N is for Nerves

Rating: T

Genre: Romance/Hurt-Comfort

Characters: Mello and Matt

Mello growled as he strapped on the gas mask. He couldn't tug the Death Note from Yagami's hand, but it was of no consequence. He would be dead soon. But he'd passed on Mello's name...

Damn it.

As the rest of the taskforce began to break in, one fell beside Yagami to help him up. The others froze at the sight of the detonator in Mello's hand.

'This is it... All or nothing...'

The blonde flipped the switch. Loud, rumbling explosions echoed off the walls and into the room. Mello knew he wasn't safe, but he wouldn't die with some luck. As the blast sent him twisting through the air and lit his hair ablaze, his hand went to the cell phone in his pocket. He crossed his arms over his chest and contorted himself into a fetal position, his back cracking against a wall. He fell with the floor, falling through the rubble and dust. When he landed and beams and supports fell around him, he curled up tighter, protecting his lifeline.

Debris stopped falling. Small fires continued to blaze throughout the remains of the base. Cracking his right eye open narrowly, Mello found that he was on the remains of the ground floor. Fallen beams and supports were littering the ground around him and several had angled above him, close enough to singe his hair. No one would assume that he was still alive. But he needed to get out fast.

Uncurling his body, he opened his cell phone and dialed the number he knew by heart. He dropped it and laid his head gently on the device, listening to the ringing.

"Hello?" a bored, low voice answered. Mello swallowed to get rid of the parched, sandy feeling in his throat.

"Matt," he finally rasped. "I fucked up... I blew the base."

"Shit," Matt cursed. Mello heard him moving around, followed by a rapid series of clicks that indicated he was typing.

"Matt-"

"I'm tracking the phone, let me triangulate the coordinates and I'll be there," the redhead cut him off. Mello closed his eyes.

"Matt... Keep talking to me. Stay..."

"I'll stay babe, I'll stay. I'm on my way. Hold on."

"Matt... I can't feel it. It should hurt, shouldn't it? But it doesn't."

"That's good Mels, that's good."

They continued the pointless chatter and Mello found himself lulled by Matt's voice. The small bits of pain he felt faded slowly, but Mello was scared. He couldn't feel the left side of his face, neck or shoulder. The achingly curious part of him wanted to peel his gloves off and stroke the skin, but he fought the urge and simply listened to Matt's soothing voice.

"I'm almost there babe, hold on."

The phone clattered about and Matt's breathing and voice ceased. Mello furrowed his eyebrows to the best of his ability.

"Matt...? Matt, please... talk to me..."

A figure crashed through the beams and supports, catching them on its shoulders. Mello squinted through the cloud of ash and saw Matt, throwing charred pieces of wood aside and clearing the ground so he could pick up his lover.

Matt knelt and slowly turned Mello onto his back. A quick examination of the wounds had his eyes wide.

"Shit, Mels..." he breathed. He lifted the blonde up bridal style and picked his way through the wreckage, murmuring words of comfort. He finally reached his car and laid Mello out across the backseat, throwing a ratty blanket over him. The blonde managed to ease the dull throbbing on his right side before everything went black.

...

Eyes glazed with drugs opened slowly. Mello made a noise of discontent about his parched throat. Shuffling met his ear before a glass of water was held in front of him. This was when the blonde noticed that only his right side was visible and that he was propped in a sitting position. He turned his head and was met by the sight of Matt.

"Hey," the redhead said softly. "How do you feel?" Mello let his head fall back.

"I don't feel anything. On my right side, anyway. Why is that, Matt? How much medicine did you put in me?"

"I didn't put that much actually. In the blast, the fire scorched the left side of your face, neck and shoulder. Most of the nerve endings were fried. You won't have feeling where the burns were for a while."

Mello sat silently. Suddenly his numbness made sense, considering that his nerves were dead.

"Well damn. Why couldn't it have killed all the nerve endings?" the disgruntled blonde said. Matt grinned slyly and pulled the blankets and sweats down his legs.

"Now Mello," the gamer said, sliding between Mello's legs. "I don't think you really want that, do you?"

Mello's breath hitched as Matt's talented tongue went to work. No, maybe he didn't.