Looseleaf
CXXXXIV. Manual
"Hmph, worst part of Matt's birthday..." Mello grumbled to himself as he tried not to drown in a mass of wires and cardboard. "Right, so the manual says to put this thing into...that thing." Experimentally, he eased in a yellow wire into it's designated spot. It went in about two centimeters, then wouldn't go further.
Mello threw the wire over his shoulder tiredly, adding it to the growing pile of wires-that-would-not-fit-in-the-green-slot.
He picked up the last green wire and prayed to God that this was the right one. "Should have just bought him a laptop," Mello mumbled to himself. "Or gotten that maintenance guy to set up the TV." He jammed the green wire in, fulling expecting it not to work.
But to his surprise, it did.
"Yes!" Mello whooped, relief washing over him. "Now all I have to do is clean up and-"
BOOM!
xxx
"M-matt?" Mello got out, eyes fluttering open. "Where am I?"
The redhead snapped to attention. "Thank God you're awake." He took his hand and stroked it comfortingly. "Well, Mels, I came home with that pack of cigs and chocolates that you told me to buy. When I walked in the door, the fire alarm was going off and there was a bit of a fire in the middle of the living room. I found you underneath a TV, which, by the way, I don't remember owning..."
"B-birthday present," Mello croaked. "Tried to se-set it u-up. Went boom i-instead." His head lolled back for a while and he stared dazedly up at the white roof of the car.
"Oh man." Matt suppressed a chuckle, because he didn't think that it'd be appropriate. "You're in an ambulance and you're being driven to the hospital."
Mello was too tired to fight it. "Stupid TV manual," he muttered, before he went unconscious.
"TV manual?" Matt asked, pulling out a book. He'd found it clutched in Mello's hands when he was carrying him out of the burned apartment. The cover was singed badly, but he could still make out the words. "Mello? This is your Betty Crocker cookbook."