[closed/in progress]

[gettingawaywith]

WHO: Mello (virucide), Dexter Morgan (gettingawaywith), and eventually Matt (lungrot).
WHAT: Dexter finds Mello after this incident.
WHERE: On the beach, by the train tracks.
WHEN: Day 76, right around dawn.

Comments

[lungrot]

Ringing.

Barely audible, rising from beneath a blanket of shed clothing, a sweat-soaked shirt and gray-washed jeans ripped at the knees. Still, it's an unmistakable, high-pitched sort of tone, like a drill to Matt's temples, and he wonders what possessed him to spare his phone during his earlier endeavor of wrecking anything within 20 feet of him. It certainly seemed like a good idea now that the thick haze had lifted-- no, been forcefully ripped away from his aching head.

Heavy with the weight of artificial euphoriants coating his brain like a sheet of long-settled dust, Matt's head lulls to the side. There's sweat, snot, and saltine slicked and drying across his face, and it's just so fucking difficult to lift himself off the futon he'd collapsed onto some time ago, endless hours of thorough perlustration (accompanied of course by the constant, rising tightness of nausea born from dread and worry) leaving Matt unwound like broken clockwork.

Taking that into consideration, it's a wonder his pale arm, dusted and pink with crescent abrasions, finally reaches out after the third and final. An echo of reason lost some time ago, surely, because with Mello gone (taken, torn apart, who knows what no he can't be this kind of thing doesn't happen where's the reset button) it's near damn impossible to make sense out of anything anymore-- like why the number on his tiny glowing screen is nowhere near familiar. Like why he picks up anyway, as if it could make anything better or worse.

The other end of the line won't get anything but shallow raps of breathing and white noise as a greeting, anyway.

[virucide]

The room is blanketed by silence, the token flare of static between the connected phone line all either of them has for company. Mello's eyes trail carefully over to Dexter, and he considers gesturing the man out of the room, but he's done nothing at all intrusive so far, nothing at all to earn his distrust. Whatever he might hear from Mello's end of the call couldn't cause any complications.

Without thinking ahead, without really planning what he's intended to say, Mello cradles the phone against the side of his face and croaks out through a healing throat of sores and tight dryness: "Matt."

Relief floods through him, pushes him further.

Matt, Matt, Matt. I've got you. It's okay. I'm sorry I took so long.

"I'm okay." There's a genuine smile on his face at last, underlined with darkness but still. there. Smudged and shadowed, fragile and broken, but there's still some brittle undertone of light to it. Mello wets his lips. "He's gone now. I'm okay. Where are you? You should." He's babbling, but he's so fucking relieved that he isn't dead and that he's actually able to tell Matt he isn't dead -- nothing else matters. "You should come get me."

Can I ever ask for your forgiveness?

I'm sorry.

[lungrot]

There's a pause on the line; a hitch of breath, a choked and muted slip of the tongue, swelling of the heart so quick and seizing that Matt feels he could burst. All too familiar, the other's voice (weak and raw, as if rubbed by sandpaper, but still there and unmistakable regardless) is almost like a dream.

And could it be? That this was just one of what would become many drug and despair induced hallucinations over the next days, months, years? No surprise there; Matt's wired, precarious on the edge of consciousness which slips from his grasp like cigarette smoke.

But the voice continues, pushes on, insists. Is it safe to believe, then? That this is more than just some cruel trick of the mind and altered perceptions?

"Mel--" Interrupted, but that's fine. Keep talking, please. I need to know it's really you, I need to know--

"Where are you."

[virucide]

The sound of Matt's familiar voice makes this all somehow bearable. For a moment, at least, because in the next moment there's a seed of something dark and black and vicious settling in the pit of his stomach. He can only breathe in, breathe out. This rhythm becomes his protection, his defense, becomes his evanescent reality for one solid, frightening second. Then he exhales, tries to excavate the dark baggage of his mind in that one motion.

Focus on this. Focus on Matt, down the line, listening, aware. Focus on what matters.

Shouldn't he be thrilled he's made it out alive? But why does he feel so hollow? Empty? Bottomless? It's not the trauma of what occurred, no; it's something more than that.

Mello quietly reiterates the redhead's question, receives the address, and passes it over. "Come soon," is the last thing he whispers, thumb hovering over the 'end call' button before pressing down, cutting the connection. The blond's blue eyes flash over to Dexter, and, tone flat, says, "I need to borrow some clothes."

[gettingawaywith]

Dexter had remained silent all the way through the call, simply a presence that had been standing at the edge of Mello's personal space, not interested in listening as much as what was going to happen next.

It showed in the impassive way he took the phone back, the way he checked the young man over more for physical purposes than concerned, emotional ones.

As cold as it might have seemed, however, Dexter had the exterior appearance of someone that was very warm, with his tanned skin and reddish brown hair, the way his mouth easily switched to a smile, when needed. It was a failsafe, and it kept him from looking as though he didn't care. The face was fixed into a mask of grim concern, after all.

He nodded at Mello, though he didn't smile. It wasn't right to smile at someone that had gone through so much; even he knew that much.

Instead, he tucked his phone away and turned to his closet.

When he turned back, he was holding up one of his rare black shirts, long sleeved, that was a bit tight on him, which he wore for layering in the winter. And then another pair of rather rare black pants, which he didn't wear that often.

Obviously, Dexter had been very observant of the blond the first time that Mello had come to his apartment. Thinking that the two pieces of clothing would look much more appropriate on the Wasp than, say, one of his guayaberas, a Hawaiian shirt, or a faded, colored t-shirt, Dexter moved to sit on the edge of the bed and spread them out. He moved to start helping the blond to get them on, speaking quietly.

"These're going to be a little loose, but you don't really need to worry about giving them back." The trip back and forth would only be a complication, and Dexter didn't mind about losing these two pieces of clothing. He didn't wear the color very often, and they could easily be replaced.