A/N: I wrote this an age ago, but for some reason never posted it. I love it a lot. Enjoy!
I Live For The Darkness, And All The You That Comes With It
It was night; or, at least, it was trying to be. Sodium streetlights streaked past the windows, ugly orange blurs marring the midnight sky, neon towns and cities twinkling on the horizon ugly blots in the darkness. Driving on and on through deep blue-black air, the tiny green cats' eyes down the middle of the motorway ran into one another: a flickering, blinking, continuous line of vulgar colour on an otherwise perfectly charcoal grey strip of tarmac.
Matt liked the dark, always had. His tinted goggles managed to provide him with a permanently shaded view of the world; garish sun, flames, bulbs and signs dimmed to the point of toleration. Back in his dusty, back-alley apartment, the blinds were always shut, struggling to keep daylight at bay, allowing only a few slats to slip through at the sides where they painted thick, illuminated lines on the bare wall opposite. Matt followed the shadows around the room until evening crept in and the sun's rays were dilute enough for him to venture outside. He bought his necessities - cigarettes, takeaway, the occasional computer component - then bolted home to his dark-room, wiling away hours by the gentle, soothing glow of a screen, filter-tip perpetually dangling from his lips.
It was a solitary existence, but it was peaceful; it was enough. He'd learnt to deal with loneliness a long time ago.
Gloved hands clutching the steering wheel of the run-down car he'd stolen jerked to the left as Matt muttered a curse under his breath, almost missing his turning.
There were fewer streetlights down this road, a line of trees and shrubs and bushes flicking past to his left, ground rolling away into field to his right, the sprawled, sparkling edges of a city only just visible in the distance.
Life had been quiet for Matt. Occasionally he'd take a car to joy-ride in the early hours of the morning - before the sun had begun to raise its blazing head - or hold up a liquor store for cash, goggles providing anonymity along with an escape from photosensitive migraines. Overall, however, his self-sufficiency had been undisturbed.
That was, until Mello had made contact.
How he'd found Matt's phone number, the teen would never know, but he had, and Matt had received a crackling, garbled, desperate phone call at 2am that Thursday. Matt, Matt? I... I need your help. I'm in over my head, fucked up big time. Matt? That field, y'know, where we - I can get there for Saturday. Find me, alright? Help me. Shit, Matt. Please. Mello had cut off before the red-head had had time to answer, and Matt had stared at the phone for ten minutes before hurling it at the opposing wall with enough force to send a hairline crack dancing through the plaster, small screen of the cell splitting and breaking, colour pixels leaking into an unreadable web of black and grey.
A sudden, overwhelming spasm of nostalgia shivered down Matt's spine as he rounded a corner, and his heavy boot slammed against the brake pedal, car squealing to a halt by the side of the narrow road. He flung the door open, not bothering to waste precious seconds swinging it shut behind him, and immediately began to push his way through thick foliage to the grass beyond. Thorns and leaves and twigs poked at him - cotton snagging, skin tearing - and he emerged breathless and forlorn.
By the gentle light of the stars - iridescent diamonds hanging in the inky expanse above - Matt could see a silhouette, lithe body a blackened shadow against the glittering sky behind.
"Mello?"
The figure swung round, blond bob dancing silver when bathed in nothing but moon and starlight. Ghostly shadows crept over Mello's face, glossy black leather's usual lustre muted by darkness. By night he looked as if he'd been sent straight from the depths of hell: ethereal and dangerous; an angel made of smoke and tar - sinuous wings of jet stone, raven feathers and ragged strips of night sky spread proud, invisible - slipping through the world like a cancer. Cruel.
He was showing no outward signs of the panic Matt had heard bubbling in his voice down the phone, simply standing still, slim arms folded across his chest, the small cross of a rosary peeking out from underneath a deathly pale forearm. That was new.
As, too, was the ugly, twisted scar splashed over the left side of his face, creeping down his neck and slinking under his collar, no doubt to continue over his chest and shoulder-blade. It was painful and fascinating to look at, tight flesh a shade darker than his alabaster complexion - a scorch mark from flames breathed out of Kira's malicious mouth. Matt wondered what had happened: it still looked raw; fresh and tender.
"You, er, wanted to see me?" Words sounded strange and awkward in the perfect silence hanging between them, and Matt kicked at the ground and dug his hands into his pockets, eyes darting from his feet, to Mello, and back again, wary.
Mello said nothing, merely stared unflinchingly at the younger man, eyes obsidian without the sun to light them: piercing and haunting.
Lowering his head, Matt let a small puff of air flutter from his mouth, sighing into the serenity his frustration, excitement and apprehension, usually vibrant blood-red hair a deep mahogany in the dark lancing over his cheeks and eyebrows, falling as far over his face as his pushed-back goggles would allow.
Mello's muteness was exasperating and unsettling, Matt beginning to worry that the burn on his face had melted his lips, tongue, gums as well, rendering him speechless. He shivered, cold.
"You remember, huh?"
The question was unexpected, and Matt jerked his head up to look quizzically at Mello. The blond, however, seemed as impassive as before, body language betraying nothing of having spoken moments earlier.
"Of course I do," Matt snapped, tone edgy and hurt at the insinuation that the field they were in could ever be anything less than completely unforgettable. It was seared into Matt's memories, stamped onto his very soul, the one night they had shared woven into the fibre of his being; the one night he had felt truly alive still managing to feed his small fire for life. Had it not been for Mello - half-naked, covered in grass and vulnerable on his fifteenth birthday - Matt could have died years ago and not cared.
Mello's eyes lifted from beneath a thick curtain of muted blond, a deep melancholy welling in his dark irises as he swept a glance over Matt. "Of course you do," he muttered, lowering his gaze once more.
Matt could tell that Mello was desperate to say something - that there was a huge bridge he needed to cross, and yet couldn't - and so he extended a spoken hand out in an attempt to help his floundering childhood friend. "Why did you call, Mello?" he asked softly, hoping to coax the lonely looking man in front of him into interaction.
A nervous dart of the pupils to the side, and Mello let out a long breath as if steeling himself for war. He clicked his tongue and slightly cocked his head, fixing Matt with a chilling stare. Inhale. "Would you die for me, Matt?"
The red-head froze for a heartbeat, the terrifying comprehension of his own mortality emblazoned on his suddenly gaunt face, but relaxed again almost instantaneously with a simple shrug of his shoulders.
Through the fresh night air - the comforting, all-encompassing blackness Matt so loved - Mello saw a tiny smile flicker over the younger man's face. Night was his safety, oblivion his home, hell his haven. He lived for the darkness, for the past; for the dimming memories of fire once shared. He lived for Mello.
"Yes."
Of course he would.
Man I love these two…