Leather in the Mirror

by Dlvvanzor

I wish it had been Matt. Maybe if it had, I wouldn't have had to hit rock bottom to get where I am now. Maybe things could have been different. Maybe I wouldn't have become... this. Mello POV MxM oneshot

Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note.

Warnings: Sex/yaoi (not overly descriptive but you're not going to miss it), drugs, violence, angst, alcohol, language, and Mello in leather (beware the sexy Mello-leather!).

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I kind of... I really... wish it had been him. Maybe if it had, I wouldn't have had to hit rock bottom to get where I am now.

Maybe things would have been different if I had just let it happen that night at Wammy's, when he and I kissed clumsily in my bedroom, fumbling with each other's clothes, old enough to want it but not old enough to know how to do it. When he whispered to me that he loved me more than anything, when I whispered it back and kissed him hard in the dark, the moonlight from the window touching the pale skin of his wiry naked body, my hands everywhere on him, and his hands everywhere on me. He touched me so gently, as if I was something precious, some fragile beauty, reverently, his fingers barely making contact with my skin as he slid them down my chest, my stomach, lower. It wasn't demanding, it wasn't complicated, it wasn't wild. It was... even though we were so young... it would have been love. It would have been.

I don't know why I stopped him. I wanted it, I loved him, and I wasn't afraid. So why did I stop? I know I had a reason, but I'll never remember. I will, though, always remember that sad look in his eyes- sad, but completely understanding and accepting. I'd been alive longer than he had, but he was so much older than me. When I put my hand on his, he looked at my face, his beautiful eyes bright with excitement and deep with love, and I shook my head once, slowly. He smiled that small smile and nodded, then lay down carefully next to me. He moved until his lips were by my ear, and he whispered to me, and I could feel his warm breath on my hair and skin. "It's okay, Mello. I can wait."

It wasn't long after that that we got the news of L's death. We held each other that night as we cried. Neither of us had really known the man, although we were constantly being compared to him, but for whatever reason it still hit us hard. The top three of us, actually, probably felt it more deeply than most of the other kids at Wammy's House, purely because we were so close to the top. I was lucky, though: I had someone to hold and to hold me, someone who loved me more fiercely than I could comprehend. I imagine that, if he cried, Near cried alone. The knowledge of Near's misery gave me no pleasure that night. When I reported this to Matt, he was honestly as amazed as I was. His bewildered expression made me sob out a laugh and kiss him gently, chastely on the lips.

That night was a new moon, and this time, as we lay in bed, no silver light touched Matt's body as he lay next to me, his head on my chest, listening to my heart. It would have been easier, but I couldn't leave without saying goodbye.

"Matt?"

He mumbled something along the lines of "Mn?" into my chest.

"You know I'm leaving tomorrow, right?"

He sighed, and then nodded. His face rubbed against my chest, ruffling his hair and rumpling my shirt. I squeezed him and kissed the top of his head.

"I'm sorry," I whispered into his hair.

He scooted up to see my face. We were so close that our noses were almost touching. "You never have to be sorry to me, Mello. For as long as we live. No matter what. Okay?"

I didn't kiss him. Instead, we just looked at each other, sharing vital oxygen. I brought my hand to him and ran it through his blazing red hair, turned the color of blood by the darkness enveloping us.

"Yeah," I said finally.

More silence, more time spent looking into his forest green eyes, loving him, even so young, more than I had words for. They lectured about sex at Wammy's House, sure. We had the same health class that everyone has to take at one point or another- our class was just much, much more difficult. We discussed it as a motive in criminal proceedings, as it appears in literature, as it appears in the media. But we never- and if we did I don't remember it- discussed love. I knew instinctively what it was, but I had no way to express it except for stating it and that seemed so very far from sufficient.

I saw then that Matt had fallen asleep.

When he woke up, I was no longer there.

I am told he changed for a long time after that. Apparently he was depressed, irritable, and locked himself in his room for even longer periods of time than he normally did.

No matter how he changed, there is absolutely no way that he could- within the safety of Wammy's wrought-iron fences- have changed as much as I did.

I knew I needed powerful connections. I set my sights on the Mafia.

I knew of someone who could get me in. He was a scrawny little guy. I was taller than him. He made up for it, however, by being a complete freak in every way he possibly could. He had a collection of yarn for no apparent reason and he would only eat tomatoes and tomato products. He was always laughing at someone or something, and it was never a kind laugh. It was the type of laugh that gives you chills, makes an ice cube appear at the top of your spine and slide down it slowly. I found his 'spool'- which was what he called his base- in the middle of the night.

I walked right in wearing my black T-shirt and jeans, calling out his name. He stuck his head around the open doorway of his kitchen, tomato juice dribbling down his chin. I was terrified that it was blood until I saw the seeds and smelled the sharp tang of the vegetable/fruit.

"What do you want, kid?" he asked chuckling, wiping off his mouth on the sleeve of his white shirt, leaving a smear of red that most likely would not ever be coming off.

I gave him my best vampire's grin, the one that had scared everyone in Wammy's House stiff. "I want in," I said coolly.

He looked me over.

"Go home, kid." He laughed out loud.

"I assure you, sir, I'm the most intelligent person you will ever meet, of my own age or of any other." My fingers itched for chocolate, but now was definitely not the time. I concentrated on looking him right in the eye, hardly even blinking.

He laughed again, and I repressed a shiver. "What are you? In junior high?"

I didn't bother to correct him. "My age is irrelevant," I said formally.

"No, kid, it's really not. No matter what you say, I'm not going to do anything for you. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here."

He stared right back, unperturbed. I nodded once, stiffly, and strode out of his house.

So that hadn't gone well.

(He died two weeks later of an ulcer. Turns out tomatoes are acidic. I made sure to chuckle when I heard.)

As I walked along the street, headed for nowhere in particular, I caught a glimpse of my reflection in a shop window.

That explained it. I was short, slender, and my hair was entirely too pleasant. I was wearing black, but the way the loose cloth hung on me it only made me look smaller than I was. I really did look like a kid, and I didn't look unusually intelligent, either. No matter how smart I might be, I knew they wouldn't take me the way I was.

I smiled when I saw the store's contents.

Leather.

That would work.

I walked in a little timidly, but the moment I saw it I knew I was in the right place. I picked it right up off the hanger and marched myself into a changing room.

As it turned out, I had the instincts I needed, deep in the back of my psyche. I probably inherited them from my mother. Regardless of where I got them, though, when I walked into that changing room and tried on the leather vest... well. I knew I looked good. Or, at least, a very twisted form of good. And finding the pants with those laces over the crotch it sealed the deal. This is who I was going to be. Sure, I couldn't afford the clothes, but I didn't need to eat every day. In fact, sick, thin, and haunted would go well with my new style. So that's what I did. I did that for years, in fact, even when I no longer truly needed to, to stay looking that sick even with all the chocolate I was eating. Not the healthiest method, but it was not by far the worst thing I would end up doing to myself.

Time passed quickly. I got a hellhole of an apartment and a job to keep it with. I worked on moving in the leather, worked on talking, worked on facial expressions. I chopped at my hair, leaving the ends messy. I had the energy of fire, I always had, but I discovered that I was very, very good at making myself ice.

Someone knocked on my door. "Pallor. Rent's due," she rasped at me as I opened the door. John Pallor was the name I had signed for the apartment under. I suspected that she knew it was fake, but seeing as how mostly prostitutes and drug dealers inhabited her building, she just didn't care. I liked that name.

I stood in front of her, unflinching when she barked out my 'last name' again and bared her teeth at me like a dog. The trick with any animal is to show no fear. I made my eyes freeze over, go cold, go dead. I extinguished the natural light in them and unleashed that on her, full force. Cold, cold.

She spun around on her heels without another word. She never asked for the rent again, although I still paid it if I felt like it and had the extra money.

So I finally looked the part and, like fate, I almost immediately found the contact I needed to get in.

I donned my leather the moment I found out where I would be able to meet him. I strode into his base like I owned it, and plopped right down on his rotting sofa. I planted my feet far apart, legs spread wide. I killed the light in my eyes and waited for him to get home.

It wasn't long. He smiled when he saw me. It was a cold smile that I recognized. He was tall and beefy, with big, thick, strong hands. I was his opposite, except for that smile.

He sat down in an armchair that was adjacent to the couch I was on. "So you want in." It wasn't a question.

I almost smiled, because now I was absolutely sure of all my 'training.' I did look like I belonged there. I kept my face emotionless, though, with only a slight gleam of ambition showing through to demonstrate that I was, in fact, alive. Hungry, though.

I nodded lazily, confidently, never taking my eyes off of his.

He didn't look away from me either, but he wasn't looking at my eyes.

I suppressed a shiver as his gaze oozed along my entire body, hungry in an entirely different way than I was. His big hands went to his beltline and he undid them, pushing his pants and underwear down and revealing a very large erection.

When I only stared at him, his smile stretched. "Well?"

I shuddered but he didn't see it. I stood and walked over to him, moving my hips and showing off the leather more than was even remotely necessary. I knelt down in front of him and, with my sexiest smile, parted my lips and leaned in...

He stopped me with a hand on my face. "Oh, no. You're not getting it that easy."

I froze. All I had to do was give him what should have been Matt's; my body on a silver platter. From how he was sitting, I would apparently have to ride him, which, of course, I didn't know how to do. I'd never gotten past your basic touching. How hard could it be, though, really?

"Awww, shoot," I purred sarcastically. I stood up in front of him and, with some effort, slid out of my black leather pants. I couldn't afford underwear so I wasn't wearing any, but he didn't need to know the real reason. I watched him as I did it, and he smirked.

"All of it."

So I unbuttoned my vest as slowly and suggestively as I could, and then I was naked in front of him, completely exposed. I prowled up to him and straddled him on my knees, gasping a little at the unfamiliar feeling of skin to skin contact in that area. I put my hands in his hair and fisted it, then kissed him wetly, hotly, as if the only thing in the world I wanted to do was slobber all over this man. He allowed it for a few minutes, moving his lower body against mine, his hands creeping all over me, before grabbing me by the waist and lifting me bodily. He flipped me around and then jerked his hips forward, hard, as he dropped me onto him.

He was inside, with no kind of preparation or lubrication, and I pretended my screams were screams of pleasure instead of pain. It was not long before the much larger man was as deep inside of me as he could force himself to be. It hurt as I started to bleed, but I moaned whenever he did and made any sound that seemed appropriate, and he came quickly, gasping about my ass being tight and was I a virgin? He pushed me off his lap when he was done.

I landed heavily on the floor on my hands and knees in front of him, my abused rear end straight up in the air. I tried to move before he decided he would be able to get himself up again, but he was jamming his fingers up me, and he curled them and I screamed, but this time it was in pleasure because of that ever-popular cluster of nerves. The intensity of that pleasure was completely unfamiliar, and I released all over his carpet- my first orgasm ever induced by another person- as he repeated the question.

"Are you a virgin?"

I assumed he meant prior to being shredded by him. Regardless, I purred in a way that I hadn't known I was capable of. "What do you think?'

He laughed. He actually laughed, as if it was the funniest, most absurd idea he had ever heard.

He got up and walked away, during which time I struggled back into my clothes, and returned a few minutes later with a bag. He dumped some of it out and gestured indifferently at me and then at it. It was powder, and I was vaguely aware that it was a drug- probably cocaine. I shrugged and he gave me a bill. I don't know how I knew what to do with it; I was focused on the pain in my rear. So I rolled it up and inhaled as he greedily groped at my most private of places with a hand down my very tight pants.

It was a mistake, a mistake that I would continue to make as I fucked my way up the ranks until I was doing very well for myself, crawling through a gauntlet of huge, rough hands that beat me, pet me, cut me, and squeezed me, depending on whose hands they were. I would bring them to my place or go to theirs, in a car, in a tub, on the floor, in a shower, on a bed couch chair table counter wall... I'd seme or uke, condoms or none, lubed or dry. I'd do handcuffs or whips or dildos or cock rings or whatever the hell else they wanted; it didn't matter to me. Hands and knees, kneeling, back, stomach, side, sitting, standing- immaterial. I could suck a guy off in record time. I could make a girl scream just as quickly. I could give it easy or take it easy, give it hard or take it hard; I could go multiple times a day or multiple rounds a night. I could play the part of a blushing bishi virgin with my fingers curled by the side of my face and I could play the part of the whore that I was becoming. There was always blood in my toilet and often cum leaking out of my ass throughout the day. I often couldn't sit properly without tearing and bleeding. Luckily my leather, by then famous, didn't let blood stains show so easily.

The human constitution is incredibly adaptable. We are easy to break, and yet there are a great many things that we shouldn't be able to stand, but learn to stand. Whatever the pain- from torture to overly violent sex- if it goes on long enough, we can learn, not only to bear it, but to not feel a thing, to block out the sensation completely.

I know this better than anyone.

I've always been adaptable.

I finally, finally reached a point where my body would no longer be of everyday use as a promotion technique. It was finally time to use my mind. I had men under my command, none of whom I had to sleep with but some of whom I slept with anyway. It was just habit by then. That, and for some reason I was terrified of being alone. It didn't even matter who it was, if I liked them or if I hated them, if they were male or if they were female. Anyone, through the happy haze of cocaine, was a valid companion for the night.

Then I killed someone.

I shot him right between the eyes.

That's not something you forget. Ever. No matter how hard you try, you will never forget the face of the first person you kill.

The situation is irrelevant, but, for me, it was a choice.

"Mello," one of my minions, his name was Rustlen, said abruptly. I had fucked him the night before. Apparently he felt that that privileged him to call me so bluntly.

I gestured with my head that he was allowed to continue.

"Your plan's not going to work."

I turned my lifeless gaze on him, which I wore 24/7 at work. "Rather rudely stated, don't you think?" I said lightly, my face dead serious. He should have known at that moment to immediately apologize and to rephrase. The other men knew it. They were watching, eyes wide, fear evident in their expressions.

Rustlen, however, rolled his eyes.

So I shot him.

He was dead instantly, of course, because I blew his brains out the back of his skull. He crumpled into a little pile.

Adrenalin rushed me, flooding my brain better than any cocaine ever had, endorphins clogging up their receptors, and I could not help but laugh aloud until my abs forced me to bend over, shoulders shaking, my whole body jerking with the force of my mirth. The other men stayed right where they were, staring, trembling visibly. I ordered them, between gasps, to get back to work, and they did so immediately.

"It wasn't because he said my plan wasn't going to work," I informed them, wiping tears from my eyes and still chuckling a little.

They agreed. Right boss, whatever you say, boss.

"It was because he said it rudely," I explained, as if I were a perfectly reasonable person for shooting someone for being ill-mannered. "I even expressed to him my feeling that he was being impolite."

They agreed enthusiastically, and I sat back in my seat, smiling. "Someone clean him up, eventually. For now, keep working."

Objectively, it was amazing that I had managed to advance as far as I did without killing anyone. My body apparently made up for it- that, and I was unashamed to use it any way that benefited me. But the time came, and I held a gun, and I fired, and he died.

And I cried myself to sleep that night when my men left, alone and shaking violently, coming down from cocaine, his body removed but his blood still staining my floor.

That wasn't the last person I would end up killing. Of course, it was the last time I'd cry about it. Killing came with the territory, it was part of my job, and I got that rush every time I did it. I even came to enjoy it. I've lost count of how many people I've killed. No, that's a lie. I remember exactly how many. I can still see their faces, and I do whenever I close my eyes, even now. Even though I am, of course, 'redeemed.' They'll never forgive me, not the thugs or the innocents, and they will never let me sleep. I've haven't had a night without a nightmare since I killed Rustlen, and I never will.

I developed the sharpshooting skill. Let it suffice to say that, after a point, I never missed again.

I won't recount the whole story of the fire and of my scar. In short, I blew up the building (killing some more people), I survived somehow (to my dismay), and I crawled home (in agony).

I had no one. I was officially alone, and I couldn't cover it up anymore by an easy fuck with some minion. No, all my minions- everyone I knew- was dead, and I was completely alone, and my gently pussing and bleeding burns were sticking to my bed sheets as I lay naked, shivering in the darkness, as curled up as I could be. I didn't cry. The fire had burned away all my tears.

The night after that was the night it all changed. Moonlight streamed through the tiny window of my dilapidated apartment, caressing the skin of my arm and turning it a milky white. Made it look almost pure. In the moonlight, I couldn't see the track marks or the finger-shaped bruises or the scars or the cigarette burns. Where the moonlight touched me, my skin looked just like Matt's had, so, so long ago.

I rolled my head and looked at my clock. It was three in the morning. Well, 2:47, to be exact. Then I stared at the ceiling. I stared at that ceiling for a long time, tracing the cracks and the water spots with my eyes for the millionth time.

It was 3:03 now, and I couldn't deny what I knew I wanted.

I fumbled for my cell phone off the floor next to the bed, since I didn't have an end table. I had never programmed his number into it because I had always been afraid that someone would use it to track him, but my almost-perfect recall still served me.

I dialed it quickly, before I could talk myself out of it, and waited as it rang.

On the sixth ring, a sleepy voice appeared on the other end. "Hello?" it mumbled.

The voice still sounded like him. Still sounded exactly like him. Like... maybe he hadn't changed. Maybe he would still love me.

I almost laughed.

"Matt?" I said carefully.

"Yeah? Uh? Sorry, who's this? My phone's not recog-" a yawn "-nizing your number and-" another yawn "-yeah. Sorry."

"Matt, it's Mello," I all but whispered.

Suddenly he didn't sound so tired. "Mello?" he repeated, as if I was speaking a foreign language. A skill we both had, by the way.

"Yeah."

"Where are you?" he asked immediately.

I told him, shakily.

"I'll be there in three hours," he said simply, and then he hung up.

I stared at the phone in my hand. Matt was coming here. And in an impossibly short length of time, too. He'd have to, like, defy the laws of physics.

Wait! Matt was coming here?!? FUCK!

I dashed around my apartment at full speed, trying to hide the evidence of what I'd done to my life. I gathered up all the empty bottles and cans into a garbage bag and shoved it into the cabinet beneath the kitchen sink, the bottles clinking weakly in protest as I forced the door shut on them. I flushed my cocaine stash down the toilet before I realized I was doing it, and then spent a precious minute cussing about it when I finally made the connection. I shoved my clothes onto the floor of my closet to get it off the floor of the rest of my apartment. I changed my bed sheets and added the dirty ones to the increasingly useful closet, too. I threw a rug over the Rustlen blood-stain that had never really gone away.

Whipping around wildly, I saw that my apartment was still a wreck, but clean of any incriminating evidence.

Well, except for that gun that I didn't notice. I was so used to it being there that to me it wasn't even symbolic of my fucked-up life anymore. It probably would have been the first thing he'd have noticed. I hid it.

I looked around again, much more carefully. There was nothing else. I sighed in relief.

And then I noticed that the air smelled like alcohol and sex.

I flung open my tiny window, pretending that that was going to help, and dug around until I found some air freshener that the previous owner had left. I sprayed the place down. I probably overdid it, but I'd rather it smell like homicidal flowers are trying to smother you than like the cum-soaked whore-house that it was.

The only thing left to clean up was me.

I took a shower quickly. I dug in my closet for some clothes that were relatively clean.

And right then, I realized something very, very sad.

I didn't have anything, anything, that didn't make me look like a cheap hooker with a fetish for leather. Yes, they were my work clothes. Yes, I honestly had needed those clothes for the career path I had gone down. Yes, I looked very good in those clothes.

But those were not Matt-friendly clothes. They were not something his Mels would wear. I didn't even have any pajamas or T-shirts because I slept naked. If I didn't want to greet him in the nude after so long not seeing him, then I was going to have to wear my leather.

I looked hard for the least kinky outfit that I had.

It turned out to be the one I bought on that first day- the black leather midriff vest and the lace-up pants. I ran a brush through my hair and tried to remember how to make it curl in nicely like it used to. I managed, but it looked kind of stupid with the leather. I left off the black gloves, hoping that would help.

I ignored the disharmony and stared at myself in the tarnished mirror. I noticed I was talking to myself, but I didn't try to stop it. I was losing my mind anyway, did it really matter anymore?

"Mello," I said, testing out the sound of it.

My reflection didn't reply, although its lips followed mine as I spoke.

"Mels," I said slowly with a long, deep breath. "What have you done to yourself?"

Still the blond boy in the mirror said nothing, only staring back at me, his eyes frightening, cold, and flat. I put my hands on the counter around the sink and leaned forward, and my image followed me, getting bigger when I got closer to the mirror, all the little blemishes on my skin coming into view.

"How did you ever get this far?"

Sickly thin, pale, and unnaturally still, he could have been a corpse. He was silent, his lips moving but no sound coming out.

I opened my mouth to say something more, but now, like my reflection, I had no words.

The boy in the mirror stared right back at me, his lips parted in a silent scream, and he looked like he was breaking. He was hard to read, but I knew him, and I could see that he was pleading with me, begging me to save him. I put my hand out to touch his face and he raised his hand to meet mine, and for the briefest moment, a connection was almost made.

But when we touched, my fingers only met a mirror.

The doorbell rang.

The mirror instantly forgotten, I ran to the door and collided with it in my enthusiasm, wrenching it open and coming face to face with Matt.

I can honestly say that I don't think he noticed my outfit. He looked me straight in the eye as I stood there in my doorway, my hand still on the doorknob. He never looked away.

He hadn't changed. I was right. He was exactly the same as I remembered him. He even still wore stripes. He still had those goggles. He was still achingly, desperately beautiful.

And, without looking at my clothes, without looking past me into my apartment, without me saying a single word, he smiled and said, quietly, "You've changed, Mels."

I ran forward into him and wrapped my arms around him like a child, and I burst into tears. His arms came around me immediately and held me tightly to him. I knew he wouldn't let go until I did, but I wasn't planning to let him go. So I sat down, pulling him after me into the room, and he closed the door with one hand and sat with me. I was still clinging to him, sobbing onto him, and he stroked my hair without a word. I thought my body was going to break, but Matt still held on so I knew it wouldn't.

"I love you, Mello," he said quietly into my hair. "I... I never stopped, actually."

This only made another sob wrack my emaciated frame. "I'm different, Matt," I choked out. "You have no idea h-how different."

"Then tell me," he whispered.

So I told him. I told him about not eating, not sleeping. I told him about the drugs and the drinking. I told him about what I had been doing for a living, and I told him how I had gotten the job to begin with. I told him about everyone I had ever slept with, or at least all the ones I remembered, and told him that there were quite a few I had no memory of. I told him how many people I had killed, and what it was like to watch the life go out of someone's eyes because you killed them. I told him about my nightmares, describing in detail the faces of the people I had killed, how I remembered all their names, all their faces, all their voices.

I told him everything.

He didn't move to push me away. He didn't even say anything when I concluded my monologue with "and that's my story." Worried, I twisted around to look at him.

He looked at me for a long moment. "Can I kiss you?"

No one had asked my permission in a very, very long time.

I nodded, and my whole system went automatically into kiss mode. I straddled him on my knees without thinking and knelt above him, pressing as much of my body against him as possible. A sexy, seductive smile came unbidden to my lips, a hand moving to his face to hold him; the other going to his hair, fisting it, pulling him into me, my eyes open, my lips already parting...

He smiled at me with his big, familiar green eyes before closing them, his goggles loose around his neck, and put his hands automatically on my waist, somehow finding them easily, even after all this time.

I realized what I was doing and pulled back with a jerk that almost toppled me. His eyes shot open and he caught me before I fell. His face was a picture of alarm. "Mello, what happened? Are you okay?"

I got off his crotch and resumed my previous position, curled up in his arms. "Yeah," I answered. "I just... started doing stuff automatically," I mumbled. "I'm sorry."

"You never have to be sorry to me," he whispered. I remembered that. But really, not having to be sorry? What a bizarre concept. There was a time when that was true, wasn't there.

"I'm still sorry."

He just smiled at me. There was love radiating from that smile.

"Matt, if you want to-"

He brushed my hair from my eyes, not appearing to even notice the hacked-off parts that added to the Walking Dead look I had worked so hard for. "You don't want to do that," he reminded me gently.

Well, it was true. Have sex with him on the floor, right here, where a dozen other guys and a few girls had come before him? Did I really want to make him part of that side of me?

"Okay," I whispered.

He held me even closer. I hadn't known that was even possible.

I kind of... I really... I wish it had been him. Maybe if it had, I wouldn't have had to hit rock bottom to get where I am now. Maybe I could have had this all along. Maybe things would have been different if I had just let it happen that night at Wammy's, when our young bodies cried out for each other.

"Would you please try kissing me again?" I pleaded.

He touched me so gently, then, as if I was something precious, some fragile beauty, reverently, his fingers barely making contact with my skin when he touched my lips, as he slid his typist fingers down my jaw line, to my cheek, to my nose. He kissed me softly, slowly, on the lips. It wasn't demanding, it wasn't complicated, it wasn't wild. It wasn't sex, or drugs, or booze, or blood.

It was love.