[fic] (hushed things.)
title: hushed things
author: larouille
fandom: death note
pairing: matt/mello
genre: romance, fluff
rating: T
summary: They're in the grass; a knot of gold and auburn, arms and legs, eyes and sky.
hushed things.
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[we fell in love and kissed under the sun,
wrote down the way this ends, and then we kissed again.]
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They're in the grass; a knot of gold and auburn, arms and legs, eyes and sky. Two beings seperated by as little space as the universe will allow them, caught in the soft clinch of autumn and the unbreakable hold of time.
Today, in this silken, silent string of seconds, Mello is looking up at the sleeping face of Matt. He's a peaceful sleeper, completely still and breathing lightly through a small gap in his mouth, and if Mello raises his face just an inch higher, he will be able to feel his breath on his lips. He can see the gentle rise and fall of his chest beneath his shirt, can feel his body heat, but hangs on a tenderly spun thread just before Matt's lips, just before the barrier of breath.
He wants to shrink down to a tiny note in space, dive into that steady inhale, and swim.
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[i hear the sound, the gods can't scare me now.]
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Softly: "Liar."
Matt hums out a mixture between a laugh and a sigh. Rolling over on his back, he murmurs, "Had you fooled for a little while, right?"
"Only until you pretended to still be asleep after you woke up." Mello's hand finds its way to Matt's hip and weedles up underneath his shirt. Warm; not like Mello's scalding fire, but a sleek, heated satin against a pale palm, something more silent and careful than the former's flames.
Matt closes his eyes again, a lazy smile glazing over his lips. "Mmm, what gave me away then?"
"Well, for starters," Mello says against Matt's shoulder, "most people don't clear their throats when they sleep."
"Maybe I'm a special case."
"And," Mello goes on, smirking into Matt-scented cotton, "no one's allowed to look so at ease for that long when they're around someone like me."
Matt laughs aloud at that, a hoarse, unleashed laugh that only bares itself as often as rain shows its face in this dried out city. All around them is worldly decay, flora turning gaudy coppers and burnt yellows, and yet here's Matt, laughing as though things are coming to life instead of preparing to die out for winter.
Yet, in a way, something is coming to life in the diminutive space between the two of them. There's a shared, intermingling energy that's been tucked beneath mattresses, crumpled in back pockets, rolled into cigarettes but never indulged in, never touched without having to rear back in fear of commotion or disturbance. But here on the grass in the middle of technicolour autumn, there's life in the middle of wordless and seasonal bereavement, hushed and tender but finally breathing and animate.
They've given in to it for the first time, and it's as familiar as if they’ve done this entire thing all along. Just this morning, touched with balmy grey sunlight slanting in through the window, there had been a tacit breakage in the two of them as they both stood beneath the doorway of the bedroom. Matt had turned Mello's head with careful fingertips just beneath his chin, and the latter had shattered and the former had swooped in for the kill and they had both fallen to pieces in each other's frantic pull.
But this, this is quiet. This is hushed. This is the aftermath and the beginning all at once.
"Someone like you?" Matt rolls back onto his side, facing Mello with a grin that will break the world's heart in time. Mello's heart follows suit. "That's a bizarre thing to say, don't you think?"
"We're bizarre people." Mello shifts slightly in the grass and, in turn, is pulled closer to Matt by a force that's been waiting for him for years; the other's arms, extended and inviting. They curl around Mello's back like a striped clasp, holding him against his chest, and something in Mello's stomach goes limp and fizzy and burning.
"That we are," Matt whispers. He breathes out another breezy laugh. "Some more than others."
Mello stares at the hollow of Matt's throat, caught.
"I'd say you and I are pretty up there in the rankings, though," Matt says thoughtfully, turning his face to look at Mello, whose gaze that had been so fixed on that smooth arc of his throat now flutters up to the bottle-green of his eyes. Something clicks and comes together, as soundless as the approaching dusk. Matt's eyes soften, lips melt back into that eloquent smile, before he whispers, "Not many people find destruction such a turn on, eh?"
Mello's eyes search the entirety of Matt's face, sweeping from his dark eyebrows to the slightly crooked bridge of his nose (you broke it when you were thirteen; crashed facefirst into a bookshelf to see if you could run through it like Harry Potter), the cupid's bow of his top lip, then to the auburn jumble of hair that surrounds it all. Back up to his eyes. God, this is surreal. "It has its high points," he says, hoarse and sleepy, "like the fire."
Mello isn't sure why he says this, but the soft brushing of Matt's fingertips against the pale pink perimeter of his scar gives it a little meaning. The touch wanders down to Mello's lips, nudging them open just barely, letting in nothing and letting out nothing; he's holding his breath, caught again. "Yeah," Matt whispers, all beautiful disarray and handcrafted heartbeats, "like the fire."
In a breath, he goes down, down to Mello's lips, warm and soft and final, sealing something that's always been theirs to claim to begin with. And all around them, autumn dies its pretty copper death.
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[i hope it comes against a setting sun.
wrote down the things we'll say, the time, the day, and place.
you and i are tortured by design.]
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