Sleepless - Jann Arden
Notes: My random button is the most amazing thing ever. It senses things I'm thinking of and gives me exactly what I want - I swear.
-
"Maybe Kira was right," Matt said idly, flicking ashes off the end of his cigarette out the window.
"What?" Mello's hand on his shoulder tightened painfully, and Matt just shrugged.
"The world is rotten," he said. "How many people live in this world? Four, five, six billion, and of all those people, how many can claim to be truly honest in deed and intention? How many can say they've never done any wrong, never caused another living soul grief?"
Absolutely no one, Mello knew, but he wasn't about to say that, inflamed with his partner's suggestion that the man they were trying to bring to justice wasn't all wrong.
"How can anyone judge all those people?" Matt said, inhaling deeply on his cigarette, staring blankly out the window and down the street. "It's hopeless, isn't it, Mel? All those lost souls and not a damn thing anyone can do to make it truly better. Doesn't that depress you, sometimes? Do you ever feel that maybe there's no point to what we're doing, that it's all going to get lost in the apathetic morass of humanity, that no one's going to care even if we succeed?"
"All the time," Mello whispered, throat dry, and forced himself to relax his grip.
Matt's hand over his startled him. His thumb absently stroked circles on Mello's skin, slow and lazy. "How do you make yourself care?"
"I'd go insane if I didn't," Mello said. "How do you not?"
Matt turned in his chair, tilting his head to one side in that curious, child-like fashion of his, and smiled, serene. The burn of the coal at the end of his cigarette seemed to light his pale skin with a feverish glow. "You know. All I care about is what's always close at hand. That's all I've ever wanted for myself. Why should anything else matter? There are enough people out there who make the whole world their business without needing me to join their numbers."
"That's a stupid way to live," Mello said, even though Matt was looking at him, meaning him.
"Maybe to you," Matt said, and exhaled smoke in a swirling cloud, obscuring his eyes.
Mello looked away, and Matt's thumb kept moving over his hand in slow steady strokes, a smooth rhythm of sensuality that made him ache for a sort of touch he didn't want to give himself over to, and thought maybe Matt was on to something after all.
-