelle cleaned and took whatever Nick gave her to wrap the wounds with careful precision. They worked fast. Efficient. Quiet. No one asked Nick questions, he was emotionally numb but functioning. Coach tried offering Nick to take over, to give time for Nick to change his clothes and rest but the conman only shook his head and whispered a soft, tired "No, I'm fine" even though he wasn't. Even statues crumble if they are made to wait.

Ellis didn’t wake up.

Nick sat on a metal chair by the mattress, elbows on his knees, eyes locked on Ellis’s still form.

Bandaged arms. Clean clothes. A damp rag folded neatly over his forehead. He hadn’t moved in hours, but he was breathing. That was enough.

Rochelle had offered to stay with him. Coach too. But Nick just shook his head and whispered, “I’ve got him.”

And he had.

All night, Nick stayed there—watching, waiting, whispering things no one else would hear.

“I thought I was done when Elisa had left. I... I was so sure the prophecy was already written until you came." Nick started, speaking mostly to himself "I waited too much, I didn't see it coming. I should've known you weren't strong enough like the rest of us" He cried, letting his head fall to his hands and praying to God to let the kid live. Because that's what Ellis was, just a kid. Rochelle and him were in their thirties, Coach was pushing his fifties close to sixty. But Ellis was just twenty four. Too young, too sweet, too naive to be dealing with all of this on his own. Ellis shouldn't be spending his twenties killing zombies and trying to survive day by day.

“You really were gonna leave me, huh?”

He laughed, but it was bitter, broken. “The prophecy must’ve skipped me, El. You're still here, somehow. You can't leave us, we need you. I need you.”

Nick ran a hand through his hair, letting it fall over his face. He looked so tired. Like a man who had spent the night trying to hold the world together with his bare hands and almost failed.

“I begged,” he whispered. “I begged before. When I had nothing. When Elisa left. I begged for someone who would love me. Someone I wouldn’t ruin.”

He looked at Ellis.

“And then you showed up. Dumb, loud, sweet—you smiled even when everything was falling apart. I didn’t deserve you then, and I sure as hell don’t now.”

Ellis stirred. Just slightly. A wrinkle in his brow. A whisper of breath.

Nick leaned forward, hand slipping into Ellis’s, careful not to brush the bandages.

“I’m staying,” he said. “You hear me? I’m not running. Not ever again.”

When Ellis woke up, he didn't know where he was. Didn’t know when everything he had stopped hurting. He must have been into so many painkillers and God knows what else. He was warm, he had a blanket on top of him and he heard voices. Someone was talking, low and gentle and familiar.

He opened his eyes slowly.

Nick’s face was blurry, but close. There were tears in his eyes.

“You’re... You're crying,” Ellis rasped, voice dry as ash.

Nick blinked fast. “Jesus—you scared me.”

“Did I ruin everything?” Ellis whispered.

Nick shook his head so hard it looked like it hurt. “No, not you. We did, we didn't see it coming. You were fine for a minute and then..." He choked, voice breaking "Why didn't you say anything? Why didn't you tell us?"

Ellis blinked again. “I... I don't know. All of you were just… tired of me. All I know is that I wanted to be with my dad. I wanted to be in his arms " He admitted, eyes filled with tears. “I wanted all of this to stop. To stop being a burden to everyone, to God, to you”

Nick reached for Ellis, hand scared but certain. He wanted to kiss Ellis' pain away, he wanted to know what it was to love someone without breaking it. But no amount of love could fix what has happened to El. He needed help, his suicide attempt couldn't be something that could be kissed away. He needed real help, he needed to be monitored and talked to. He needed so many things this fucked up and decaying world couldn't give him.

But whatever Nick could do in his position, he had done so. He quickly learned how to cool Ellis' forehead without waking him up. How to lift his fragile body just enough to give it water and painkillers. How to say I love you without making a sound. How to tender Ellis' wounds and disinfect them and change gauzes. He was devoted, holy, sacredly taking care of Ellis. He was there while Ellis wasn't, he spent nights without sleeping waiting for the kid to wake up. To be the first one to give him the comfort Ellis lacked.

"You have to sleep" Ellis whispered.

Nick shook his head "I can't, I'm scared of closing my eyes and then have you gone"

"Nick… please sleep" Ellis slowly shifted in the bed, giving enough space for Nick to lay. The elder didn't protest, he took the invitation and laid next to Ellis carefully. Afraid of breaking the kid. Ellis closed his eyes once again and rested it on Nick's chest, listening carefully to his lover's heartbeat.

"I'm sorry, I was scared... I just wanted all this pain to stop" Nick looked down at the fragile figure. Wishing to spend his last coins to be told Ellis would be okay. He was breaking, hurting, cursing himself silently for not noticing it fast enough.

"I'm sorry too, for everything, for not seeing it right away" Nick answered.

"Do you believe it?" Ellis whispered, looking up to find those emerald eyes.

"Hm?"

"The prophecy"

"No, because it said I didn't have a soulmate and yet here you are. You're still alive, you're… alive.." Nick concluded, holding his lover tightly and Ellis closed his eyes.

For the first time in forever, they felt like something was different. The prophecy had changed- because they had changed it together.

Chapter Text

Five years later.

Nick had woken up in the middle of the night. He didn't know what had woken him. Maybe it was because it was quiet and stillness of the moment.

He turned his head and looked at the digital cold on his nightstand with his foggy, just woke up vision.

2:00 a.m.

As soon as he saw the date his heart sank.

It was another anniversary of Ellis' attempt of suicide. Another anniversary of him almost losing the love of his life.

He wished he could forget it, to let that memory fade away like the memories of his father's fist and his mother's nasty remarks. But it was buried deep within him - like a forgotten landmine.

He laid awake on their bed staring at the ceiling, heart pounding with a tight knot on his stomach. He felt his eyes watering, his vision becoming blurry with the tears forming in his eyes.

They had a life now, a nice apartment adorned with his mother in law's flowers. Ellis posters of race cars, Jimmy Gibbs Jr. and Formula 1. Nick's own paintings of poker cards and his grandfather's typewriter. Some family photos scattered here and there, some other of the four survivors spending time together. And the one picture of Ellis and Nick holding the keys in front of their apartment.

It was safe, far from the nights where they had fought with tears, sweat and blood for their survival. It was a home. A home filled with memories and so much love.

But at that moment, Nick felt small and fragile. He was back to that horrible day. He distinctly remembered the heaviness of Ellis' blood soaking through his fingers and fabric and pilling on his knees. He remembered the deepness of the cuts, how no matter the pressure he applied blood wouldn't stop coming. And he mostly remembers his pleas and begs towards the god Ellis' believed in.

Not him. Not Ellis. Take everything but him. Take me instead. Please anyone but him.

He looked at the sleeping figure of his lover. Curled on his side with his back towards the wall. The light of the moon casting over his long, beautiful blonde curls and the scars on his arms.

Nick never said anything to Ellis outside of those days when the land was infected and they never had time for their feelings to settle. But it had never left his mind.

What if Ellis does it again?

What if I'm not there to stop it?

What if I lose him again?

What if I don't see it in time?

He looked down at Ellis' scars with horror. His throat was tight and he couldn't utter a single sound. He didn't need a calendar to remember that nightmarish night. His memories remembered it all too well when Ellis became too quiet. When the young man held his arms tightly when he was too anxious and scared. When he was deep into his thoughts and ignored Nick's voice calling over him.

2:47 a.m.

Nick just watched Ellis sleep. Too scared. Too afraid feeling like Ellis would vanish in the blink of an eye. The slow rise and fall of Ellis chest was the only thing keeping Nick from breaking down.

He reached over and softly touched Ellis' scars, felt them under his skin. Trailing over them again and again as if they were to vanish under Nick's touch. Like he took everything back and rewrote history.

You were twenty four... You were so young and so full of life. I should've seen it, I should've been the one to notice how much you were suffering. I should've been there in time before you did it.

Ellis had gone to therapy after they were rescued by CEDA. He was given medication. Nick sat through every appointment he could, every evaluation, every conversation with a tight jaw and shaking knees. He wasn’t the one in the chair, but somehow he was always left exhausted. Ellis had been patient. Open. Determined to get better—not just for himself, but for them. He had established routines, safe words and spaces and actions of contention.

He had gotten better with time. He laughed more at Nick's silly jokes. He hugged people more, being the last one to abandon the hug. He became soft again, cried along with his mum and sister when he watched those romantic movies. Got excited whenever he watched a race on the weekends. Spoke about his times with Keith and Dave, spent time with them on the weekends drinking a beer and speaking about cars or listening to their friends complain about their women. Kissed Nick more, smiled more around the elder man, held him lovingly and tenderly.

But on nights like these it all surfaced back. Nick's fears of losing Ellis again. The first time he held Ellis' arms after the scars had healed. How he broke down in tears and held Ellis so tightly he thought the younger was going to melt.

He didn't mean to wake Ellis but he shifted on the bed and his partner breathed out his name with a sleepy voice. Ellis opened his baby blue eyes and saw it. The tiredness of Nick, the puffy and red eyes, how the conman looked at the scars on his arm.

"Babe..." Ellis whispered, reaching his hands to hold his partner's face between his palms. "They don't hurt anymore" His voice was rough from sleep.

But Nick couldn't answer back. He shook his head and let a broken and small sound escape his lips.

"Hey, hey, hey..." Ellis shifted closer, cleaning his lover's tears with his fingers. "I'm fine, I'm here, I'm okay now" He reassured.

"I almost lost you... I couldn't see it then and I'm too scared of not being able to see it now"

Ellis didn't pull away. He got closer and placed his forehead on top of Nick's and kissed the tip of his nose with love.

"You didn't fail me. You saved me. You took care of me for weeks while the world was falling apart around us"

His blue eyes staring at those beautiful emerald ones. He leaned in and pecked at Nick's lips, tenderly, lovingly.

"You don't have to keep watch anymore. I'm here, I'm alive. I'm happy and alive and well"

Nick let out a quiet sob, muffled in Ellis’s touch. El guided Nick down, pulling him into his chest like he was the anchor this time. Nick didn’t resist. He just let himself be held. Let himself breathe.

"We broke the prophecy. We are here, alive and happy. And every single time it passes by, I love you more. You're my fiance, my lover, my best friend, my Nicholas. Mine and mine alone"

The blanket shifted as Ellis tucked it over them both. He tangled their legs together under the covers, keeping his hand against the back of Nick’s neck. Nick was quiet for a long moment. Then he finally whispered, “I love you.”

Ellis smiled and planted a soft kiss on his lover's forehead "I love you, now let's go back to sleep".

And slowly, Nick did. They drifted off like that. Entwined. Warm. Safe. Outside, the moonlight began to fade. Morning crept over the city.

But inside that small apartment—inside that shared bed where two people had rewritten their prophecy—nothing stirred but the quiet sound of two hearts still beating, side by side