A Daughter?

Concussed and Flustered

"Ellis!! Toss me a round of ammo!" Coach yelled, while running in his direction.

"Bold of ya to assume I got any left Coach!" Ellis yelled frantically while trying to help Nick move away from the tank faster. He manages to pull him out of the way of a flying rock with a protest of pain but thankfully no reopened wounds on the older man.

"Looks like we're all out of ammo, boys! we gotta run!" Rochelle called, shoving away a stray common. (Fucking commons... now is never the time I swear to god.) "I could use some back up over here Big Guy!"

"You two go on ahead, Nicky's in no shape to be useful out here. Go get 'em patched up." Coach yelled to the two boys while turning around to assist Rochelle.

"Where 'we meetin' up then, Coach? Whatta 'bout you guys?!" Ellis yelled back, pulling a stumbling Nick behind a wall as another giant rock was hurled toward them.

"Don't you worry 'bout us now, we'll be fine. Just get yourself and fancy man to safety. We'll meet at the next safe house, now go!" Coach exclaimed back, catching up to Rochelle running towards an old warehouse for shelter.

Ellis looked like he wanted to argue, but ultimately decided against it when he noticed that the quick escape from the second rock had caused Nick to hit his head on the wall. He sighed and hauled the older man up, hurriedly running off. The tank had lost their trail (I wish oof) and was looking around like a big stupid oaf in confusion.

"Where we goin', Ace?" Nick asked, speech slurred and his attempt at helping with walking falling through as he just scrambled to even sluggishly take one step.

"Just gotta get us somewhere to patch ya up. Keep yer eyes peeled for the safe house Nick, don't go passin' out on me. We gotta play your favorite game, the quiet game to keep that tank off our trail though." Ellis whispered to Nick, continuing to look for a place safe enough to heal Nick and search for ammo.

"Mmm... gettin' ballsy telling me what to do, fireball." Nick grumbled, managing to snap out of his daze enough to begin walking a little better, which took some weight off of Ellis' shoulders.

Ellis just bit his tongue, knowing he needed to get them to a safe place fast. He glanced around them, seeing an old bar, an auto-shop, and a building that appeared to be another warehouse. He figured there'd be less people in the auto-shop -ya know.... he was a mechanic- and started in that direction. He kept an eye out for any infected since he knew Nick couldn't process any of them fast enough in his state.

Nick stumbled a little, almost face planting if it wasn't for the younger man.

"I gotta set ya down to scout the place, 'kay, Nick?" Ellis mumbles, gently placing the older man down, blocking the entrances to the best of his abilities, and looking through the whole place. Any straggling zombies were whacked with his trusty bat and dragged into a pile in a corner with a rag covered in oil spots.

Nick had begun to become more responsive now, but he wouldn't be okay until they could get him patched up, "What's going on, Ace?"

Ellis turned to move to him, crouching in front of him and looking over his wounds, "Nick, ya needa kit... Lemme look for one." He got up and rummaged through the rest of the shop, finding one in the back room. He also snagged a few rags as well. To clean Nick up a little to see how bad the wounds are.

"We really gotta stop doing this." Nick said with a faint laugh. "You're always there to patch me up Ace, am I really that clumsy out there?" Nick added, trying to make light of the situation.

Ellis sighed in relief, worried he did something wrong and began looking over Nick's head. "Heh, you ain't seen clumsy till you've met Keith. That ole sayin' 'don't step on a crack or ya break ya momma's back'? Well let's just say it's his back that's breakin' rather than his momma's. One time, He ended up in the Urgent Care four times in one week cuz he bet he could beat a chicken crossin' the road. He didn't win the first two times, and the chicken got hit by a car the third time so we called it a draw and the fourth time he got hit by a car. You'd think it'd be easy against somethin' as stupid as a chicken but them birds is smarter than they play out to be." Ellis finished his story and had set the bloodied rags aside and began to open the health kit.

"That Keith sounds like something else. What were you doing while he was chicken racing?" Nick replied, trying to distract the throbbing pain in his head with Ellis's story.

"Heh, heh I was findin' ways to make Keith lose to the chicken. Whether it was putting out chicken feed across the road the night before, or Dave cheerin' for the chicken on the sidelines to get his knickers in a knot. Once Keith was hit by the car though, we felt sorry for the poor guy and said he won even though the chicken still beat him by a feather." (Budumtss) Ellis commented as he finished wrapping Nick's head and used the health kit.

Nick smiled at Ellis and replied, "You sly bastard, wouldn't have pegged you for a sneaky prankster."

"Nah, you got that right, but when it comes to Keith I just can't help but prank him every so often. He asks for it with some of the crazy shit he gets us into. Like this one time he tried gettin' us to spend a night in a- shit Nick yer still bleedin'." Ellis gently grabbed Nick's head thinking maybe the bandages weren't secured enough. "Shoot I'm sorry, Nick, I can't seem to do nothin' right. I startled the witch, which alerted the tank, ran outta ammo cause I ain't too great a shooter. I can't even wrap a bandage corre-"

Nick frowned and ran a thumb over Ellis' furrowed brows, pulling the younger closer to kiss his forehead, "you're the opposite of a bad shooter, first of all... second, all of us were out of ammo, and third, screw the witches. Bet my ex wife is one of 'em. We all mess up. It's the end of the world, we can't really be good at it.. and don't sweat the bleeding. You've done more than enough, it'll stop in a bit. So chin up Sharp Shooter." Nick finished with his thumb lifting Ellis' chin so he could see that he wasn't in any pain or at least tried to hide the pain with a smile.

Ellis stared at the older man for a moment, face steadily getting more red, "um... right!" He cleared his throat and pulled away, "You need sleep! You should be okay. It isn't too bad a concussion..."

Nick blinked at him for a moment before facing a wall and lying down, "yeah okay...Goodnight El. And uh, thanks again I really do owe ya one. We'll search for the other two first thing tomorrow."

Ellis decided to look around the shop a little more now that there wasn't an emergency regarding someone bleeding out. They were lucky enough to find a health kit and escape a tank, maybe their luck hasn't run out yet and there was a salvageable car in here somewhere. He figured it wouldn't hurt to check, so he headed to the little garage section, seeing at least three cars. Most were totalled or didn't have enough space for the four of them, but -conveniently- one was just right. "Hooleeee Shiiiiiiitt..." Ellis took off his hat in honor of the gift from God before him -a red sports car- and began to look under the hood for any possible damage or tinkering that needed to be done in order for it to run smooth enough to at least get them to Alabama.
After popping the hood, it looked okay. Whoever owned it clearly kept it pretty well maintained. He just needed to fix whatever it was in the shop for and fill the tank. The issue wasn't the gas part, however, since they are in an auto shop and for convenience all of them refill tanks when they finish just like how Nick's phone is magic and never dies. The issue lied in the fact he didn't exactly know what he did need to fix, so it would take longer since he had to look over the entire vehicle. At least he had a while. They had to make sure Nick was coherent enough to keep travelling and catch up with the other two.