Author's Note: Today's game is called "Spot the Bluntest Line Tierfal Has Ever Written"!

II. Foil

When Mello returned, having disposed of the most damning of the evidence, Matt was leaning against the doorframe that led to the bedroom, rubbing at his eyes with the back of his hand. By some small, charitable miracle of foresight, he'd thrown some pants on.

The miracle only extended so far, however; he hadn't strung his belt through the loops, and as a result, the jeans hung precariously low, underscoring his abs, the muscles of his chest flexing as he shifted his position, one familiar hand rising to scratch absently at the coppery stubble just starting to emerge along his jaw—

Shit.

Mello focused intently on Matt's eyes, which were drastically blue and slightly bloodshot.

"What the fuck happened?" Matt managed to slur.

"We got wasted," Mello answered patiently. "Just like you wanted."

He figured he was doing very well until he remembered that he was standing two steps into the kitchen, poised like a cat about to bolt.

Matt scrubbed at his face. "What'd I do?"

Mello very abruptly coerced himself into motion in order to become extremely interested in the refrigerator and its contents. "Better question," he interposed. "How do you feel?"

"Fucking dead."

Mello poured—or, rather, sloshed—a glass of orange juice and extended it to Matt, trying not to get too close.

"Get some fluids."

Belatedly, he realized that fluids might not have been the best phraseological selection he'd ever made, given where his mind went.

Shit.

Well, he was fucked, in just about every sense of the word.

Matt nursed the juice gingerly, following every sip with a wince. "Fucking ridiculous," he managed. "Did I puke? Hang on—"

He stuck two fingers into his mouth. Mello's knees almost gave way, and he clung to the handle of the refrigerator door, praying his intoxicated affiliate wouldn't notice.

Matt withdrew a scrap of silver foil from the inside of his cheek and stared at it dumbly.

"The hell…?"

Matt had been drunk. Matt had been so drunk. He'd been falling over himself, falling over the floor, falling out of his clothes, falling onto the bed— Chocolate ran, dripped, drizzled; Mello licked upwards along the trail trickling from the corner of Matt's mouth—

Mello stuck his head in the fridge. "No clue," he reported.

He imagined that Matt shrugged, and footsteps progressed over to the trash—

Oh, shit. The trash. He hadn't gotten rid of—

"Jesus fucking Christ, how much fucking chocolate did we eat?"

"I dunno," Mello muttered. He squeezed his eyes shut, but that only encouraged the vivid images parading across his eyelids. Sweet, sweet melted chocolate smeared over jutting collarbones—

"No wonder I want to puke," Matt mumbled. He tossed himself down at the kitchen table and gazed morosely at his orange juice. After a moment, he looked up at Mello curiously. "Do you remember—?"

"Nope," Mello responded, voice tight, pants tighter. "Not a thing." He dove for the trash bag. "Here, lemme just take that down—"

The dismal dimness of the stairwell was comforting now—refreshing, reassuring. The chill of the cement-enclosed air didn't hurt either. Goosebumps rose on Mello's bare arms. He took deep breaths to clear his head, his mind, his irrevocably dirty thoughts—

Their hasty replacement, while painfully innocent, wasn't actually all that constructive.

"You," Matt mumbled, grinning dumbly, "are the—cutest—thing—ever." He punctuated each word by tapping his fingertip on the end of Mello's nose.

"No," Mello retorted, "you are."

"Nuh-uh. You're blond, and you wear leather, and you get all riled up about the stupidest shit—"

"Yeah? Well, you're a redhead, and you wear goggles and stripes. I mean, like, where'd you even get those frigging goggles?"

Matt was quiet for a moment, thinking. His eyes were faintly cloudy, and there was a little line between his eyebrows. "My—b'fore I was at Wammy's. My first foster dad. He loved flyin' planes, and I loved going up with him, only I was like six, see, so obviously I couldn't fly one. So when I asked to, he laughed, and he found me the goggles, and he said 'Someday, you can.'"

Mello set his head down on Matt's chest. "What happened to him?"

Matt shifted. "I dunno. I just got stuck somewhere else. He's prob'ly still out there, flyin' planes, givin' out goggles and shit."

And shit.