Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note or Will and Grace.
A/N: HI! :D No lemon in this one! Which is good, because there's still no Matt. XD I promise he'll eventually show up. This IS under romance.
Home sweet hellhole. I kicked off my leather boots and tossed my vest over the back of my single kitchen chair, dragging my aching, bare (I owned no socks) feet over the suspiciously-stained rag that passed as a carpet only if you were drunk off your ass and had never seen a proper carpet before.
Exhausted, I plopped down on the couch that was in an even worse state, flinching and biting my lip when pain shot through my torn-up asshole. Poor, abused asshole. Well, it was entirely my fault. Me and my damn obsession with doing whatever it took to get Rod Ross's position.
Absently, I flipped on my tiny television, limping through the channels until I found something tolerable- some mindless sitcom about a gay guy who lived with an obnoxious redheaded straight chick with an ironic name. I watched it for a minute, but nothing was registering so I wandered to the kitchen and poured myself a drink. I drained it, poured another, put the bottle back, then thought better of putting the bottle back and brought it with me.
I returned to the TV and tried to lose myself in the meaningless drivel, but I knew it was the alcohol that I was succeeding in losing myself in.
Sometimes I really hated myself. Sometimes I was fine with myself too, of course. Sometimes I thought I was pretty fucking awesome. But those other times, the times like these?
Times like these, I wondered what I had done with my life. When there was no one around me, I didn't have to play it cool (play it cold) and I could actually stop and think about what I had just done. I had just murdered a guy. An unarmed guy guarded by oblivious actors. I had murdered many guys, many of them also unarmed. What would God have to say about that? If I died right now and I stood in front of the Pearly Gates and Saint Peter asked me why I thought I deserved to walk on in, I wouldn't have a single thing to say. The only good thing I'd ever done in my life- love Matt, protect Matt- I had thrown out the window. And even then, if the Old Testament were to be believed, it was a sinful love anyway. It wouldn't be the thing to advertise.
And yet, for some reason I was still allowed to exist on this Earth, when I sincerely didn't deserve it and didn't really even want to, anymore. I hadn't wanted to be alive since I left behind the only thing I had to live for.
I took out my gun, removing the safety and placing it on my lap. Was it bad that I wanted to pick it up and end it, or was that to be expected from someone like me- someone who had done the things that I had done and would be doing more of them in the future? If you knew you had a one way ticked to Hell, would you try to live as long as possible to avoid it, or would you just get it over with? What difference would thirty or forty or sixty or eighty more years make, when all that waited for you was an eternity of fire?
Not that this life was anything to scream about. Not in a positive way, anyway.
I picked up the gun, examining the barrel. There was something about guns that was just beautiful, in a fucked-up way. They were so shiny and black. So little, but they could do so much damage with such a little amount of effort exerted on the part of the person holding them. They could destroy things. They could kill people. They could even kill the person holding the gun.
I put it to my temple, the cold steel biting into my skin as a preview of what the bullet would do if I gave it a chance. I pressed it in, making the area ache. It would be so easy.
Easy, clean, quick.
I cocked it, removed it from myself, aimed it at my television, and fired.
The TV exploded in a brilliant crash of glass and sparks and wire and plastic and metal. I watched in fascination as it burst into flame, making no move to stop it as my carpet caught.
Unfortunately, one of the few things that didwork in this hovel was the fire alarm (the landlord didn't want all the drug addicts in this place making meth and accidentally burning the place down when, as they were prone to, their chemicals spontaneously combusted), which I discovered because it decided to start screaming at full volume. I let the shriek continue while I sat on my couch, sipping from my re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-refilled glass and hoping that it would burn everyone living here to a crisp, myself first and foremost.
My neighbors must have assumed that there was no one home, however, because suddenly two people were bashing into my apartment (the locks sucked), breaking down my door and running in with fire extinguishers.
When they saw me sitting there, calmly watching the fire, they stopped for a moment and stared. Then one of them noticed the alcohol. Not knowing that the alcohol had nothing to do with it (I wasn't drunk enough yet for my decisions to be that seriously inhibited, although I was on my way), one of the men shouted over his shoulder, "He's okay. He's drunk; someone get him out of here!"
Two more people rushed in (why the cavalry to save a place like this?) and grabbed me under my arms. I decided to just go with it instead of shooting them. One of them said, "Hey, he's... got a gun, guys..."
"Take it away from him," the first guy with the fire extinguisher said. "He's drunk."
The two people who were lifting me nodded and one of them, the one who hadn't yet spoken, disarmed me, flicking the safety back on and stuffing it down the back of his pants (gotta love having neighbors who know how to handle a gun). I didn't know why, but I let him. Maybe I was drunk.
"It's okay, man, we got you," the guy on my right said kindly as they carried/dragged me out of the room. The two guys with the fire extinguishers were going to town with the white foam. It was amazing how quickly the fire had moved on to my carpet and my walls.
"You're gonna be fine," the guy on my left said.
Did they really think it was an accident? That I was some innocent victim of a freak exploding-TV accident? Well, if they did, I sure as hell wasn't going to correct them. More importantly, did all four of these men- people who didn't know me from Adam- really rush down here to save me? Did they think that, because it was two in the morning, I might be trapped in my bedroom, burning to death? How bad was it that that didn't sound too unpleasant?
I laughed a bit. "Should have let me burn."
But they didn't hear me. They just continued dragging me until we were out of the building.
Outside, residents were huddled around, almost everyone in their pajamas.
A woman was walking around with a clipboard. I had never seen her before.
"Is everyone accounted for?" she was asking in a loud voice. "101?"
"All here," a man's voice called out in response.
She scribbled something on her clipboard. "102?"
"They're out of town," someone from way in the back shouted.
"103's empty. 104?"
As they brought me out to join the rest of the crowd, the woman turned to look at me. "Apartment number?"
One of the men answered for me. "407." Then, nudging me, he asked, "Hey, does anyone live with you?"
I shook my head, and the woman nodded, making a mark. Then she focused on the men holding me up. "Have Jerry and Mike figured out where the fire is?"
I noticed her teeth for the first time. Meth addict, probably a dealer but definitely not a manufacturer. She must live here, too. And she was taking attendance? How did she even have this list? She wasn't the landlord. The apartment wasn't that big, just four floors with about ten rooms on each floor, but still. A list?
I stopped paying attention as the guys on my right and left (heretofore to be referred to as Right and Left) explained that the fire had started in my room, and that these 'Jerry' and 'Mike' people had it under control.
All I could think was, they came after me?
I could absolutely not figure out why.
I interrupted Meth Addict, Left, and Right to say, "Why?"
Okay, so I was drunker than I thought.
They all looked at me. "Why what?"
"Why are you doing this? Normal people would just evacuate and wait for the fire department."
She grimaced. "Yes, but they're not exactly coming for us, are they?" It was true. The streets were silent. No one was even stopping to gawk.
"So why are you out here with your clipboard?" I slurred. Yeah, definitely drunk. "Making sure everyone gets out. Figuring out if there's anyone stuck inside. Who cares?"
She shrugged. "I do, I guess."
The two guys from earlier- Jerry and Mike- came out of the building. They looked relieved.
"It's out," they sighed.
And for some reason I couldn't fathom, everyone cheered. A few people even kissed like it was fucking New Year's or something. Wait, was it? ...No, it wasn't.
Everyone started to file back into the building and I found myself being passed off to someone I recognized as being the person who lived in 408, my hooker next-door neighbor, and she led me to my apartment on the way to hers. I expected her to drop me off, but the room was charred to a crisp. She took one look at it (through the bashed-in door) and kept walking, taking me to her apartment.
"Get some sleep, 407," she told me, indicating her bed. Her bed? "I have to work tonight," she added quietly.
I nodded blearily and she gently sat me down and pushed on my shoulder until I was on my back. I didn't want to, but, without my consent, my body obeyed.
A/N: Don't worry, I'm not gonna make the hooker a main character, nor is Mello going to have an affair with her.
