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It didn’t take long for him to get hurt. They had only just made it out of the burning hotel, and he’d taken a nasty fall when a – what was it called, a smoker? – decided his leg was a lollipop. There was still broken glass in the side of his forearm where he’d caught the brunt of the impact. The other three were annoyingly concerned about it, about him, but the last thing he wanted was a stranger’s hands all over him. Well, the girl was cute enough, but it wasn’t that kind of touching. More’s the pity.
It took more effort than he wanted to keep them away. There was a lot of growling and posturing involved, and the threat of imminent violence, but at last they left him alone. Mostly. The kid, especially, kept giving him weird looks from across the room. Whatever. It wasn’t like he couldn’t do this by himself. Not like he hadn’t done it a million times before.
He looked up to see those intense blue eyes trained on him again, and stabbed himself with the surgical needle.
The only reason he’d stuck around this long was because it was sheer idiocy not to. Despite the desperate need to be on his own, he was still running with this ridiculous little crew, as if he were back on the streets again. At least Rochelle, Coach, and Ellis weren’t as cruel as his old gangmates, but he honestly had no idea how to cope with whatever it was they actually were.
Instead of trying to figure it out, he started to mimic the others in how they looked out for each other. He even wound up teaching them a thing or two about guns and scavenging, and bowed to necessity in patching them up every so often. But he still wouldn’t let anybody else tend his own injuries, and by now Coach and Rochelle had given up trying to convince him otherwise.
But Ellis was a problem.
“C’mon, Nick, ya can’t even reach the back a’ yer shoulder. Lemme get it for ya.”
“Overalls, I swear to God, if you touch me you’re the one who’s gonna need stitches.”
Oh, goddammit, not the puppy-dog eyes. “But…”
He put as much hatred into his voice as he could. “Scram.”
“…Okay.”
The nice thing about zombie blood – the only nice thing about it – was that it covered up his own. He became adept at hiding his injuries until the others were asleep, taking first watch so he could apply antiseptic and gauze in private. One night, though, Ellis caught him at it.
“What’re ya so afraid of us for? We’ve been takin’ care a’ each other so far, it ain’t like we’re gonna make it worse on ya.”
“Who the hell could be afraid of you assclowns?” Nick said icily, and tore off a piece of tape. Ellis snorted.
“Exac’ly how many bees’ve ya got up yer asshole, then? It’s gotta be a lot.”
The mechanic went back to bed, and Nick faltered while applying a bandage to his own lacerated arm.
He didn’t know whether to snarl, or laugh, or cry.
“Shit,” he panted as he stumbled, nearly bent double under Rochelle’s unconscious weight. “How much farther?”
Coach craned his neck as high as he could, trying to see over the hedges. “Almost there,” he said reassuringly, and rolled a cramp from his shoulder. “Yo’ ass can’t be complainin’, Nick, you ain’t carried her half as long as we did yet.”
“Well excuse me for not being seven feet tall or made of solid muscle,” Nick retorted. His voice carried more of a whine than was really acceptable.
The two Georgians traded eye-rolls, but picked up the pace as much as they could without leaving Nick behind. Soon they were safe behind the steel bars of a CEDA bunker, and Nick gently let his burden down to the floor.
“Not much we can do,” he said once he’d gotten his breath back. “She’s just gotta sleep it off.”
“Wish we had an ice pack or some shit,” Ellis sighed, divesting himself of his own equipment. “That there is one helluva goose-egg.”
“She’ll be all right,” Coach said with forced confidence. “Baby girl’s a tough cookie.”
Nick realized he’d been staring at her, and wrenched his gaze up to swiftly inspect the others. “Anybody else hurt?”
“Nah,” Coach replied. Ellis just looked at him funny.
“What about’chu, man?”
Something about his tone made Nick’s voice hoarse as he answered.
“I’m fine.”
Ellis was next to go down. A hunter had jumped short and grazed him, leaving a shallow but nasty gash down his chest from left collarbone to right hip. He was bleeding too badly to move much, so instead of finding a saferoom, they set up a hasty triage in an abandoned convenience store across the street. Coach had to batter the door open, but the bars were down over the windows so he could guard the front by himself. Nick and Rochelle found themselves kneeling over their injured teammate, prepping needles and trying to keep him from writhing too much.
“Nngh… I ain’t lyin’, this hurts.”
The whimper stole the breath from Nick’s lungs. He swallowed hard. “I know, kid. I could knock you out, if you want.”
That got him a pathetic chuckle, followed by a pained hiss. Rochelle had started her stitches.
“You have to hold still, sweetie, I don’t want to mess this up.”
Nick couldn’t handle Ellis’ noises and periodic cringing. He turned to pick up a needle of his own, but put it down unthreaded.
“I know what’ll help. Hang on.”
The proprietor’s protections on the store had worked – the liquor cabinet behind the counter was intact. Nick picked the lock, and immediately grabbed the highest-proof whiskey there was. He didn’t notice how quick his strides were on the way back.
“C’mere, sport.”
Ellis sat up as well as he could. Nick had to help, cradling the back of his head with one hand and the bottle in the other. Christ, that redneck could drink – he chugged the stuff like water until Nick pulled it away. Even then, Ellis grabbed at his wrist, clearly wanting more.
“Easy, fireball. Just relax and let Dr. Nick fix you up.”
He extricated himself from Ellis’ grasp and took up the needle once more. He didn’t notice Rochelle, wrist-deep in blood, trying not to smile.
It took the kid a while to get back to full power. They had to move slowly, but that didn’t bother Nick as much as it should have. All his worry was reserved for Ellis, who wasn’t nearly as talkative as usual and couldn’t swing his baseball bat anymore. It was driving Nick crazy – not just Ellis’ condition, but the fact that he apparently gave a fuck about it. Several fucks, if the tightness in his chest was any indication.
He groaned with frustration and scanned the street again, pausing to pick off a clump of infected a few blocks down. One was a boomer, so he took extra time to aim directly at its head, trying to keep it from exploding into zombie-attracting pheromones. But just as he was about to squeeze the trigger, Rochelle grabbed his arm with a fear-tight grip. He brought his eye up from the scope, annoyed.
“What?”
“Witch!” she hissed into his ear. “Don’t fire that thing, she’ll hear you!”
He turned, and saw that there was in fact an emaciated grey figure staggering down the cross-street behind him. She started to wander closer and her low sobs became audible, a horrifying sound that made his skin crawl. The group tiptoed backwards, holding their breaths as the witch passed in front of them and collapsed dramatically in the middle of the street with a heartwrenching wail.
“Well… Shit.” Coach shook his head. “Guess we’re goin’ ‘round the block.”
“But there’s a pharmacy over there,” Nick whispered back, jerking his chin in the direction he meant. “We’re running low on supplies, we can’t just skip it.”
“If you feel like trying to get past that thing, be my guest,” Rochelle said doubtfully. “But you’re gonna end up using everything you find in there.”
Nick frowned, and drummed his fingers against the side of his rifle. He was distracted from his consideration of the witch by a flicker at the corner of his eye: Ellis was shifting uncomfortably, trying to stretch without pulling his still-healing wound. The pinched look on his face clearly showed that he was in pain – and Nick knew they were completely out of pills.
Damn it all to hell.
“Coach, gimme your shotgun.”
The older man just held it tighter. “What’chu gonna do with it, son?”
“Aw, hell no,” Ellis piped up with a glare, cottoning on to Nick’s plan. “Hell no, man, don’t – ”
“I’m gonna clear a path.” Nick exercised immense control to meet Coach’s stern brown eyes instead of the pleading blue ones at his side. “We need what’s in that pharmacy, big guy, and I can get it. Trust me.”
Despite Ellis’ argument, Coach grudgingly admitted that they really did need the supplies. He pulled the strap over his head and offered up his shotgun.
“Careful, boy.”
Nick traded off his sniper rifle with a sober nod. He hefted the new weapon appraisingly and slipped out of his shoes, wanting to be as silent as possible. The pavement’s warmth glowed up through his socks, an uncomfortable counterpoint to how cold the rest of him felt. He took a deep breath and prepared to creep forward.
Before he could take a step, a concerned hand landed on his shoulder. He shrugged it off without looking to see whose it was.
“Dammit, Nick, what the hell’d’ja do that for?”
“Do what?” His voice was tight and breaking.
“The witch, man, the witch. I mean, ya got her good, but she got’chu first.”
He forced his eyes to open. Once the room stopped swimming he saw that he was in the pharmacy, and Ellis was crouched next to him with anxiety and anger warring on his face. It looked like anxiety was winning.
Nick tried to breathe deep. Something was holding his chest down, and it hurt. He raised his head just enough to see the towel Ellis was pressing there, and the blood – his blood – that was wicking through it.
“You’re touching me,” he rasped, though without his customary vitriol. Ellis snorted.
“Deal with it, Fancy Suit.”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Nope.” Ellis pulled the soaking towel away and applied a fresh one, pausing in the middle to pick a stray thread out of the wound. Nick couldn’t stop a choked whimper.
“Ah, shaddup, ya did this ta yerself. Christ, Nick, what the hell were ya thinkin’?”
Nick spoke through clenched teeth, still fighting the agony. “You needed the meds.”
Ellis made a shocked noise, and glared. “Who ain’t right in the head now?” he demanded. “Shoulda listened ta Rochelle. She’s off gettin’ shit ta keep yer dumb ass from bleedin’ out, not mine.”
Suddenly another unpleasant sensation joined the pain: complete rejection of the idea of having Rochelle stitch him up. He knew he couldn’t do it himself, not in this condition, but…
All he said was a defensive “Whatever.”
Ellis was looking at him keenly, a tiny sparkle at the corner of his eye. He only glanced up at the sound of Rochelle’s footsteps.
“We got lucky again,” she said, depositing her loot on the ground and noticing that Nick was conscious. “Hey, Suit, welcome back. Y’know, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were trying to kill yourself.”
“Better than being stuck with the three of you any longer,” he managed to quip, although inside he didn’t mean it at all.
“Damn. I was hoping that hit you took had knocked the asshole right out of you.”
“I’d say sorry, sweetheart, but I’m really not.”
Ellis shook his head. “All right, I can’t get anythin’ done if y’all’re gonna be arguin’ like this. Ro, can ya go help Coach guard the door?”
She stopped in the middle of reaching for peroxide, and her eyes flickered from one man to the other with entirely too much understanding. She stood. “All right, if you’re sure. By the way, Ellis, I won’t complain if he doesn’t make it through.”
Her broad wink had several layers to it, and at least two of them made Nick actually want to die. Of embarrassment. He settled for glaring at her retreating back.
“We ain’t got booze this time,” Ellis murmured, removing the compression again. “So this is gonna hurt like hell. Sorry.”
“Just do it,” Nick growled, bracing himself for the burn of antiseptic. When it came he squeezed his eyes shut and reflexively arched his back, fighting to stay silent and not succeeding at all.
“I know, I know,” Ellis soothed, pressing him back to the floor with one hand and – to his immense shock – gently stroking his hair with the other. “Shh, now, ya gotta hold still…”
He relaxed as much as he was able, fighting both the instinct to flee from the contact and the sudden yearning to deepen it. The peroxide and bacitracin had washed away enough blood to give Ellis a clear shot at sewing him up, and he stared at the ceiling in anticipation of that unpleasantness. He heard a pleased sound as the kid rummaged through the pile of supplies.
“Well ain’t’chu a lucky sonuvabitch,” Ellis chuckled. “Ro got’cha some numbin’ cream, too. Guess she doesn’t hate’cha after all.”
“That’s terrific, sport, but can you just get on with it, please?”
“Yeah, yeah, hold’jer horses.”
The anesthetic was fast-acting stuff. The first few stitches hurt just as much as ever, but the pierce and pull was soon replaced by a painless, alien tingle. He managed to settle into a general dull ache and raise his head again.
“You’re better at this than I thought you’d be.”
Ellis flashed him a lopsided, slightly condescending grin. “Ya’d know that if ya weren’t such a stuck-up Yankee ass all the time.”
Nick wanted to make a scathing comment, but couldn’t think of one. Instead he gingerly wedged an arm behind his head so he could watch as Ellis rapidly sewed his way up one laceration and down another. His big mechanic’s hands worked precisely, and were so gentle that Nick could hardly believe they belonged to the rough-and-tumble man he’d come to know.
“Ya really got’cher ass beat,” Ellis commented sympathetically, tying off another thread. “Man, I know I do some dumb shit, but… Christ. That was way too close.”
Once again, the tone of his voice made Nick want to shiver. He got snarky instead. “Like you’d care if I kicked it. I’m just a stuck-up Yankee, after all.” It came out warmer than it should have, joking instead of bitter. And it made Ellis pause, and look up to catch Nick’s eyes.
“Yeah, but’cher my stuck-up Yankee.”
He went back to work, and for the first time since Savannah, Nick smiled.
"Yeah, Ellis. I guess I am."