Three hours later, Mello surfaced from his endless poring over hacking sites that he had somehow accessed, each having to do with Kira in some way. He hadn't made much headway there, though he had found a reasonably good source that linked to the SPK. Perhaps then he could get Hal's number again. Her old one had been either changed or disconnected.
Or both.
He stretched languorously and stood, trying to place what was so different about the room.
It was different; colder, somehow, even if it was snowing. That wasn't why the atmosphere was so deathly frigid.
Mello trudged toward the kitchen, having polished off his latest chocolate bar. He hadn't gotten far when his foot collided quite uncoordinatedly with something small on the floor, and he tumbled forward, landing with a measured amount of grace on his back. A slew of cuss words escaped his parted lips, and he blinked up to see what had caused his fall, only to gaze at a black, bruised Nintendo 64 controller.
His eyes widened in realization.
Matt was still gone.
Why did that bother him so much? Mello scrambled to his feet and went to the landline phone, since he didn't carry a cell phone and Matt always kept his on his person. He dialed the number (which he had memorized, quite to his own revelation) and waited impatiently for the line on the other end to ring.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
There was a small click.
"You've reached Matt," came the monotone of a reply. "I'm not here right now, so leave a message. I probably won't call you back, though."
At that, the answering machine's message ended, leaving Mello to stand there listening to naught but the dial tone. He snarled, hung up the receiver violently, and stormed into the living room again, pausing before exhaling slowly.
"At least the fucker's honest," he breathed humourlessly. The real question was, though, should he go and find him? The bastard was probably out getting stoned, or something equally stupid. A lot of scenarios blossomed in Mello's mind, each as grating as the next. Maybe that was just his stereotype for Matt, growing from his intolerance of the other's smoking habit.
Well, fine.
If he was going to go out and be an idiot, he was going to get a rude awakening. Mello wrenched on his hood vehemently again in preparation to go outside, and had stomped only far enough to notice that the redhead's keys were on the counter, neglected.
That was new.
He jammed the keys into his pocket and continued out the door and into the chill beyond, locking up behind him with a sense of grudging satisfaction.
The streets seemed to be a lot more uproarious than usual. Cars and taxis of all shapes and sizes were lined up bumper to bumper, occasionally inching forward to move at least a little bit. It was obvious that most of them weren't used to such abrupt stops. Mello followed the flow of traffic on the sidewalk, noticing also that the look of the crowds matched that of the cars: jam-packed and restless.
But for what reason?
The naturally curious blonde shoved his way through the masses, earning a few dirty looks as he did so. The dizzying hum of sirens washed over every other sound, silencing the car horns and chattering people authoritatively.
So that was it. Some kind of disaster had caused the back up, and the citizens of Los Angeles behaved as though they had never seen anything like it.
Having discovered the source of the commotion, Mello considered turning back.
But curiosity got the better of his simmering anger, and he forced himself through the mobs again to reach the head of the turmoil.
Carnage didn't frighten Mello. He was just too used to it. It was almost a casual thing now, even as he looked upon the mangled wreck before him. A taxi, it seemed, had been obliterated by another of its kind. Metal had connected with metal, and sparks still littered the half-melted snow that paved the road to serve as evidence for what had happened. Dark crimson stains amongst the searing white, too, left telltale signs of casualties, along with the covered figures that were already being hoisted into ambulances. Glass had shattered in several of the windows, spread only by the wind and the impact. It glittered under the illusory stare of the pallid sun.
This wreck was indeed a sight to see.
Mello averted his eyes to the surrounding scene, where appalled bystanders and ambulance workers were bustling about. The police had shown up as well to keep the peace.
What caught his eye, however, was something smouldering in the snow not far away. A thin trail of smoke unfurled from an object that was all too familiar to the scathing blonde: a cigarette. It had been stained by what looked like blood, and bent savagely, but all in all still a cigarette, even after Mello strode up, bent over, and picked it up.
He wrinkled his nose at the scent. A person in one of the taxis must have been smoking….that made it all the more bearable that another putrid smoker was off the street. The leather-clad male could never tolerate them. He had only been able to put up with Matt for some inane reason.
Suddenly, something welled up in Mello's stomach.
But the chances were…infinitesimal. There were hundreds of smokers in Los Angeles; what were the chances that Matt had been the one in the taxi?
And yet, he found himself propelled forward by his own feet, meanwhile tugging his hood over his face. The appearance of bothersome reporters coaxed a scowl from his thinned lips. There was no way he could get close to the scene while there were cameras examining every angle of it. Mello retreated, melding with the surrounding the crowd before breaking away and pacing back to the apartment.
Dammit.
The discordant sound of leather boot against frigid sidewalk clashed unnaturally against the flowing steps that the crowd made as he traveled against them, only breaking stride when he ducked out of the safety of the horde and tucked his hand into his pocket to retrieve a ready key.
Something slowed his pace, however. His scowling eyes darted to an oh-so-familiar blemish in the paved walkway that led to the apartment complex. It was a crimson smear, no bigger than a teardrop, yet it was so foreboding.
Or maybe that was just his mind playing tricks on him.
Mello ventured on, each step leaden. But it didn't show. He had a habit of concealing the strangest emotions, even when he let anger and grief rule him. People had selective feelings, after all. They chose when they wanted to be numb, and when they wanted to let loose.
The journey up the staircase was even harder to struggle through. He reached the landing without breaking a sweat, though, probably because he couldn't. The snow, if anything, had become even colder. His head swerved slightly to the right, the preparation to pass down the hall.
But he didn't get far enough as to take his first step.
Sprawled against the wall, looking like he had been through hell and back, was Matt.
Mello snarled, and instead of doing what was expected, he snatched a handgun from where it was obscured at his leather-clad hip. He pressed the barrel against the other's bloodstained forehead, which clashed horribly with the dark shade of red that flecked his hair.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" he demanded, cocking the gun with a sharp click.
"Oh, Mello," said Matt, voice strangely even. "You locked the door…you have the keys?"
The blonde jingled them in front of the younger's face malevolently, still putting a fair amount of pressure on his temple with the point of the weapon. Matt winced slightly.
"Good," he continued, as though he wasn't talking to Mello at all. "I've been waiting out here…for awhile. Can you help me in?"
There was a pause. Mello considered blowing the other's brains all over the place right here, just to prove some kind of twisted point. But he merely sighed and withdrew his gun, knowing that it would probably do no good to kill his only help just to prove something he wouldn't be around to appreciate.
And so he hooked his arms roughly under the crouching figure's arms, heaving him to his feet and walking him to the door, where he struggled to both unlock the door and keep the body pressed against him aloft. The strain seemed a little too much for Matt, though, and with a tiny exhale, his eyes slipped shut behind blood-spattered goggles. It was difficult to see, but he was slanted so closely into Mello that he could see very clearly through the tinted glass.
It was quite a feat to turn the doorknob and push it open, but it was accomplished within five minutes at least. The blonde stumbled inside, malevolently depositing the redhead on the couch. He gave a muffled "unnhh…" but it was a sign that he was alive, and that was sufficient enough.
"You took that mother fucking taxi, didn't you?" he murmured to the unconscious figure slumped against the sofa. "What's so wrong with walking, you moron? Too good for you?"
There had appeared to be no survivors at the scene; Matt must have made it out only barely. He didn't deserve it. Maybe if he had been killed on impact, like everyone else had, things would have been a lot easier and less distracting. But the more he thought about this, the more he figured that that wasn't really what he wanted. He just needed something to mutter under his breath as he unfastened the goggles around the other's head and threw them on the ground before examining the damage slowly.
He appeared to have been torn apart quite a bit by the glass from the windshield of the taxi, and a string of bruises lined his collarbone and wrapped along his chest and down to the opposite hipbone, looking very much like an oddly placed imprint.
At least the moron had been wearing a seatbelt.
This was very unlike him, but Mello wasn't complaining. It looked like it had saved his life, despite the mass of contusions and gashes that covered nearly every inch of exposed skin. Some of them appeared to be the makings of scars, but nothing on the surface appeared lethal.
"God dammit," he said swiftly. Mello moved into the bathroom to rummage around for a first aid kit, bringing it back into the living room not long after to look through its contents. He pulled out a good size bottle of disinfectant and used a box of gauze to treat each flesh wound he came across, surprised at first when the contact made Matt shiver involuntarily.
The blonde scowled. "That's what you get," he said tonelessly, continuing his task after a brief pause. To be truthful, the redhead was virtually faultless, a mere victim of circumstance.
However, Mello wasn't happy unless he had someone to blame for everything that went awry. Near, Matt, L, Kira, Roger, and a few from Wammy's had already received the bulk of this blame for such frivolous things.
But never was it Mello's fault.
He was guiltless.
It took a good majority of the kit and the whole roll of bandages inside, but soon Matt had been healed to his fullest extent. Satisfied for the moment, Mello stepped away from the injured figure and to the kitchen, sickened somehow by the mere sight of him. It wasn't the dark bloodstains or the green bruises that seeped like paint over his skin, but the whole situation that made the elder's stomach turn.
Bastard.
Who did Matt think he was, making him worry, even in the slightest?
"Mello?"
That questioning voice spoke his name again, tone level and apparently unconcerned. The blonde whipped around bitterly, eyes penetrating as if to say: What the fuck do you want?
"Thanks," the gamer uttered coolly.
Mello exhaled with a certain amount of difficulty, trying to restrain his urge to pull out his gun again and empty a few rounds into Matt's thick skull. Thankfully, he managed to bury that desire before muttering something incoherent and marching into the kitchen to retrieve a chocolate bar.
He'd probably stay there awhile, but would eventually return to check on the other. After all, broken bones and any sort of internal bleeding had to be taken into account, though he didn't imagine the damage was too bad if he had managed to crawl all the way up to the second floor and hold even the semblance of a conversation with Mello. It was impressive.
But hell if he would admit that to Matt. The last thing he wanted to do was compliment the idiot.