When Mello was five, he had nobody and it was right to conjure a friend from thin air. It was okay, back then. People expected it from a child.
But now he's twenty-one and it isn't alright anymore. For Christsakes, he leads a goddamn mafia. Who ever heard of a mafia boss with an imaginary friend?
And still, he wakes up with Matt sitting at the edge of his mattress, a patient smile on his lips. This early, he doesn't play his video games. He just watches, a bloodhound with an eye on its master. Keeping Mello safe.
And Mello knows he isn't real. He doesn't see him, really - not any place other than his mind's eye. He knows that, if someone walked into the room and emptied a barrel into Mello's chest, Matt couldn't do a goddamn thing.
Whatever.
Like a real friend would give a shit.
Like he's any less alone than he was sixteen years ago.
When he explodes a building on himself, he digs the cellphone from his pocket - wracked with pain, face bleeding onto his leather. Squinting to keep from crying, he dials a five-five-five number.
Matt, he pants into the phone, over the woman's voice patiently informing him that his call cannot be completed as dialed. I need you.
Mello, comes the voice in his head. He imagines Matt as soft-spoken, a sound roughened by cigarettes but not made harsh. I'll be there.
He lies there for a half-hour, listening to his own ragged breath, until he pretends to hear the crunch-crunch-crunch of black leather boots on rubble.
Jeez, says Matt. You've got yourself into some pickle, haven't you.
He holds out a hand. In his mind, Mello takes it - uses it to hoist himself up, drag himself to his feet. In his head, he drops his forehead onto Matt's shoulder and passes out while the man carries him in warm arms, the motion of his body rocking Mello all the way home.
In the real world, Mello grits his teeth. Inch by inch, he drags himself from the warehouse, cutting his fingers on jagged stone.
He lies in one of his bolt-holes, his eyes half shut. He slips in and out - cold black, nausea, then a swirl of color as reality returns.
Well. Most of it, anyway.
In this state of altered consciousness, Matt looks more real than ever. Mello can see the shine of sunlight off his gloves, a detail he's never been able to fix before.
Cooking smells waft from the kitchen. Mello lies there, sick with hunger, until Matt kneels in front of him. A cigarette dangles from his lip, and he's got a plate of mashed potatoes and thin-sliced steak in his hands.
Here you go.
Mello looks up, blinking. You've got to be kidding me. Where in God's name did you get that?
Matt shrugs a shoulder. He smirks, the cigarette bouncing on his lip.
I have my sources.
You should put them to better use.
Ah, like this, perhaps?
For one crazy second, Mello thinks Matt might kiss him.
Instead, he pulls a bar of chocolate from his pocket. Mello scowls. No, you dumbass. Like catching fucking Kira.
All the same, he snaps the chocolate and gnaws on it.
In the real world, he's hungry hungry hungry.
As a child, Matt took on only the most evanescent shape. Sunlight dancing across water, the shadow of a butterfly.
The fantasy is elaborate, now. He has weight, mass. Mello can see where his hair sticks in the corner of his mouth, wet and stringy.
He looks at Matt's lips, curved in that cocky smile of his, and imagines what they would be like to kiss. Soft, he thinks. They'd taste like ... like cocoa, or some shit like that. Bitter.
He reaches up to brush the hair from Matt's mouth, and is surprised to find his fingers strike real, solid flesh. He draws his hand back, suspiciously.
Matt grins.
Well, what the hell did you expect?
You aren't real, Mello tells him. His vision is going wonky - the bolt-hole glares a dozen inverted colors, sharp and sick and hallucinogenic. Only Matt stays solid.
He smells like chocolate, like sweat, like blood. Salty things, sharp enough to taste before you run your tongue over them.
Matt lifts an eyebrow.
I'm whatever you want me to be, babe.
Shut up. You're a fucking idiot.
Matt smiles. He says it again, slower, so it's almost a challenge.
What did you expect?
Nothing, says Mello, and pulls him forward. Matt lets him. Lets Mello draw him in until there's a thigh on his stomach, a hand resting beside his head - he jerks his head upwards and stops, a half-centimeter from Matt's mouth. He can smell the boy's breath. It isn't beautiful, but he doesn't mind.
Matt cocks an eyebrow. What?
You don't exist.
No shit, Sherlock.
This isn't -
Real?
Mello snarls. He falls back, but Matt stays there, sprawled across his body. He smiles and smiles and smiles while Mello stares at the wall, willing flesh and bone to dissolve into the daydream they are.
Jesus, says Matt. What do you want from me?
Mello glares at the wall. He focuses on a tiny pinpoint of chipped paint, and stays that way until there is, suddenly, hot breath at his ear.
He swerves sharply. Pain jolts through his wounds.
Fuck! What are you -
This. This is what you want from me. Matt smiles, calm and knowing. His expression, puppy-dog loyalty, sends equal parts shame and lust through Mello's spine.
This is what I'm going to give you.
Matt, you -
Shh.
Matt presses Mello's shoulders down. He smiles, then unzips his shirt. It makes a jagged noise. He stops before reaching scar tissue, perhaps wary of tearing skin further than it has already been torn.
Mello stares at him. He watches Matt smile, then reach down and unlace the straps across his crotch.
Stop -
I'm yours, Mello. You made me. Don't lie - I know.
Mello can feel himself growing hard. He pushes himself onto his elbows, and hardly flinches when Matt tugs the pants off his hips, tight leather catching on his bones. It's Matt pulling him forwards, now, dragging Mello across his body. He aligns them - face to face, hip to hip, toes to toes.
Like a god, he'd formed this boy with nothing but dreams and want and loneliness. Bone by bone, he'd stitched him together to play hide-and-go seek, to talk after hours by the light of a candle.
Does that matter? Mello isn't sure, but he remembers it now, and hates himself for the pleasure that blooms inside his stomach.
He loathes himself for it, but grits his teeth and thrusts into Matt - too rough, he's sure, he doesn't have a bloody clue what he's doing because dammnit, he's twenty-one but he's never had time for sex.
But Matt is his, made whole-cloth from Mello's mind, so he's rewarded with a gasp of pleasure and cold fingers dancing up his sides.
This, gasps Matt. This is what you want. This is what I want.
You're doing it right.
Mello.
In the back of his mind, he's aware that this isn't happening.
Really, he's sitting alone on this couch - jerking and gasping and driving his own balls into the palm of his hand. The hot breath all over his body, the teeth against his skin - those aren't there.
When he comes, it's only him - the scream of simultaneous pleasure which echoes beneath him is inside his head.
He doesn't care.
He doesn't - he refuses to -
Matt lies beside him. He tucks into the dip of Mello's throat, and grips a handful of his hair.
Mello looks at him. He licks his chapped lips and shuts his eyes.
Mello knows Matt has to be in his mind, because when he wakes up the next morning he yanks the bandages off himself, snarling and yipping with the pain. What's underneath smells like hell itself. It pusses, green and yellow and white.
His pants are still open, dirty. He tears off another piece of fabric, wipes himself clean and crushes the mess up with the gore.
He tosses dirty cloth into the garbage. Matt watches him from across the room, eyes dark behind orange goggles.
Sorry.
Shut the fuck up, he snarls. I wouldn't need your goddamn help, anyway.
He tears himself new bandages from an old shirt. It's grimy, but it's all he's got. He pulls them tight around his open wounds. To keep himself from crying out, he bites his tongue. A sound escapes anyway, a protracted whine - he swears to drown it out.
Mello rests a hand on his shoulder. Mello flinches.
Fuck you.
Then, when he tries to pull away: don't you dare let go.