if you show, you show (closed & complete)

[virucide]

WHO: Mello (virucide) & Matt (lungrot).
WHAT: The comfort log?
WHERE: Car, then their apartment.
WHEN: Day 76, after this.

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[virucide]

Mello's arm moves, lowering, rubbing fingertips into the fiber of the flooring until his whole hand begins to burn. It travels through the damaged bones and ligaments, a stinging ache that centers in his palm. His body is struggling to pull itself back together, collect the remnants scattered and torn the previous night and arrange them correctly, get them back in order. The healing process has become absolute agony, hindered only by the morphine heavy in his veins.

He breathes out.

Bottle-blue eyes, narrowed until the whites are barely visible, slide to his bare feet. There's blood crusted around his nails, a disgusting shade of dark maroon that stands out vividly against pale skin; his fingernails are much the same. Everything Dexter hadn't cleaned up up sits, festers, feels as though it's contaminating him, leeching the life away from him. He wants to shower. To scrub and scrub and scrub until it all goes away.

He feels like he's going to be sick.

The blond lets out a half-gasped groan and turns his head to the side, pressing his flushed face against the seat. Almost there? Not soon enough.

[lungrot]

The automobile whines as Matt takes another sharp turn, overwhelmed by the urgency with which he aches to hide behind his home's closed doors and curtains. Their home, just him and the blonde in the backseat, no-one to break in and knock down walls built from years' worth of confidence and assertion, no-one to make their blood run cold and their stomachs spill from worry and terror. It's a nice illusion the red head is surprised to find comfort in-- Reggio Calabria's renown violence had yet to phase him until just now.

At the hitch of breath and groaning behind him, Matt near slams the breaks. His heart hammers against the growing tightness of his chest and the cigarette tucked haphazardly between his saliva-slicked lips slips, falls into his lap, it's incandescent tip burning through denim. "Shit!", he hisses, picking the offending cigarette up between shaking fingers and flicking it out the half-opened window, sighing.

"You oka--" he cuts himself off before finishing his inquiry. Are you okay? Really, Matt? That's one hell of a question, there, to which the answer is painfully obvious and none too easy on the eyes.

Finally, their own little hole in the wall comes into sight. His parking is rushed, crooked and sloppy, but it doesn't really matter-- in a matter of seconds, he's locked the driver's door and moved to the back, gritting his teeth as he offers (insists) Mello his help to get out, reality sinking in for the umpteenth time that day.

SIGH, ME.

[virucide]

The interrupted question is otherwise ignored; he pretends he hasn't heard it. All that matters is getting home, finding some relative familiarity before he absolutely looses it. So when they pull into the small parking deck, he's already sitting up, popping the car door open and sliding to place both bare feet on the warm pavement. Matt's assistance is something he has to accept as much as he loathes it, because he can't walk on his leg alone without the support. Which makes the next task, the stairs (their apartment building doesn't have an elevator, which hadn't been a problem until now), an embarrassingly difficult feat.

Even with his arm around Matt's shoulders as they ascend, even with their sides pressed together, body warmth mingling, Mello is mentally and emotionally distanced. His mind is being held at arm's length. He's helpless, and by the time they reach their floor, Mello's mood has gone foul, has blackened. There's a screaming pain in his leg from the effort of dragging himself upstairs, and even without looking the blond knows he's bled through the bandages Dexter wrapped earlier.

As soon as the door is unlocked, Mello pushes himself away from the redhead, using nearby furniture or whatever else he stumbles by to make his unsteady path to the bathroom. He doesn't bother closing the door -- just strips, immediately, peeling the loose-fitting, borrowed black clothes from his thin body and tossing them onto the sink. He wants to assess the damage, and though his chest is aching through the heavy shield of morphine, he won't ask Matt to carry up the oxygen tank yet because his lungs aren't punctured; he doesn't want to use it.

Mello's body language illustrates one thing, and one thing alone: don't try to stop me, don't try to help.

The first thing Mello does is unwrap the bandages around the gash on his leg, the worst of the damage. It's bleeding again just as he'd predicted, thick red rivulets that slide down and pool between his toes. The sutures that Dexter stitched have been torn through rough handling, thanks to those stairs. Carefully sitting onto the tile floor, teeth gnashing through the horrific burning sensation in his lower back, Mello reaches for the nearby row of floor-level cabinets, pulling free a towel that he uses to smear the mess away. There's no doubt in his mind that this thing is going to leave a nasty scar; once all the blood's wiped off, there's no question that whatever instrument was used cut this, cut deep enough to reach bone.

Mello moans low in the back of his throat, agonized at the sight, and drops the bloodied towel over it.

SHH, YOU. ♥

[lungrot]

"You're welcome," the red head mutters, shoved aside and left to watch Mello's painful retreat into the bathroom. Whatever; it's not an argument worth pursuing (or even starting), and he contents himself with locking the door, keys then discarded on a near-by table along with Matt's gloves and cigarettes. He pulls one out, fumbles around for a lighter before lighting it.

Inhale. Exhale. The smokes burns it's way down his throat and through his nostrils, and Matt finally breathes a sigh of relief. They're home. Mello's safe. That's all that matters.

Dragging himself to the bathroom is a strenuous effort in itself. The exhaustion of worry, a sleepless night stringed after so many others, and the weight of another around his shoulders for three flights' worth of stairs settling in his bones. He knows he probably isn't welcome, but the door's opened and Mello's an idiot if he expects the other not to hover around, wanted or not. The blood drains from his face as he sees crimson on the tile, gore pooling thick where flesh was once unmarred and perfect smooth, beautiful. Matt feels his stomach churn and gut twist, fingers itching to wash away the blood and somehow just make it better. The blonde's obvious disdain towards being helped (typical of Mello, who can never show himself or others any weakness, even as his blood stains the floor red) doesn't really matter to him anymore ; the younger of the two steps forward, reaches for a facecloth by the sink and turns the knobs to let it soak.

"Just shut up," he warns before Mello has time to protest, kneeling beside him with the cloth dripping warm water. "Let me do this." Matt knows close to nothing about how to treat wounds of such severity (he can hardly look at it without feeling bile rise up his throat), but if can at least keep it clean and bandage it up again...

That is, as long as the other doesn't punch him out for trying, first.

[virucide]

Mello's indignant refusal is silenced by the other's authoritative words, but he shifts back across the tile as if to escape, spine hitting the row of cabinets. The dull impact drives a sound of muffled pain from his throat, rasped and broken. "No," the blond grits through his teeth in an attempt to dissuade Matt, but he already knows it's probably pointless. Still, there's a steeled look of aggravation in his eyes; but it isn't directed at the redhead. Everything's turned internal, turned on himself.

"I need to do the stitches over," he breathes, the statement a mess of trembling nerves, and it shows when his tone shakes. Mello twists, swallowing another whimper of pain when he feels the pressure shift around the ribs healing in his chest, and slides out the first aid kit from inside one of the cabinets. There are two needles in here, industrial needles built for this kind of work, and medical sutures. He'll have to take the ones already in his skin out, first. Which won't be a very pleasant event, he already knows. But he can deal with that.

Hollow blue eyes cant in Matt's direction, a bottomless look to the expression that's almost horrifying different to what he's normally like. "Matt, stop. You can't handle this." You'll pass out, you don't like blood, remember? This is too much and it's just going to get worse.

His breathing is shallow, uneven.

[lungrot]

"I said shut up."

Matt groans, hands slicked with blood as he slides forward, brandishing his washcloth. There's a forcefulness behind his words that the red head usually avoids, but he isn't going to repeat himself a third time ; this is hard enough as it is. He doesn't need Mello to remind him.

His blood runs cold at the mention of stitches. The thought of the needle's point protruding from pink flesh, stringing through muscle tissue and patching Mello up like a worn-out rag doll is enough to drain the remaining color from Matt's face, now almost as pale as the tile beneath them, dull gray eyes wide as saucepans. It could almost be considered comical, though the edges of his vision are already beginning to blur. God, why.

The red head's hand finds Mello's and grips it, slippery wet and sticky with his blood. He raises the other to press a calloused finger to the blonde's lips, foreheads swathed in sweat-soaked strands of hair pressed one against the other.

Just. Shut up. I can handle anything as long as you're okay, remember?

[virucide]

He goes quiet.

His hand is slack in Matt's grip, fingers shaking as though his whole body has been injected with a current of electricity, nerves sparking, burning. For a flash of a second, he doesn't know how to react when the fingertip touches his lips and a slick expanse of skin presses to skin -- forehead to forehead. It's a level of skinship, of affection, he doesn't think he can digest without his stomach rejecting everything he hasn't eaten in the last twenty-four hours. He'd throw up bile.

"Matt, I need you to--"

Inhales.

"Hold the skin. Butterfly enclosure. Just so I can..."

A splinted hand finds Matt's free one, fingertips carefully closing over it and transferring it to the gash, directing the fingertips into the pinched position this will require. Then, slipping free, his other hand digs through the cabinet at his back. He doesn't have proper instruments to remove the stitches, so he's going to have to compensate.

"Stay still. If you don't, I'll accidentally drive it through." Exhales. "Try not to look."

He begins picking the torn sutures out with a pair of tweezers, his whole body shivering and trembling with fresh waves of agony that rock through him, overcoming any lulling antidote the faded morphine in his veins could have ever provided. The knot has already been torn, so it's only a matter of picking and pulling, at this point.

[lungrot]

Try not to look? Mello doesn't have to ask him a second time.

Matt's hands are surprisingly steady as they old the torn flesh in place, skin crawling. He can't help but liken the other's leg, open and leaking thick red, to overripe fruit dropped carelessly onto tile, to a piece of meat on a cutting boar, to--

oh, god.

There's a sick squelching sound as Mello's pulling out the wayward sutures, and the red head can feel every tremor in the other's body as he does so. It's more than Matt thinks he can handle, though he tries his best to keep his breathing steady and his eyes focused on Mello's, gray pooling into bottle-blue.

[virucide]

Mello's own eyes are down, focused on the stitches as he picks them free from torn flesh, each precise pluck! shivering down his spine. But his work is careful, attentive, steady. And at long last, he manages to pry them all out, placing them onto the nearby towel bloodied by his earlier cleaning. Mello exhales the breath he'd been holding throughout the procedure. Okay. That hurt like a bitch, but it's done. Now...

He wets his lips.

"Almost done, Matt. Almost done."

Placing the tweezers down by the first aid kit, Mello grabs the bottle of antiseptic and re-cleans the wound, wincing all the way through. By now he's bitten jagged teeth marks down into his lower lip, deep enough to taste the vague burn of copper but nothing much beyond that. He keeps going. Removes the medical needle and clean stitches from the kit, readjusting Matt's hand gently, and begins threading the skin back together again. It takes a good while, but eventually, the torn gash seals back up. He knots it off and breathes out heavy, leaning back against the cabinets.

The lighting reveals something that had remained virtually unnoticeable until now. There are bruises around his neck, bright blue-black that circles the base of his throat like a morbid necklace; they trail further, down his chest, around each of his chafed wrists. There are fingerprint-shaped bruises, too -- perhaps the most gruesome -- on his hips, purple ovals standing out on top of the pale skin.

"...Fuck," the blond hisses, trying to stand up on his own.

[lungrot]

Almost done but not soon enough. Matt counts the seconds, minutes, ticking by, tensing with every sharp inhale the other takes as he drives the needle in, pulls it out, repeats. Every once in a while the red head's morbid curiosity causes him to glance down, even for just a moment, after which he shuts his eyes tight and fights down the rising bile in his throat. He does this once, twice, three times before learning his lesson, keeping his gaze steadily fixed on anything but the gory goings-on beneath his fingers.

When Mello's finished, Matt braves a fourth look at the injured limb. The stitching is crudely done, white thread stained a dark almost-brown with blood, but at least there's no more vibrant red pooling around them, something he couldn't be more grateful for.

"Sit the fuck back down!" There's an alien sort of urgency in the red head's voice, almost like a desperate plea. His hands find the blonde's shoulders as he pulls him back down, gently, expecting nothing but a fight despite his careful action. Maybe it's the bruises the finally make Mello's fragility sink in, angry blossoms of purple, black, and blue blooming across his skin in a way they never had, not even after the most intense bouts of lovemaking or raw fucking they had ever shared together.

"Please."

[virucide]

The expression that flattens out the details of Mello's face is uncharacteristic: hollow, wide-eyed regard, mouth relaxed and parted enough to reveal a row of teeth, head tilted back against the cabinets in hazed, blank perspective. He slides partway down as though he'd just been slapped, recoiling from the demand in a way that Mello has never done. There's no resistance in him, and the Mello of days past has been snapped apart like a child's toy.

"Matt," the blond starts, voice rasped, sandpaper-rough. He can't look him in the eye. "Still hurts." This admission is low under his breath, murmured through another shiver of pain brought from fading morphine. He doesn't want to sit here; the tile is cold and hard against his body, the cabinets sharp against his back. He wants to be in the shower, wants to scrub his skin raw, but...

"Just let me..." He nods slightly in the direction of the bath, arms curling over his bare front, trying to contain the agony he feels knocking around beneath the damaged cage of bones. Cracked ribs -- even fractured ones, but he doesn't know the full extent of what that hit had caused -- are painful. Painful enough that he doesn't care what the fuck Matt says; a hand seeks the counter, and Mello struggles once more to stand.

"Matt, just.."

[lungrot]

Mello's compliance is both disheartening and a relief. Though he has nothing but the blond's best interest in mind, Matt isn't sure how willing he is to fight him right now, not when they're both so tattered and torn, so obviously out of their comfort zone of hard-spoken words, of teasing and guile.

"Yeah? I'd be pretty fucking surprised if it didn't." Matt chuckles, dry and dark and humorless. When the other gestures towards the bath he frowns, eyebrows hitched and knit behind strands of unruly russet hair. If Mello thinks he's going to crawl his way into the bathtub without insistent assistance, he's dead wrong-- and Matt moves back to his side, arm slipping beneath Mello's.

"Christ, let me do it." It's for your own good. Shut up. Don't argue with me.

[virucide]

His eyes narrow on the redhead, blade-like and edged, at the comment. But his lips purse to swallow further protest, and the trip to the bath is a short, if relatively painful affair. Mello slides down until his head rests on the marble embankment of the tub, legs stretched out, skin tingling as the cold surface presses against his bare skin.

With a fair amount of effort, Mello reaches for the knob of the shower head above and turns it to scalding, the water spraying down like tiny embers bursting free from the earth. He hisses out a breath between gnashed teeth, but doesn't turn it down, doesn't do anything but lay back and endure. Pale eyelashes, now darkened with clinging moisture, close tightly. "Matt, you can leave now." The words are spoken with wire-sharp undertones; he's not leaving room for argument, though he still expects it.

"Just get out; come back in ten minutes. I don't need any help bathing."

[lungrot]

With that taken care of, Matt stretches, hands interlocked and raised high up above his head. His entire body creaks, joints popping in protest as his shoulders sink with a sigh ; he can't wait for this to be over, anticipates the very second they can both tangle themselves in their sheets and let sleep claim them (though he knows it won't be that easy).

"Shit, Mello." Sweat pearls across his forehead, the heat stifling. "Try not to peel your skin off, yeah?" Reaching for the knobs, he turns them down ever so slightly before stepping out.

"Ten minutes. I'll be in the living room." But who does he think he's fooling, when the strike of a match sounds in the hallway and smoke drifts through the open doorway?

A MONTH LATER

[virucide]

"Yeah," Mello replies, almost biting in the undercurrent of cynicism that the word implies. He says nothing more as the other leaves, but there's something telling about the fact the blond doesn't reach to turn the knobs back to their blistering temperature. Water rains down, coats his body, washes away ghost evidences and fingerprint reminders. Attempts to clean everything.

He closes his eyes to stifle a vague burn at the corners of his subconscious, and lets himself go under the wet heat of the shower. It sucks his under, dulls his mind--he scrubs with a bare bar of soap, as best he can. Ten minutes edge fifteen, threaten twenty.

The knuckles of his good hand gleam raw red. The smoke from Matt's cigarette, wafting strong from the wall, curls through him--the only familiar anchor he has left in this nightmarish afterworld.

[lungrot]

Burnt-out matches and cigarette butts litter the hallway by the time the red head decides to step back in, boots lined with the ash he's snuffed and smeared into the carpet. Chainsmoking is as good a way to distract himself as any, and he doubts Mello will mind the way smoke clings to the fabric of his shirt, his hair, his breath-- wonders if he'll even notice, if the stench won't just melt away the minute he sets foot into their makeshift furnace of a bathroom.

"Done?" He doesn't so much care about the answer, isn't really giving the other a choice as he plucks a well-worn towel from a hook on the wall and kneels by the tub's age-stained porcelain edge.