When my eyes opened, I realized we were in a moving vehicle. And that I was lying down. I bolted upwards. "What–"
"Ssh." The angel reached down and touched my forehead. "You were burning up with fever back there, but the cab driver had some aspirin, and it's all but broken."
I twisted my head to get a better view of my surroundings. We were in a taxi, and I was lying across the back seat, my head on her lap.
I felt a twinge in my wrist, and glanced down. It was bound in gauze and bandages, the edges of the cloth tinted a faint pinkish color. I gulped and eased myself into a sitting position.
"Where are we?" my throat felt dry.
"We've been cruising around for awhile, but we're close to the ocean. Wanna get out?" The angel smiled at me.
I hadn't been to the ocean for awhile. Dumbly, I blinked and nodded. "Uh, sure."
Now that I was awake, I felt dry and kind of jumpy, like I did when I fell asleep in a weird part of the day, which I guess I'd done.
"You sure you don't want me to take him to the hospital?" the cabbie asked.
Bloody hell. Not more hospitals. I'd just been fucking discharged.
"I'm sure he'll be fine," she replied calmly. "He just needs some fresh air."
...
The pulled up by a narrow wooden boardwalk. Beyond it, the ocean stretched out, gray and swirling. I helped Mello stumble out of the vehicle and paid the driver, who gave us one last odd look, then sped away.
I turned to him. He looked a bit better, but he still looked like he had some trouble staying upright. "You lost one hell of a lot of blood. And there could still be glass in your skin. You're lucky you haven't got gangrene! What the hell were you thinking?"
He swallowed very slowly, eyes closed. "I'm out of a job."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Vega...fired me. It's my scar, I guess...?"
If a boulder had been dropped on my head, I couldn't have been more shocked. "Mello, you've been fired? Because of the scar?"
"Yeah."
The muscles in my throat hurt like hell, like after a concert where I'd been screaming at the audience. "What are you going to do? Where are you gonna live?"
"That's the thing, I don't have anywhere to live."
"What about Matt?"
"I don't think we're on incredibly friendly terms right now." His tone was dry.
"You had a fight?"
"I smashed his car window with my bare hand."
"Jesus." I grabbed up his hand. "You're lucky the cab driver had a First-Aid kit. I think we stopped the bleeding. It was a couple of scratches and a few deeper nicks, but I took all the big pieces of glass out. I'm not sure if there are any more."
He stumbled backwards a bit, eyes flying up into their sockets. "Ah..."
Grabbing his arm, I slapped it across my shoulders. "I'm going to bring you down to the beach. You can lie down there, okay?"
...
She helped me down onto the sand and stood up. "I'm gonna go look for some food or something. When's the last time you've eaten or had any water?"
I couldn't remember that far back.
After she left, I stared up at the sky, unmoving. It was a foggy day, unusual for summer. But I was grateful. Sun would have burned my eyes.
Pulling myself into a sitting position, I looked down again at my hand and picked at the bandages. It probably wasn't that serious, but I wanted to see the extent of the damage anyway.
The bloody gauze unraveled and I grimaced.
It was one kind of deep scratch, followed by a couple that didn't even bleed. There was a lot of blood, but I wasn't bleeding anymore.
Flopping back down on the sand, my other hand came up to touch my face. What was I going to do now? I had no home, no source of income, no posessions. Some girl I'd met a couple days ago's crazy rapist stalker had sent hitmen after me. My face was scarred up, and I doubted I'd be able to pay for cosmetic surgery.
And that girl was looking more and more delicious by the second.
...
I sank down next to him on the warm sand and passed him a steaming latte and a muffin. "Sorry about the wait."
"Don't be." He took the coffee, pried the lid off and downed the whole thing in one go.
"Jesus, Mello. Thirsty much?"
He swallowed. I followed the motion of his Adam's apple as I fiddled with the lid of my coffee. A hazelnut latte had looked delicious back in the coffee shop, but the smell of it was nauseating me for some reason. I set it down as I watched him lick his fingers for crumbs.
Wait.
"You finished the muffin already?"
"I was hungry." His mouth was still full, his words coming out garbled. I couldn't hold back my smile.
His Adam's apple bobbed again as he turned to look at me. His eyes looked kind of hazy, surrounded by locks of messy blond hair. My eyes strayed from his to the plaster bandaging on his cheek, and I leaned forward a little bit, one hand stretching out to touch the rough whiteness. My fingers pressed into the bandaging. He moaned, whether in pain or in pleasure I could not tell.
My gaze met his again. He looked strange, kind of like a cat with his odd, thunderous stare. Something in his entire frame was tensed, as though waiting. But for what, I had no idea.
...
Drinking all that coffee so quickly was not one of my smarter moves. I had a caffeine/sugar/head rush, and colored spots were starting to pop up everywhere.
Misa removed her hand, and the muted sting went away. I couldn't help but wonder if I'd actually wanted her to move that hand.
I looked at Misa again. The first few times I had seen her, she had been almost hard to look at, with all her color and brightness. But I guess, through all those crazy-ass things that happened to her, she'd matured some how. Where she used to shine, she now glowed. She had morphed from sunburst to starlight. It was a frightening and beautiful thing to see.
I'd never been much of an artist, but I could almost picture myself as a painter, my imaginary brush stroking her lines and contours. I'd need a lot of colors–brown as dark chocolate for her eyes, carnation red for her lips. Lots of black for her clothing and eyelashes. White gold for her hair. It had faded since I'd first met her...or maybe I was going crazy.
"Earth to Mello?"
She snapped her fingers. God, what was I thinking? She was an angel, she was starlight, I was a painter–Jesus, you're going bloody insane, Mel. I could almost picture Matt laughing at me, cigarette poking out of the corner of his mouth.
I couldn't think about Matt now though. That was something I'd have to deal with later, on my own terms.
"Mello!" Okay, she was a little annoyed now. I glanced up and our eyes met, once again.
Come on, Mello, whaddya gonna do? What're you gonna say to her?
What would I say? What would I do? There was so much we both had to take care of, so many billions of pieces to pick up.
I didn't want to pick up pieces.
So instead, I shut all of those thoughts out of my head and took the starlight-angel by the shoulders.
...
His fingers dug into my skin. He was looking at me with a half-wild, predatorial expression.
And boy, was it turning me on.
I inched a little closer to him, so that my top lip just brushed against his.
Was he supposed to do the rest? I wasn't sure exactly how I would kiss him.
I just knew I wanted to.
...
My lips pressed against hers and her mouth opened, her warm tongue sliding against mine. My hand came up to cup the side of her face, to ensnare itself in her hair.
Her eyes were closed, her whole body leaning into mine. The surf crashed a mere foot away from our bodies, spraying us with briny ocean essence.
This was amazing. This was great.
This was one little island of alright in a big, ugly planet of bad.
Misa's teeth sank into my lip, the tips sliding against the rough part of my tongue. I gripped her hair tighter and pushed her head back, mouth sliding downward to savor the tender skin on her neck. My tongue traced a path from her throat to her shoulder, and I eased her down onto the warm sand.
There would be many consequences for this.
But try as I might, I couldn't force myself to care.
...
A/N: YAY! Sexy time wif Misa n' Mello! Oh, and btw, if you're touchy about reading sex then 1. You're reading the WRONG fanfic and 2. Don't read the italicized prologue to the next chapter, which WILL be told from Light's POV, as promised.
LIGHT: I is happeh!
ELLE: OH! And one more thing! If you like this fanfic and would like some actual DRAWINGS, made by meh (don't worry, I'm a good artist) of different scenes in this fic, please leave your email address in your review! R&R! If I don't get at least 1 review per chapter, I'm not gonna keep writing! Hahaha!