Disclaimer: I do not own or make money off of Death Note or any of its characters, nor any songs, television shows, or video games mentioned.
The Lights Above
"If you knew what was going to happen, if you knew everything that was going to happen next—if you knew in advance the consequences of your own actions—you'd be doomed. You'd be ruined as God. You'd be a stone. You'd never eat or drink or laugh or get out of bed in the morning. You'd never love anyone, ever again. You'd never dare to."
—Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin
• • •
20 December 2012
[Track 1: Prelude 12/21 by A.F.I.]
5:30pm
Mello sat scrolling through the webpage, no closer to making any sort of decision than he was two hours ago when he'd sat down. Letting out a sigh, he closed the lid of the laptop and sat it on the couch next to him, slouching down in defeat and running a hand over his face. Maybe it was time for a break.
He heard a clumsy, uneven knock at the apartment door but made no move to get up. Matt had a key; he could open the door himself.
"Mello!" a muffled voice came through the door. "Mello! I know you can hear me, and I bet you're exactly where I left you on the couch. Set the computer down, and come open the door!"
"Sorry. Can't hear you," he called out half-heartedly, but when his stomach growled in protest, he decided to reconsider. Matt had went out to pick up some groceries for their barren kitchen, and it seemed if he wanted to eat, he would have to actually make the effort and get up.
"Bullshit. Get off your lazy ass, and let me in!" Mello finally made his way to the door, silently fuming. How dare Matt accuse him of being lazy. He wasn't lazy, he was exhausted. There was a difference. "C'mon! I'm gonna drop-" Mello threw open the door and took one of the large brown paper bags from Matt's arms. "-this," he finished several decibels lower now that there wasn't a barrier in the way before kicking the door shut and following Mello into the kitchen.
Mello dug through the bags, emptying most of the contents onto the counter before he found something satisfactory: a microwavable individual pan pizza. Not the best thing in the world, but it would do. He opened the box, tore off the cellophane wrapping, and dumped it onto a paper plate, sticking it in the microwave.
"Hey…you okay?" Matt asked, starting to put the groceries away. "You seem kinda uptight. Well, you know, more than usual," he smirked over, and Mello rolled his eyes.
"I'm just tired of looking through all…that," he sighed, motioning to the living room where he'd left his laptop.
"We could've traded. Next time, you go out and fight off the hoards of crazies, and I'll stay here and sort through grad schools for you, okay?"
"Yeah, sure, now there's an idea," Mello drawled sarcastically. Like he would actually let Matt pick a grad school for him. Matt, who had chosen to make a living in freelance hacking after the Kira affair had died down and they had moved to New York. He hadn't understood why Mello had wanted to go back to school in the first place, and took any chance he could to bring up the irony of his major—Criminal Justice Studies for his Pre-Law undergraduate degree—given his fiancé's less than legal past with the Mafia. Yeah, perfect candidate to decide where Mello should go to Law School.
"Come on… Don't you trust me?" Matt said, stopping what he was doing and moving closer. His hands gripped the counter on either side of Mello, trapping him there.
"Sure I do," he said, leaning forward to place a quick kiss on Matt's lips. "Just not with deciding where I should go to Law School."
"Fine," Matt sighed as the microwave beeped and Mello slipped out of his grasp, "but you should give it a rest for tonight. You never know, maybe those crazy people out there stocking up on bottled water and canned goods I had to fight my way around are right. The world could end tomorrow. You should enjoy your last night with me." A devious smirk appeared on Matt's lips, and Mello had to hide his own grin.
"Sure, Matt," he said, playing along. He left his pizza on the counter in favor of returning to Matt's side, pulling him against himself. "Since we might not get another chance…"
—
11:55 pm
Mello pulled out, rolling to the bed next to Matt. Chest still heaving, he pulled Matt closer, pressing his lips to Matt's before collapsing back to the bed. At least if the world was going to end, he'd just had what was possibly the best sex of his life.
He ran a hand up Matt's arm, fingers tracing the tattoos that covered his skin, dark ink illuminated by the city lights filtering in from outside. He'd never been able to understand how Matt could get them—the very thought of getting one himself brought back memories of his burns healing—but Mello was glad he had. He loved them, thought they fit Matt perfectly: two full sleeves, a mix of video game art and more meaningful pieces such as his parents names.
"Ever think of getting anything else done?" Mello asked, looking over at Matt, trailing his own patterns over his skin.
"Can't. Ran out of room," he sighed in response.
"There's no rule saying you can only get them on your arms."
"Mmm…" he paused, thinking about it. "Maybe something on my back…or maybe…" He held up his left hand, pulling his right away from Mello to point at his ring finger.
"Really?" Mello asked, surprised. It was the first he had heard of making Matt's ring permanent. He'd only just proposed to Mello a couple months prior; they didn't even have a date set yet. They'd decided there was no rush to start planning. They had time.
"Sure," he breathed out, arms pulling Mello against his chest. "No way in hell I'd give you up willingly, so why not?"
"Good," Mello smiled into the crook of Matt's neck, fully content. He liked the sound of that.
There was a boom from outside, causing them both to jump. Mello sat up, looking out the window from bed. Through a small gap in the New York City skyline, he saw a light shoot up into the night some distance away. It reached its peak and burst into a shower of green glitter, another boom echoing out. Someone was letting off fireworks, probably just outside the city.
"Hey," Matt said, nudging Mello as he sat up too. He pointed to the digital clock on the nightstand. 12:00. "Welcome to the end of the world," he whispered and kissed Mello on the cheek.
• • •
21 December 2012
[Track 2: Yellow Light by Of Monsters and Men]
11:40 am
Mello slowly pushed the bedroom door open, peeking in. Matt was still asleep. He sighed, having half a mind to wake him up on principle; it was almost noon, after all. Besides, he was cold standing out in the hall with only a towel wrapped around his waist, hair still damp. Maybe if he'd remembered to grab some clothes before getting in the shower, but he wasn't going to sit around in a towel just so Matt could sleep the day away.
He pushed the door open and flicked the light on, almost instantly eliciting a groan from Matt. "What're you doing? Too early," he grumbled into the pillow, pulling the covers up over his head in an attempt to shield his eyes.
"It's almost twelve," Mello said, pulling on a pair of black skinny jeans. He would never understand Matt's definition of 'too early.'
"Come back at two…"
"Matt, come on," he said, taking a pillow from the bed and hitting where he presumed Matt's head to be hidden under the black comforter. "You're gonna miss your last day on Earth."
"That's okay," he heard Matt yawn. Deciding he needed a more direct approach, Mello took hold of the comforter and yanked it off of Matt. "Hey!" Matt said angrily, still clutching the sheet to his chest. He finally looked over at Mello to shoot him a glare, it melting within seconds as he looked Mello over. "Or we could compromise…"
"I'm listening," Mello smirked, crossing his arms over his still bare chest.
"Why don't you come back to bed…" Matt suggested, reaching for Mello's arm to pull him closer, "…and we can just get up a little later."
"Fine," Mello sighed, trying to make it sound like he was doing Matt a favor, as he more than willingly climbed back into bed.
—
1:25 pm
The bell above the door chimed as they stepped into the diner. They took a seat at their usual table near the window although their view was slightly impaired by a large handwritten sign that had been put up in the window advertising the "End of the World Special: Today only!"
The waitress came over, a young woman with long dark brown hair pulled back in a ponytail whose nametag read 'Tiffany.' "Hey, boys! The usual?" she said, chipper as ever.
"Hey, Tiff. What's in the special?" Mello asked, pointing his thumb in the direction of the sign in the window.
"Pancakes, an omelet, side of hash browns, side of bacon, side of breakfast sausage, and…something else… I can't remember," she said with a shrug. "It's basically this big breakfast thingy."
"At least you're good at your job," Matt joked, and she hit him on the shoulder with her notepad.
"Hey, just because we're friends doesn't mean I won't spit in your food if you're bad customers."
"Alright, alright," Matt said, raising his hands in defeat before looking to Mello. "You wanna split that?"
"Sure."
"Great!" Tiffany said. "Coffee with that?"
"Yes," Matt said simply, and Mello let out a little laugh, answering affirmatively as well. Matt had smoked two cigarettes on their way there; once he had his coffee, he'd be ready to start the day.
"Alrighty. Be back in a minute," she said, turning on her heel to leave, but stopped at the last second. "Hey, you guys don't…buy into this end of the world stuff, do you?" she asked, looking to them uncertainly.
"Of course not," Mello said lightly, a bit surprised that she would even ask. He'd never pegged her as the superstitious type. She may have been a little ditzy at times, but she was a lot smarter than she let on and tended not to put stock in horoscopes and the like. "Why?"
"I have to work a double shift today, and I really wouldn't want to spend my last day working," she said with a sigh.
"Wow, that sucks," Mello said sympathetically.
"Yeah, well, not everyone can have a boyfriend with a great paying job to take care of their student loans," she said jokingly, looking between the two of them. As with anyone who asked, they'd told her that Matt was a computer programmer and usually worked from home. It wasn't entirely a lie. Matt did work with computer code, and while it wasn't always the most reliable source of income, he usually did get paid pretty well when someone hired him for a job, certainly enough to support himself and Mello.
"Are you still gonna be able to do your open mic thing tonight?" Matt asked, and she sighed.
"Yeah, I'm gonna be exhausted, but luckily the guy who was supposed to go on at ten was nice enough to switch with me. Are you still planning on coming by?"
"Absolutely," Mello said. They'd been to most of her gigs since Mello had met her in the English class he'd been required to take his first semester at university. In return, she promised to give them backstage passes whenever they wanted once she made it big.
"Oh good! I'm planning on trying out a couple new songs tonight, and I need my two biggest fans to tell me what they think," she said, a huge grin on her face.
"Miss!" an old man from the next table over called, waving his hand to get her attention.
"Sorry, boys. Gotta run. Let me know if there's anything else I can get for you," she said and hurried over to see what the man wanted.
"Tiffany, our food!" Mello called after her. "We want you to get us our food!"
She shot him the thumbs up sign, which he took to mean she hadn't forgotten. Somehow, he doubted that.
—
4:20 pm
"I can't believe you're doing that now," Matt said, pushing Mello's feet out of the way and plopping down on the couch next to him. "Why can't you be like every other student and wait till the last second to buy your books?"
Mello glanced up at him from the used book listings on his computer screen and moved his feet onto Matt's lap. "If I want them to get here by the start of the winter semester, I need to get it done." Besides, Matt had been the one to convince him that he didn't need to figure out which grad schools he wanted to apply to right away since he still had plenty of time before he had to decide. His books, however, were a different matter entirely.
"Yeah, okay, but you don't have to do it today. We should be doing something exciting, not looking at books on the internet. I can think of about a hundred more interesting things to do on the internet…" he grumbled, picking up the remote and turning the TV on.
"It won't take that long," he insisted but found himself more interested in watching Matt flick through the channels than continuing his search for reasonably priced textbooks. He stopped momentarily when Ellen DeGeneres, who was having a segment on the 12/21 madness, appeared on the screen.
"We asked an expert on the subject on the show today, but he refused to leave his bomb shelter." The crowd laughed, and Mello let out a snort of amusement.
"I thought you were supposed to be looking for books?" Matt said, smirking over at him.
"I can multitask," he retorted, looking back to the TV rather than his computer.
"Fortunately, some of you send in clips of how you feel about the end of the world. Let's take a look." A montage of people dancing to "It's the End of the World as We Know It" started playing. Matt, however, took the opportunity to sing along, purposely trying to distract Mello.
"Stop! It hurts!" Mello exclaimed, covering both his ears with his hands.
"Oh, come on. I'm not that bad."
"You're right. There are a lot of things that sound worst… Like that time a spoon got stuck in the garbage disposer, for one."
"Thanks," he said flatly. "I'd like to hear you try to do any better."
But the music stopped, and the camera panned out to include Ellen sitting in front of the onstage screen. Mello shrugged. "Sorry, can't. It's over now," he said with a smirk, and Matt rolled his eyes.
"There you go. You heard it here first. It's the end of the world as we know it…and I feel fine. Thanks to everyone who sent in those clips, and thanks to all of you for joining me for my last show… And if the Mayans were wrong, I'll see you all again on Monday."
—
7:35 pm
They sat down near the back of Sullivan's Bar and Grill where the little makeshift stage was set up for their open mic night, drinks in hand. The first act was running behind, frantically trying to finish setting up. "Cheers!" Matt said, holding up his rum and coke and clinking it against Mello's beer bottle. "We survived the end of the world!"
"Technically, not yet. We still have like four and a half hours for something to go wrong," Mello corrected, taking a sip of his beer.
"Close enough," Matt shrugged, but Mello shook his head.
"Doesn't count until midnight."
"Okay, what could happen then?"
Mello took a minute to think about it. "Meteor?"
"That's boring. You can do better than that."
"Fine, then. What's your grand prediction?"
Matt looked over at the guy trying to set up his sound equipment who was obviously still having problems. Mello had all but given up on Matt responding when he finally said, "Jellyfish takeover."
"Jellyfish?" Mello said incredulously. Surely he must have heard Matt wrong.
"Yep. There's a kind of jellyfish that is technically immortal. It can reverse its lifecycle and start back over. If any animal ever takes over, it will be the immortal jellyfish," Matt said with a decisive nod.
"Alright…"
"What? Sometimes I get bored when you're in class and watch the Discovery channel. Don't give me that look. It's not a crime," he said defensively.
Mello let out a laugh. "No…no, it's not. I just…wouldn't have guessed that's what you do when I'm gone."
"Oh really. What did you think I do then?"
"I don't know…play video games…hack into government databases for fun?"
"I see. So you expect criminal activity out of me then? Thanks, Mello," he said, feigning offense.
"You can't tell me you never do that."
"No…that's actually pretty close to what I usually do…" he said, a small half-smile on his lips. "That's how I really knew about the jellyfish. The government has a whole swarm of them—genetically mutated," he added, "and uh…yeah, the government's planning on releasing them tonight. That's how the world is gonna end."
"I'm sure," Mello said skeptically.
"You have to admit, it's a better theory than yours."
"Depends on what you mean by 'better.' More creative—I'll give you that—but the chances of it actually happening are next to zero."
"You don't know that."
"Okay, well, there might be like…one trillionth of a percent chance that it could actually happen, but I wouldn't bet on it."
"Just as long as you admit it could happen," Matt said with a self-satisfied smirk.
"Sure, Matt. It's possible," Mello laughed as the guy on stage finally managed a sound check that produced results.
A grin came to Matt's face. "That's all I ask."
—
11:32 pm
Matt pushed the door open, stumbling down the porch stairs as they left the bar. It had started to snow since they'd gone in, and a thin blanket of white now covered everything around them. It looked like an entirely different world.
Mello followed after him out the door and down the stairs, slipping on a patch of ice hidden under the snow and bumping into him. He grabbed onto Matt's arm to steady himself. "Go home, Mello. You're drunk," Matt slurred, laughing at his own addition to the internet meme.
"It's not that funny."
"Then why're you laughing?"
Why was he laughing? Maybe it was funny. He couldn't be sure… But he also couldn't stop laughing.
"Hey, Mello," Matt said, his voice hushed, suddenly serious. He looked up at the sky. "I have another theory."
"Yeah?" he said, finally getting his laughter under control.
"Does the moon look any closer to you?"
"Maybe…is it normally that big?" It was hard to tell. Half of it seemed to have vanished.
"I dunno…but what if crashed into the Earth like in Majora's Mask?" he turned to Mello, eyes wide.
"Majora's Mask?" He couldn't remember anyone having a mask on all night.
"Legend of Zelda. N64."
"Oh…" Mello nodded. Matt had a pair of Legend of Zelda boxers. He wondered if he was wearing them then. "That has the Triforce thing, right?"
"Yeah…why?"
Mello took a step forward, his face inches from Matt's. His hand snaked down between them, cupping the bulge at the front of Matt's pants. "Let's go home and look for the Triforce," he suggested, a wide grin spreading across his face.
Matt leaned forward, kissing Mello forcefully. "I like that idea," he said when they parted, placing another quick kiss on Mello's lips before grabbing his hand. "C'mon," he said, dragging him down the sidewalk.
"Calm down," Mello laughed, doing his best to keep up. His feet didn't seem to want to cooperate.
They came to an intersection of two deserted side streets. Halfway across, Matt abruptly turned to face Mello. "Look," he whispered.
"I don't see anything," Mello said, confused.
"Exactly. What if the world already ended, and we were the last people on Earth?" he breathed out, pulling Mello against him, one hand on the blond's lower back and the other taking his hand. "I love you," he said, kissing Mello softly. "Dance with me."
"But there's no music."
"Challenge accepted," Matt said, and Mello gave him a confused look. "It's the end of the world as we know it!" Matt sang at the top of his lungs, dancing with Mello slowly.
Matt spun him around, and Mello stumbled backwards, breaking away from Matt's grasp, his arms stretched out at his sides. He let the snow fall on his face as he looked up at the sky. The half-moon shown above them as did the few brightest stars that weren't blotted out by the city lights reflecting up into the sky.
There were so many lights illuminating the night. Lights shining out of windows in the city that never slept, Christmas lights decorating the sides of buildings, the lights above from those faraway specs twinkling in the sky. And two glaring lights that seemed to be getting closer. And…an awful sound. It cut into his consciousness, demanding his attention. It was trying to warn him of something, but whatever it happened to be was lost on him. It wasn't important.
But those lights and that sound…they were so painful. So incredibly painful…
—
11:40 pm
He was in a small room. The room hit a bump as it drove down the road and made everything hurt. Mello felt faint, the pain encompassing him. "Stay with me," he heard a voice demand but couldn't comply.
—
11:51 pm
Bright fluorescent lights blinded him from overhead. He couldn't make out anything but a mass of white. White cabinets blended into white walls. "Hurry! He's lost a lot of blood!" The urgent voice sounded muffled, like he was in a dream.
• • •
22 December 2012
[Track 3: Field Below by Regina Spektor]
6:50 am
It was dark, and he felt sore. And tired. Very tired. A subconscious part of him urged himself to go back to sleep. He almost went quietly, willingly, but as his consciousness started to slip away again, a realization hit him, and he was suddenly wide awake. This wasn't his and Matt's bed.
Mello's eyelids were heavy, but he forced them open with some effort. His head was fuzzy, and it was hard to concentrate, but he could tell that he most definitely was not back in the apartment where he should be. His muddled brain slowly pieced his surroundings together: he was in a hospital.
He could feel his heart beat furiously in his chest at this realization, the heart monitor to his left beeping in succession. How had he gotten there? He couldn't remember. He couldn't remember a lot of things. Like where Matt had gone. Oh God… Where was Matt?
He tried to sit up, it coming in a quick, jerking motion. His vision blurred and danced before him, and he felt lightheaded. He paused, trying desperately not to lose consciousness, and waited for the feeling to pass. Working slowly, hesitantly, he propped himself up against the pillows and braced himself for his next attempt. He needed to find out what had happened to Matt, to make sure he was okay.
Mello tried to push himself up in an effort to get out of bed. The IV tugged at his skin, but this slight discomfort was nothing compared to the excruciating pain in his side. He collapsed back down to the bed, uttering an incoherent string of curses through gritted teeth.
He lay there, staring up into the darkness as he waited for the pain to subside, if only slightly. His breath came in ragged gasps, and the heart monitor beeped erratically. It was annoying.
But where was the nurse? Shouldn't someone be keeping an eye on the heart monitor readings? He could be having a heart attack, and no one seemed to care.
His eyes widened, a new course of action coming to mind. Someone had to be on duty—they couldn't just leave a hospital full of patients to take care of themselves—and wasn't there usually a button to push that would call the nurse? Without attempting to sit up again, his hand went to the side of the bed in search of such a thing.
After a few minutes of blindly searching and a successful attempt to scoot himself a few inches closer to the edge of the bed, his hand landed on something with a button. He pressed it, and when nothing appeared to have happened, he pressed it a couple more times to make sure.
The door opened, and a woman dressed in scrubs came in. She turned the lights on, hurrying to his bedside, and he groaned, a hand moving to shield his eyes. Was she trying to blind him? He thought nurses were supposed to help.
"Is everything alright, sir? Do you need more pain medication?" she asked, pulling the blanket back up over him, trying to return the bed to the much more pristine condition it had been in when he'd woken up.
"No," he said, more to the first question than the second. The pain seemed to be spreading, encompassing a much larger portion of his body, not to mention the awful headache that was coming on. But that could wait. He needed answers. "What happened? Where's Matt?" he demanded.
The nurse's lips pressed into a thin line, and she immediately stopped what she was doing. She hesitated for a moment, taking too long for Mello's liking.
"What happened?" he tried again, more forcefully this time.
"…How much do you remember?"
"I don't remember anything hence why I'm asking," he said angrily, wincing when he tried to sit up a little, causing his side to start throbbing again. He was getting impatient with her.
"Sir, please calm down," she said, sounding weary. For the first time since she'd come in, he noticed she looked exhausted. "How would you describe your pain level on a scale of one to ten?"
Mello let out a sigh. Maybe if he let her do her job, she would be more receptive to questioning. "Eight."
"Would you like more pain medication?" she tried again.
"Yes," he grumbled and watched as she adjusted something on the IV bag. "What happened?" he asked for the third time, trying to keep his voice level.
She looked at him, brow furrowed, clearly torn over what exactly she should tell him. "You…were hit by a car last night," she said, it coming out in an almost flat, clinical way. "It hit a patch of ice and lost control. You have two fractured ribs and have lost a lot of blood, but you'll be alright with time and rest. You should try to get a little more sleep," she finished, turning towards the door. "If you need anything else, just press the call button."
"What about Matt?" he called after her. She turned back to him as she reached the door.
"I'm not sure who Matt is, but you should really try to get some rest," she said with a pained smile, turning the lights back off, and shut the door behind her.
—
9:15 am
Mello had managed to fall asleep for about an hour before waking up as confused as ever. He'd tried calling the nurse again, but all he'd managed to get out of her was more pain medication. At the very least, he couldn't feel any of the pain he'd been in when he'd woken up earlier.
The door opened, and a man in a white lab coat walked in. He took the chart on the end of Mello's bed and briefly looked over it. "Hello, Mr. Keehl," the doctor greeted cordially. "How are you feeling today?"
"Great," he said and pointed to the IV bag. "I dunno what's in this, but it's…it's great," he nodded. "Is there any way I can get some to go?"
The doctor chuckled. "I'll see what I can do." He returned the chart and looked to Mello with a serious expression. He ran through the circumstances surrounding his admission to the hospital, coming up with the same story the nurse had told him except with more details such as the time he'd arrived and the number of stitches he had running through his skin. There was, however, one major difference that made everything else the doctor said seem unimportant: someone else had been brought in with him. "Do you have any questions?" he asked when he had finished.
"Someone else…was hit last night?" Mello heard himself say. It barely even sounded like his voice.
"Yes… We did what we could, but he died last night on the operating table at 11:56. He was carrying ID with the name of Mail Jeevas, but no one has formally identified the body yet."
He sat there, staring at the doctor with a blank expression. That wasn't right. Matt couldn't be dead. It wasn't possible. It wasn't… "He's not dead," he said firmly. The doctor gave him a look of pity and slowly shook his head. "He's not dead! Let me see him!" Mello demanded, moving his legs to the edge of the bed to get up. The cords of the heart monitor grew taut, and he ripped the suction cups from his chest one by one until the machine let out a high-pitched whine, the lines displayed on the screen going flat.
"Mr. Keehl," he heard the doctor say, hurrying to his side, trying to get him to stop, but he paid him no attention. "Mr. Keehl!"
"No! Don't touch me! He's not dead!"
A nurse appeared in the room with a syringe. Between her and the doctor, the needle was poked through his skin.
His body felt so heavy…
—
12:15 pm
The room was blurry, and his headache was back. He felt groggy, his surroundings taking a long time to come into focus.
A nurse walked by the door and peeked her head in when she saw him coming to. "Oh good, you're awake," she said happily. "I'll be right back with your lunch."
He didn't want lunch. He wanted someone to tell him the truth about what had happened to Matt. He tried to sit up, nonetheless, and found that he couldn't. He let out a sigh, relaxing down into the pillow again. They had restrained him.
The nurse opened the door, a tray of food in hand, and sat it on the bedside table. "How am I supposed to eat like this?" he asked flatly.
She gave him an apologetic smile. "I'm very sorry about that, but we had to. Are you feeling any calmer now?"
"…Yeah," he replied reluctantly. It was the only way they were going to let him go.
"Alright… Consider this a warning then," she said and removed the restraints, helping him to sit up in bed.
"Will I be able to see him?" he asked her; if anyone was going to be reasonable, he decided it would probably be her. He needed to see Matt. Maybe then they would believe him. "I won't…do anything this time," he promised.
"Yes, you'll be able to, but I'm not sure when. I'll have to talk to the doctor first," she said. She handed him the tray of food: some sort of casserole, a side of bland looking vegetables, and a chocolate pudding cup for dessert. None of it looked at all appetizing except for the pudding cup.
"Thank you," he said anyway, taking it from her. He decided he liked this nurse better than the others he had dealt with.
"You're welcome," she smiled sweetly and asked him a question he was starting to get tired of: "So how are you feeling?"
—
1:26 pm
The nurse—the nice one—came back into Mello's room, this time with a wheelchair. His heart started pounding with the realization of what that meant. The heart monitor beeped frantically. "I can see him?" he asked just to be sure. His voice sounded desperate even to his own ears, but he didn't care.
"Yes, but I've been instructed to sedate you if you try anything," she warned, and he believed her. "Are you ready?"
"Yes," he said eagerly. Once he saw Matt, they couldn't lie to him anymore. Once he saw Matt, he would know that he was alive.
The nurse smiled sadly, but Mello didn't notice. She adjusted something on the heart monitor and leaned over to remove the suction cup-like parts of the device from his chest. He winced, little red circles being left behind with each one. She moved his IV bag to the hook on the wheelchair. He considered telling her that he didn't need the wheelchair and could walk just fine on his own, but he thought better of it and let her help him into it.
He was taken out of his room and down several halls to a different wing of the hospital. It was surreal travelling past the hospital staff and all those rooms filled with patients suffering from all types of maladies. It was difficult to imagine what they were all there for. As they continued down the hall, they passed a doctor talking to a man and a woman who where both crying. A terrible feeling started to develop in the pit of Mello's stomach.
They finally reached their destination, and the nurse wheeled him into the dimly lit room. After only a glimpse of the room, Mello shut his eyes tight. He wasn't sure that he wanted to do this anymore, the feeling that he had been the one who was wrong creeping in around him. He heard a sheet rustle and hesitantly opened his eyes.
He was next to a table, which held a motionless body. Red hair was stuck to an unnaturally pale forehead, matted with congealed blood, bruises and large gashes marring the expanse of skin over his chest and tattooed arms. Mello's breath caught in his throat. It wasn't possible… Matt was dead…
Mello extended a shaky hand, placing it over Matt's, immediately jerking away. It was stiff and terribly cold. His vision blurred through the tears streaming from his eyes.
He returned his hand to Matt's, leaving it there, and let out a sob. This wasn't right. This wasn't how things were supposed to have gone.
He ran a finger over where Matt's ring would have gone. He'd said he would never leave Mello willingly, and he'd been right. He'd said he wanted to get it tattooed on. Now he'd never get the chance.
• • •
29 December 2012
[Track 4: Cactus in the Valley (Acoustic Version) by Lights]
12:21 pm
Mello remained standing by the open grave long after everyone had already left. He couldn't leave, didn't know how to.
He'd chosen a simple grave marker, knowing Matt wouldn't have wanted anything too elaborate, but he couldn't help but feel that it didn't do him justice:
"Mail 'Matt' Jeevas
Feb. 1, 1990
Dec. 21, 2012"
He fell to his knees, not caring that the snow started to melt and soak into the fabric of his pants. His fingers ran over the letters engraved into the stone. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "It should've been me instead…
"I hope you like it here… I tried to pick someplace far enough outside the city so you could see the stars better. I know how much you missed all the stars when we moved to the city." A tear ran down his cheek, and he moved to brush it away.
"Do you remember that time we camped out in the woods behind Wammy's when we were nine or ten? We found that little clearing and laid our sleeping bags out right on the grass, no tents or anything. I don't think I've ever seen as many stars in the sky as I did that night… You said you wanted to go see them up close one day… I hope they're within reach now." Mello pressed his hand flat against the gravestone, his head bowed. "I love you, Matty…"
He got up slowly and brushed the snow from his knees, wincing from the pain of his still healing ribs. He looked back only once as he crossed the graveyard, the sunlight reflecting up around him off of the snow-covered earth.