Ponytail Parades (accoustic) - Emery

Notes: The random button forced me to think of this one in terms of this pairing, which I hadn't done; I was used to thinking of it in terms of another fandom. And I have to stop doing phone-call fics. I guess the thing about MxM is that it kind of lends itself to it, since canonically, their interactions are mostly over the phone.

-

He'd been proud, once, of the fact that with thousands of miles between them and years of separation behind them that they'd still kept in contact, still maintained the same friendly banter as always over the phone lines, thousands of miles and thousands of hours hushing the world around them until it consisted of two voices, the feel of the receiver against his ear, and a mental image of the other at the long, tenuous end of the bright wires that were all that still connected their presences to each other.

He'd been proud of the fact that he'd never forgotten how important the other was to him. He'd been ashamed of the fact that, listening to the other's voice over the crackling receiver, he'd grown more and more dependent on hearing from him, staying awake late at nights, thinking of every word, every tone, remembering the times when they were young and how they'd grown up together. Wondering about all the little sounds in the background, wondering where he was now... slowly realizing that he'd made a mistake, letting him go, realizing that despite the separation, despite the years, he needed the other more than ever. And despite everything, despite how different their lives were now, he would have given anything to see him again, to touch him just once, to push aside the veil separating them to look directly into his eyes once more, to ask him if he'd missed him.

What colour were his eyes again? He couldn't quite remember. They'd always been tinted by the amber shield that had hidden the colour and the truth in their eyes from each other.

They still spoke, often, but their conversations were punctuated by long, thoughtful silences, unnerving and comfortable at the same time, and he wanted to say something, to keep talking, but all he could think of were petty details, little things, stuff that he was sure the other really didn't care about, absorbed as he must be in the details of his own life.

He wondered if they were drifting apart, if they were changing too much, and he wanted to tell the other this, how much he missed him, ask him to come find him, but he couldn't swallow his pride and his certainty that the other wouldn't understand this strange, terrifying, consuming need. So he said nothing, and the silences grew longer, more awkward, and he tried to fill them, but there was nothing to say any more but this last of things, the unbreachable barrier that he could not confess to for fear that when it came down, it would destroy everything.

-

"Just a second, let me grab the other phone," said Matt, and Mello waited patiently, listening to the sounds on the other end, hearing... another voice, a stranger's voice, on the other side of the ocean, and suddenly feeling something in his stomach curdling, head going light and strange.

"Sorry 'bout that," Matt said, softly, apologetically. "What's up, Mel?"

"Who was that? Is this a bad time?"

"What?"

Matt sounded bewildered. Mello gritted his teeth, and asked again.

"I heard someone else in the room with you. Is this a bad time to be calling?"

"Oh, you mean -" Matt coughed. "No, don't worry about it, it's no big deal. Just... my room mate. Chris knows not to interrupt my phone time."

"I didn't know you had a room mate," Mello said, and the curdling was worse now.

"Uh, yeah, well... it's a pretty recent thing," Matt said, with a nervous laugh, "but we got along pretty well, and so..."

"Boy Chris or girl Chris?" he interrupted.

"Um, girl," Matt said, sounding embarrassed. "She's just a friend, Mel. There's nothing there that you need to tease me about, OK? We met online at one of my gaming forums and it turned out she lived in my area, so we met up and then her landlord kicked her out and she needed a place to stay..."

"You don't have to get defensive," Mello said sharply, and his stomach hurt now, the sick feeling in it so bad that he could barely think. Matt was living with a girl. Matt was - "And why would I care if she was your girlfriend, either? It's your damn life. It's not like you're not allowed to have other friends, Matt."

"I know."

"Then why are you being so weird about it?"

"I dunno," Matt mumbled. "I just thought... maybe that you would think I was replacing you or something, because you're the only other room mate I've ever had, and I... guess... I feel a little guilty."

His tone suggested that it might be only Mello's words which would reassure him that he was not guilty, and for a long moment Mello was intensely tempted to tell him that he did feel like he'd been traded off, and that he should get rid of this intruder, this... female, immediately. In that moment, he hated Chris, whoever the fuck she was to Matt, just because she was with him and he was not, and there was a chance, a small chance, that if she was there all the time that Matt would grow too close to her, and Mello would be pushed onto a back burner, forgotten, reduced in importance to Matt, and that was something that he could not bear.

"Are you replacing me?" he asked instead - a compromise between comfort and being comforted. His body tensed. What if Matt lied to him, to reassure him? What if it was happening anyways?

I need to see him, he thought, suddenly, numbly, and the thought was so powerful that it took the strength from his knees and forced him to lean against the wall to remain upright. I need to know for sure -

"No!" Matt sounded shocked that he would even suggest it. "Of course I'm not, Mello, you're my best friend. Nothing can change that."

Great.

"Then why the hell do you feel guilty?" Mello demanded.

"... You're right," Matt said, sounding embarrassed. "Sorry."

-

"Was that your American friend?" said Chris, looking up from her Gameboy, which sat on top of a large pile of college homework, when Matt had hung up and returned to the living room.

"Yeah," he said.

"He sounded it," she said. "Loud. Is he jealous?"

"Why would you think that?" Matt said, bewildered. Chris shrugged, kept pressing buttons, her attention almost solely on the console.

"You kind of left the receiver up in this room," she said. "I was in the middle of a level where it would have killed me off to pause and hang it up, so I kind of had to leave it up. I tried not to listen. But he did sound jealous to me."

"Why would Mel be jealous?" he said, still lost, and Chris shrugged.

"Why don't you ask him that?"

Late that night, lying in bed, going over his conversation with Mello that afternoon, trying to remember every fluctuation of tone, Matt had a moment of panic. He'd always been able to read Mello like a book. Was he losing him now, after being separated so long, after not being able to look at his face and see the way every bit of truth and every little lie fluctuated across his face? Were they drifting apart?

He didn't know. It was terrifying. And what if Mello had been jealous? Did he have reason? But Chris was just his friend. The one he loved was -

No. Mello wasn't the one who needed to worry.

Sometimes when he spoke to Mello, there were other people audible in another room. And Mello always said, Oh, that's just Neylon, or, that's just Skinner, but usually it was: oh, that's just Rod. Matt never asked who any of these people were, or why they were always around. He wouldn't have asked even if he hadn't gotten the distinct impression that Mello wasn't allowed to talk about what he was doing, for fear of tapped phone lines. And Rod worried him. Terrified him. What if Mello was with someone else? What if Mello -?

No. Mello wasn't the one who needed to worry at all.

I need to see him. I need to know for sure -

-

- that this isn't happening.

But still, he couldn't say it, and he sat there waiting, wondering, hating, voice growing sharp and careless, and the day they had their first fight that took longer than a day to make up from was the day that he felt it all start to fall apart.

I need to see him again, he thought, echoing, all unknowing, the other. I need to know for sure that none of this is really happening, that I'm still most important to him, no matter what.

I need to find him.