Alright, I know its terrible to make you guys wait for over a month, but I think you'll find it quite worth it! Thanks for being so patient, and please, enjoy!
Matt closed the door of his apartment behind himself after ushering Audrey inside first. He took the liberty of clicking on the light switch, dimly illuminating the room in a glowing amber. "You can sit down, you know," he mumbled, not exactly an academic student of hospitality. But all the same, she waited for him to take a seat on the dilapidated yellow futon before she assumed the spot next to him. Small talk had always been beyond Audrey's realm of understanding, but awkward silences were no strangers. However, under the one she found herself in now, Audrey realized she was indeed struggling. Her hands began to ring themselves out and tug the ends of her unruly hair anxiously. She did everything she could to not blurt out things she had yet to think through.
What do you want from me?! Her insides were bubbling to scream at something, at the first jeering remark he made, at anything. But she sat still, her hands assaulting one another, and waited. It occurred to her in that silence that she did a lot of that; Audrey did a lot of waiting.
Always had. She had a feeling she would spend a lot of her days waiting for this boy. Waiting for him to say something that made everything right, waiting for him to come after her when things just weren't right... just waiting. And this was no different. She made a mental vow to not be the first to speak. He would say what he had to and she would respond with what she saw fit. This conversation would follow his lead, she decided. He could wait too, she made up her mind.
What exactly he was waiting for was not in her logic to decipher, but if she was denied his explanations, he would be denied hers. It was, after all, the only thing she could control in the situation. The words she had to divulged were hers to give, but it would be give and take.
"So she saw me," Matt muttered. It wasn't much of a question, more of a soft utterance of defeat: a bona-fide confession. An undeniable truth, the way so many other unspoken things were. Audrey nodded her head, forcing an exhaled breath that she hadn't realized had locked inside of her chest. "She told me so when I came down to the lobby, on my way out," she said quietly, focusing on keeping her voice level. "You know, one of those 'Oh, and by the way,' things..." A shrug punctuated the facetiousness in the words. Matt moved his head marginally in understanding.
Give and take, she reminded herself. And a short silence passed.
"I meant what I said out there," he said curtly, tilting his head to look at her full on in the face. Audrey snorted behind her lips with a hmph sound. He watched her delicate jaw square. "You've always had a funny way of showing it," she challenged. His eyes narrowed; an inexplainable emotion rolled through his body, crashing like a violent wave. "It's not like I'm lying to you, Audrey," his voice raised an octave or two in exasperation. She shrugged. "I wasn't calling you a liar."
"Then what are you saying?!" The air between them tensed. Maybe aloofness wasn't her strong suit. When Audrey spoke again, she found her own voice raising, traces of her calmed facade falling away like the bricks of a crumbling wall. "I'm saying," she drawled, a final attempt to keep herself together, "that someone who cares about someone else," more bricks hitting the ground, her voice rises again, "doesn't run and hide from everything the way you do!"
Ohh, venom, Miss Audrey. She spat out the words, and there they were, irrevocable, hanging heavily in the air like a corpse from a tree. His gaze was densely trained to hers; neither wavered for a moment, until Matt moved swiftly to close the distance between them and press his lips to hers.
Her body went utterly rigid. She may as well have been shot through the chest with the way her heart just completely seemed to stop. With wide eyes, she saw his face pull back, the feeling of his lips disconnecting from hers something dreadfully beautiful and heart-wrenchingly saddening at the very same time. His face retreated only an inch or two from hers before he ceased movement. Matt's breathing caught in his throat, and he had to force a gulp of air down his larynx before he could speak. "Is this – is this a better way to get you to understand?" he breathed.
She nodded with a sharp downward jerk of her chin, unable to force words up her dried windpipes. Unable to move. Utterly and thoroughly frozen under this foreign closeness; the short distance between them something she had never allowed herself to even dream of.
"So you get it now?" he muttered. Audrey bit her bottom lip and nodded with an air of uncertainty, her eyes dilated and flitting like a birds. Matt moved his head in a short bow that Audrey probably wouldn't have picked up on had he not been so close. "Good," he murmured faintly. "Its about damn time."
And with that finality, he kissed her firmly and full-on.
Naturally, movement of any kind was not an option, as the pressure of his lips ceased all functions of her brain. Had Audrey been made purely of ice, surely she would have been a puddle on the floor. That's how she felt. Audrey felt like a puddle of icy water, expanding over the floor in a euphorically free way with all nerves on end at full attention. And like water over a smooth surface, now that there was undeniable freedom, there was no stopping the inevitable.
He cupped her face and she clutched at the collar of his shirt, tugging the fabric toward her with clenched fists. Obliging to that unintentional gesture would be like breaking the Hoover Dam, Matt knew. For sanity's sake, he said to himself. There would be no way he could move his body over hers in the direction her hands were pulling him, for sanity was dwindling, and the slightest stray move could mean the end of his softest kiss. No, there was no way he would risk pushing her too far. Now that he was here, Matt was going to revel in it. He would show her what she had always done to him.
Mello's voice in his head seemed to be louder than the soft gasps for breath that escaped Audrey's mouth when his lips moved away from hers to trail over the delicate skin of her jaw line. He clenched his teeth together. Mello's voice echoed what a fool he was. To care so much, he could hear him laughing darkly.
To need someone? Really, Matty boy? More scornful laughter. With lids down, he could just see the golden hair, hanging haphazardly into bitter, jaded eyes. He could see the arms swathed in black leather folding loosely over the slender torso. He could see Mello as if he was leaning on a wall in his apartment, next to the futon he kissed Audrey on. In the shadows, in every corner, in every crevice where light could not breech, he saw him standing there.
He squeezed his eyes shut and exhaled slowly; his breath was warm spreading over her skin, like a breeze over empty, barren lands, or metaphorically, a plague, infecting all it softly brushed past. Infected seemed like the right word to Audrey. She felt afflicted by every gentle brush of skin, and if the viral of his touch was deadly, she would have happily died on the spot for the promise of more; for the promise of being carried out on waves of soft, cradling pestilence. He was a disease that left her needing, with hands reaching out blindly for more.
But why was Mello's voice so loud, Matt was asking himself. Why did it hurt his head so much when the condescending laughter crashed into the linings of his skull? Why was he here? Why, why, why! A quiet whimper escaped Audrey's mouth, as soft as the pink shade of her lips. "I... I'm sorry," he muttered to the curve of her neck. Color flooded to her cheeks. Her head began to shake from side to side. "Don't be," her voice is quiet; it wavers on the last note of her word.
Wondering how he could help that she had haunted him since before Mello did, his head moved to lock her eyes. The air fell silent. Matt couldn't take it. He pushed himself off of her.
"What do you have to be sorry for?" her voice called to him, quiet and defeated. He pulled a cigarette off of his bedside table and began to fumble in his pockets for a lighter. Smoke began to drift through the room; it stung her nose as a hard reminder that quiting anything was never easy, but getting off of the addiction that was the man she had always wondered about would be damn near impossible now that she knew what it was like to feel him.
Hell, she thought to herself as Matt turned to face her, drawling on his cigarette, I might not even try to quit this time. But something nagged her, whispering that this wasn't up to her. Something at the back of her mind was asking what she had just thrown herself into.