"Shit!" Matt kicked the door in frustration as his key failed to go into the keyhole for the third time. He was already shaking with the effort of supporting Mello's weight, and on top of that his keys had somehow ended up in his left hand.

On the fourth try, he finally managed to get his door open. He dragged Mello's dead weight through it with him and awkwardly kicked it shut again.

The stairs were the next challenge. Matt groaned. He doubted that he outweighed Mello by more than a few pounds these days. He slipped Mello's body behind him and hauled both of his arms over his shoulders. Then he leaned forward and hoisted Mello's bulk off the ground. "Pick me up, Matty," he said in shrill imitation of Mello's voice as he mounted the stairs. "I blew myself up! You've got nothing better to do than clean up my mess, right?" He gave a caricature of Mello's manic laughter before lapsing back into gloomy silence. Mello had actually been lucky in his timing. Three weeks ago, Matt wouldn't have been capable of waking up to take his call.

At the top of the stairs, he kicked the door to the bathroom open and dragged his limp burden inside. He maneuvered Mello's form into the bathtub as carefully as he could, and was at least able to avoid banging his once-friend's head into the porcelain. "This should be fun, huh Mel? What a great way to catch up on old times!" He began unzipping what remained of Mello's shirt. When he tried to remove the garment entirely, it resisted. Matt jerked on it roughly before he realized that what it was stuck to was actually Mello's skin. He winced as the fabric tore free and fresh blood began to flow.

From that point on, he was more careful in stripping the other man. His pants were also melted to his skin in certain areas, and Matt ended up using his pocket knife to cut those strips of fabric free. Finally Mello was naked save for the few resistant patches of leather, and Matt straightened up to assess his condition. His left side was charred and blackened, except for the patches where Matt had inadvertently torn away fabric that had melted to him. Those areas were bloody and raw, like hamburger. His skin seemed to…ooze. The hair on the left half of his head had been singed to the roots, and most of his face was covered in grime and charcoal. Matt's lips twisted downwards at the unpleasant sight. "Who knew you could ever look so bad?" he murmured, his gut churning slightly with anxiety.

He turned on the tap and shed his elbow-length gloves on top of the pile of Mello's discarded clothes. He stuck his fingers under the running water and made sure the temperature was mild enough that it shouldn't be hard on Mello's skin, then turned the shower on. As soon as the water fell on Mello, rivulets of ash and blood began flowing away from him.

Matt turned away. He wasn't worried on the behalf of a person he hadn't even heard from in a year and a half; it just wasn't a very pleasant thing to look at.

While the prone form in the shower was being washed clean, Matt returned to his car for the haphazard collection of medical supplies he had bought earlier. He swore when he caught sight of the bloody, ashen mess that his passenger seat had become. "Fuck you, Mello," he hissed quietly. "This is my most prized possession!" He slammed the door shut with far more force than was necessary and stalked back towards the front door. He got halfway there before he noticed the trail of blood spatter and singed black fur that led from his car to his front door.

Matt groaned. He knelt briefly to pick up a recognizable strip of what had been Mello's ridiculous feather collar. "Really fuck you, Mello." He would have to clean this up before any of his neighbors awoke, or else risk his front lawn being taken as the scene of a violent rape. Fur and feathers would certainly be taken as a sign of a woman's presence by anyone who didn't know Mello personally.

Matt didn't even allow himself to look at the mess that had become of his apartment as he passed through it. He tossed the medical items carelessly into his bedroom and returned to the bathroom, where he found Mello much cleaner than he had been before the impromptu shower. Matt smacked the water off and knelt to lift the injured man.

It proved much more difficult than he had anticipated. Mello's prone form was dripping wet and was difficult to grip firmly. When Matt tried to dry him off, he found that pieces of fuzz from the towel kept clinging to his burnt skin. Eventually he was forced to ignore Mello's injuries and grasp his arms firmly in order to lift him up, even though it made his nails dig deeply into raw flesh. He staggered to the bedroom and dropped Mello awkwardly onto the bed.

Matt took a deep breath, then expelled it through his teeth. He wanted a smoke, but he knew he needed to stay as sanitary as possible. He heaved a sigh, then plunged himself into the task at hand. He started by cleaning every raw area he could find with rubbing alcohol. Then he came to the patches of skin that had melted to leather, and rapidly realized that he didn't actually have any idea what he was doing. He shook his head. "You need a hospital, not me." But of course a hospital was out of the question for a man who had just blown up a building and a bunch of gangsters and done who knew what other activities that would pique the interest of the cops. "Dumbass." Matt flipped open his lighter and held his pocketknife in the flame for a solid minute. Then he dipped the blade in the rubbing alcohol for good measure. Finally he sliced the pieces of fabric free, trying his best to minimize the amount of skin he took with them.

Mello was a mess. He was bleeding from the edge of the massive burn that extended from his face down to his left hip, and he was now bleeding in several new places that Matt had created. At the center of the burns there was no blood, just reddened, mottled skin. Matt winced. It looked like those areas had been cauterized instantly.

Matt turned his attention to dressing the wounds. He had bought several bottles of disinfectant, but they were gone before he had covered even half of the affected area. Then he opened up several packages of gauze and began awkwardly placing it over Mello's injuries. It was hard to get it to stick in many of the places that had been burnt, and he wondered how real doctors went about this type of thing.

But there was no more time to spend dealing with Mello. The clock had caught his eye at 5:18 am. Matt released a string of profanity. At this time of year, it would start getting light around six o'clock—and, more importantly, one of his neighbors retrieved her newspapers at promptly 6:15 am, like clockwork. He leapt to his feet and combed the apartment for any cleaning supplies that might get the job done.

Matt was able to scour the front walk and begin the job of cleaning his car by 6:10. His next door neighbor walked outside just as he finished draping a towel over the passenger seat.

"Oh, Matt!" she exclaimed, leaning on her cane as she raised her other hand unsteadily to wave. She peered at him with intent curiosity. "What a surprise, seeing you out and about at this hour!"

"I pulled an all-nighter at work," he replied curtly. "I gotta crash." He hurried through the front door before she could ask any more well-intentioned but dangerous questions.

Inside of his apartment, he sighed deeply as he took in the massive mess that still remained. Blood, ash, discarded clothing—it would be another big job to clean up here. He strode tiredly to his bedroom where Mello was still unconscious and unmoving, and slumped against the side of the bed. He lit a cigarette and took a long drag, then blew the smoke out slowly.

"Now we can't even stay here," he complained resentfully in a quiet voice. "The cops will be around. I don't know what sort of shit you were into, but I know it wasn't legal…and some of your, ha, "associates" know where I live. They could tell the police where to find us in an instant." He heaved a sigh. "We have to go somewhere else."

Despite that assessment, Matt found his ability to care waning rapidly as exhaustion set in. "Tomorrow," he mumbled, lying down on the floor. He stubbed out the cigarette butt against his night stand and was asleep in seconds.