V. Abandonment
The phone call was hushed and immediate, Matt sparing no time to allow his companion to hear the conversation. Despite his efforts, however, Mello still caught snatches of it: he could hear a few whispered remarks about the accident, but never once was the blonde mentioned; that was as it should be.
Only minutes later the phone was snapped shut, and Matt looked up, only to be subjected to an all-too dirty look from the blonde.
"So what did she want?" he demanded, a sickeningly sardonic note in his otherwise dead serious tone.
"She asked me where I was," the other replied airily, trying not to show that he was daunted by Mello's wrath. Somehow, though, he felt as though Mello could sense it. Ever since Wammy's, he had a funny feeling that the elder one could smell fear, in a way that dogs did. Now, of course, he found this whole idea ridiculous, but he never rid himself of that sinking suspicion…
"And what did you tell her?"
"I told her that I was so rushed getting out the door that I got in a wreck. True enough, and I'm not giving you away."
Mello just grunted and shuffled away, contenting his enraged mind by rooting out a chocolate bar from the refrigerator. He peeled the thing and balanced it between his front teeth, before retreating into the living room again, but this time he couldn't look at Matt.
Realizing that the other one wasn't going to strike up more conversation, the redhead took the initiative.
"So what are you going to do now?"
"I should leave your ass," he said bitterly. "Do you know how much this is going to fuck up my plans? Honestly, Matt…could you have done anything stupider than fall for that broad?"
"You're an emotionless dick. You don't even give a shit how I feel, do you?"
"This isn't about your feelings! This is about catching Kira. Obviously you don't care about that."
"Obviously you care too much."
"Shut the hell up. This isn't about me; this is about you and that Takada bitch. Quit trying to turn the situation around on me. It doesn't work."
Matt stood, so abruptly that he even surprised himself. It seemed as though his muscles were moving of their own accord. They continued to do so, propelling his feet forward on the sullied carpet, his hands scooping up every video game cartridge he could muster, along with a few abandoned articles of clothing that may have been lying around. He stormed about in a way that modeled a spoiled child, adding to that illusion with a few huffs and incoherent complaints. He wasn't known for getting angry easily; hell, Matt was as impassive as they came, but for once things weren't just about Mello and his wild life. It was about him, and something that was important to him. Yet the other still didn't understand. He just went on about how it would negatively influence his own life.
And here he was calling Matt selfish.
"Where are you going?" stipulated Mello when Matt had finally finished his feverish packing and wheeled toward the door.
Without so much as a glance behind him, the gamer twisted the knob viciously. "I'm going to see Takada," he mouthed, leveling his voice to keep it from cracking. "And I'm not coming back."
"Goddammit, you're being immature."
"Then just be glad I'm not your problem anymore. Good fucking riddance."
He didn't look back before he stepped out into the whispering world of sleet beyond, in fear that simply casting a glimpse in the other's direction would stop him from leaving. It had in the past, but he wouldn't let it happen this time. He had every intention of following through with his promise of leaving Mello for good, and showing him that he could love Takada and she could love him back, and everything would be alright for him just this once, and not for Mello, who kept him occupied with his need for attention, praise, and success.
Once the door slammed behind him, it didn't open again. Mello fidgeted, his subconscious slowly ticking away the seconds of solitude.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven…
Five minutes passed, but Matt hadn't returned. The blonde's expression hardened and he stood, glaring at the door as though he could see the other standing on the other side, but of course he wasn't there.
Finally, he gave up and stomped back toward the bedroom, muttering to himself all the while.
"Yeah," he hissed, mimicking the slamming of the door with the door of the bedroom, making the drywall that clung to the doorframe quiver in fear.
"Good fucking riddance."
Ever since Mello had moved in, he had received a distinct feeling from the apartment. The way it smelled, the way it looked, the way the very atmosphere reverberated around him reminded him of Matt, and it had grown to be nothing more than a norm; something familiar to come back to every day when he was pissed and exhausted.
But now that the air of Matt was missing its key ingredient, Matt himself, it didn't feel quite right, like the feeling you get when you're walking around your house, but all the furniture has been rearranged and the walls have been painted. It was still the apartment he had come to accept as a place to live, but it wasn't the same place he had sought shelter from; it wasn't quite right anymore.
He had long since the redhead's departure convinced himself that it was true; the other was a pawn, an acquaintance he knew long ago to be disposed of at will. Mello was rather good at deluding himself; otherwise, he never would have been able to follow through with the dream of beating Near.
Work went on as per usual, because the blonde was anything but a slacker. In fact, not working made him feel inadequate, so even when he found himself at a lack of things to do, he still was able to keep occupied by monitoring things that seemed to never change.
The only thing that had changed about the normalcy in Mello's world in the passing days (besides, of course, Matt's leaving) was that the snow hadn't abated, as the hazy channel two weatherman had predicted. It had only gotten thicker, if anything, which caused quite a stir. After all, snow was a scarce thing in California, let alone a blizzard's worth of it.
Mello, despising snow almost as much as he despised Kira, attempted to do whatever possible to stay indoors. He used the money Matt had left behind to order pizza (which he had sent to apartment rooms a few doors down from his own to avoid detection), and had cleaned out the refrigerator completely within a few days.
But when the chocolate was gone, things became serious.
The sweet most definitely was Mello's greatest weakness, but he had never been known to suffer withdrawal, perhaps because he had never been parted with his beloved addiction for more than a day.
But when a full week past of nothing but leftovers and an inherent lack of chocolate, the male decided that he would have to brave the cold eventually, or risk a fate worse than death.
Melodrama aside, things only grew worse when he tried to wait out the weather for awhile. He became colder than usual, and even developed a high fever before pulling on his jacket and crunching bulky leather boots into the accumulating frost to go grocery shopping.
His temperature stubbornly remained at exactly one hundred, but he didn't seem to feel its side effects while his mind was wandering intermittently. It was a wonder he made it to the store at all without collapsing head first onto the sidewalk.
Perhaps that was due to Mello's iron will.
Or something like that.
He fished through his pockets for the diminishing wad of bills he had found in Matt's sock drawer, and used a good portion of it to fill a paper bag full to the brim with chocolate and a few TV dinners. The dinners probably wouldn't be touched until the chocolate was next to gone, but he needed some sustenance. Even Mello knew that chocolate couldn't account for every food group, though he ate it as if it did.
The trek back to the apartment only grew colder, and at last he found himself hunched over the stoop, resolving to head up the stairs when he didn't feel frozen solid.
He was dizzy, that was for sure, and his numb fingers couldn't feel the newest candy bar he had unwrapped and was feeding his insatiable mouth. The wind didn't help, either; it had picked up since his long walk down and back, and was now pounding on the side of his head, sounding very much like the pounding of his heart that had filled his ears.
Soon he knew he'd have to get up into the warmth, because his warm-natured body couldn't take the extremities for long. Groping up the metallic staircase that led up to the second floor, Mello heaved himself onto the corridor, blinking to keep himself awake.
Dear, lord…when had he become so goddamn tired?
That seemed to matter little, though when he took out the key and found himself unable to see the slot in which it fit very clearly, he knew something must be wrong. The key eventually slipped out of his grasp, and he was in no fit state to lean over and get them, let alone see with his frost-blinded eyes.
Goggles would be useful at a time like this.
Where was Matt, anyway?
He's gone, you stupid asshole.
Oh, yeah.
A dreary, fever-induced grin floated over his face. "That's okay," he told himself wearily. "I don't need him."
That was when he caught sight of a pair of jean-clad legs, attached to two booted feet and what appeared to be the very fuzzy outline of a body. Mello blinked a few times, but a kind of warmth was pressing in on his head from all sides, and a bitter cold had claimed the rest of him, making the recognition of this body rather difficult.
"D'you really mean that, Mel'?" spoke a soft, familiar voice.
Somehow, though, his subconscious had identified that voice before he himself was able.
"Fuck off, Matt," he said, vaguely aware of the fact that he was sitting on his ass, completely sodden with snow and ice.
How did that happen?
"You look awful," he replied coolly. "Let me just…"
Unfortunately, the rest of that sentence was drowned out by a fierce roaring in the elder one's ears. His eyes no longer digested the sight of an indistinct shape surrounded by snow, but only the inside of his lids, where things seemed to be a lot more peaceful.
And god was he tired; it was good thing he slipped into the realm of the unconscious soon after.
He'd have to ask Matt to get off his lazy ass and get the groceries next time.