“Shit!”  Matt kicked the door in frustration as his key failed to go into the keyhole for the third time.  He was already shaking with the effort of supporting Mello’s weight, and on top of that his keys had somehow ended up in his left hand.

On the fourth try, he finally managed to get his door open.  He dragged Mello’s dead weight through it with him and awkwardly kicked it shut again.  

The stairs were the next challenge.  Matt groaned.  He doubted that he outweighed Mello by more than a few pounds these days.  He slipped Mello’s body behind him and hauled both of his arms over his shoulders.  Then he leaned forward and hoisted Mello’s bulk off the ground.  “Pick me up, Matty,” he said in shrill imitation of Mello’s voice as he mounted the stairs.  “I blew myself up!  You’ve got nothing better to do than clean up my mess, right?”  He gave a caricature of Mello’s manic laughter before lapsing back into gloomy silence.  Mello had actually been lucky in his timing.  Three weeks ago, Matt wouldn’t have been capable of waking up to take his call.  

At the top of the stairs, he kicked the door to the bathroom open and dragged his limp burden inside.  He maneuvered Mello’s form into the bathtub as carefully as he could, and was at least able to avoid banging his once-friend’s head into the porcelain.  “This should be fun, huh Mel?  What a great way to catch up on old times!”  He began unzipping what remained of Mello’s shirt.  When he tried to remove the garment entirely, it resisted.  Matt jerked on it roughly before he realized that what it was stuck to was actually Mello’s skin.  He winced as the fabric tore free and fresh blood began to flow.

From that point on, he was more careful in stripping the other man.  His pants were also melted to his skin in certain areas, and Matt ended up using his pocket knife to cut those strips of fabric free.  Finally Mello was naked save for the few resistant patches of leather, and Matt straightened up to assess his condition.  His left side was charred and blackened, except for the patches where Matt had inadvertently torn away fabric that had melted to him.  Those areas were bloody and raw, like hamburger.  His skin seemed to…ooze.  The hair on the left half of his head had been singed to the roots, and most of his face was covered in grime and charcoal.  Matt’s lips twisted downwards at the unpleasant sight.  “Who knew you could ever look so bad?” he murmured, his gut churning slightly with anxiety.

He turned on the tap and shed his elbow-length gloves on top of the pile of Mello’s discarded clothes.  He stuck his fingers under the running water and made sure the temperature was mild enough that it shouldn’t be hard on Mello’s skin, then turned the shower on.  As soon as the water fell on Mello, rivulets of ash and blood began flowing away from him.

Matt turned away.  He wasn’t worried on the behalf of a person he hadn’t even heard from in a year and a half; it just wasn’t a very pleasant thing to look at.

While the prone form in the shower was being washed clean, Matt returned to his car for the haphazard collection of medical supplies he had bought earlier.  He swore when he caught sight of the bloody, ashen mess that his passenger seat had become.  “Fuck you, Mello,” he hissed quietly.  “This is my most prized possession!”  He slammed the door shut with far more force than was necessary and stalked back towards the front door.  He got halfway there before he noticed the trail of blood spatter and singed black fur that led from his car to his front door.  

Matt groaned.  He knelt briefly to pick up a recognizable strip of what had been Mello’s ridiculous feather collar.  “Really fuck you, Mello.”  He would have to clean this up before any of his neighbors awoke, or else risk his front lawn being taken as the scene of a violent rape.  Fur and feathers would certainly be taken as a sign of a woman’s presence by anyone who didn’t know Mello personally.

Matt didn’t even allow himself to look at the mess that had become of his apartment as he passed through it.  He tossed the medical items carelessly into his bedroom and returned to the bathroom, where he found Mello much cleaner than he had been before the impromptu shower.  Matt smacked the water off and knelt to lift the injured man.

It proved much more difficult than he had anticipated.  Mello’s prone form was dripping wet and was difficult to grip firmly.  When Matt tried to dry him off, he found that pieces of fuzz from the towel kept clinging to his burnt skin.  Eventually he was forced to ignore Mello’s injuries and grasp his arms firmly in order to lift him up, even though it made his nails dig deeply into raw flesh.  He staggered to the bedroom and dropped Mello awkwardly onto the bed.

Matt took a deep breath, then expelled it through his teeth.  He wanted a smoke, but he knew he needed to stay as sanitary as possible.  He heaved a sigh, then plunged himself into the task at hand.  He started by cleaning every raw area he could find with rubbing alcohol.  Then he came to the patches of skin that had melted to leather, and rapidly realized that he didn’t actually have any idea what he was doing.  He shook his head.  “You need a hospital, not me.”  But of course a hospital was out of the question for a man who had just blown up a building and a bunch of gangsters and done who knew what other activities that would pique the interest of the cops.  “Dumbass.”  Matt flipped open his lighter and held his pocketknife in the flame for a solid minute.  Then he dipped the blade in the rubbing alcohol for good measure.  Finally he sliced the pieces of fabric free, trying his best to minimize the amount of skin he took with them.

Mello was a mess.  He was bleeding from the edge of the massive burn that extended from his face down to his left hip, and he was now bleeding in several new places that Matt had created.  At the center of the burns there was no blood, just reddened, mottled skin.  Matt winced.  It looked like those areas had been cauterized instantly.

Matt turned his attention to dressing the wounds.  He had bought several bottles of disinfectant, but they were gone before he had covered even half of the affected area.  Then he opened up several packages of gauze and began awkwardly placing it over Mello’s injuries.  It was hard to get it to stick in many of the places that had been burnt, and he wondered how real doctors went about this type of thing.

But there was no more time to spend dealing with Mello.  The clock had caught his eye at 5:18 am.  Matt released a string of profanity.  At this time of year, it would start getting light around six o’clock—and, more importantly, one of his neighbors retrieved her newspapers at promptly 6:15 am, like clockwork.  He leapt to his feet and combed the apartment for any cleaning supplies that might get the job done.

Matt was able to scour the front walk and begin the job of cleaning his car by 6:10.  His next door neighbor walked outside just as he finished draping a towel over the passenger seat.  

“Oh, Matt!” she exclaimed, leaning on her cane as she raised her other hand unsteadily to wave.  She peered at him with intent curiosity.  “What a surprise, seeing you out and about at this hour!”

“I pulled an all-nighter at work,” he replied curtly.  “I gotta crash.”  He hurried through the front door before she could ask any more well-intentioned but dangerous questions.  

Inside of his apartment, he sighed deeply as he took in the massive mess that still remained.  Blood, ash, discarded clothing—it would be another big job to clean up here.  He strode tiredly to his bedroom where Mello was still unconscious and unmoving, and slumped against the side of the bed.  He lit a cigarette and took a long drag, then blew the smoke out slowly.

“Now we can’t even stay here,” he complained resentfully in a quiet voice.  “The cops will be around.  I don’t know what sort of shit you were into, but I know it wasn’t legal…and some of your, ha, “associates” know where I live.  They could tell the police where to find us in an instant.”  He heaved a sigh.  “We have to go somewhere else.”

Despite that assessment, Matt found his ability to care waning rapidly as exhaustion set in.  “Tomorrow,” he mumbled, lying down on the floor.  He stubbed out the cigarette butt against his night stand and was asleep in seconds.






Ninety-eight coins.  If only he could find the last two, he would finally have the perfect score!  Matt dashed his character forward, flying towards the end of the level.

It had been three days since Matt had brought Mello back to his house.  They had moved to an abandoned room above a warehouse in one of L.A.’s ghettos.  Matt had cleaned his apartment and car as much as possible and had left his home in apparent repair.  The car was below them now, hidden in the depths of the warehouse.

Mello had not regained consciousness the whole time.

Matt had done a lot of reading on the internet about first aid for burns.  He had now become practiced in disinfecting and changing bandages.  He dripped water and tomato soup into Mello’s mouth twice a day to make sure he stayed fed and hydrated, and had learned how to ensure that he was able to void his digestive tract cleanly—something for which Mello would be indebted to him for life.  So far, so good; Mello was alive and breathing and seemed to be free of infection.

Mello’s abrupt stirring caught Matt’s peripheral vision.  He snorted in annoyance.  He was so close to beating his level, but now it would have to wait.  He hit pause and approached the secondhand bed.

Mello’s eyes had fluttered open.  They shifted rapidly over the scenery, but focused on Matt once his face entered Mello’s field of vision.  He blinked blearily, his lips forming silent sounds that defied Matt’s understanding.

Then he surged upwards.  Caught by surprise, Matt reacted according to an instinct that had been ingrained in him as a kid through years of dealing with Mello.  Within seconds he was straddling the blonde and pinning his wrists against the bed, heedless of his injuries.  Mello writhed and bucked beneath him, but he lacked the strength to throw him off.

Mello stilled, his breath coming in shallow heaves.  “I really need—just a few lines—just a line—“  Then he collapsed again, consciousness leaving him as abruptly as it had returned.

Matt stared.  Cocaine.  Mello wanted coke.

He shook his head in disbelief.  Sure, the Mafia probably trafficked the stuff; there was big money in that.  But—who had been stupid enough to let Mello get his hands on it?  He raised enough hell with mere caffeine as his aid.  Wasn’t it obvious that adding coke to the mix would be a toxic combination?  Granted, he had undoubtedly demanded rather than asked, and no one who wanted to stay in one piece said no to a demand from Mello—but giving him hard drugs in order to stay his temper had to be like trying to put out a blaze by suffocating it in gasoline.  

Matt stood up.  This new development complicated the situation, but he found himself paradoxically taking heart.  The fact that Mello’s first words when returning to consciousness had been “give me drugs” rather than “holy mother of God half my body is burned to a crisp and hurts like hell” might mean that the drugs were actually the bigger of the two problems right now.  And while Matt knew fuck-all about burn care, drug withdrawal was a whole different story.  It was practically his oldest friend, other than Mello himself.

He shook his head and grinned slightly as he regarded the unconscious blonde.  “What are you doing using such dangerous substances?  I honestly thought you had more sense than that.  Than me.”  Cocaine had one of the more manageable withdrawals as hard drugs went, but even so, he would now need a completely different set of supplies to complement the bandages and disinfectants he had stocked.  Matt heaved a regretful sigh as he switched his DS off and left the room.  






“Matt, leave me the fuck alone!”  Mello’s arm jerked violently out of Matt’s grip.  Matt dove forward to catch it again and pin it to the bed.  Mello struggled beneath him, hissing a string of profanity.

They had repeated this routine twice a day for two full weeks now.  Matt had come to think of these times as “morning howl” and “evening shriek.”  Both of Mello’s legs were cuffed to the legs of the bed, and his right arm was cuffed to a pipe that ran along the wall.  Matt had spared the left arm since it was burned, but every day since then he had questioned that decision.  Mello could put up quite a fight with just a single limb; Matt had a nice collection of cuts and bruises to prove it.

“Mello—shit—I’m just trying to change your bandag—“

“Let me out!”  Mello writhed beneath him, yanking futilely against the bindings that held him in place.  Matt gritted his teeth as Mello tried to lift his left arm.  He managed to hold it back just above the bed with one hand and began painstakingly pulling away the bandages with the other.

He didn’t get very far.  Mello managed to twist his arm free of Matt’s grip and send him pitching forward as the limb he had been pressing against with all of his might suddenly vanished.  Matt’s hand hit the bed and slipped on the loose blanket.  Mello moved like lightening, sitting halfway up to sink his teeth into Matt’s shoulder.

Matt shouted in pain and surprise as he threw himself off of the side of the bed.  He wound up on his hands and knees on the cold floor and stared incredulously at his new injury.  It was already leaking blood.  He stood up with a curse and whirled.  

“Fuck you, Mello!” he exclaimed.  “I still haven’t healed from the last time you bit me!”  To his daily bandaging and first aid routine had been added his own left forearm, which Mello had taken a sizeable chunk out of on his third day of animal rage.

Mello spat blood and gave a self-satisfied smirk, but it quickly degenerated into a furious glare.  “Just let me out!  It’s my business, not yours!”

“You made it my business when you called me,” snapped Matt.  He was shaking with anger.  Mello was even more intractable than usual today.  He needed a cigarette.  He sat down on the chair that was the room’s only other piece of furniture and lit one up, sucking on it desperately.  Once he calmed down a little, there was less of a chance that he would resort to the punch-Mello-in-the-face-until-he-stops-struggling approach to first aid, which, he felt, might have a few drawbacks if the intent was to heal him.  

Both of them knew that the instant Mello was free, he was going to see a dealer.  He didn’t bother to hide it, and he knew where to find members of groups that had been his rivals during his time with the Mafia.  The way Matt saw it, the only real option was to keep him tied down until he got over the withdrawal.  He didn’t need to consult the internet to know that cocaine would have a negative impact on the healing of major burn wounds, and he didn’t have to do much soul-searching to know that if Mello brought drugs into his presence right now, it would be the end of him as well.  “Here, eat this and quit bitching.”  He grabbed a bar of chocolate and tossed it onto Mello’s chest.  Then he stubbed his cigarette out before opening a fresh pack of gauze to staunch the blood flowing from his shoulder.

Mello fumbled the chocolate bar open with his one free hand and devoured half of it before speaking again.  “I can get there and back without getting caught.  Just let me go this once and I’ll stop fighting you.”

Matt stared at his friend in mixed confusion and frustration.  Logic should be telling him what a terrible idea that was, and Matt couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t enough.  It had been for him; that cold, rational voice had pulled him back from the edge of ruin half a dozen times or more.  “You’re a burn victim,” he said, for at least the fiftieth time.  “You should be in a fucking trauma ward somewhere, with doctors and nurses fussing over you.  Where you shouldn’t be is out on the damned streets scoring dope.  In your current state, it’ll kill you.”  

“Everybody dies of something,” retorted Mello, lifting his head to glare spitefully at him.

A wave of uncharacteristic fury gripped Matt, and he jumped out of his chair so quickly that it toppled over and clattered into the wall.  Even Mello was taken aback as he stalked across the room to glare daggers at him from just out of arm’s reach.  “You blew yourself up, Mello,” he growled.  “You could have died!”

Mello had recovered his composure.  “I’m pretty sure I was still alive, last time I checked!” he spat back.

Matt shook with fury.  “You aren’t invincible!” he shouted.

Mello’s expression was one of pure bug-eyed defiance.  “Live fast, die young,” he sneered.

Matt closed his eyes, the anger draining out of him just as quickly as it had come.  It was probably a hopeless argument.  Mello just didn’t get it.  For anyone else, such a close shave would have been a wake-up call to change his ways.  For Mello, it was proof of his own invulnerability.  Matt stomped back across the room and righted his chair, setting it a few feet from the bed.  He plopped onto it backwards, resting his arms on the chair’s back, and lit another cigarette.

“You’re such a fucking hypocrite,” complained Mello.  “You smoke a pack a day, asshole.”

Matt’s eyes narrowed.  He might have a point, but there was no way he was going to give up his precious cigarettes.  He affected a shrug.  “Yeah?  Well, taking care of your sorry ass all day long gives me the right to be a hypocrite.”

Mello was grinding his back teeth in a smoldering rage.  “If you’re forcing me to give up my addictions, couldn’t you have the decency to give up yours while we’re in the same room?”

Matt sniggered.  He was; oh, so many of them.  But Mello didn’t know that, and Matt sure as hell wasn’t about to inform him.  “Nah,” he replied flippantly.  He inhaled a nice, deep breath of cigarette smoke and exhaled the stream directly into Mello’s face.

That turned out to be the wrong thing to do.  Mello launched himself at Matt full-force.  When the cuffs held him back, his rage erupted in an animal howl.  He strained against his bindings, teeth bared.  Matt took an inadvertent step back.  Handcuffs wouldn’t break, would they?  They were made to stand up to violent criminals, so—

The pipe on the wall gave way with a horrendous screech.  Mello’s bulk impacted Matt full-force in the chest before he could react.  He stumbled back, but Mello had seized his arm and a handful of hair firmly.  When the cuff on Mello’s right leg went taught, momentum sent the two of them swinging towards the foot of the bed.  Matt’s knees hit the bed and he tumbled forward, and Mello clung to him and used their twin inertia to send them both somersaulting onto the ground.  Matt was momentarily stunned when his head cracked into the concrete floor hard enough to make him see stars, and failed to put up a fight for a key instant that Mello used to pin him by the simple expedient of straddling his stomach and one of his arms.  The slack in the handcuffs on his legs gave him just enough room to maneuver, here at the very foot of the bed.

Then Mello’s hands began questing for Matt’s keys, which he wore clipped to his belt.  Matt realized what he was doing and grabbed for his arm with his free hand, thrashing as he tried to free his body, but Mello pulled his arms deftly out of his reach and swung at him instead.  Matt barely managed to protect his face with his free limb, but that left his torso unprotected.  Mello landed a vicious punch in his gut, knocking the breath from him.

Matt was beaten, and they both knew it.  Mello was wearing a manic grin.  His too-wide eyes, scarred skin, unevenly burnt hair and partially intact bandages made him look like some sort of insane zombie from a horror flick.  Matt offered only token further resistance as Mello unlocked his three sets of handcuffs; it was a lost cause with his arm and body pinned.  

As soon as he freed himself, Mello sprang to his feet and flew from the room with a speed that belied his injuries.  Matt caught the tail end of blonde hair vanishing through the doorway out of the corner of his eye.  He groaned and curled around his aching stomach.  Mello was gone.  There was no way he could hope to keep up with the blonde in his current mood—and even if he could, Mello would probably just beat the shit out of him for following.  It didn’t matter that he was injured.  Mello didn’t feel pain when he was in a rage like this.
  
Matt sighed.  Maybe this was for the better.  He could forget about Mello, wash his hands of the situation and let him live whatever crazy life he wanted to.  He could go back to his apartment, clean off the last of the blood, and get back to trying to fit himself into a normal life, limping along in his tenuous sobriety and doing his normal-person job.  They’d charitably given him this time off for his “family emergency” because he had put in so many excess hours, but the game was due for beta testing in only two more months and the generosity wouldn’t last forever.  

Yes, that was definitely the best option.

But somehow, the thought of going back to his normal life was just so…boring.

Matt got unsteadily to his feet.  He couldn’t remember the last time he had been as angry as he had been at Mello a few minutes earlier.  The last time he’d gotten in a physical fight was about three years ago, but that had been with a would-be mugger, so it didn’t really count.  He was certain that he had never, in his whole adult life away from Wammy’s House, spent as few hours each day in front of a game console as he had during these past two weeks.  It was a pain in the ass to be around Mello, but from time to time it wasn’t boring.

“I am an idiot,” Matt muttered to himself as he descended the stairs.  Mello had taken his keys, but he had a spare set in his car.  He lit another cigarette as he turned on the engine.

Outside of the warehouse, it was pissing down rain.  Matt rolled his eyes.  “This is really going to be a pain in my ass, isn’t it?” he murmured.  Cocaine hadn’t been his poison of choice since before he had moved to L.A., so he had no idea where Mello would go.  He drove more or less in expanding loops around the warehouse, weaving in and out of back alleys and a few more legitimate streets, concentrating on not getting lost.  Few people were out and about in the torrential rainstorm, and the roads were covered in puddles.

To his surprise, he located Mello after less than an hour of searching.  It was on a street of small boutiques and stores.  Strangely, Mello was on his knees in the pouring rain, staring fixedly into one of the shops.  Matt frowned.  It was definitely him, even if he had shed all of his bandages—there couldn’t be more than one semi-healed, topless, shoeless teenager with only half a head of long, blonde hair wandering the streets of L.A.  Something was wrong.  Matt pulled up to the curb and rolled down the passenger side window.  “Hey!”  

Mello didn’t react.  Matt killed the engine and stepped into the soaking outside world with another heavy sigh.

Mello didn’t move when he approached.  Matt peered into the store, wanting to know what could have absorbed Mello’s attention so thoroughly.  It was—a digital camera?  No, he realized.  It wasn’t the electronics that were on display.  It was the mirrored surface behind the gadgets that had Mello’s rapt attention.

He was staring at his reflection.

“Mello?” said Matt hesitantly as he approached.

Mello shrank in on himself slightly and covered the burnt side of his face with his hand.  “Don’t look at me,” he mumbled.

Matt was at a loss.  He squatted next to Mello and balanced his arms on his knees.  “Mel…you didn’t know?”  He tried to meet Mello’s gaze in the reflection, but the other man looked away.  Matt shook his head in astonishment.  If he had known that showing Mello his own reflection was all it would take to calm him down, he would have done it days ago.  

“Mello…”  Matt could appreciate how hard this moment must be for Mello, who was by far the vainest person he had ever met.  He reached out hesitantly and placed his hand awkwardly on Mello’s good shoulder.

Mello shrank away.  “Don’t touch me.”  His hoarse voice was barely audible over the sound of the storm.   It was impossible to tell during such a downpour, but there might have been more than rainwater on his cheeks.

Matt straightened up and leaned against the front of the electronics store, deliberately gazing away from Mello.  He tried to adjust his goggles to keep his drenched hair out of his face, then gave up and crossed his arms over his chest.  “Well, you ready to get back in the car now?” he asked, keeping his tone deliberately carefree.  “I’m totally soaked.”

After a moment, Mello stood up slowly.  He approached the car and climbed inside wordlessly.  Matt followed his lead and drove them back to their hideout in silence.  Neither of them spoke as they tramped up the stairs to the makeshift bedroom.  Mello flopped bonelessly onto the bed and lay still.

Matt toweled himself down as well as he could before approaching Mello.  He hadn’t moved from where he had fallen, even though he was lying on injured skin in what looked like a painful manner.  “I gotta put bandages back on you,” said Matt.  “Will you let me?”

Mello’s eyes briefly focused on his, then flicked back to staring aimlessly into the middle distance.  He offered no resistance as Matt adjusted his position, dried him off, and dressed his wounds.  It was the most smoothly this operation had gone since Mello had regained consciousness, and Matt gradually allowed himself to relax.  It looked like the threat of fistfights and mad dashes to drug dealers had vanished for the moment.  He didn’t even bother putting a single handcuff back on Mello before he curled up at the foot of the bed and went to sleep.






Matt leaned against the side of his car and lit his fourth consecutive cigarette.  The first three had done nothing to curb his irritation.  It had been five days since Mello had realized that he was going to be permanently disfigured.  During that time he had barely moved or spoken.  He just lay on the bed listlessly and allowed Matt to take care of his wounds.  They were almost as healed as they would ever get by now.  Today would be Mello’s last day in bandages.  Matt could finish the job at any time, but he kept putting it off because he was annoyed.  Somehow, even though taking care of Mello had suddenly gotten very easy, he was much more aggravated than he had been when his once-friend had fought him kicking and screaming every step of the way.

It didn’t make sense.  He didn’t know why he felt this way.  It was just that the current Mello had become so…boring.

But not getting bitten and bloodied twice a day was undeniably a good thing.  He should be happy.

Matt didn’t understand why he felt the way that he did.  It was obviously stupid, and so it had prompted him to do a lot of self-reflection over the past few days.  Introspection wasn’t exactly his strong suit, but he was giving it his best shot.

He had met Mello ten years ago at Wammy’s House.  They had hit it off almost immediately—much to the surprise of the entire staff, who had figured that aloof Matt and energetic Mello would ignore each other entirely.  But Matt had been drawn to Mello from the very first time he had heard the blonde cackle with unrestrained laughter.  It was obvious that he was completely different from any of their other classmates.  He was loud, brash, always brimming with energy.  Mello was, quite simply put, the least boring thing Matt had ever seen.  It was like his personality was too large to be contained in his tiny frame and it kept overflowing.  No, it went beyond that—Mello burned.  He seemed to be consumed by fire just below the surface, fire that threatened to spill over and incinerate everything around him at the slightest provocation.

Matt had always been drawn to him, like a moth to a flame.  In Mello’s presence, a small part of him burned, too.  Mello had been his first and only close friend; they had been nearly inseparable at Wammy’s House.  In those five years, Matt had felt more things than in the rest of his life combined.  He was stoic by nature…it was almost like he could only reflect the passions of people who were consumed by them.  Like Mello.

Or something like that.  Matt ran his hands distractedly through his hair.  It was so confusing.  Feelings were confusing.  He knew he was bad at understanding emotions, whether his or someone else’s.  But he had occasionally suspected that the problem went beyond that, and he was actually bad at having them.  The people around him always seemed to spend so much time laughing, crying, worrying, hoping, fearing.  Matt…didn’t.  Matt played his DS, or lost himself chemically-induced oblivion.  The only time in his life he had felt all those tumultuous things was during the years he had spent by Mello’s side.  With Mello he had felt…more alive.  Maybe people like him always ended up trailing along in the wake of people like Mello.  Perhaps their friendship wasn’t a surprising fluke at all, but was something that had been inevitable long before they actually met.  A destiny, of sorts.

But Matt had left Wammy’s House, and after the initial shock of adjusting to life in the real world, he had never looked back.  He didn’t see the point of regret or second guesses.  He hadn’t seen Mello for more than two years.  Then Mello had abruptly moved to the L.A. area to get involved with the Mafia and had tracked him down.  They had hung out once or twice, but Matt didn’t want anything to do with the company Mello was keeping, and Mello was exclusively focused on his rivalry with Near.  Their friendship had lapsed.  

Matt hadn’t thought about the past in years.  He never thought about Mello.

But in a way, he realized, Mello had always been at the back of his mind.  Because Mello didn’t change.  No matter where he went, no matter how far apart they were, Matt always knew that Mello was out there somewhere raising hell.  It had become one of the cornerstones of his universe.  Things fell when you dropped them, the sun rose in the east and set in the west every day, distance was equal to velocity multiplied by time, and Mello was somewhere on Earth being batshit crazy.  

But now he just lay there.  Listless, lifeless, not moving a muscle.  It was like waking up and discovering that the sky had turned red.

That’s why I’m mad, Matt realized.  He flipped his lighter open and fumbled another cigarette out of his pack.  “If I become a chain smoker, it’s on you,” he muttered resentfully.  No, I’m more than mad, I’m—scared.  Seeing Mello virtually catatonic shook Matt to the core.  The world with this Mello in it wasn’t the world he knew.

Matt threw the cigarette butt onto a growing pile and ground it out with his heel.  Brooding had accomplished nothing except making him more confused and annoyed.  It was time to finish his task, one way or another.

He walked up the stairs slowly, a dull sense of foreboding gnawing at him.  Mello was lying on his left side, as usual, hiding the worst of the damage from view.  Matt sat on the edge of the bed.  Mello didn’t react to his presence in any way.

“Mello…you don’t need to wear those bandages anymore.  So I’ll take them off for you, okay?”

There was a long silence, followed by a barely-audible “…’kay.”  Matt took hold of Mello’s right shoulder and tilted him onto his back.  Mello complied without protest.  Matt started with the bandages on his face and gradually worked his way down Mello’s side.  When he had chucked the final bandage into a pile on the floor, he examined the damage critically.  The skin was reddened and mottled on Mello’s left cheek and around his eye, extending over the bridge of his nose.  The scar continued over his left shoulder and part of the arm, and along his left side all the way down to his hip.  It looked bad, but at the same time, didn’t look bad.  It looked like some modern artist had painted part of Mello with a glaze.  Worse looking than Mello’s natural skin, sure, but still better than how most people looked.  After all, it was still undeniably Mello.  Matt reached out to rest two of his fingers on the scar tissue on Mello’s shoulder.

Mello’s breath hissed as he inhaled quickly and his eyes quickly focused on Matt.  Matt gave him a flippant half-smile.  “You’re just about as healed as you’re going to get,” he said.  “Looks like this is how it’s going to look.”

Mello’s lips twisted downwards bitterly.  “Guess so,” he answered faintly.

Matt trailed his fingers slowly down the scar.  Mello gasped and gritted his teeth, but didn’t stop him.  Matt didn’t think he was causing physical pain, so he continued until he reached Mello’s hip.  “It doesn’t look bad, ya know,” he said, trying to infuse some lightheartedness into his tone.

Mello snorted in bitter disgust and turned his face away.

Matt stayed there, two fingers on Mello’s scarred skin, completely at a loss for what to do next.  Somewhere deep inside, a part of him was starting to…scream.  In Mello’s presence, as a kid, he had felt so many things; fear, hope, anger, joy, pain, sadness.  In the five years that he had been apart from Mello, he had felt none of it.  He hadn’t really expected to, either; he had attributed his experience with Mello to the “first love” effect.  They said that “first love” was special, and that you could never recreate the way you felt at that time for as long as you lived.  Matt wasn’t too sure about the concept of “love,” but he and Mello had definitely been more than friends.  Their affair had been the exploration of two best friends who innocently stumbled upon something new and exciting that they could share.  They had been too naïve to make it to being full lovers, but if they had had enough time to figure out how certain things worked, he was sure that they would have.  It was close enough to “first love” in his mind that it made perfect sense that he had felt so many things back then and not since.  Strong feelings were a thing of his past; apathy was his present and death by overdose was his future.  He had always accepted this.

But—

But he had felt some of those things again, during the past two weeks of taking care of a burnt, handcuffed, irate Mello who fought him at every turn.  He had felt; without the aid of a single pill or needle, he had been gripped by strong emotions.  Mello’s flame was burning within him again, drawing him back for more after taking any number of punches and kicks.  He’d barely even had to fight the urge to get high lately.  It was starting to become obvious that this was something other than a “first love” situation, since his feelings were being rekindled like this.  Matt had once wished for a dollar for every time he heard Roger say “Being academically brilliant doesn’t guarantee that you understand yourself, Matt.”  Now he would be willing to give all those dollars to anyone who could explain it to him.  Mello’s flame had been his only real connection to the rest of the world.  But Mello—

Mello was broken.  He was scarred, disfigured, without passion of any sort.  Had his flame been extinguished?  Could it really be that his Mello, one of the foundations of his world, had been destroyed?

Matt pitched forward.  His forehead landed on Mello’s good shoulder with a smack.  

Mello started.  “Matt?” he said, his voice raised above a dull mumble for the first time in five days.  “What are you…doing?”

“I…dunno…” muttered Matt.  But he couldn’t bring himself to move.  He was fighting an almost overwhelming wave of sorrow as he realized that he may have witnessed the breaking of Mello’s spirit in front of his very eyes.  Mello’s light might have vanished forever before Matt was able to understand what it meant to him.  His teeth clenched.

Time passed, and the sharp sorrow began to recede in waves.  It was gradually replaced by an equally strong surge of nostalgia.  “Hey…this is…a lot like when we were kids, huh,” he mumbled awkwardly.  There were many, many implied questions in that statement, even the statement itself.  So much had changed in the past five years.  He didn’t know what it meant to touch his face to Mello’s skin right now.  He hoped Mello had some idea.  

There was a long silence.  Then Mello spoke quietly and calmly.  “No.  I was always the one on your shoulder, back then.”  Mello’s left arm had been pinned under Matt’s body in his wanton tumble, and now the fingers of that hand touched lightly to the small of his back.  Matt’s eyes widened.  It was just enough encouragement.  He pulled his legs onto the bed and shifted just slightly, and he was lying down next to Mello with his head on his shoulder.

“Well, you were smaller than me back then,” said Matt, his voice pitched higher than usual with nervousness.  Mello didn’t scream at him and made no move to kick him out of the bed, so he continued.  “You used to smell like chocolate, back then.”  Mello hadn’t so much as glanced in the direction of his signature vice recently.

“And you didn’t used to smell like an ashtray back then,” Mello replied, a slight bit of color creeping back into his tone.  “Who gets the better deal?”

Matt laughed softly.  He moved his right hand, which had been perched awkwardly over Mello’s hip, to his chest where he could feel the other man’s heartbeat.  “Your voice is deeper than mine, now,” he said.

“Your gloves are bigger than mine.”  That statement made them both laugh in embarrassment before lapsing into silence for several minutes.

“You still only wear black,” Matt said after awhile.

“You’re still glued to your game,” answered Mello.

“You’re…”  Matt hesitated.  “You blew yourself up.  You’re every bit as batshit insane as you ever were.”

Mello remained silent for a long moment before he replied.  “You took care of me all this time for no good reason.  You’re just as inexplicable as you ever were.”  Matt contemplated that in silence for awhile before Mello spoke again.  “Nobody else has ever called me Mel.  They didn’t dare.”

Matt grinned.  “No one else has ever called me Matty.  But that’s probably just because it’s stupid to use a nickname longer than the name I go by.”

There was a long silence before Mello spoke again.  This time his tone was edged with bitterness.  “I’m not as attractive as I used to be.”

Matt stilled.  “No,” he confirmed lightly.  “But on the positive side, at least you don’t have that stupid girly haircut anymore.”

Mello snorted, a mix between anger and frustration.  “That’s my haircut,” he said dully.  “I don’t feel like Mello without it.”

Matt touched Mello’s scarred cheek, then drew his fingers gently along the scar again.  He could feel the tension in Mello’s body, but this time he didn’t gasp or flinch away.  “I’m already used to it,” he told the blonde truthfully.  He ran his fingers back up the length of the scar one more time before pulling his hand back to himself.  The two of them lapsed into silence that seemed to last for a very long time.  The sun set outside, dropping the room into pitch blackness as neither of them made a move to turn on the light.  

“Matt,” said Mello eventually.  His voice seemed deeper than ever before in the blanket of night that covered the room.  “Do you care about me?”

Matt froze.  He didn’t know how to react to that question.  He’d never witnessed Mello act like this before.  This seemed like a new Mello, one that shouldn’t exist.  It filled him with anxiety and nervousness and still that same dose of nostalgia.  He considered the question carefully.  

“I…definitely don’t care about anything that isn’t you,” he finally replied.

Mello’s fingers dug slightly into the small of his back.  “That didn’t answer the question,” he murmured.

Matt knew that.  He just didn’t know what other reply to give.  He didn’t know what it was to care, or to not care.  He didn’t trust his voice if he tried to speak.  He remained silent, concentrating on the feel of Mello’s chest moving up and down below his head.  “How about you…do you care about me?” he eventually asked.

Mello hesitated.  “I…was so furious after you left Wammy’s House,” he said quietly.  Also a non-answer, Matt noted wryly.  “I hated you.  I used to write your name on things and smash them up.”

Matt glanced at the underside of his friend’s chin.  “I hated it when you used to talk about Near all the time,” he responded.

“Near?”  Mello sounded genuinely surprised.  “He’s my worst enemy.”

“But you focused all your attention on him,” replied Matt.  “I…think I was always…jealous.”

There was a long silence from Mello.  “You were my best friend,” he said simply, his voice hushed.  

“You were my best friend, too,” agreed Matt.

Time passed.  Neither of them moved.  Only the muted sounds of distant traffic broke the stillness of the room.  Matt was halfway dozing when Mello abruptly sat up, dropping him against the bed.  Mello groped after the light cord and switched the room’s single bare bulb on.  “Matt,” he began.

The moment was over.  Matt scrambled into a sitting position and found Mello gazing at him intently.  “What is it?” he replied quickly.

Mello set his jaw.  “I’m going to go up against Near again, and this time I’m going to beat him.”  His fingers brushed his scarred cheek.  “Not even this will stop me.”   Matt’s eyes widened.  The look in Mello’s eyes was determined and passionate.  Fiery.  He could almost laugh aloud in joy.  “That’s your decision?”

Mello nodded.  “I made the choice to catch Kira and beat Near, and I can’t back down now.”  His fingers dug into the sheets.  “There’s no way for me to go but forward.”

“Even though next time, you could die?”

Mello met his gaze evenly.  “Matt, Kira may have my true name.”  He paused to give him a moment to digest that shocking news, then smiled grimly.  “Whether I live or die is in God’s hands now.”  He grabbed a chocolate bar from the pile that Matt had deliberately left within his reach and had it peeled open in moments.  “But whether I beat Near or give up is entirely within my own hands.  And I won’t give up.”  He snapped off a square of chocolate and let it hang from his lips as he spoke.  “I can’t let him win.  That would kill me for certain.”

Matt wanted to argue, wanted to insist that if Kira knew his name it was too dangerous to keep fighting.  But Mello’s gaze was so fierce that his protests died on his lips.  It would be a waste of breath to argue with him.  Instead, Matt found himself suppressing a smile as he leaned back and regarded his friend.  You can’t cage a flame.  It finds a way to escape from any closure that doesn’t snuff it out completely.  All you can do is watch it burn, and if you’re lucky, warm yourself in its heat for awhile.  

Mello’s signature manic grin had not reappeared.  The burning passion was still there, but something new had been added.  A modicum of self-control, perhaps.  A bit of restraint.  He was looking at a Mello who had confronted his own mortality.  

It was a different world.  But it was a world he thought he could live in.

Matt realized that he had already reached a decision.  He was shit at leading a “normal” life, anyway; square peg, round hole.  “In that case, I’m definitely coming with you,” he declared.

Mello’s eyes widened.  “Matt—this is my fight, not yours.”

“I know,” answered Matt lightly.  “But can you imagine how boring my life would be if you died before me?”

Mello searched his face for a long moment before finally nodding.  “In that case, our next destination is New York.”  His solemn expression softened enough for a faint smile as he took another bite of the chocolate bar.  “I’ve got to pay Near a visit.”

“New York,” agreed Matt with a nod and a small grin.  That didn’t sound boring at all.