"Trivial Magnificence"
by Acey
Author's Note: Chapter 99 spoilers, some Mello/Matt.
"… he was trivial. He was magnificent, too, but those terms aren't mutually exclusive. Magnificent and trivial. Either way, or both, he died like a bug under a microscope."
—The Long Walk, Stephen King
It shouldn't be hot.
It really shouldn't. It's January—it's late January—but it is very, very hot; it's blistering, it really is. Burning, and the cigarette in his mouth only fuels the heat, makes it worse, so much worse.
He wants to believe this isn't real. This is a video game blown to epic proportions, and he can press the pause button just long enough to take off his sweat-soaked vest. He can press "save" whenever he wants, hit "yes" when asked to overwrite—continue the race later, later—
When he felt like being chased by a hundred insane bodyguards in their classy black hearses, hungry to avenge the capture of their goddess. Sure. The very next time he ever felt like being hunted down like some kind of animal—he could turn the game back on and play the terrorist.
(and if I died I could just go back to that save point)
Matt swallows and wishes he could make it so.
(God why am I doing this)
He doesn't know.
Half an hour ago he could have spouted some crap about loyalties and honor and what you were supposed to do when the world turned to pot. Like one of those '40's propaganda movies (why we fight? we fight 'cause the other side's wrong, that's why we fight, that's why—), where the heroes won, clutched the bloodstained flags in their hands and died in their lovers' arms. It was all very poetic in the movies—even in his video games the killings were glorious.
Five minutes ago he could have admitted to the car's heater and the gun heavy in his hands that he was doing it for Mello. But Mello's a damn sorry reason; Mello's a lust object, a cracked, dusty idol resurrected from his past. Mello, who knows far too well exactly what he is to everyone—Kira's nuisance, Near's tool—and despises himself for all of it.
Mello, who knows what he is to Matt, plays it for all it's ever worth (kissed him before he left, yeah, tongue darting around—be careful, he said, that was all). Oh, Mello's played him, all right, gotten him just right where he wanted him. Right where he is. Another sacrificial lamb to the slaughter, another lesson to those that believe in anyone but Kira.
The cigarette slips nearly out of his mouth at the thought that Mello's played him, and he forces it back, because even now he can't quite believe that was all it was.
Two minutes ago he was lighting that cigarette, putting it to his mouth just before he fired the smokescreen, and it was only right then that it began to get so very hot.
(hot as hell)
Mello knows all about hellfire, too, Matt quickly supposes as he presses the accelerator in desperation. Mello mumbles pieces of barely coherent prayers on the rosary in his sleep and denies them all the next morning. Mello's as damned as Cain and he only makes it worse by refusing to embrace it.
(maybe if you'd refused Mel—)
(you wouldn't be here getting yourself killed for someone else's cause)
He realizes it now. His brain comes up with all the figures on automatic, just as he glances at the car's thermostat and knows
(it's really not that hot, not at all)
that the temperature is set quite pleasantly indeed and there's no point in running anymore.
The bodyguards have him surrounded. He watches some of them stop straight ahead of him, sees the rest behind him in sickly orange shades, like an acid trip gone wrong.
(but Japan—hell, Japan, you can't even own a handgun here—you learned that in geography back when you were ten, remember?)
Last hope, and Matt clutches it, even though his brain is aware that back when he was ten, Kira was three years from being born, three years from shattering all Matt ever knew about geography or heroes or anything more real than a video game screen.
(Jesus Christ, Mello, you'd better win this)
But his heart isn't aware and the smile's plastered on his face, and maybe it's Mello that makes him grin like this, and maybe it's L—hell, maybe it's Misa Amane he's thinking of, smirking at the paparazzi in sluttish stilettos.
(gonna take my picture? gonna ask for an autograph?)
The bodyguards are getting out, armed to the hilt.
(gonna want an interview? well, be quick, be quick, my Japanese is childish at best and I don't have the time for a sit-down chat—got to be at a church in Nagano in another hour or so—do they all say that? but I mean it)
He opens the door to step out of the car.
(now damn it let me fire one more smokescreen)
His mouth opens. He barely knows what he's saying, but it sounds convincing, cocky. His gloved hand slips as he reaches for the trigger—
They shoot him down like a dog, and he's dead before he hits the concrete.
finis