Author's Note - For some reason I feel as if Mello would be a big poetry fan.
Drabble-ish.
The verbs and tenses here are kind of mixed up, and things are disjointed, but its sort of an experiment on my part.
It is a bitterly cold December afternoon when Matt loses it and takes his anger out on the many poetry books that Mello leaves lying around all over the apartment.
He grabs the Whitman, the Frost, the Eliot, the Tennyson, the Keats, and tears at them, separating covers from pages, tearing words apart, balling up the paper and throwing it to the ground. He wishes paper were made of a stronger material so it would make a more satisfying sound as it hit the floor. Instead the squashed paper only lets out a sad thwump as it falls to the floor.
He stops himself just in time before he tears up the Owen. Owen he can deal with. Owen he can like, talking about death like the terrifying horror that it is.
Back at Wammy House, back when English poetry class was something he could still worry about, he had looked up Owen and had learnt that he had died only a week or so before the Armistice when he was only twenty-five. He had told Mello about this but Mello had shrugged his shoulders.
"He died a hero," he had said.
That was Mello. That is Mello. Mello doesn't see the reality that is death. Mello doesn't care when he dies, as long as he dies with a bang. Matt, on the other hand, is not convinced. Death is death is death, and these stupid poets with their words and rhymes cannot do anything to stop Matt from fearing death. They have, however, convinced Mello, the boy (man? Matt snorts) with fire in his eyes, and in his mouth, and in his heart, and in his mind.
"But he died, Mello. Don't you get it? He's dead. Gone. How is that successful? At least Marius stayed alive."
Matt had asked this of Mello after the blonde had received full marks for their 'Discuss the character you think is most successful in Les Miserables', and had been made to read it out in front of the entire class.
Mello had scoffed.
"So what? Can you imagine remaining alive because you were saved by a man dragging you through the sewers? At least Enjolras died standing for the cause he had lived his life for."
Matt had changed the subject, not wanting to argue any further. Matt had written his essay about Grantaire, but he hadn't told Mello.
It is a feeling that he cannot shrug off and cannot explain. It is the feeling that he is nineteen and old. His joints hurt far too much from nights spent crouched over laptops. The bags under his eyes keep getting darker. His mind cannot stop whirring, keeping him up at night, and there is a heaviness on his chest that he cannot remove. This is the endgame, this is it. Matt can feel the days slipping away from him and he wants to scream at them to come back, wants the clock to stop ticking.
He is nineteen and he is dying and this is never what he wanted to do, this is Mello's wish, this is what Mello wants.
He's never wanted this.
"So leave," says Mello, a few hours later, after he comes back to find pages scattered all over the floor. Matt expects him to shoot him or at least threaten to. however, lately, Mello's been much calmer, almost living up to his name.
(Matt has a sudden thought of Mello being called marshmellow).
So the blonde just steps over the papers and asks Matt why he decided to abuse his books. Matt doesn't have words. Actually, he has words, he has plenty of words, but he can't seem to string them together into coherent sentences. So instead he says the first thing that comes to his mind.
"I don't want to die."
"So leave," says Mello, grabbing a chocolate bar from the coffee table, and going into the kitchen.
Matt knows that Mello doesn't mean this. Mello had spent most of the first weeks trying to convince Matt to leave him and go back to England.
But there is a problem. There has always been a problem.
"I don't want you to die," says Matt.
"Sorry, I can't do anything about that now that Yagami's got my name."
Mello comes back from the kitchen holding a glass of water, and he sprawls out on the chair opposite Matt. They sit in silence for a few seconds.
"What's wrong?" says Mello, finally. "You've been really tense these past few days."
"Eliot," says Matt, lighting a cigarette. Mello throws back his head and laughs, and Matt has been around Mello long enough to know that this is a genuine laugh.
"God Matt, if that's what you're worried about, I promise you I won't whimper."
This is what Matt thought about as he lay there, dying.
The last thing he heard before he went down were the bangs from the guns as they shot speeding bullets at him.
Matt couldn't speak.
Partly because falling backwards onto his back had knocked the wind out of him, partly because there were approximately eight bullets lodged somewhere in his left lung and he couldn't really find the breath to push through his mouth.
So instead he thought.
"Fuck you, Eliot."
Without another sound, the cigarette fell and went out.