The sudden buzz of the cell phone at his hip jolted Matt out of his video game coma, bringing his domination of Super Mario Bros to a grinding halt. Annoyed, the redhead paused the game and looked at his watch. Who the hell was calling him at three in the morning? He glanced at the phone: unknown number. Matt nearly tossed the phone aside in impatience, but his curiosity got the better of him.
"Lo?"
Ragged breathing, and something that sounded like a dog whimpering. "The hell?" Matt muttered to himself. Was this some sort of stalker sex call? But his number wasn't even listed…
"Matt." The voice came just as he was about to hang up. Matt brought the phone back up to his ear.
"Yeah, who is this?"
"Matt, you've gotta come pick me up. Soon."
Matt's heart thudded painfully. He hadn't heard that demanding voice in four years, but there was no mistaking it. "Mello." He leaned back against the sagging couch and stared at the cracks in the ceiling, a hundred questions rising to his lips like bile. What the hell have you been doing, Mello? Why didn't you ever come looking for me? What, am I your last resort, the default when you get yourself in trouble? How did you find me so damn easy when I've been looking for you for four fucking years? But somehow, all he said was, "Where are you?"
"I'm outside the docks– take the Harbor Freeway going south. Exit 26. Two rights and a left." Mello started cursing, which turned into a coughing fit. When he next spoke, his voice was raspy. "Follow the smoke."
"The smoke?" Matt asked, already pulling on his vest. The cats scattered throughout his apartment watched his nearly-frantic motions with interest. He had no idea what was going on, but one thing was for sure: if Mello, independent, fuck-you Mello was asking Matt for help, he must have gotten himself into one hell of a mess.
"Look, just hurry up and get your ass over here," Mello said. "I don't want to be here when the fire trucks show up."
"Mello–" Matt began, grabbing the keys to his car and shutting the door to his tiny apartment, "what happened? Are you okay?"
Something like a laugh came from the cell phone pressed to Matt's ear. "No, Matt, I'm not fucking okay. I just blew up a building on myself."
Matt froze, the key halfway into the ignition. "Jesus Christ! Why did you do that?"
"Stop fucking asking questions! Get over here!" More coughing, and then the connection abruptly cut out. Matt sat in the silent car for a second, pushing aside the ever-present orange goggles he wore to rub his eyes, before snapping back to attention. The car roared to life.
Blew up a building? Watch for the smoke… A smoke was what he needed, after that. Matt pulled a cigarette from his pocket and lit it one-handed, the other hand gripping the steering wheel as he went around curves at well above the speed limit. He took a deep drag and hoped the nicotine would dull his jangling nerves.
He wasn't really sure what Mello had been up to since he stormed out of Wammy's, declaring himself an orphan and second to Near no longer. No, Mello was going to go do things his own way, just like he always had… only this time, he was leaving his best friend behind. At first, Matt had tried his damnedest to track down his emotional friend, but a few Mafia run-ins had gotten the message across: Mello didn't want to be found. Matt was left to try and carve out a life in America, his birthplace but certainly not his home. The occasional bank account hack kept him safe financially, and as for social interaction– well, that's what video games were for, and he always had the cats. Matt's life wasn't perfect, but he'd gotten along well enough. And now this. Matt took another drag on the cigarette.
The car was going so fast down the empty highway that if Matt had been paying a little less attention, he'd have missed exit 26. When the sign came up he jerked the steering wheel hard to the right, slowing down only marginally to round the exit ramp. Two rights and a left… follow the smoke. He peered out the windshield and, indeed, there was a blot of darker cloud against the streetlight-orange haze. That must be where Mello was.
Matt pulled onto a rough road that was more pothole than asphalt and drove down it, smoking the cigarette for all it was worth and trying not to imagine anything too horrible that might have happened to Mello. Eventually he came to the source of the black cloud and climbed out of the car, snapping his goggles back on to protect his eyes from the acrid smoke still drifting in the air.
It looked like the stone building hadn't been in very good shape before, but now it could barely be considered a structure at all. The entire roof was missing, and great chunks of wall lay strewn about the overgrown field that surrounded it. There was no telling whether or not there was anyone hiding in the still-smoldering labyrinth. Matt drew his gun as a precaution and moved closer to the wreckage, pulling out his cell phone as he did so. If he could find Mello's number, he could use the ringtone to locate the other man. The appearance of a gun against his back short-circuited that idea.
"Drop the gun, turn around," someone hissed in his ear. Matt did as he was told, the pistol making a soft fwump as it landed in the grass. He turned slowly and surveyed the figure currently pointing a gun at him. Short blonde hair in a girlish cut, tight leather clothes, combat boots, that fierce expression…
"Good, it's you," Mello said, in a tone that would have been businesslike if he hadn't winced. Matt realized that what he'd mistaken for shadow in the dim light was actually a burn, spreading from Mello's elbow across his shoulder and collarbone all the way to the left side of his face. Matt gaped.
"Mello, you're burned!" he said, which was not what he'd imagined his first words to be when he pictured their reunion.
"Thanks for reminding me," Mello said sarcastically. "Come on, let's get out of here." He tried to walk toward the car, but whatever energy he'd been drawing on thus far suddenly deserted him, and he swayed dangerously on the verge of unconsciousness. Matt caught him.
"You can't possibly make it to the car like that," he said, trying to hold Mello upright without touching the horribly puckered skin on his left side.
"I don't need you to carry me," Mello snapped, prideful as always, but Matt didn't let go.
"I'll help you walk, then." Matt slid Mello's right arm across his shoulders and cautiously wrapped his own arm around Mello's waist. Mello grimaced but didn't say anything, so Matt assumed his anger was directed at the pain and not at his presumptive body contact.
By the time they reached the car, Mello was having another coughing fit and could barely keep himself upright. You'd think he was the one who smoked a pack a day, thought Matt with grim humor. He opened the passenger door and helped Mello clamber inside, though the blonde refused to let him assist with the seatbelt.
"We should get you to a hospital," Matt said when they were both in the car, but predictably Mello shook his head.
"I can't go where people can see me," he rasped. "They think I'm dead, and I intend to keep it that way. I just need to rest for a little while and I'll be fine."
"You need something," Matt argued, not bothering for the moment to ask who 'they' were. "Those are second-degree burns at the least. I don't know how to treat something like that."
"Then you get me the meds and I'll do it myself," said Mello. "But first get me somewhere safe."
Somewhere safe… well, Matt's apartment would have to fulfill that requirement, at least for the time being. The building's security cameras didn't actually work, one of the main reasons he'd chosen it, and in the unlikely chance someone saw them coming back, Matt probably had sufficient funds to bribe them. As he pulled back onto the ramshackle road he'd driven in on, Matt turned to Mello to inquire more about the circumstances that had brought this about.
Mello was asleep, or unconscious, his labored breath making clouds on the window next to his mouth. His hands were halfhearted fists in his lap, and somehow the sheer Mello-ness of this gesture made Matt grin. Mello always tried to be tough, but under the bullying and defensiveness there was a vulnerability that only became visible in sleep. The car whizzed back along the highway as Matt continued his study of the man beside him. Some of Mello's hair appeared to have been singed away by the explosion, leaving the burn on his face exposed for the world to see. Matt had the perverse urge to touch it– or maybe he just wanted to touch Mello, to make sure he was real and not some insomnia-induced hallucination.
At the speed they were going, it was next to no time before the red car pulled back into its customary place outside Matt's apartment building. Mello still hadn't woken up, which presented a dilemma for Matt: did he wake Mello from the rest he so obviously needed, or risk trying to carry him back inside?
"Mello," he whispered. Mello's eyes twitched. "Mello, wake up." When no further response was forthcoming, Matt reached over, hesitantly shaking Mello's uninjured knee. He was rewarded by a growl of pain, but Mello shook himself out of his stupor, glaring at the world.
"Where are we?" he asked, his voice tight.
"My place," Matt said. "Don't worry, there aren't any cameras or anything. You should be able to hide here."
Mello merely grunted in response. Matt unbuckled his seat belt, then walked around to the passenger side to help Mello out. Unsteadily the pair of them made their way across the parking lot, though the front door and into the elevator. Mello sagged against the wall.
"You have meds?" he asked.
"Some," Matt responded, "but I don't think they're as strong as you need. I'll get more once we clean you up a bit." Mello nodded. Of course Matt would get what Mello needed. That was his job, after all, wasn't it? The habit had been formed far too long ago for the redhead to break it now. And, pondered Matt, thinking of the cigarettes in his pocket, he wasn't all that good at breaking habits anyway.
The cleaning-up process was painful for both of them. Matt did a quick online search on how to treat burns and was dismayed to find that for burns of this intensity, a few weeks' healing time was to be expected and a few months was not at all unusual. Mello, he knew, would barely accept invalid status for a few days. Putting aside the long-term worries for the time being, Matt set about trying to peel off Mello's leather vest.
"Lucky this thing is sleeveless," he muttered as he unzipped it, mostly to himself, because Mello's eyes had shut again. He even thought the other man might have fallen asleep. Then he tried to slide the vest off Mello's left shoulder.
"Fucking shit!" Mello yelled, jerking upright and digging his nails into Matt's wrist. Clearly, Matt had not avoided the burn well enough. "Don't fucking do that!"
"Sorry," Matt said, "but I can't put the bandages on properly when you're still wearing it." Mello looked mutinous. Matt stared him down. Eventually the blonde let go of the deathgrip he had on Matt's arm.
"Be careful," he said, gritting his teeth and swearing occasionally while the offending garment was removed. Mello's chest was bruised under the collarbone and almost as pale as Matt, but the vest had spared him getting burned anywhere but his shoulder and arm. And, of course, his face.
Matt sighed and began rinsing Mello's burns with cold water. Mello did not take kindly to being rinsed in the chipped bathtub "like one of your goddamn cats," but Matt snapped that it was that or the hose.
"Aspirin?" Mello asked when Matt gave him the pills, and it was amazing how much scorn he could fit into two syllables.
"It's not like I've got morphine lying around the house," said Matt defensively. "It's better than nothing, and it might help you sleep."
Mello tried to snort but wound up coughing again, which gave Matt the opportunity to use the spray-on antiseptic he'd found in the back of the medicine chest.
"OUCH! Fuck, Matt!"
"It stings for a few seconds," Matt explained, ex post facto. This earned him another glare, though at least Mello had refrained from grabbing him this time. The bandages he wound carefully around Mello's arm, trying to be as gentle as possible. The face he saved for last.
"I might need to tape on the bandages," he warned, his own face very close to this scarred version of Mello's.
"Just leave it," the blonde said tersely. "I want to be able to see."
"You have to put a bandage on it," began Matt, but Mello had already gotten unsteadily to his feet.
"Either direct me to a bed or I'll find one myself."
"Here, I'll show you," said Matt, exasperated. He'd forgotten how stubborn Mello could be. They were a good third of the way down the hall before Mello accepted his assistance in walking, and then only because he'd stopped to have another coughing fit. Matt mentally resigned himself, among other things, to sleeping on the couch, and he helped Mello sit down on his bed. A calico cat was preening itself on the windowsill beside it.
"When did you become a cat lady?" Mello asked, kicking off his boots, but before Matt could even come up with a witty reply, he had collapsed onto the pillow and was asleep.