More with the drabbling...

The hurt hits him hard—crack-crack, like getting hit by a bolt of lightning. Really like that. Smells like smoke. Fills his vision up with bright white. Fries his insides. It’s all shock, and what he feels first is this huge impact right in the center of his chest. The blow throws him backwards several steps. Again and again. Backwards, forwards. Pinned. It’s not until the end that he really gets it—they’re fucking blowing holes in him. He’s fucking as good as already dead.

But not quite.

It’s all whites and darks. Hard, solid pain and heat. Heat, heat. What the hell is running down the side of his face? He feels it like something in a dream, where it’s there but sort of not there at the same time.

Stars, he thinks. There’s no stars in the sky here in this city—just neon, blinding him, blurring in every direction. He’s going to blur right into it, now.

“It’s all so simple,” Mello had said, hours ago.

And yeah, Matt thinks, it’s simple. Nothing’s simpler than this, because everything is fading out and all he has to do is let it take him with it. Dying is the simplest thing in the world. Way simpler than living.

He’s still on his feet when it happens.

~*~*~*~*~

“It’s all so simple,” Mello says, putting his hands on the table between them. “It couldn’t be simpler. It will definitely work. Do you want to go over it again?”

He’s doing that thing he does. Like a villain in a bad movie, where he starts explaining his plan and then just won’t fucking shut up. Every detail, every trick, every baby step. He’s been blathering for more than an hour and forty fucking minutes, and Matt thinks that if he has to hear one more word he’s just going to grab a shotgun and take care of this whole Kira thing the good old fashioned way.

Like it would really be that hard.

Because, shit, what’s with all the goddamn THINKING? Thinking and thinking and thinking. L was so close. If he’d just gone with his gut, and maybe done something useful like blown a hole in the guy’s stupid Kira head to begin with, none of this awful crap would have ever happened. Mello wouldn’t have ever gotten all weird and twisted up inside, all angry and sad, and the two of them could have gone to college or something and just been friends for the rest of their lives.

Matt doesn’t know if they’re friends right now. It’s really hard to feel like a friend toward someone who’s asking you to throw your life away for something that’s not even your problem. For something you’re not even sure is a problem at all.

Let Kira clean up the world. Hell, what’s the big deal? He’s only killing the total scumbags, anyway. And secretly, Matt thinks, isn’t that kind of a good thing?

He had said that out loud once and Mello fucking stabbed him in the arm. Seriously, actually stabbed him. With a steak knife. Fourteen fucking stitches.

“Hey, dimwit,” Mello says. “Do we need to go over the plan again?”

“Nope,” Matt runs a hand through his hair. “We’ve got, like, a few hours left, don’t we? Let’s do something fun.”

~*~*~*~*~

Matt’s blood is all over the sink. All over the dishes. Dripping in thick, splattering globs down onto the tile.

“What the hell!” He clutches his arm, backs up, and he bares his teeth like a feral dog. He’s never been angrier. Never once. Mello’s standing in front of him with the steak knife and all Matt’s thinking is that he wants to kill him. Kill him. Kill him, kill him. Hard and fast, for being such a psychotic asshole.

“He’s evil,” Mello says. “Kira is evil. Don’t ever say any of that shit about him being right again. He’s evil.”

And Matt thinks, what’s evil? Stabbing someone in the arm for a few simple remarks seems pretty evil, to him.

Mello puts down the knife, but when he comes closer Matt backs up, because he’s not sure what he might do if he got his hands close enough to wrap around that pretty throat.

“I’m going downstairs to wait by the car,” he says. “Get the keys and then you can drive me to the hospital to get this fucking fixed.”

It takes three hours to get seen by one nurse, and it takes her ten minutes to do the stitches. Matt doesn’t let her give him the shot beforehand, so he can feel the needle pressing in and sliding through and sewing his skin. It’s better that way, because it hurts like a bitch, but it feeds his temper and lets him know he’s alive, too.

…twelve, thirteen, fourteen…. “Make sure to talk to the receptionist on your way out.”

When it’s over, Mello gently takes his hand and holds it, like they’re sweethearts. He seems startled by the ferocious look Matt gives him.

“What?”

“We’re in a hospital because you attacked me with a knife. What do you mean, what?”

“You’re still mad about that?” Mello frowns. He lifts Matt’s hand up and lays a little nuzzling kiss into his palm. The guy’s bipolar, or something—Matt would bet money on it.

I want a divorce, he thinks. We’ll split all the stuff. You can have the kids over on Mondays and Wednesdays, or something.

But all that he says is—

“I hate that I love you,” and he won’t say it again until the night before they kidnap Takada.

~*~*~*~*~

“Something fun?” Mello shakes his head. “Now? No. We need to go over the plan again.”

“If we go over the plan one more time, I’m going to puke. Seriously.” Matt stands up, stretching so that he can hear and feel the bones in his spine click-clicking deep in. He pulls his goggles off and tosses them on the couch, then moves across the room and wrestles Mello down onto the floor.

The lips he kisses at stay shut tight. Mello keeps jerking his head from side to side, avoiding Matt’s mouth, like some little prissy high school chick. “Please?” he murmurs, flicking his tongue across the line of a delicate jaw, up across a cheek, against a soft eyelid. “Please? It can just be this, if you like. We don’t have to do anything else if you really want to keep going over—and over an over—the dumb plan. But give me a kiss goodbye, yeah?”

Matt sees how it happens. Mello’s gears shift completely at that word goodbye. He goes all still. He feels suddenly all tiny, like a hurt animal, and Matt feels like even the weight of his body over something so fragile might crush it.

“No,” Mello says, and he grabs onto Matt and shakes him, hits him, and then clings and starts making shallow, breathless sounds. These little hiccoughs. Like sobbing, or laughing, but all dry and demented and quiet.  “No! Shut the fuck up!”

He’s all broken, Matt thinks, and he wishes with an aching regret that he’d been able to keep it from happening. Not that he’s not just the same, really, but he kicks himself for not finding something along the way that could have taken them both down a different road.

He remembers being boys together—and what a sweet friendship they’d had, back then. Sweet and strong, like all good things—like coffee and nicotine, and chocolate, and kisses stolen in the night from sleeping mouths.

It’s gone, all gone, and there’s no fixing it. But still, Matt really, really doesn’t want to die. What he wants is to go back, and for things to be the way they were before—before L died and everything went all to shit. He wants his sweet friend back. He wants to just play, and mess around, and for them to maybe go to college or something and drink beer and chase pretty girls around every Friday night. He wants to go back in time and tell L, screw justice, just go buy yourself a shotgun and get things done the easy way. Do us all a big fucking favor.

But instead he’s got Mello latched onto him, burned and broken up, making these soft, mournful little “heeah” sounds that are almost sobs but not quite.

I don’t want to die, Matt thinks.

“I hate that I love you,” he says.

He kisses Mello gently on the lips, Goodbye, boss. Good luck—

And it won’t be until hours later, once Takada is in the back of the truck and Mello is out on the rural highways, that he will absently dig into his pocket and be surprised to find those words scribbled onto a piece of an old napkin—a last note, Matt’s lopsided scrawl, and he will stare at it a long time before realizing what it even says.

~*~*~*~*~

The hurt hits him hard—crack-crack, like getting hit by a bolt of lightning. Really like that. Smells like smoke. Fills his vision up with bright white. Fries his insides. It’s all shock, and what he feels first is this huge impact right in the center of his chest. The blow comes from the inside, throws him into a curl over the steering wheel. A struggle inside, organs fluttering and pulsating out of rhythm. The roar of blood in his veins, the tight clenching tingling he-knows-what grabbing him from deep in. It’s not until the end that he really gets it—heart attack. He’s fucking as good as already dead.

But not quite.

It’s all whites and darks. Hard, solid pain and heat. Heat, heat. The note’s still down on the seat by his knee—goodbye, good luck. His fingers grasp on rosary beads and then grasp onto it. He feels it like something in a dream, where it’s there but sort of not there at the same time.

Stars, he thinks. There’s probably stars out here, in the middle of nowhere—but all he can see is the dark, blurring from road to church to sky to road again. He’s going to blur right into it, now.

“I hate that I love you,” Matt had said, hours ago.

Mello had replied eventually. “Next time,” he’d said. “Next time we’ll do things right.”

And Matt just gives him that carefree smile and says, “Sounds simple enough.”

And yeah, Mello thinks, it’s simple. Nothing’s simpler than this.

He did it for L, he thinks, because he never loved anyone more than he loved that man. And maybe he did it for Near, because maybe there was something there, too—and in a way, Mello is coming out on top, because it’s Near who’s going to be left alone when all is said and done. Too bad, really. Justice is all about tragedy.

Matt, he thinks. He didn’t do any of it for Matt. Not one thing.

Next time, maybe. If they’re lucky enough.

It happens—and when it happens, his eyes are still wide open