There's an accident.
A flash-bang of light and sound and then nothing. The world halts, ceases to spin, turns cool and colorless and everything just drifts away.
And then there is a whisper, a question. And it's so very easy to say yes, not difficult at all in fact. This for that and more monster than human but alive, together.
Always together.
Always together, just as they promised and it's not hard at all to agree to give it up, to feel something alien and foreign take his skin and the other's skin and combine and meld, held together with careful stitches but those aren't really necessary, are they? He can feel his skin tied to the other's and it feels natural.
This is how they were meant to be, bound up in the other until it was hard to tell who was who, until it didn't matter who was who, because they were they, one solid being, not two desperate halves.
There's another question, a press of something sharp against an eye-it's not even a question really the way he quickly answers it, so much as a sigh, a yes whispered through teeth barely clenched.
There is brief searing pain and then nothing once more, cool blackness that engulfs him.
He wonders how they will look in the morning, in the hazy afterthoughts of dreams. Stitched and pulled together, rag dolls with awkward pieces meant for another. But their pieces match like a jigsaw puzzle, the seam barely there. He thinks of contrasts of light and dark and how beautiful they will look.
He thinks of blue and purple and how they were always meant to be together.
There's a groan in the bed next to Alfred and a weak hand that reaches out blindly and grasps at nothing but air. A concerned wheeze is forced through dry lips and a cry breaks the silence.
"It's okay, Mattie," Alfred assures, running a hand through his brother's hair. He thinks, briefly, about growing out his own and then he thinks of Matthew cutting his and the lines that separated them had always been blurred and smudged, never very strong, but this. This is new.
Not bad, though.
No, not bad at all.
Matthew groans again, brings a hand to scratch irritably at the bandages. "Alfred?" he asks, sounding a little panicked. "Alfred, where are you? I can't see you!"
Alfred shushes him, grabs Matthew's hands as gently as he can. "I'm here," he says, and brings his brother's hands to his face. Curious fingers press against tiny stitches and Alfred can't help but to sigh and nuzzle his face against the hands.
"Why can't I see, Al?" Matthew asks, but he sounds much calmer, fingers tracing over the new lines crisscrossing Alfred's skin.
"Just for a few days, I promise. And then you'll be okay."
There's no hesitancy in Matthew, just a simple understanding oh as his body relaxes back into the bed. "Hold me?"
So he does. The bed is too small, but Alfred just climbs in right behind Matthew, who turns over with a contented sigh and presses himself against the other. It doesn't take much for sleep to overtake them.
They had been unusually close, as children.
Their father worked a lot and their mother was gone, a world away, across an ocean and then some. They were lucky to receive a call from her, much less any actual attention. So it wasn't difficult to turn to each other.
And it wasn't like their father had particularly minded their closeness. He encouraged it, told Alfred to take care of Matthew and for Matthew to never leave Alfred. It was safer, he said, for them to stay together.
After that, it just became habit. Matthew was quiet and didn't attract as many friends as Alfred naturally did but he was Alfred's just as Alfred was Matthew's. So when Matthew cried and said that he didn't want others to take Alfred away, Alfred had gathered him in his arms and said that'd he'd always pick Matthew.
Always.
It didn't help that Alfred had also shown the tendency to bully the few children who did have interest in Matthew. A small Cuban shoved in the dirt, a Ukrainian girl running away in tears. Snide, hateful comments until it was just them, the way it was supposed to be, the way they were told it was supposed to be.
Their closeness carried on throughout school. They held hands during middle school, curled up together on the bleachers during high school. Alfred attended all of Matthew's hockey games and Matthew watched Alfred play football. They never took dates to the school dances, instead preferring to go with the other, outfits always perfectly matched.
It was unsettling, most agreed. But their father was proud of them, a lonely look in his eyes. I was never close to my brothers, he would say, a little wistful.
And Matthew would grip Alfred's hand tighter still, just to feel the other squeeze his fingers back.
But they never breached the gap that separated too-close brothers and something else. They stood, rather, precariously close to the edge, with certain actions compelling them ever closer.
But neither made the jump.
Not to say that their actions were the kind of actions easily misunderstood. Alfred tended to kiss Matthew on the cheek and crawl into his bed at night. Matthew liked to lay his head on Alfred's chest and listen to his heart beat.
They decided to go to the same college, to live in the same room, although one bed was always conspicuously neat, almost as if it had never been laid in. And although people were acutely aware that the brothers were close, too close, no one ever said anything to them.
For all intents and purposes, the two lived in their own little world, completely and totally entranced by the other. And they would have it no different.
Matthew picks at the bandages still wrapped tightly around his head. "When can these come off?" he asks often.
Alfred replies the same way he has the other times he's been asked, a breathy laugh followed by the word soon. He leans over and takes Matthew's hands in his own, to prevent him from bothering the wrappings. "Are you hungry?"
Matthew shakes his head with a sigh.
But his stomach grumbles and Alfred can't help the laugh that bubbles up. "If you eat, I have a surprise for you," he tempts.
There's a subtle tension that takes hold of Matthew's body. "Really?" he questions.
Alfred hums in ascent.
"Okay, I'm hungry."
Breakfast is a simple dish, buttered toast and a few measly strips of bacon prepared in a grimy kitchen. The flat they are in is unfamiliar to Alfred but it's the place where they woke up. It's small and cramped, but well stocked for their needs. There'd been a note to, when Alfred had first stumbled out of his bed, groggy and swore and skin stretched and pulled too tightly.
As long as you need, it had read. And that was it. When they ran low on food, Alfred only had to go to sleep and wake up, inevitably greeted the next morning by a full fridge. He sometimes felt that they were mice, locked up and watched while men in white coats took notes and observed their behavior. And although he wasn't comfortable with the idea of being observed, Alfred needed to do what was in the best interest of Matthew. Until he was healed, they couldn't go anywhere.
They were running low on supplies again and although Alfred would have liked to have made Matthew pancakes with syrup and heaps of butter, he'd run out of the necessary ingredients. This would have to do for now.
When he'd awoken this morning there had been another note that had simply read, today, in scrawling script.
Matthew eats ravenously, obviously hungry despite his earlier denial. Or maybe it's excitement that causes him to quicken his pace, to shovel food down where before he would take his time, reach a hand up to brush crumbs off of the corners of Alfred's lips and chide him gently, Such a messy eater, Al, and then fingers would disappear into a pink mouth while Alfred watched, feet hooked around Matthew's under the table. Alfred is excited, too. He can feel it drumming at his heart, making his blood pound in his ears. He wants to see.
"I'm done," Matthew calls out from the bed and no-sooner than he does Alfred bounds over and pulls him up, guiding him over to the bathroom. "Is this my surprise?" he asks a little sarcastically. "A trip to the restroom?"
Alfred laughs and directs Matthew in front of the grimy mirror. "No," he assures, molding himself against Matthew's back. Matthew, in turn, sighs and leans against him.
Alfred runs his fingers over Matthew's body, hands skimming over the loose shirt and sweats Matthew wears. He traces his fingers up to the bandages, hands gently unwinding them. "This is," Alfred tells Matthew.
Matthew gasps out an oh, as Alfred's hands go to work. Alfred wants to take his time, he really does, but Matthew urges him faster, impatiently demanding that Alfred hurry it up.
It's less dramatic than Alfred feels it should be. He thinks how if this was a movie the bandages would flutter in slow motion before coming all the way off and Matthew would slowly open his eyes for the first time in weeks. Rather, the bandages come off in one swoop and Matthew's eyes open quickly, not like the slow flutter Alfred would have thought.
It's quiet, while Matthew gazes in the mirror, and for the first time, Alfred feels ugly. He feels the separation between them, where their skin doesn't perfectly match, where his is too tan and Matthew's is too white. He's acutely aware of his sightless eye that doesn't open all the way, of how he looks like some ragdoll, haphazardly matched together with ill fitting parts.
And Matthew. Matthew looks as beautiful as ever, but Alfred is aware of how his eye looks disgusting on Matthew, a plague, a scar Matthew doesn't deserve, one that Alfred burdened him with. He can't help the sob that escapes his throat as he clings to Matthew and apologizes, words bubbling out of him until it just becomes him saying sorry, over and over again until it loses almost all of its meaning.
And still, Matthew is quiet, just staring at the mirror.
"Do you hate me?" Alfred asks, even though he doesn't think he can bear the answer. It would tear him apart, leave him raw and cold and strung out naked to the world. It would leave him alone, which is a concept so alien and foreign and the very word hurts, like a blister rubbed raw. "I did it to save you," he tries to explain.
The car had been going too fast and the roads were too slick and it had spun out, Alfred had lost control, it was his entire fault that Matthew was going to die that night.
But they had promised a chance at life and Alfred had agreed for Matthew's sake, always for Matthew's sake, always for Matthew, who didn't deserve to die because Alfred was stupid and reckless.
Alfred's face is buried into Matthew's shoulder so he doesn't notice Matthew in the mirror. But he does hear Matthew laugh, a breathy thing that either speaks of hysteria or euphoria. "Alfred, you idiot," Matthew says emphatically.
Matthew turns around in his arms and pulls Alfred's face up. He brushes a finger over Alfred's white eye and then leans to brush his lips over it too. "Thank you," he says, pressing his head against Alfred's so that they look at each other eye to eye.
He presses his lips to Alfred's cheek, repeating his thanks until their lips just meet. And it feels natural and not at all wrong and Alfred is aware that they've leapt over the edge of that great divide, the one that they had always only hovered at before.
Alfred breathes Matthew in and Matthew breathes Alfred out and there is no space to separate them. They are tangled, intertwined, hopelessly knotted together. It's just as natural for their lips to part, for Matthew to open his eye and Alfred's eye and smile.
There's a pause that stretches into infinity, in which Alfred thinks a hundred thoughts and none and that this was right, this is what they had been waiting for. Every moment of everyday in their lives before this had been a denial of this. A denial of unity, of completion, of feeling whole.
"You felt it too." It's not a question, Matthew just quietly making a statement that rings of truth. He takes their hands, clasped and held so tightly that the seams between their palms merge into a single line that looks like the rest of the lines crisscrossing their bodies. Matthew turns their palms over to look at the back of their hands. "This is me," he says and traces a hand over a patch of light skin. "And this is you," and here he touches skin that has been tanned by the sun.
Alfred holds his breath as Matthew explores, fingers being replaced by ghost kisses. "But it doesn't really matter, does it?"
Matthew hums and looks up at Alfred. "No," he agrees happily. "It doesn't at all."
Author's Note: This was inspired Tehryu on DeviantArt pictures of zombie/stitched-up Matt and Al and so yeah...decided to write this.