Chapter Ten: Confirmation
A/N: Greetings! I come bearing news, whether good or bad depends on you. This is the second to last chapter! The last chapter is almost finished, so you only have a few days to wait before it is posted as well.
This chapter is rated M for blaspheMy and leMons. Not the kind that gush orgasmic juices and exude suffocating citrine vapors. I'm going for more of a gentle lemonade taste that will leave you refreshed and energized…ok, I'd better stop before you cease to take me seriously altogether. Enjoy!
Reunion
Mello: 9:50 a.m., January 27th, 2010
The silencer muffles the shots, but I hear them in my head and in the way he whispers my name when the bodies have fallen.
"Mello."
The crackle of his voice, dry and sandy and full of horrors unnamed, stirs me. I move to kneel in front of him and reach up, lifting the blindfold from his eyes. I look at him properly for the first time since I broke into the room.
The shadows under his eyes are deeper than I've ever seen them, and they aren't just from lack of sleep. He probably hasn't eaten in thirty-six hours, courtesy of the Kira supporters' hospitality, but his eyes and cheekbones make him look like starvation's poster child.
A child, did I call him? He does look like one, with the way he's slightly hunched over despite the handcuffs linking him to the back of the chair. Suggests internal injury, seek medical attention immediately.
That's right. Post-reunion sentimentality can wait. I've got to get him out of here…
"Mello."
Yes?
"I thought…I thought you were going to…"
Kill myself? I already did, but that was in another lifetime.
I realize this is the first time I've seen him cry. I place a hand on his knee and look up into his unshielded eyes as my own prickle.
"I thought you were dead," he gasps.
So did I.
"And then you were alive, but then I thought you were going to die again."
So did I.
"I knew you wouldn't want to kill yourself; you had the gun, but I never tested it…I didn't know for sure."
Neither did I.
I curl my other hand around his neck. There are angry red imprints of desecrating hands there, but they'll fade.
"Now you know how it feels," I say gently, not accusatorily. "How it feels when the one you love stands on the edge of death. How I feel about you."
"I'm sorry," he says immediately. "I'm sorry, Mello, I swear I'll—"
I place a finger over his lips crusted with blood. "There's nothing to forgive, Matt."
I pull him down to kiss away all his unspoken fears, and he tastes like metal tang and salt water and oh God, Matt.
Where have you been all my life?
Finally I straighten up and wonder at how we haven't been discovered yet. I circle around the chair and go through pockets until I find a ring of keys in the man's pocket.
"Gotcha." I return to Matt's side to unlock the cuffs and can't stop myself from kissing his abraded wrists. He actually blushes. If I'd known he'd be this cute with me as seme, I would have fought him for it a month ago.
We've still got time. We have forever.
"Can you walk?" I ask.
He snorts, rising awkwardly and half-standing. "They shot up my left leg like it was last Christmas's ham."
"Never mind then; this is faster." I scoop him into my arms in a move worthy of a Disney prince. (Do they actually have names? Everyone knows the princesses by name, but what the fuck are the princes called?)
He's surprisingly quiet in my arms, and I wonder why he's so docile until I follow his eyes. They're wide and haunted as they look at the bodies on the ground behind the chair.
"Don't look," I say, covering his eyes hastily.
If only it were so simple to erase the sight of death.
Chicken Soup
Mello: 11:15 a.m., January 27th, 2010
The doors slide open soundlessly, and Halle stands before us, lips tight with worry.
"Oh, thank God you're safe -" she begins, but I cut her off with a finger to my lips. He still sleeps in my arms.
"Upstairs," she says in a more suitable whisper, gesturing towards the elevator. "Your pick of rooms; they're all stocked with first aid and necessities."
"What is this, the Hotel SPK?" I snort as I step in. "You seem a bit too prepared for someone who rarely gets visitors."
She just gives a small smile as I press the button for the next floor. It occurs to me just as the elevator doors are about to close in her face. "You'd better turn off the camera feeds to whichever room we're in!" I hiss at the sliver of her hair I can see through the gap.
I swear I hear her chuckle.
I gaze down at the sleeping figure I'm holding, beautiful even with black and blue marring his perfect features. I sigh and relax.
We're going to be ok.
XXX
He stirs and wakes when I bump his leg on the bathroom sink - oops. And I was doing so well.
"Mello…where are we?" he murmurs foggily.
"SPK, of course," I say, setting him carefully on the counter. "Can't go back to our place."
"Oh."
I rummage in the cabinet under the sink, searching for medical supplies. "Besides, it's better for you here. The heat actually works, the sink doesn't shut off when you take a shower, the walls don't smell like mold…" Ah, found it. "Anyways, time for me to play doctor. Strip."
He huffs but complies. I clench my teeth as I take in what they did to him. Bastards…I take a deep breath to steady myself.
"This'll hurt," I warn him, reaching for a washcloth. "Especially where the skin's broken."
"Can't hurt worse than when they were doing it to me," he says emptily.
I wet the cloth in warm water and gently dab at his wounds; bruises mottle his face and torso, while rings of red encircle his neck and wrists. I shudder briefly before retrieving the Neosporin and cotton balls.
He says nothing as I wrap his cuts and scratches, wincing occasionally. I sit back on my heels to start on his left thigh, and he tenses. I look up worriedly. "You ok?"
His narrowed eyes say no, but he says, "Yes."
"Am I hurting you?"
"No."
I frown internally. He's clearly not ok. I wouldn't expect him to be after this ordeal, but…what can I do?
He lets me finish taping him up, and I feel minute tremors running under my fingers on his skin.
"Matt…"
"Just…don't," he grits out. "I'm ok, ok? I just…it's not like you'd know, would you…"
"Know what?" I say gently.
"Forget it. Just…just give me a moment to myself? I can take a fucking bath by myself, ok? Just go…please."
The last word comes out as a half whisper, and it tears at my heart. I can't leave him, but…
He flops off the counter and slides himself over to the bath; I snatch back a supporting hand just in time. He turns his back, a clear dismissal, and fiddles with the knob.
Matt…
"Right then, I'll go downstairs and get some ice for your eye. And something to eat, 'kay? I'll be right back."
I pride myself on keeping my voice straight. Without waiting for a reply, not that he would have given one, I slip out and close the door softly behind me. For a moment, I brace myself against the wall and blink gratuitously. I shake my head and leave the room. I hear the bath water running behind me.
XXX
"Just take it all with you. There's a cooler in the bottom cabinet to your right."
I look up from the freezer, where I'm packing all the ice cubes into a bag. Halle seats herself at the stainless steel table (Near's taste in furnishing, no doubt). I finish stocking up on ice and lean against the closed door.
"How is he?"
"…not well," I confess.
"Is that an understatement?"
She knows us, better than anyone in the SPK. The words tumble uncontrollably from my mouth. "Yes… physically, he could be better, but he's nowhere close to critical condition. Emotionally…I don't know what to do. I was bandaging him up, like a caring partner, and then he got all skittish and it was like he thought I was going to hurt him, like he was seeing his torturers again, and he just up and basically told me to scram, and now he's probably sitting in the bathtub crying and I don't know why I can't reach him."
She watches me wordlessly, knowing not to comment until I make it clear that I have nothing more to say. I pretend I've got something stuck in my eye and look around. "Where is everyone?"
"Gevanni is in his room working on the note," she replies. "Near is with him. Rester is out finalizing plans for Mogi and Amane's transport tomorrow."
"Ah." Tomorrow.
"But more importantly, Matt," she continues. "He needs you, Mello. You may not realize it, but you are his weakness."
I fiddle with some fluff on my shirt (his, one of his less fashion-offensive long-sleeved ones, that says 'Whatever it is, I'm against it'). "So?"
"So last November, when he came to get your picture, I imagine you had wanted to go yourself, but he didn't let you. He had some free will back then. But that changed over time. You changed everything about him."
"He probably could have thought of a better plan," I say morosely. "If he just had a few hours to think, this all might not have happened."
"Perhaps not," she says, rising and brushing past me to open the refrigerator. I scoot away and take her seat at the table. "But the past is what it is. What you need to focus on now is how you can make it up to him." She turns around with a bunch of grapes in her hands. "Do you have any idea what his torturers did to him?"
"I can see the evidence on his body." I don't need to be reminded.
"And his heart?"
I watch her wash the grapes, each one plinking into the water as she tugs it from the stem.
"His heart is mine," I say irrelevantly.
"But it was there for them to torment as well," she says. "I suppose your Mafia thugs never learned such finesse, but Japanese T&I personnel know their way in and out of a person's head. They would have sucked the memory of you out of Matt and used every last drop as poison against him. They could have told him they'd caught you and were torturing you even as they spoke. They could have said you'd snapped under the pressure and betrayed everything to them. They could have said they killed you. They could have said any number of things about you, and given the weakened state he was in, he would be unable to distinguish the truth. Even now, he could be afraid of you because of how much pain the thought of you caused him during his imprisonment."
Is that what it is? I'm the one who's brought him immeasurable pain?
But of course.
"What do I do?" I whisper, audible even over the sound of running water.
"What would you want him to do if you were in his place?"
"I…I would want him to stay close to me…even if my mouth said otherwise. I wouldn't want him to let go…" I get up abruptly. "I've got to go."
I'm two steps away from the door when she calls, "Take your things with you!"
…right. I grab the ice and the bowl of grapes and almost make it out of there, but I turn again.
"Halle…"
She rolls her eyes. "Thank me after you've gone to him."
"…yeah."
Hearts
Mello: 12:00 p.m., January 27th, 2010
I pause before the door; there's no sound from within. He can't have drowned himself, can he? He wouldn't.
I knock twice lightly. "Can I come in?"
A moment ensues in which everything and nothing passes through my mind.
"Since when did you have to ask permission?"
I think about it. "Since you let me into your life and your heart." I almost cringe at the words, but they're true.
Another moment. "Come in," but there's no invitation in his voice. I turn the knob and enter.
He leans against the wall of the bath, his hunched back no different from his normal work posture, yet screaming unspeakable weariness instead of mere laziness. His face looks obliquely away from me. I approach and sit by the edge, setting the bowl on the ground and offering him the ice pack. He takes it and looks at it in a manner that suggests he's debating just dropping it in the water.
I think frantically of what to say that doesn't come from scripted TV dramas (do you want to talk about it? You can tell me anything). He doesn't give me a chance.
"Technically, you're right," he says, putting the ice up to his right eye.
I gaze at him questioningly but hopefully encouragingly.
"It was my choice to let you into my life. And after that, it was my choice to work with you on the Kira case, even though it was completely against my nature. I trusted a stranger, partly because I wanted to know you. You couldn't be any normal person, not the way I found you. Clearly, I didn't know what I was getting myself into."
What he got himself into…
"Without you, I would never have almost been killed by Kira."
"Matt," I say. "If you regret knowing me, I don't blame you. I—"
"I don't regret it," he says clearly.
Wait.
"I'm just thinking about how ironic it is that you're the one who deals me death and life in the same hand."
"So you're saying that life is a game of cards?" I guess.
"And every move is a gamble."
He falls silent and looks at the opposite wall, anywhere but me. We stay this way for over a minute. Then he looks at me and says, "Kiss me, Mello?"
I put a grape on my tongue and stick it out in what I hope is a tantalizing manner.
I probably look ridiculous.
"So this is how you plan to make me start eating healthy?" he says, looking magnificently unimpressed.
"Wun kith eh a hime," I say around my tongue.
He leans forward and eats the grape off my tongue. Somehow, we manage to osculate and consume the grape without chewing each other's tongues off. Clearly this is a great achievement for geniuses like us.
He smiles when we break apart, and we go through the rest of the grapes normally.
After some minutes of amiable silence, I ask, "So what's actually bothering you? I hardly think you could stand being a sap in a bathtub for as long as you have unless you were trying to avoid a certain conversation."
He puts the ice away in the soap dish. "Well, I don't know…maybe the fact that you seem to think you get to be the figurative seme now that I'm letting you be all fluffy with me?"
I lean in to kiss his less-swollen eye and tracing the side of his face with one finger. I take his lips again, the taste now sweet and tangy. "Emphasis there on you letting me," I remind him. "Although I suppose if sarcastic!Matt is back, we have nothing to worry about."
"Hm, I think we do have something to worry about," he murmurs, and his hand shoots up to suddenly seize my wrist and redirect my hand downwards…well, I sure hadn't noticed that.
"It's been, what, two days, and you're this sensitive?" I vaguely stroke the inside of his thigh.
"Oh shut up, could you ever go an hour without jumping me?"
The answer is yes, but beneath his teasing words, his smile isn't quite right. It's too effortfully seductive; he wants this too much. But if it's something I can give…
With added vigor, I reach down and slowly slide two fingers up and down, squeezing slightly as my other arm slings around his back, pulling him closer to me.
"No teasing," he mutters, already breathing irregularly.
"No whining," I retort, speeding up marginally.
"At least use your whole fucking hand."
"At least use the one iota of patience you were blessed with, Matt."
I grasp him fully and pump in earnest now, planting wet kisses from his earlobe to his shoulder. He grips my unoccupied hand with one of his own and the edge of the bath with the other and his knuckles are clenched and popping. For a moment, his eyes flash open, and I register more than just lust in them. Then they snap shut again, and he clutches at me desperately with both arms, clinging to me like he's been struck by lightning and I'm the only one who can ground him. In the moment he comes, I can feel all of his body, tense and loaded like a hair trigger.
Too tense.
I stroke him gently a final few times and remove my hand, swilling in the clouded water before I reach to raise his head from my shoulder.
"Matt?" I question softly of shut eyes. He's shaking, and not just from post-orgasm chills. "Matt, don't shut me out again."
Fingers scrabble at mine, and I take them in hand; at least he's not pushing me away.
"You can't have missed me that much," I say. "What exactly happened to you in that cell?"
He looks up, and the pure gaze in his eyes nearly bowls me over, a gaze replete with lostness. In a voice hardly louder than the grave, he tells me.
His hands are still in mine, so I refrain from clenching my fists and crushing his fingers. My heart rages at every wrong perpetrated on him and every scar he's left with.
Scars that love, not anger, will heal.
I still wish I'd killed the woman more horribly, though. Hell would be nothing in comparison.
But Matt…Matt needs me. I need him.
"Matt…" I press my lips to his forehead. "You're mine. Nothing will ever change that. I'll never let you go."
He raises his eyes to mine, and I kiss him on the lips, needing to give him more of me for what's been taken away.
"Mello," he murmurs.
"Hm?"
"…I'm starting to prune."
Oh, Matt. "I take it we should move on to a drier locale?"
"Yes, please."
Oratorio in Polar Coordinates
Matt: 12:30 p.m., January 27th, 2010
He lifts me from the water, and in that moment, he is the one who gives me life in every possible meaning (well, bar the most literal one).
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1)
He's my world, and he's my word. The only one that matters: Mello.
I can't decide if there are more religious motifs or puns here, whether I should laugh or be burned as a heretic, but I figure Mello wouldn't let anyone do that to me.
'Cause you see, this is heaven, where Mello is, next to his beating heart, and it's home.
He lays me down on top of the covers and tugs his shirt off, looking almost apologetic that the bed isn't pre-warmed. He doesn't realize that all I need is him and his blazing vitality and his impassioned body, which I pull down to rest snugly against me.
"Mmmm, Mello," I murmur senselessly as his hands and lips trail over me. His hands, his lips, his teeth, his tongue, his nose, his breath, his hair, he's everywhere at once—all the more evidence to prove he's my god.
I am having way too much fun with this metaphor.
He sits up suddenly. "There is a full cooler of ice in the bathroom." He sounds very serious.
"Your point being?"
"Waste not, want not," he says pithily. He vaults off the bed and bounces from the room; I have only a moment to lament his loss before he returns, box of ice in hand and a contrastingly sultry sway in his hips…
(…those pants really need to come off…)
…and then I'm face down, and he's on top of me, tracing curves on my back with the corner of an ice cube.
"Mello, ah, that's cold!"
"Well, I see you're not a genius for nothing," he smirks. "Good job, you know hot from cold. Can you tell me what I'm writing?"
I can't actually tell, but there aren't many words worth inscribing on my body, except…"Your name."
"So you'll never forget it."
I feel his breath against me, and his tongue darts out to follow the path of the ice across my skin. I try to relax, but his icy scrawls and hot breath have me pressing into the sheets desperately. Goosebumps rise from the base of my neck to my tailbone; I moan involuntarily as his tongue dips unexpectedly lower. The cold bites and embraces at the same time—my nerves don't know how to respond and just send haywire sensations of inexplicable pleasure.
"Mello…ah, Mello, please…" I don't even know what I'm begging for; my mind is so clouded with desire.
"You like this, Matt?"
"Yes…yes, oh god—"
"Save yourself," he whispers seductively. "I'm not even close to done with you."
He withdraws and tugs me around so that I lie face up, and now I'm shuddering and trembling under his lips as he spreads a trail of crushed ice down my torso and laps it up.
"You know what I usually hate?" I force out.
"Foreplay," he replies without hesitation.
"Yeah," I say as pointedly as I can between little hitches in my breath caused by his insufferable tongue.
"Your point being?"
"…don't make me say it." I'm almost embarrassed at how whiny I sound, but…fuck that.
"I won't," he smirks. "You can wait."
What. No.
He's down past my navel now, and I realize his intention a moment before the action—
Oh god. I can't stay still; my hips jerk upwards as his mouth closes around me, ice cold yet much too hot. His tongue flicks playfully and drives me mad. God, Mello…he slams down on me hard now, and it's more hot than cold, and I can't hold back much longer—
He slows suddenly, now languorously bobbing up and down, and my pleas are wordless, tugging at his hair, but he smiles around me and shakes his head.
It's too much. Everything he does to me is too much and yet exactly what I need. So I let him take over, surrender into the strength of his arms and the fullness of his body. His breath on my neck, his chest against my back, one arm under my shoulders and one over my waist, holding me tightly. He takes me gently, tenderly, as if he's afraid of breaking me.
Don't you know, Mello? You're making me whole again.
He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. (Psalm 147:3)
Before he existed, I had a heart, I guess. It just didn't have anything in it besides good old type O. Then he existed, and he made my heart so full of feeling that it burst, like new wine in old wineskins, and I have no idea where the blood went, and I am trying too hard with this mixed metaphor.
I really don't have time to allegorize as he rubs against something deep inside me that makes me die and go to heaven and come back several times. Over and over, his arms granting me passage, his voice urging me on, not pushing me over the edge of a cliff but guiding me softly home to bliss and oblivion with him.
The last words I register before a comfortable nightfall claims me are his: I love you.
I try to say them back; they come out muffled with exhaustion, but I'm sure he understands.
I love you too.
A/N: Yay for massive amounts of saccharine and awk!firstpersonPOVsex :P Anyways, review, please?