Note: I refused to write anything yesterday, since I totally refuse to acknowledge that it was Matt and Mello's death date in canon, and moreover, I was at the hospital, bleh _
But I had this idea of a simple item conducting a whole story while I had oxygen tubes in my nose and a tube down my throat and a monitor beep continuously attacking my ears. Blame it on the oxygen, it probably messed up my brain cells lol
And I also blame Dlvvanzor and her wonderful oneshot 'Still the One' XD
So, in advance, I am sorry for this depressing story (although they have a long life together so it's not that bad after all), I was working on Lithium 49 and took a 30mn break to write this oneshot because I couldn't go on with Lithium with this in mind, it kept on bugging me.
It's posted raw and unedited, so sorry for any mistake.
From the beginning, we stand to fall.
From the first steps we take, in direction of open arms catching us just as we stumble.
I didn't count how many times I fell, although I remember some of them, engraved in my memory like rocks hurting my foot in my shoe. Small and so consequent at the same time. I always knew that the little things were always the ones we remembered best.
I, for example, hardly remember the exact details of when I blew my hideout off, earning the scar on my face. I know the main lines of the event, but that's about all. My mind is like that, always focused on the little happenings, the non events, even, and erasing slowly the main parts of my past.
Engraved in my memory, the little bag you were holding the day you arrived at the orphanage. It was red and white, and I remember the way you threw it on your bed, in what would be our shared room, and how you suddenly cried and held onto my neck, and how we stayed like this for hours, until you fell asleep in my arms, on the floor. We were eight years old.
You fell, and we stood.
Set in stone, our first kiss. We had just left Wammy's after L's death, and I didn't even have to ask you to come with me, as I left, you began to pack your stuff in this red and white little bag when you saw me fill my own, and you only smiled to me as a kind of 'thank you' when I waited for you in the doorframe, already ready to go, as you zipped your bag. But you didn't need to thank me, there was no way I would leave you behind, and the sole idea that you may have thought I could brought tears in my eyes. I suddenly realised how few often I had expressed my positive feelings. I was always one to explode when anger or frustration was boiling in me, hitting, beating, kicking. But, for some reason, I kept all what mattered the most to me bottled inside, afraid to throw my feelings at your face like a message in the sea. Afraid that my message didn't reach the shore.
And yes, in these words is a strong metaphor, because you've always been the shore, the anchor, the salvation in our tumultuous lives. No wave was strong enough that you couldn't stir my ship out of the storm.
And so as you closed the distance between you and the doorframe, I gripped your shirt and crashed my lips on yours.
You smiled in the kiss, and returned it, just like if it was the most natural thing on earth between you and me.
It probably was.
Tattooed on my skin, the scar I got in the explosion. You had set the explosives, but I wasn't supposed to blow them off with myself in the middle, and you would never have set them if you had known I would come to this option. I hadn't known it would come to this, to be honest. I should have known. I should have understood, when you brought everything in the hideout in that black bag, that things would fuck up.
But when I saw the paramedics come to me, through the smoke, the ashes, and with my only valid eye, since the other was covered in blood, when I saw the red and white truck they carried me to, I don't know, I wasn't afraid.
It took every lie you could make up to make them believe we were here by mistake, two lovers at their little affair, not knowing what happened there, to free me out of the hospital. I was pretty sure you had hacked as much money as you could to grease the police's palms, and it didn't matter to me that I couldn't even stand without falling, when you helped me to your car and that once you sat on the driver's seat, you picked a little red and white bag on the backseat and handed it to me. It was full of chocolate.
Sculpted in concrete, the day it ended and began at the same time. The day we defeated Kira, left the whole credit to Near and disappeared, dead to the world. I suspect Near knew we made it alive, but he was smart enough to understand we, as Matt and Mello, were definitely dead and buried, and Mail and Mihael would finally live, just live.
I remember how the customs rummaged through your bag, you had so many gaming devices in here that they thought you were making some traffic. It was hard to convince them that you were just the worst geek on earth, but they eventually let us board, and you slammed the plane's bag compartment on your little red and white bag, and so much for taking all your games in the cabin for this sixteen hours long flight, because you didn't even touch them.
You cuddled against me, and we flew like this, and it felt like sixteen seconds, having you there in my arms, simply enjoying your warmth, your presence, your scent, not dreading to lose you anytime anymore.
Carved in marble, all these years together in a faraway land, a lifetime of true love, something that's even more rare than a total eclipse, something only few people experience in this world.
And I cry today. I cry because all that's left of us is... nothing. So much beauty in this love, so much everything, and the world is still the same. No matter how much we loved each other, why is love never able to change anything? How can something so strong, so powerful, be just forgotten once it ends?
I sit by your grave, you would have been eighty-seven today. I had already bought your valentine present, so I'm giving it to you today. Marry me, Mail. Yeah, I should have asked you years ago...
While wars still rage on in other countries, while people still starve, while slavery still exists and AIDS still kills, I'm giving up on my faith in God today.
Because the extent of something as big, as bright, as exceptional as our love wasn't enough to make a difference against evil. It never is, as wide as love can be.
And then, now that I'm convinced that God doesn't exist, I'll be joining you in a few seconds, I can already feel the poison numbing the arm where I injected it. There's no hell for what I'm doing, and maybe there's no afterlife and I won't see you again. But I'm taking the chance.
So if you're somewhere waiting for me, then, wait, cause I'm coming, and I'm bringing your little red and white bag that you forgot.
From the beginning, I stood to fall. Numb, then dead. On the cold marble of your tombstone.
From the first steps I took, in direction of your open arms catching me just as I stumbled, in this white light.
From the beginning... I stood and fell for you.