(Untitled)
The light streamed into the room and with it came the reminder that it was morning now and another day. It rarely mattered what time of the day it was anymore when he had nowhere to go but it didn't keep him from looking at the pool of light in a state of expectancy. There were points after waking where he expected something to be different, as if
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Then again.
They were all men, all who knew the breaks of their vocation. Hm. Maybe he wouldn't feel so bad at all.
He pinched the xrays in front of a neon light mounted to a table at a slight degree angle, it was then he heard the voice yelling out to him through the darkness. He needed it to be, windows shut tight up, it made seeing through the slightly transparent materials easier.
"I am." He stated plainly before getting up. He set the pictures down, his hands shoving into his pockets and for once, at least in Matt's apartment, didn't mind the slippers he slipped onto his usually bare feet. It wasn't as though either of them were the most stellar house keepers, but he had been trying since Matt's. ..Injury.
He rounded the door, using a shoulder to push it open, "What is it?"
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He'd never considered being helpless before this man, it's not what they'd been shaped to be at least, and in the last month the man had seen every base thing about him that there was. He didn't know how to ask him to leave in the way he didn't know how to really look at him without feeling a hint of the respect that had been pounded on them growing up, even if he'd been quite as susceptible to the wide eyed awe. There was something darker that'd been growing in the time L had been here, an attraction that slowly twisted inside of him.
"I need a cigarette." He stared at the man looking at him from the hall, half daring him to deny him.
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Then again, L wasn't one to back down from a dare, "Matt does not need it, he perceives he needs it." L was walking, rather shuffling, closer. Lazy slouch leaning slightly over the man as he pinched the blankets to re-arrange them, "They're a grotesque unnecessary additive of more potential problems. Let us deal with these first, hm? Then Matt may continue his vices when we can next cure cancer?"
The fiery determination that Matt always shot back spoke volumes and reminded him just why he chose in that order of three. He admired that about this man, that he- even then- could spit in L's eye proverbially if he felt the need to, and do it with the utmost respect at times even irate, "Perhaps Matt would prefer tea? I could add more sugar than usual."
He had tried, only once, addressing him by the name he came with. It felt too odd, too close, something he couldn't afford to be, no matter how inviting he still found his impromptu patient.
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He didn't say anything while the blankets were rearranged, putting up the action, even though he grimaced at L's suggestion, sure that he'd end up with tea flavored sugar if he agreed. "Give me tea without sugar," he told him. Preference had nothing to do it when he couldn't exactly force L to listen to him. He wouldn't have tried even if he could move but then if he could move he wouldn't need him.
"What were you doing out there?" It still made him curious to think of what L was setting aside to take care of him. He didn't require much but it was still work to take care of another human being and he knew there were better things the man could do. It didn't make him less selfish for the attention but he still wondered. His eyes flitted to the open door L had slipped through and then back. "Everything looks dark outside."
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Confusing was the only way he got off those sorts of conversations and sighed putting the cigarette into his mouth, speaking around it after the insult of no sugar in tea. He often wondered why England hadn't rubbed off on a few of the longer term visitors there, "Looking at your x-rays again." He lit the cigarette and coughed after it was started, he could feel the onset of mutation in his cells, he swore it.
From there he knew he would have to sit next to Matt in order for him to be able to finish it and not have the house burn down or Matt burn himself with ash. He put it toward Matt's mouth in his pluck-type-hold, "It usually darkens at night."
He almost chuckled in his own mind. Again that discerning feeling crept up his hunched spine, there really wasn't anyone else he felt comfortable being really laid back around. He wouldn't admit that, just as much as the aforementioned amenities.
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It was strange to lose track of time so completely that he couldn't tell whether it was night or day but he didn't let it bother him or look toward the door again. He watched L light the cigarette instead, devouring the sight of the man walking to his bed and holding it to his lips. He was unused enough to smoking these days that sucking down the nicotine into his lungs was too much and he couldn't be graceful about it in the slightest. He attempted to keep his reaction to it subtle, the way that L watched him familiar enough that he didn't find it unnerving to have the man's eyes on him.
"I'm sure the x-rays haven't changed from the last time you looked at them," Matt pointed out, speaking around the cigarette while he considered what there was to find in them anymore. He knew eventually he would have to move on with his life, even if his life consisted of being in someone else's care for the extent of time it still gave him, but it didn't make it easier to swallow. "I need to shower," he told L abruptly.
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"They have not, the new ones look more promising than the originals, however." He added that little ray of sunshine, just because he could, and because it was true- at least in his eyes. Perhaps he wanted to see it and that's where it came from. At any rate, L put it aside when the subject of the shower came up.
"Shower? I will bathe you, but I do not know how Matt expects I could shower him." It's a lifeless part of conversation, he was already drawing the blankets back, deciding he would do the nightly routine of changing the bedding while Matt enjoyed the water just a few minutes without him.
He began to work Matt's shirt off, unphased by having to add this to his long, prestigious resume. For all intents and purposes, his successors were the only family who understood at least a tenth of him. At least, that's what he told himself often enough; that he was doing this for those reasons.
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It was easier to become absorbed in the careful way L took off his clothes, making it impossible to read the action as anything but what it was. He couldn't tell whether the other man really looked at him or whether he was like a child that needed to be taken care of to him. He couldn't do anything but watch but he devoured the sight of L's hands on his skin and thought of asking the man to get him off.
After a month of being incapable of experimenting with what was left of his sexual reactions in anything but the awkward moments of getting hard when he was handled through the routines of every day life, he wanted to be touched to feel something more than that. "How long are you going to stay here with me?"
It was hard to be sure whether he meant tonight or entirely.
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Each article of clothing found itself folded and stacked neatly on a bedside chair regardless that it would go to the wash in no time after he had been able to settle Matt back in. As he worked on Matt's underwear, he turned his head upward to stare at him after that sort of question. A lot of things flew through his mind. All sounding worse than the last:
As long as you'll have me - sounded as though he were an intruding guest. But then he had barged in and overtaken this.
Until you get better - made him cringe on a level he didn't want to admit, he wanted to use this one. But at the same time, he didn't want Matt thinking he was a nurse. Rather, didn't want him thinking of him as a nurse. ..Though this may have already happened.
"As long as I am needed," He said, losing just a little bit of his composure in thought. This is why he'd never wanted a significant oth-- ..That train of thought hit him hard, his mouth going before his mind could catch it, "As long as my presence is desired."
He paused again, letting the moment pass as though he meant it to be as long as Matt could tolerate him. In a way he did. But in a way he hoped that was a long time coming- months in the future where he could perhaps at least feel Matt reach his arm up to- ... To anything. Hit him, yank his hair to get his attention, prod his arm, anything.
Matt, of all of them, didn't deserve this.
He hadn't realized he'd long been done undressing the man and was just staring at him in unintended pity. It only hit him after a small while and he moved to the head of the bed, "Come then.. Let's at least get you to the bathroom."
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The answer made him pause and he looked down to his useless body, thinking about how fucking vague the answers were but in the end they were also partly what he needed to hear. He didn't think he would get used to having this man do things for him but being left to a stranger felt worse. "You might be here for a while then," he pointed out.
He caught a glimpse of the pity in L's eyes and thought it should make him feel worse than it did, he didn't want the man's pity, but it didn't matter enough to see it in the end. He was pretty fucking pitiful these days and it was only right L's stare reflected it, he supposed.
Following L's trek around the bed, he moved to shift off the pillows, expecting the man to help him sit up completely. "Aren't you bringing the chair over?" The wheelchair looked too far away for L to help him to from here.
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"You've piqued my curiosity," Why did the prospect of carrying Matt himself, overshadow some sort of reason using the wheelchair, "Not only, but your wheelchair cannot be set into the shower now can it? If I can't transfer you from here, you'll have to endure a bath after all."
He leaned down, he thought he had his head on straight but obviously not tonight. Not right now at least. He was far too old to be thinking along these lines, especially about someone whom he was supposed to be caring for on a physical level, daily physicals that is. "Unless you'd rather not trust me?"
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"I've trusted you this far." His entire life felt like one dependency after the other now so why did it matter if L wheeled him to the bathroom or carried him? If the man could manage it then it meant he wouldn't have to transfer from the bed to the chair to the shower and if he couldn't manage it... Well, he'd taken a few falls before. "And if you're going to stay and take care of me for as long as it takes, I'll have to trust you for longer." It wasn't really a matter of whether he trusted L though. He'd always trusted him, in name, blindly. "Carry me there."
There was something thrilling about it too, of being pressed to L's body to slash through the distance that'd managed to stay between them. Fuck, he was so desperate for human contact outside of being cared for. He'd never thought it'd be something he'd need when he'd rarely needed more than his hand before.
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The eyes, however, are windows to everything and they widen for just a scant second, he hoped not long enough for Matt to make any guesses, "Now you're making it sound like an order." He said. There was no venom behind it, more as if he may enjoy that Matt could accept he..
That he wanted to be there to help.
First, the cigarette was taken out and put in the ashtray after being snubbed out. He got closer once that job was done, of course he'd have to and set his arm behind his neck needlessly, considering L's arms were easily able to hold the frail form in a bridal like hold. This left him dangerously close to those lips who kept putting odd words into the atmosphere. Making him think two ways at once- was it misinterpretation or a signal?
"You've lost weight yet again, Matt. This.. This is unacceptable." Not that it was his fault, not that L was placing blame in his voice either, he was just reaching for anything to say at that moment.
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He looked up and if he'd been able to move slightly, without surprising L into dropping him, he would have attempted to kiss him then.
"Where are you going to put me?" If L meant to follow with the shower idea, he would still need to grab the chair. He wondered if he flustered the man at all, if maybe the way he'd looked off into the distance before was anything similar to the desire inside his mind. He thought about how far he wanted to go with this and it felt like something had to change or the uselessness of his days would drive him insane.
In a way he wanted to test too how much L was willing to do for him. He couldn't take much more of this, needing, being incapable of find some kind of relief, even if it was just his mind that needed to go through the actions.
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When asked where he was going to put him, L sighed, true neutrality on his face. He'd been caught, Matt either knew and was pressing into it to see if he'd follow through or -- or god he didn't know, "Too many questions-"
L didn't want to answer them, he turned around and sat down on the edge of the bed with Matt still looking ragdollish in his arms, "I don't have the answer to. I am afraid if I answer them, Matt may also think less of me than he must already. You're right that I've been lenient. I should be more strict, but I cannot."
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He felt awkward staying in L's arms, his helplessness reflected in how he couldn't even wrap his arms back around the man's neck or press closer, or in how easily he was being carried at all. The fact that there was nowhere to go and no hurry to get there even if there had been didn't escape him but he didn't want L to tell him these things here. Not on the bed he was forced to lay in for most of the day, barely escaping it for anything else.
"My opinion of you hasn't changed. I don't know why I said the things I did last night."
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