Warning. O_O
'Mello?' Matt whispered hesitantly. He immediately put his game on 'pause' and stared at the boy in front of him. '...You look terrible.'
'That would be because I haven't slept for approximately two days,' Mello replied in a calm, matter-of-fact tone.
His eyes were cold, and ringed with dark shadows. His blonde hair was sticking up, like he'd been running his hands through it repeatedly. It didn't even look brushed, let alone washed. Not only that, his pale skin looked sallow and unhealthy, and was a painful contrast to the darkness of the black v-neck t-shirt that hung loosely from his narrow shoulders. His elbows looked like they were jutting out.
The usual glow of life that emitted from Mello everywhere he went wasn't there, like he was a light bulb that was slowly dimming as it neared the end of its life. He looked like he could break with the slightest touch.
This was extremely worrying for Matt. Mello wasn't acting like his usual self. Even his voice seemed distant and emotionless.
He looked...
He looked like how Matt used to look. Before Matt had come to Wammy's.
Before his parents had –
'Mello, why do you push yourself so much?' Matt asked quietly. It was almost rhetorical. He knew perfectly well why Mello went all out. But why... why was the goal he craved so important to him?
'I have to succeed L,' Mello answered in a monotone, his eyes not even seeing Matt. His eyes were clouded with insomnia and something else that Matt couldn't identify. 'But that's not important. I wanted to talk about –'
'What do you mean, not important?' Matt interrupted. 'You don't need to lose sleep over it! You're killing yourself with studying and staying up all night and skipping meals. Just take it easy, why don't you?'
'What would you know,' Mello muttered, spite lacing his tone. Matt stopped and swallowed. It was always worse when Mello spoke quietly like that. Really dangerous. He hated to admit it, but he preferred it when Mello was in a rage and throwing things around the room, arms flailing, cursing, his eyes blazing, looking like he'd kill anyone who stepped in his path. At least then he looked alive.
'I would know,' Matt replied uncertainly, 'because –'
Because he'd come so close to death before.
Mello didn't know a thing about his past. No-one did. And he would like for things to stay that way. But he wasn't sure it would, with Mello around. Matt found it hard to lie to Mello, his best friend. Not only could Mello tell, but he felt incredibly guilty, and it always showed.
Mello was the whole reason he'd started wearing goggles. He didn't want Mello to know anything. He wanted to protect Mello, who looked so frail and lifeless in his loose black clothing, from the truth.
'Matt,' Mello murmured suddenly, shaking Matt out of his slight trance. The redhead glanced up, only to see Mello's bangs over his eyes, his head bowed slightly. He looked almost... shifty. But the tone of his voice spoke otherwise.
'...Why do you care so much about me?'
No sound. No movement. No emotion.
The whole world ceased to exist as Matt's heart stopped for that one second.
The second lasted for eternity.
Why? He asked himself, blankly.
He'd asked himself the same question countless times.
Why did anyone care about anyone? The world wasn't logical. Nothing was logical. History wasn't made up of equations. Matt didn't believe in God, but he knew why Mello did.
This feeling Matt had... the pain, the suffering, yet the fury and passion he locked inside himself. None of it was logical.
The world, logically, was made up of elements and minerals that had been pulled gravitationally towards each other in one solid lump of rock billions of years ago, and basic life forms had evolved out of a chemical reaction between some of those elements by chance. So the life that radiated from Mello that he unleashed upon anyone and everyone was, logically, just a bunch of particles formed from dust.
So, in the end, logically, there was no point to life.
'Do you need to ask?' Matt said softly. He hoped Mello could hear the emotion, understand even the tiniest bit of what he was feeling. But when Mello looked up, a very different expression on his face, like the smallest spark of something like hope, the expression almost immediately dissipated and was replaced once again with a blank mask.
His eyes, Matt realised.
Mello couldn't see them.
For the first time since adorning them, which had been only weeks after he'd arrived at the orphanage, Matt regretted ever putting them on.
'I'm waiting,' Mello said resolutely.
And Matt didn't have an answer.
'You're my friend,' Matt muttered, hoping that would be enough. He hoped that would be enough for Mello.
It wasn't, it turned out.
'I'm not your only friend,' Mello mumbled, his head bowing further.
Huh?
Matt was caught off-guard.
That remark had come out of nowhere.
When he didn't reply, Mello continued.
'Matt, I... I think you should stop worrying about me and go on with your own life,' he whispered.
This was it. Time to break it off now, before he could let the burden get to him.
Having these emotions hurt, Mello realised. It was all very well exploiting them, but when it came to the crunch, Mello had never had a bond with anyone like this.
He had a bond of mutual annoyance when it came to Near, and a bond of reluctant agreement with Roger. He had a bond of respect when it came to L. He'd never met him, but he trusted him and believed in him until the end. Impressing him and living up to him meant everything to Mello.
Worrying about anyone else for a change was new; Matt had changed that – coming to Wammy's, so thin and gaunt, like a walking corpse.
The way he suddenly blushed and squirmed and came to life when Mello touched him – it was endearing.
He ticked Mello off, right off the bat. Calling him a girl... oh, what a hoot. The little worm, so delicate and slim underneath him with his pink cheeks and soft hair, he looked pretty feminine himself. Mello had wiped the floor with him. Strange, but... he got the feeling Matt had let him. Why was that?
'...What do you mean?' Matt eventually spoke up. Was it Mello's imagination, or did Matt have a hurt tone behind the obvious confusion? No, that wasn't possible. Mello wasn't worth worrying about.
'What I said.'
'That's a load of shit!' Matt exploded.
Mello started, his head jerking up to look at Matt in surprise, and got an even bigger shock when Matt strode up to him and dug his nails into Mello's shoulders.
'Stupid... stupid!' Matt hissed between gritted teeth, nose almost touching Mello's he was so close. 'What is wrong with you?'
'What's wrong with me?' Mello choked, finding his voice after the initial shock. His heart was banging in his chest; he'd never seen Matt like this. He tried to grip Matt's wrists, to shove them off himself and create a bit of distance between them, but found he couldn't. Fuck, he was strong. And so much taller than Mello. What had happened to the skinny little rat from nearly two years ago? Had he always been this tough? He didn't look it. 'Damn it, Matt! Let the hell GO!'
'Not until you tell me what's wrong!' Matt retorted hotly. He was shaking. He'd never allowed himself to reveal his more vehement side in front of Mello, but he couldn't stop himself now he'd started.
'You really want to know?' Mello was yelling now, partly out of self-defence. He hated to admit it, but he was almost scared. He was close enough to see Matt's eyes through his goggles, they were narrowed, and far too bright to be considered emotionally stable.
'Because I care, you idiot! What's the fucking point of trailing after me like a goddamned DOG? You're not my bloody slave! You don't have to stay loyal to me! You call me your friend, all I fucking do is hurt you, when there are people who actually give a crap about you, so why don't you ditch me and hang out with them instead? I don't need you, GOT IT?' he shouted.
Cheeks flushed, he turned his head away, seething. His eyes pricked with tears. It had to be done, he reminded himself. But he couldn't bring himself to see Matt's expression, which was now stricken and thoroughly wounded. Mello felt so guilty he couldn't stand it.
Matt's grip loosened on him, and Mello stumbled back, gasping, nearly tripping over his own feet from the sudden release.
Mello turned his back on Matt's hunched figure, knuckling his eyes. Don't cry. But it was futile. Mello had regretted it the moment the words left his mouth. This is necessary, in order for Matt to move on. Then why did it hurt so much?
Logic. Huh.
Funny how the world rarely plays by the book.
'You heard, didn't you.'
Mello stopped. That had been a statement, not a question.
'...Yeah.'
It had been the very reason for Mello neglecting sleeping for two days, why he was so agitated and wound up. He'd debated, all that time, barely concentrating on anything else, about what to do about Matt. He was holding Matt back. Mello was flattered that Matt seemed to care about him. Certainly, no-one else did. But to prevent his only friend from living his own life, that was going too far. Mello wasn't that cruel.
'Too bad, man,' Mello laughed awkwardly. 'She was cute. Your loss.'
'She's not my type,' Matt muttered. He was all too aware that Mello was trying to distract him.
'So, if she'd been your type, you'd have said yes?' Mello said tentatively.
Matt remained silent.
Mello didn't think he was going to answer until he finally spoke up.
'None of the girls here are my type.'
'Well, maybe if you communicated with them once in a while –' Mello began.
'What's with you trying to fob me off on other people,' Matt cut across him coldly. 'What? Am I not good enough for you or something?'
'Matt, I –'
'Or is it because I'm not like him?'
Mello froze. 'Who?'
He knew perfectly well who.
Matt smirked without humour. 'Who d'you think.'
'You're being paranoid,' Mello snapped, turning away. 'This has nothing to do with Near.'
'Who said I was talking about Near?' Matt retorted.
'Stop playing games with my head!'
'Me? Play games? Mello, it's you who's paranoid.'
'Stop it.'
'Make me.'
Mello's fists curled at his sides, and in a moment of blind rage and frustration, punched Matt straight in the eye; the force knocked them both into the bookshelf with a crash.
Or rather, he would have, if it weren't for the goggles.
The surface cracked, and both Matt and Mello cried out in pain as shards of glass dragged across flesh.
The sharp scent of iron tang made Mello's stomach twist itself in knots. His fist, splintered with blood-stained glass, dripped with gore. His hand looked like it had been torn to ribbons, yet he barely felt the pain. Horrified, he stared at his bloody fingers. A dribble of crimson ran down his wrist and pooled onto one pallid cheek.
Oh God.
Matt.
Mello's eyes rested on Matt, whose expression was unreadable. He looked paler than usual; the slight freckles scattered across the bridge of his nose stood out like a sore thumb. From the corner of the goggles, where Mello's fist remained, a thick trickle of blood leaked in a tear-like formation down his face.
'Oh, shit,' Mello gasped.
He withdrew his fist, extremely slowly, but Matt still shuddered and bit his lip, going a shade lighter than white as he forced himself not to make a noise, but couldn't help the slight whimper that left his throat. His face screwed up, and he struggled to breathe evenly. It hurt, it hurt so much...
'Oh shit, shit...' Mello gulped, his throat suddenly feeling so tight he couldn't breathe. He touched the cracked glass so gently he barely felt it. There was a shard that jutted out at an awkward angle, almost perpendicular from the surface.
Mello's stomach turned when he realised that meant the splinter of glass was aimed directly where Matt's left eye should be.
Mello's hand, torn and bloody, dropped back to his side in slow motion.
Time wasn't standing still.
But every frame of animation played in front of Mello's eyes at less than half the usual speed. A single second stretched into five, ten, twenty, forty... as Mello watched Matt drop to his knees like a puppet that's strings had been cut.
'MATT!' Mello cried, falling to his side.
He peeled off the goggles, sparing no mercy for time. With it came the splinter of glass. It raked over Matt's eyelid as it was released, blood spurting out like a leak in a pipe.
'Shit!' Mello repeated, his hands shaking as he tentatively went to inspect the damage. He reeled back, clutching his mouth, when he saw there was still glass stuck in Matt's eyelid, like a nail that had been hammered down as far as it could go. Mello's trembling fingers lightly traced the wound, but Matt recoiled sharply at his touch, backing as far away from him as he could.
'Don't... don't touch me...' he whispered.
Tears filled Mello's eyes.
He hadn't cried for years.
Not since the night he'd been packaged off to this orphanage.
What had happened to him in that time? Turned him into a sick twisted bastard who'd shoved glass in his best friend's eye, that's what.
Mello couldn't stop the tears then. They ran down his cheeks as he went limp, thick and fast, and he couldn't do a damn thing to stop them. He let them, his vision blurring out the sight of Matt slumped against the bookshelf, his left eye mangled and saturated with what was now leaking slowly past his chin and dribbling onto his striped t-shirt.
Matt commented weakly, 'This is the first time I've ever seen you cry. Well. If I could see, that is.'
With that, Mello came back to reality fast and took action. After wiping his streaming eyes, he grabbed Matt's hand and led him, blindly, towards the infirmary.
'It's going to be okay,' he repeated all the way there, over and over, not sure who to. Matt, or himself. Or to no-one in particular, but he was just praying for the sake of it.
You did it again.
Mello dragged Matt faster, almost running.
You're so impulsive.
'Shut up,' Mello hissed under his breath through gritted teeth. His good hand gripped Matt's tighter.
Maybe because you never do think about the consequences of your actions, is why you're –
'Shut the fuck up and leave me alone,' Mello muttered, with a vice-like grip on Matt's hand as he hurtled towards the door on the end of the corridor. He couldn't bring himself to listen to the voices, not now. Matt had already lost so much blood...
Mello burst through the doors, and practically screamed at the receptionist to help Matt, right now, who was slumped over Mello's shoulder like a rag doll. He'd fallen unconscious.
Alarmed, the receptionist pushed a button on the desk to ring for immediate attention, and in only a matter of seconds Matt was pulled from Mello's grip and shoved on to a gurney where he was wheeled off into a separate ward. When Mello tried to take a step forward in the same direction, a hand on his arm held him back.
'You can't go with him,' the receptionist informed him gravely.
'Don't you fucking tell me what to do!' Mello snapped, and tried to escape, but it was useless.
'If you don't follow the infirmary's policies, you may make it worse for the patient,' the receptionist replied totally calmly. She was obviously used to this, and had trained herself not to get emotional in situations like these.
Mello tugged again, half-heartedly, but knew he was fighting a losing battle. To the receptionist's intense surprise, he collapsed on to the cold floor, and wept. Tears of guilt and frustration sprang from his eyes, both perfectly healthy yet ringed with the mark of an insomniac.
Would Matt ever be able to cry again?
Mello only vaguely heard the receptionist try to reassure him, to insist that he got his hand checked out straight away, but he wasn't listening.
He was such an idiot.
Convincing himself he was doing what was best for Matt, what a laugh.
Mello was one hundred percent sure Matt would never forgive him.
... I hope you're not wanting to kill me right now. ._.
How was that? Boring? I don't know...
Drop a review to tell me what you thought! :)