Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note. Sigh.
A/N: I've been reading/writing a lot of MxM fluff (much of which will be posted soon) and I really like it. But I've read a few where their relationship is notably less... healthy?... and I wanted to give it a shot. Hope it went well! Here you go: Dry Ice.
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Fuck Mello hits hard.
My cheek stung where he backhanded me, already starting to throb and, I'm sure, already bright red. I suppressed the desire to touch it and check for blood.
When I didn't show enough of a reaction, Mello backhanded me again, with the deadly accuracy of the sharpshooter that he is, over the exact same spot. I couldn't help but cry out.
That time I didn't have to check for blood because I could taste it. My cheek must have caught my tooth and ripped open. I tongued my inner cheek gently, searching for the cut.
Yes, there it was.
Mello sneered at me, anger and dominance leaking from his pores, radiating off him like expensive cologne on his leather. I took the chance of meeting his eyes and I was startled, as I always am, by how blue they get when he's angry. They're like blue fire. No, more like ice. That dry ice stuff they use in movies that's so cold it can burn you. That's Mello exactly. Cold enough to put you in the emergency room with third degree burns.
Although he's not opposed to burning you the old fashioned way.
When our gazes locked, Mello's lips twisted into something ugly, but for some reason ugliness looks better on him than even his leather. It contorts his angel's face, forcing his scar into a bunch, and if you weren't burned already...
"I don't know why I let you stay around," he spat. The words cut like a knife, but they cut over a place that's been cut a million times with those words and countless others. I ignored it, swallowed it, because in truth I don't know why he kept me around. I'm pretty sure I used to know, but I don't remember now. He'd be so much better off without me. I was always clinging to him, picking at the scabs of things he tries to forget, thinking I could help him. But he won't let me in. There's no way, there's nothing I can do. No matter how much I want him to be okay- how much I need him to be okay- I hurt him just by being around him. I can't do that. Not to Mello.
I had to leave him. That would be best for both of us. We're always hurting each other, so yes, this is definitely the best way. I knew that this time he would understand.
"Mels, it's okay. I'll go." I tried to smile at him, but my voice broke and my lips wouldn't cooperate. A white-hot poker seared me this time instead of a knife. Worse because I was hurting him, just like I always did.
His cold, cold eyes went wide. He stared at me and his mouth opened slightly. He stumbled a step back. "You... you don't... want me?" he mumbled.
My heart throbbed. Not want him?! Was he stupid? How many times had I told him I want him, or that I love him, or that I'll always love him? How about every day for the last two years? Why can't he just believe that? How can I explain once and for all that he's everything to me so that he'll finally understand... finally understand that I don't want to go on living if he's not around. If I can't touch him, have that brief contact that's like a drug, better than any cigarettes could ever hope to be. Better than meth could hope to be.
"No! Mello! Of course I want you! You're... I've told you a million times I love you more than anything." I was vaguely aware that I sounded positively frantic, but I didn't care. Mello thought I don't love him. I'm his freaking sidekick, I live with him, I sleep with him. How could he believe... even for a second how could he even wonder...
"Don't lie," he whispered. His golden hair covered his eyes, but I could hear in his voce that he was breaking. "I only want what's best for you. You know that. If that means..." he let his voice fade off.
"Mello, how can you think I don't love you?" I begged.
"Because look at me. Look at this face. And I'm no prettier on the inside."
Mello, with his constant moving, his constant thinking, his constant yelling, laughing, crying, planning, scheming. Mello, with his unimaginable mind, his completely unpredictable ideas, his power, his endless grace. Mello, who brings the world into color from black and white and who is too big for any room to hold. Who can never sit still. Pretty? No. He's not nice, pretty, a good young man. But he is beautiful.
"Mello, you're beautiful," I said with as much emotion as I could force into my voice. "You're the most beautiful person I've ever met."
He laughed, one loud, harsh, bark of sound. "Yeah. Okay. You know what, Matt? I'll go. I've obviously confused you." He rolled his eyes and shook his head.
He walked to the door, with that stride and that creak of leather that I love so much. My heart turned into a solid mass. The blood solidified in my veins. He was going to walk out that door, and I was never gonna see him again. Never hold him again or be held by him again. Never get a glimpse of that amazing mind, ever again. Never again, never again... Mello...
I had to either move or let my knees give out. I couldn't let my knees give out or Mello would just blame himself for hurting me when it was all my fault. But I still had to make him understand how much I love him. And if words wouldn't do it...
I threw myself across the room before he could reach the door. I wrapped my arms around him from behind. "Don't go."
He shrugged me off of him, and suddenly I was holding only air. "No. I've had enough of this. Of you. You're fucking annoying, Matt. It pisses me off."
"Mello."
He whipped around. "What?!" he demanded.
I grabbed him by the back of his head and forced us together. I kissed him hard, deeply, biting.
Never, ever submissive, Mello pried my lips apart without warning or permission. He didn't need either; I belong to him. He put his hand on my face and pulled down on my jaw until my teeth opened, then he dove in, raping my mouth with his usual skill and dexterity, the taste of chocolate mixing with nicotine, the taste of my addiction, so in a roundabout way the taste of him, my drug.
I had to breathe but I waited until he had to breathe, and he pulled back and allowed us both the necessary oxygen.
"I love you," I repeated to him firmly.
"Yeah. Whatever."
"You need me to prove it?!" I shouted at him. "Fine! You're my every fuckin thought, Mello! How about that?! Every day, everywhere I go, it's all about you. I'm completely obsessed with you! What more could you possibly want?!?"
He said nothing.
"More?! You already have it all! You already have all of me! I've given you absolutely everything, every damn inch of me! No matter what I do, you're pissed. If I ignore you, you're pissed. If I tell you I love you, you're pissed. I love your anger, but I don't want it always on me! Mello! I fucking love you! Figure it out!"
There were tears on my face, I discovered. If it took tears, I'd do it. If he went off alone he'd self destruct. Here, he can take it out on me instead of himself. "Mello!" I shouted again. I'm not entirely sure why.
He laughed. It... wasn't a nice laugh. Not at all. "Matt, you're a freak, you know that?"
Alright, so that wasn't what I had expected. But what had I expected, really? Him to come running into my arms, to tell me he'd stay forever, to tell me he understood, now, and that he was gonna be okay?
No, I hadn't expected that. But I'd still hoped.
I swallowed (again) how much it hurt to have that confession laughed at. I was so good at pushing away the hurt. I worried about where it went, but I knew it didn't matter. Mello didn't have long to live; he would catch Kira or die trying within the next few years. I could worry about the consequences of what I was doing to myself then. For now, I had to keep fighting his demons for him. But I had to make him let me.
I always knew I'd lose my mind before I hit twenty. I loved a man, a man, first off, who hit me, beat me until I was limp on the floor then fucked me violently, regularly, who screamed at me, threatened to leave me, manipulated me for no reason other than his own twisted amusement. I knew all of this. I really, really did. I'm not an idiot. But I loved him, and I knew he loved me. He had actually said it, once. And I know that if I keep coming back, keep trying to get through, keep ignoring all the true things he says to me, keep making myself believe the lies he tells me, then eventually I'll be able to help him, if only a very little bit. It will all be worth it.
I shrug. "So I'm a freak. Don't leave me."
He smirked for reason I can't imagine. "Whatever."
He stalked to our bedroom.
I cracked a bit when he was out of earshot. Too many emotions in too short a span of time. A sniffle escaped me before I could stop it, and then I sunk into a little puddle on the floor, sobbing. He did love me, right? All of this, I wasn't doing all of this for nothing, right? It was cold, so cold. I was breaking. No, I was already broken right in half. Stuck in this dance where one of us tries to leave and the other hurts him into staying. Over and over. And the only thing keeping me there was me, the fact that I knew there was a healthier relationship waiting out there for me but that I didn't want anyone but him, and the pain it would take to get away from him wasn't worth it. How could I be away from my other half? What would be the point? I'd be out there, eventually with someone, but I wouldn't be able to love them because... because I'd always love Mello... and...
Mello. My drug, my addiction. No one else would want me, assuming even Mello does. I'm all twisted up, I'm broken. I'm a freak and an idiot and a little abused uke that would probably be seme in any other relationship because I thought I liked girls.
I know what's waiting for me in that bedroom. Angry, violent sex that'll tear me up and make me bleed, make me scream, and send me higher than most people ever go.
I could walk out of that front door. It's so close. Mello may hit me, but he wouldn't physically stop me from leaving or hunt me down if I left. Because he knows I always come back, just like I know he always comes back. Not that that makes it hurt any less when he leaves. I could get away from the madness forever, and never see the madman I love ever again.
But I know I'm not going to do that. Ever. And I lock the door as I turn my back on it and walk down the hall to our bedroom.
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A/N: I got kind of confused with past/present tense for the first bit, but I think I worked it out. Sorry if I failed and it was confusing .