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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[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.

[virucide]

Mello's head angles back against the ledge of the bath, breath coming in short pants of air, as if he can't get enough of it into his lungs to sustain himself. He watches the redhead from the corners of blue eyes, quiet but for the gentle rasps of inhale-exhale, inhale-exhale. When Matt kneels nearby, he doesn't even move--not until he's within reach enough for the blond to fist a shaking hand in the towel and tug on it, knuckles standing out raw red against the white material.

He attempts to stand, grinds his teeth into the fleshy inside of his cheek when pain starts to crawl up his spine like the finger of a ghost and spider outward in sharp, bright bursts. Flickering black infects the edges of his vision, but he doesn't relent. Doesn't ask for help, because he knows he can do this without it.

[lungrot]

Matt knows the blond well enough to give him some breathing space, to know that right now his pride is probably just as battered and fragile as his body. Still, it takes every ounce of self control he can muster to stay still, not to slip his arms around Mello's water-slicked form and pull him out of the tub himself, not to hold him close and mop the sweat and bath water from his skin and press his lips against every reddened nub of knuckle bone. It would just add insult to injury.

Still, it's painful to watch the other struggle, to hear the rasping of his breath and watch the way he flinches as his feet touch tile. Matt's ready at his side the minute he's out of the tub, with concern plain across his face (or as plain as it ever could be, with Matt), hand outstretched.

"Hey." Let me help you. I know you don't want it, but fuck, let me.

[virucide]

The blond carefully eyes him, the look critical and regarding. Mello is, in that moment and by all appearances, a beaten animal who isn't sure whether it should step forward and follow that extended hand, whether it should trust the proffered (unspoken) plea to help, or whether it should bite it off at the wrist and move on. He's re-learning what it means to take each step forward and know that those steps will lead him somewhere potentially safe or potentially unsafe, what it means to be so familiar with another person that even during this, he can lean his weight on someone else's shoulder without the threat of damaging who he is. Fearless. Prideful.

His pride has already been swept out from under his feet, anyway.

Mello turns his head toward the wall, hands Matt the towel, and balances himself awkwardly against the nearby counter. "I'm not going to be able to work for a while." They are the first words he's said in a while, and they come out shaken, sour--and he's naked, dripping water all over the tiles--but something about his tone isn't quite right.

[lungrot]

Matt accepts the towel with a half-hearted sneer, discards it soon after and watches as it soaks up the water and grime nested between the tiles. That Mello stands stark-naked and dripping all over the bathroom floor isn't all that unusual in and of itself, but there's also a pale, sick kind of glow about him that Matt knows isn't just because of the room's too bright, too artificial lighting. Still, he shrugs, dull-colored eyes ceiling-bound.

"Whatever," he drawls, overly casual. The thought hadn't really crossed his mind, and he's almost bothered that Mello felt the need to mention it. They have bigger problems at hand, Matt thinks, and he quickly pushes the notion of compensating for the other's temporary inability to put bread on the table aside. He wants so bad to say that it doesn't matter, but knows better-- knows that, to Mello, it probably means more than the younger man could ever understand. Whatever. "We'll manage."

Sidestepping the blond, Matt's thin-boned fingers brush against wet skin and wrap around the narrow of his wrist. There's a ghost of a tug, then, because the redhead doesn't know how much longer he can stay in the harsh light and suffocating heat of the bathroom, yearns for the comfort of crisp sheets and the taste of nicotine and the feel of Mello's hair between his fingers.

[virucide]

He doesn't flinch when that towel hits the tile with a damp slap, doesn't say anything to the redhead's reassuring (if only because he chooses to ignore how distracted Matt sounds, but what does it matter?) words, doesn't do anything but look toward the door and then the mirror hung above the bathroom counter. The man staring back at him is enough to make the blond feel sick: those dark shadows like black charcoal smudges under his eyes, the fingerprint bruises, the lines of fatigue and, worst of all, defeat.

A wave of nausea rips through him; he doesn't realize that he has shut his eyes until he feels that hand circle one tender, still-sore wrist, and Mello whips his head toward the other, yanking away with a startlingly rough jerk of movement. That blind feeling of being trapped and bound defenseless, those ropes tight around his wrists--it flashes across his subconscious like a reawakening bad dream. Mello doesn't say anything when he moves past the redhead, almost-limping to do so, through the door and out into the hall.

He isn't sure where he's going, or if Matt will follow, or if he cares that Matt might follow, or if he wants him to--he makes it about as far as the threshold to the front room, and then stops, leans against it, whole body shaking with fine tremors. He feels like something is stabbing at him with cold needles, stabbing all the way down to bone, leaving bloody scars. He tries to heave a breath, get some air into his head and lungs and clear these goddamn thoughts out.

[lungrot]

When the blond jerks away and exits the room at a precarious gait, Matt is left gaping, infuriatingly unsure of his actions, of the other's, of himself. There's an unfamiliar kind of hurt creeping over him and the sting of rejection is fresh and raw; it creeps over him, both chilling his bones and making his blood boil at once.

It takes the red head a moment to clear his thoughts, to will himself towards the front room, towards Mello. He doesn't make a habit out of second-guessing himself and it's as irritating as it is disheartening-- unfamiliar territory Matt is hesitant to trudge upon. Still; wasn't there something about it getting worse before it could get better? Something like that, and he sighs as the hallway's fllorboards creak beneath his weight.

"Hey." His hand moves to Mello's shoulder, hovers above it, not daring to make contact after his last failed attempt. "Chill the fuck out. I'm not going to eat you." Matt's voice is surprisingly soft, even to his own ears. Finally, his fingers graze the blond's bared shoulder, run lightly down his arm.

[virucide]

Although he hears Matt's approach, the blond doesn't move away from the frame of the door, doesn't move away from him in escape. It may have something to do with the dull throb in his leg and the burn of healing ribs, those sharp needles of pain, but he holds himself still.

It's a wonder Mello doesn't jerk away when that hand touches his shoulder--instead, something seems to collapse within him all at once, something that melts and blurs out of his body in a rush of physical exhaustion. He turns his head against the wall, shivering under the ghost-traces of those warm fingertips, the familiarity in this person so unbearably close to him. The acrid scent of smoke and musk that he wakes up to every morning.

When Mello moves at last, it's not to get away. His thin, fragile-seeming arms slide tight around the redhead's neck when he manages to turn around and face him, and Mello drops his weight, leans forward into Matt, knees buckling. It's uncharacteristically abrupt, even clingy--something he's always made a point not to do. But the Mello of days past has gone.

[lungrot]

Finally, there's that wave of relief crashing down onto him. Matt's shoulders sink, his head bows, and his own bone-thin arms encircle the other's bared waist, press against the jut of bruised hipbones and threaten never to let go. There's a shaky exhale escaping the red head's lips, and he can feel Mello's heartbeat against his own, their breathing matched with every rise and fall of their chests. They're supporting each other, now ; Matt needs this just as much as the other. Needs to know that Mello is safe, that he's going to be all right, that he can trust in Matt and that in turn, he'll never let the blond go so long as he needs him. It's a silent promise, but his devotion shines through like an open sore-- because Matt is nothing if not the other's second half.

There's a battle of animalistic fury and sinking desperation raging inside of him as his hands intertwine themselves at the small of Mello's back, locked around him tight. It washes over him like waves of nausea, always unbearable, leaving him light-headed and weak. It's a sort of self-deprecation, though ; why couldn't he do anything? Why wasn't he able to get to Mello before anything serious had happened? Hate of self isn't something the red head is used to, and that makes it all the more frustrating. He knows there's nothing more he could have done, but there's still that nagging voice in the back of his consciousness, silenced for so long and finally finding it's release, paying him in double for all those years of being tucked away. Then of course, there's the burn to protect the other, to shadow him, to never let whatever depraved fuck got it's hands on Mello ever do it again. He'd peel the bastard's skin off with his own bare hands before ever letting him near Mello again-- before letting anyone near Mello again, at this rate.

Enough, he thinks, eyes squeezed shut. This wasn't the time for that, and really, how could he be so angry with Mello cradled in his arms? He lifts his head and angles his face, gaunt with worry and exhaustion, to the other's; presses paper-thin lips to his cheeks, hushes to himself or the blond or who knows what. Enough.

[virucide]

That black beast is still inside of him. It's a new monster of Mello's, something he's going to have to learn to co-exist with, to share space with, whenever he manages to pull himself out of the vacant shell he's currently occupying. There are no cycling thoughts. There are no desperate feelings of wanting to be protected, to wrap Matt up around him and hide away from the world until he can stand up on his own feet again without stumbling. It's..not like that. Mello's subconsciously digging for a whole different base; he wants to bury his arms up to the elbow inside of the redhead, wants to purge the darkness in the back of his mind, wants to get rid of the filthy ache of violation beneath his skin. He wants to step into him in an effort to find himself, and when he reemerges, assess the damage. See what's left, what can be salvaged--if anything at all.

The words come out wire-sharp, hoarse from lack of use and those guttural screams from hours past. "Hey." It's like he senses the sweltering emotion that ricochets between them; part of him wants to recoil, part of him doesn't. All of him knows that he can't be smothered, that any sign of over protection will be taken poorly and he won't be able to handle being smothered. And he knows Matt knows, which is why he doesn't say anything, which is why he's okay with holding onto him and pretending like the thread of loyalty between them hasn't been shaken. Matt couldn't do anything, but neither could Mello, he couldn't do anything for himself and perhaps that's what really makes him the most furious. He'd grown up with the mentality that only you could protect yourself. And if Matt had saved him the damage wouldn't be nearly as extensive physically..but it would have rebounded back a different mental cripple altogehter--one of anger at the fact that Mello had to rely on his closest companion, his lover, his brother, to rescue him after so many years of claiming he would never need it.

"Let's go to sleep." Tomorrow's another day. No matter what, there's always another day.