Matt rolled over, the cheap cotton sheets twisting around his bare waist as he turned. He could hear Mello snoring lightly next to him, the noise barely audible next to the loud rumbling of the crappy little heater in their cramped apartment. He exhaled loudly, and then grabbed his pair of jeans from the floor, where they had been discarded in his previously hurried movements, when he had been trying to rid both himself and Mello of any article of clothing would block their bare bodies from each other.
Matt pulled his pants on, foregoing any underwear; he wasn't going to need it. Mello had bitched at him enough for smoking inside, and Matt didn't want to fight, not when he had so little time left with him. They both knew it was the end for Mello, no matter what happened to Matt.
Truthfully, Matt knew he'd probably rot away in prison, playing bitch to some creep behind bars. If he were honest to himself though; he didn't want to live without Mello. There wasn't a second of his life Matt could look back on when he and Mello were together where he did something he regretted, where he'd made a decision he wished with all of his might he could change. With Mello, Matt's entire life was an impulse, a sheer throwing out of everything he had inside him and just living.
Even though they couldn't live in a mansion, and the only thing kept them from starving to death was the bargain grocery store down the street, Matt didn't want it to change.
They didn't keep any security because the fear of Kira had dramatically decreased the amount of crime, even in this area of the city. Matt could have transferred stolen money from some fat pig of a CEO from a major company, but neither he nor Mello really gave a shit about the luxuries most people considered necessities. Not any of those things would ever reach more than a miniscule amount of usage had Matt decided to get them at moment. Everything, the only thing, he cared about was going to be gone by this time tomorrow, and it didn't make a single difference to his mood when he tried to convince himself, even if for only a few moments Mello wasn't waiting on death row.
Matt yanked a shirt over his head and grabbed Mello's over-sized coat from the back of the couch. Someone had left it out on the curb in front of their building and Mello and Matt had dragged it inside and promptly screwed around with it until they discovered it had a pull-out bed, devoid of a mattress, hidden underneath. They'd done a number on couch in the six months it had resided in their possession, fucking and fighting and drinking and loading up and, finally, earlier night, it had been the only source of comfort Matt could find when he'd discovered Mello's plan, the only place where, he knew, if he just curled up on it, he would remember everything else had happened on the tiny, plaid sofa and, eventually, the memories overwhelmed his senses, drowning out the piercing pain in his mind.
Matt shook himself back to the present, he'd always had a bad habit of getting wrapped up in what he'd seen, in where he'd been.
He stepped over to the fire escape window, making sure not to make any noises that could disturb Mello's sleep. Opening it as quickly as possible to prevent the creaking of its rusty hinges from lasting, he slipped through the small opening and grabbed the pack of smokes sitting on the outer ledge. The metal rungs were cold beneath his feet, and they dug into his feet in slender rows of wintered iron.
Matt crouched down as he brought a match up to the cigarette he had balanced between his thin lips, the flame lighting up his face and illuminating the shaggy red hair fell in his eyes. The flickering warmth of the match touched Matt's cheeks for a second, and then faded away as he shook the life of the flame away off to the side. He inhaled, allowing the smoke to fill his lungs and calm his nicotine-starved brain, releasing a plethora of stored dopamine, and relieving him of a minimum layer of stress. The wind blew around him, whipping the smoke from his cigarette around his face and sending ash into his eyes, but the ashes weren't the cause of the hot tear he felt slipping down the side of his face, scalding his skin as it flowed down and left a molten trail of his dreams behind it.
Noises from the city blared in his ears. Sirens from ambulances and firetrucks, impatient late night drivers blowing their horns at pedestrians who were out looking for a good time.
A pair of warm arms wrapped themselves around Matt's waist, and he felt warm breath on the back of his uncovered neck.
"You stupid prick, you stole my coat. I'm freezing, it's like 5 fucking degrees out here. You could've at least gotten your own jacket or something."
Matt turned around to see the cerulean eyes boring into him, searching, as if they could see his soul and every secret he had ever kept from his best friend, from his lover.
"Hmm, I suppose I could have crawled across the bed, over top of you, to where you threw it in a hurry to get yourself off? No way, Mels, you would have ripped my throat out," Matt replied, trying to hide the puffed redness around his eyes. It wasn't the time for mourning, not yet, at least.
"Yeah, as though pissing me off by making me freeze my ass off because you can't wait until morning to get your fix makes me a lot more ecstatic. Your logic, however, is flawed, I'm every bit as ticked off because I woke up from being fucking , and you weren't there for me to cuddle up to in order to get warm."
Mello, stood up and sat down next to Matt, grabbing his coat, pulled it off of Matt's right arm, and wrapped it around himself as he slid in even closer next to the man he loved.
"At least your body heat can keep the cold out," Mello whispered, as he inhaled the sharp January air, "even if you smell bad."
"At least I don't smell like a little kid's wet dream," Matt quipped in a reference to Mello's chocolate fix, smirking as he exhaled another stream of smoke. He grounded the last bit of what was left of the stubby cigarette against the railing, and watched it plummet as he let go of it, watched the last ember from its tip as it disappeared into the darkness.
"C'mon, stupid. Let's go inside, before the both of us freeze our to fucking death." Mello got up, pulling Matt's unsheathed arm with him.
Matt reclined lazily on the couch, listening to Mello bustling around in the kitchen, probably trying to dig out where Matt had hid his stash of chocolate, in a futile attempt to put off destiny.
"Whatcha' doin' Melly?" he called in a slightly innocent voice.
"You miserable little prick. Where the fuck did you put my Godivas?"
"Shit, Mels, calm down. I'll come and get them for you."
Matt got up from the couch, swinging his legs up across the armrest before sliding off, and he proceed to make his way to the cramped countered off section of the apartment. Mello was searching through the cabinets almost frantically. Matt simply crouched down, bouncing on the balls of his feet, and he reached through Mello's legs into the lower cabinet where they usually kept their pots and pans. Smirking as he pulled himself upright again, he handed the chocolate to a furious and seething Mello.
"Why the fuck do you this to me?"
"I dunno, feel like it, I s'pose." Matt shrugged the question off, but he and Mello both knew the answer was eating away at his insides. Morning wasn't getting any farther away, and with each and every pitiful flutter Matt's heart made, he knew it was one less than Mello's would continue to.
"What the fuck am I going to do without you?" Matt's voice cracked.
"Ma-"
"Don't fucking tell me you really expect me to just go along with your fucking plan, simply so you can be some kind of hero or something. You aren't proving shit to anyone is going to care, Mels. No one is going to care. They won't remember you, your name, or what you did. Are you still trying to impress L? L is dead anyways. He isn't going to pat you on the back and tell you you did a good fucking job. You're going to leave me alone, again, and you're going to fucking kill yourself for nothing but the wisp of a dream."
Mello whipped around, corn silk hair flying around his face, and he grabbed Matt by his jaw, pulling him in closer until their bodies touched. Matt shuddered against him, trying to keep in the sobs were beginning to ravage his entire body.
"You're stronger than I ever was, Matty, and I love you for every minute you helped me, for every second you broke yourself down trying to put up a facade for me. Don't forget that. Don't forget I would give anything to keep us together after I finish my job. I have to do this one thing though, just this one little thing."
Matt pressed his mouth against Mello's, tear running in miniature river down his face. Their tongues danced with each other as Mello pushed his jacket off of the remaining shoulder it had been so desperately clinging to. Matt slowly began moving backwards, Mello moved with him, slipping his hand into the waistband of Matt's jeans as they ran into stubborn fucking couch where they'd fooled around so many times before.
Matt pushed Mello down onto the couch, straddling the blonde's thighs as he slipped off the grey lounging pants Mello slept in when they were fighting. In a matter of minutes, any scrap of clothing either of the two men had been wearing was scattered on the floor. They started moving together, moving to the rhythm every lover knows, breathing getting heavier with every stroke, with every motion.
Matt slowed his pace, realizing it was going to be the last time they ever made love, the last time they ever allowed their bodies to reach the point of no return, before tumbling over the seemingly endless chasm of release.
"What are you doing? Matt, please, I need you."
"You have me, I'm yours," Matt stuttered out, the words feeling strange in his mouth. He never wanted this to end, because if it ended, everything else was going to end soon after.
Time stopped.
One after the other, the two writhing figures experienced a clear brilliance and they knew the meaning of the world before it flitted away like a lithe fairy in a green forest.
Matt rolled over onto his side, pulling Mello in closer to him, and he yanked the blanket over their trembling bodies. He nuzzled the sweet blonde hair, savoring every second he had left, a quick glance at the clock showed him a red 4:54 glaring back at him, leaving an imprint on his vision.
They stayed like for the rest of the night, one or the other breaking down and sobbing, the other trying to keep themselves together as he made a desolate attempt at piecing the other man's psyche back together. The chocolate bar which had caused so much drama lay unwrapped on the coffee table next to them, signaling a red flag in Matt's mind, but it was an alert flag that had been there since Matt had fished out the truth of their impending demise from his lover. When the alarm clock sounded, neither of them wanted to move a muscle. Inevitably, though, Mello was the first to make his way into the cluttered bathroom, and Matt lay on the couch, listening to the shower running, imagining it running in rivulets down Mello's body before disappearing down the drain into the city's sewer system.
Mello came out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel and he looked up and smiled wistfully at Matt, "Your turn, love." He was gone before Matt got out of the shower.
Everything went exactly as Mello had planned, but Matt didn't want Mello's plan to work. He wasn't going to live without the blonde who had made his life something to be proud of, something was worth living. So when Matt took a stab at the police, he expected it was going to piss them off, he expected they weren't going to arrest him and take him to the station for questioning.
And when the first bullet pierced his skin, Matt remembered what Mello had told him when they were still just boys, petrified of being caught together. Mello had told him they would be endless, just the two of them, immortalized with each other, never fading to black.