Fic: Home by Midnight (Death Note)
LOL, remember when I wrote fic? Well apparently all it takes is leather to get me working again, NOT THAT IT MATTERS because like two people I know have seen DN. Sadface mcgee that is me, that is me.
Fandom: Death Note
Rating: PG-13(ish).
Spoilers: Chapter 98 or so?
Author's Notes: Written for Mello's birthday! Happy birthday, Mello! My gift to you is apparently suffering!
Specifics: Mello/Matt, 1800 words
Summary: If time could run backwards, he would make it go, past the afternoon heat and the sticky morning, through the cool of night and up the dirty LA streets to the burning headquarters of the demolished mafia where Mello crawled out of the rubble with his skin melting off his bones and his hand still clutching his rosary.
Home by Midnight
Matt pulls out of his parking space; flick, his lighter comes to life, and the car is filled with smoke, his lungs with ash. Another day, another fucking mission. They all blend together, somehow.
If time could run backwards, he would make it go, past the afternoon heat and the sticky morning, through the cool of night and past the phone call that set them on this path. He would make it go back to before, to the blazing red car where they sat doing surveillance, to the plane bringing them to Tokyo, and to the phone call that brought him out of their shared apartment; up the dirty LA streets to the burning headquarters of the demolished mafia where Mello crawled out of the rubble with his skin melting off his bones and his hand still clutching his rosary.
* * *
In the car that night, back then, Mello took pained, gasping breaths and said "God brought me out of that," and laughed.
Matt, for his part, found that idea a little annoying. After all, if God brought him through it, it was God who put him there to begin with. And anyway, it was Mello that rigged the explosives.
Of course, he didn't say anything about it. He just took a drag with his shaking hands and tried not to think about the difference between second and third degree burns, counting down miles to the nearest hospital until Mello said, "Where are you going? No fucking hospitals."
After that, Matt turned left when he should have turned right. He didn't argue, even though he wanted to. Instead, he tried to remember biology classes at the House, and all the things he'd learned during hours of reading shit just to read shit because that's what you do when you're smarter than hell, and bored out of your mind every minute of the day.
Eventually, he said, "Right. No hospitals." And then he made another turn.
* * *
The lights that line the streets of Tokyo are alive and blazing bright - diamond dust and neon against the sky as Matt drives. And he has this dream, sometimes, where they can do things over. Maybe it's because he feels like they've done things before, and every move is familiar in some strange, abstract sense. Like how Mello pushes his hand through his hair, and it's just like when they were twelve, or they were eleven, and the trees spread their massive shadows over the grass surrounding the House. Mello would drag him there occasionally, when the air inside got too stifling; Matt would follow him, even though he never did like the sun.
Sometimes, the grass was cool and damp with the beginnings of Spring, or the tapering off edges of Autumn. The dewdrops seeped into Matt's shirt, cold and wet and clammy against his skin. When he sat up, the cloth stuck to his back and Mello laughed at him for long seconds, or long minutes, until Matt's heart ached. He was never sure if it was a good ache or a bad one. Maybe he would have found out, if Mello hadn't left.
In this dream that he has, he stands in the doorway, blocking Mello's escape from the House, his disappearance for those long years. And he says, "Don't go," sometimes. Sometimes he says, "Take me with you." And because it's a dream; because it's Matt's dream, Mello always agrees. Even though he never would have said yes, in the real world.
But life with Mello is a cycle of calamitous events - breaking windows and searing heat, shards of crystal cutting into Matt's palm from glasses shattered in a fit of rage. It's happened before, it'll happen again. It's that temper that kept Mello scary back at the House. Even when he seemed still there was something raging under the surface, and everyone knew it, even then.
It's that fire that makes his skin burn when Matt touches him with bare hands, watching Mello peel the black leather gloves from his hands with his teeth. In the bedroom, the light is low and colored orange from the lampshades and the shutters; Mello's skin looks like it's on fire. It's an appropriate visual metaphor, if a little grim these days, because when they touch, they burn.
* * *
The first time they fucked, Mello muttered prayers under his breath just before he bit Matt's lip, almost - but not quite - hard enough to break skin. It's hard to remember who started it, exactly. There were words about nothing having to do with kisses, and then there was a moment, and then he was suffocating on Mello's heat, face tickling and itching from all that blond hair.
It was as simple, and as complicated, as that: as simple and complicated as his hands grappling with Mello's belt buckle - yet another cross, or something like a cross anyway - and Mello's black-painted fingernails raking across Matt's throat and shoulders and chest. They didn't turn the lights off, maybe because no one thought to, and Matt watched Mello's skin change colors in the shifting afternoon sun.
Afterward, neither of them knew what to say, so Matt lit a cigarette and watched it burn to a stub in his hand.
Two weeks later, Mello was struggling to survive in the not-a-hospital bed he'd chosen.
It took too long for Mello's skin to heal - too long for Mello, that is, not for Matt. Matt's a selfish arse, he knows, but sometimes he wished it would take longer. Not because he wanted Mello in pain or anything, but because the longer he was incapacitated, the longer it would be before he was out there, blowing himself up again. Inconvenient, yes, there was still something comforting about knowing where Mello would be when Matt got back from the corner store with his brown paper bag of cigarettes and chocolate bars.
The first time after that, Mello turned the light off before they even began. Matt traced his skin for new features - the shiny, tender scar tissue, and the knotted flesh that was once smooth skin. His throat tightened, and his hands trembled, but he didn't say a word.
* * *
Times like this, Matt thinks about when they were kids. Maybe it's because this city is so different than Winchester - the steel and science of it all makes him nostalgic, even though he's pretty sure he likes modernity more than castles. It's part of living in LA for so long, if "a few years" qualifies as too long. These days, maybe it does.
In any case, he thinks about it - the sun, the moon, filtering through the tree leaves, and how that's so much different than the artificial light reflecting off glass windows or the headlights around him. Back then, Mello always wanted to be outside, when he wasn't sitting in the library or holed up in his bedroom, trying to beat Near. Trying to be Near, in some ways. Never quite understanding that he was already more than Near could ever be.
Well. Mello would say Matt didn't understand. And that could be true, in the same way he doesn't understand this whole mission, not really - fall off the radar, live underground, keep your head on your neck and your heart still beating, that's what he's always thought. But Mello isn't like that - Mello's a hurricane in human flesh, or maybe he's one of those California wildfires that go for days and weeks and never fucking stop until they just burn out. Maybe he's a nuée ardente, taking down everything in his path, leaving them incinerated, turning them to black ash. And Matt, he always stays just out of reach of the flames, but he always comes just close enough to get a tiny bit burned, too.
The sky is getting red. He glances up, watching the sun drop down, blood red and orange-gold. The smokegun is heavy against his chest.
* * *
This morning, Mello said, "I've got a plan." He leaned over a street map and marked it up with a sharpie - the marker smell burned Matt's nose, and filled his lungs with poison. He combated it with another cigarette. Irony in stripes, that's him.
Mello's marker ran down roads, arrows at each end. He said, "They'll pass this spot, so you bring the car there and shoot this in their direction to cover me," as he tossed a heavy gun-thing in Matt's direction. Matt caught it, checked it over.
"A smoke gun? What the hell is this for?" It was actually pretty annoying - watching crazy teenage (?) Japanese girls was bad enough, but he's never been a fan of fieldwork. That's Mello's thing - it's Mello that always wants his feet on the pavement and hands in the dirt, on the knife, on the gun. And Matt was almost tempted to object, but when he lifted his gaze, Mello wasn't looking at him or the map. Instead, he was looking up, eyes rolled back in his head like he was in some kind of trance, head dropped against his shoulder, thinking. Mello's fingers crinkled the foil wrapping on his latest chocolate bar, and Matt decided then that he shouldn't interrupt. Thinking is like sleepwalking, at least for them. Best not to wake the dreamer.
Still, even for someone like Matt time can run a little short, and he wanted to say "Wake up," after two and a half minutes.
He wanted to, but he didn't. Instead Mello snapped his head up like a snake, eyes suddenly focused, and said, "You distract them. I'll get that bitch Takada." He said, "We're ending this tonight."
"Right," Matt said, "I guess that's a good reason to celebrate. Think we'll be home by midnight?"
He knew as soon as he said it that something was wrong.
And Mello didn't answer; just snapped the cap back on his marker and put it down onto the table with a harsh bang. A split second later, his hands pushed through Matt's hair, and his mouth found Matt's, and Matt didn't think about anything, anymore.
* * *
Takada's entourage mills through the streets ahead, all black suits, surrounding this tiny, pretty Japanese woman in fur. She's hotter in person than she is on TV. Matt narrows his eyes behind his goggles, hits the gas, turns the world outside his window to streaking colors, blurring lights.
He knows Mello hasn't told him everything about this mission - he could see it on that beautiful, lying face he knows so well.
But whatever it is he's holding back, Matt hopes they both can make it back.
(When he was young he thought they'd laugh forever in the yellow sunlight, the crimson dawn, and beneath the silver light of the moon.)
A little kidnapping. Not such a big mission, really. Maybe they'll even be home in time for dinner. Not that they ever eat dinner anyway.
Matt reaches into his vest and pulls out the gun.
It was a lovely burn.
-Terami Hirsch-
Fandom: Death Note
Rating: PG-13(ish).
Spoilers: Chapter 98 or so?
Author's Notes: Written for Mello's birthday! Happy birthday, Mello! My gift to you is apparently suffering!
Specifics: Mello/Matt, 1800 words
Summary: If time could run backwards, he would make it go, past the afternoon heat and the sticky morning, through the cool of night and up the dirty LA streets to the burning headquarters of the demolished mafia where Mello crawled out of the rubble with his skin melting off his bones and his hand still clutching his rosary.
Home by Midnight
Matt pulls out of his parking space; flick, his lighter comes to life, and the car is filled with smoke, his lungs with ash. Another day, another fucking mission. They all blend together, somehow.
If time could run backwards, he would make it go, past the afternoon heat and the sticky morning, through the cool of night and past the phone call that set them on this path. He would make it go back to before, to the blazing red car where they sat doing surveillance, to the plane bringing them to Tokyo, and to the phone call that brought him out of their shared apartment; up the dirty LA streets to the burning headquarters of the demolished mafia where Mello crawled out of the rubble with his skin melting off his bones and his hand still clutching his rosary.
* * *
In the car that night, back then, Mello took pained, gasping breaths and said "God brought me out of that," and laughed.
Matt, for his part, found that idea a little annoying. After all, if God brought him through it, it was God who put him there to begin with. And anyway, it was Mello that rigged the explosives.
Of course, he didn't say anything about it. He just took a drag with his shaking hands and tried not to think about the difference between second and third degree burns, counting down miles to the nearest hospital until Mello said, "Where are you going? No fucking hospitals."
After that, Matt turned left when he should have turned right. He didn't argue, even though he wanted to. Instead, he tried to remember biology classes at the House, and all the things he'd learned during hours of reading shit just to read shit because that's what you do when you're smarter than hell, and bored out of your mind every minute of the day.
Eventually, he said, "Right. No hospitals." And then he made another turn.
* * *
The lights that line the streets of Tokyo are alive and blazing bright - diamond dust and neon against the sky as Matt drives. And he has this dream, sometimes, where they can do things over. Maybe it's because he feels like they've done things before, and every move is familiar in some strange, abstract sense. Like how Mello pushes his hand through his hair, and it's just like when they were twelve, or they were eleven, and the trees spread their massive shadows over the grass surrounding the House. Mello would drag him there occasionally, when the air inside got too stifling; Matt would follow him, even though he never did like the sun.
Sometimes, the grass was cool and damp with the beginnings of Spring, or the tapering off edges of Autumn. The dewdrops seeped into Matt's shirt, cold and wet and clammy against his skin. When he sat up, the cloth stuck to his back and Mello laughed at him for long seconds, or long minutes, until Matt's heart ached. He was never sure if it was a good ache or a bad one. Maybe he would have found out, if Mello hadn't left.
In this dream that he has, he stands in the doorway, blocking Mello's escape from the House, his disappearance for those long years. And he says, "Don't go," sometimes. Sometimes he says, "Take me with you." And because it's a dream; because it's Matt's dream, Mello always agrees. Even though he never would have said yes, in the real world.
But life with Mello is a cycle of calamitous events - breaking windows and searing heat, shards of crystal cutting into Matt's palm from glasses shattered in a fit of rage. It's happened before, it'll happen again. It's that temper that kept Mello scary back at the House. Even when he seemed still there was something raging under the surface, and everyone knew it, even then.
It's that fire that makes his skin burn when Matt touches him with bare hands, watching Mello peel the black leather gloves from his hands with his teeth. In the bedroom, the light is low and colored orange from the lampshades and the shutters; Mello's skin looks like it's on fire. It's an appropriate visual metaphor, if a little grim these days, because when they touch, they burn.
* * *
The first time they fucked, Mello muttered prayers under his breath just before he bit Matt's lip, almost - but not quite - hard enough to break skin. It's hard to remember who started it, exactly. There were words about nothing having to do with kisses, and then there was a moment, and then he was suffocating on Mello's heat, face tickling and itching from all that blond hair.
It was as simple, and as complicated, as that: as simple and complicated as his hands grappling with Mello's belt buckle - yet another cross, or something like a cross anyway - and Mello's black-painted fingernails raking across Matt's throat and shoulders and chest. They didn't turn the lights off, maybe because no one thought to, and Matt watched Mello's skin change colors in the shifting afternoon sun.
Afterward, neither of them knew what to say, so Matt lit a cigarette and watched it burn to a stub in his hand.
Two weeks later, Mello was struggling to survive in the not-a-hospital bed he'd chosen.
It took too long for Mello's skin to heal - too long for Mello, that is, not for Matt. Matt's a selfish arse, he knows, but sometimes he wished it would take longer. Not because he wanted Mello in pain or anything, but because the longer he was incapacitated, the longer it would be before he was out there, blowing himself up again. Inconvenient, yes, there was still something comforting about knowing where Mello would be when Matt got back from the corner store with his brown paper bag of cigarettes and chocolate bars.
The first time after that, Mello turned the light off before they even began. Matt traced his skin for new features - the shiny, tender scar tissue, and the knotted flesh that was once smooth skin. His throat tightened, and his hands trembled, but he didn't say a word.
* * *
Times like this, Matt thinks about when they were kids. Maybe it's because this city is so different than Winchester - the steel and science of it all makes him nostalgic, even though he's pretty sure he likes modernity more than castles. It's part of living in LA for so long, if "a few years" qualifies as too long. These days, maybe it does.
In any case, he thinks about it - the sun, the moon, filtering through the tree leaves, and how that's so much different than the artificial light reflecting off glass windows or the headlights around him. Back then, Mello always wanted to be outside, when he wasn't sitting in the library or holed up in his bedroom, trying to beat Near. Trying to be Near, in some ways. Never quite understanding that he was already more than Near could ever be.
Well. Mello would say Matt didn't understand. And that could be true, in the same way he doesn't understand this whole mission, not really - fall off the radar, live underground, keep your head on your neck and your heart still beating, that's what he's always thought. But Mello isn't like that - Mello's a hurricane in human flesh, or maybe he's one of those California wildfires that go for days and weeks and never fucking stop until they just burn out. Maybe he's a nuée ardente, taking down everything in his path, leaving them incinerated, turning them to black ash. And Matt, he always stays just out of reach of the flames, but he always comes just close enough to get a tiny bit burned, too.
The sky is getting red. He glances up, watching the sun drop down, blood red and orange-gold. The smokegun is heavy against his chest.
* * *
This morning, Mello said, "I've got a plan." He leaned over a street map and marked it up with a sharpie - the marker smell burned Matt's nose, and filled his lungs with poison. He combated it with another cigarette. Irony in stripes, that's him.
Mello's marker ran down roads, arrows at each end. He said, "They'll pass this spot, so you bring the car there and shoot this in their direction to cover me," as he tossed a heavy gun-thing in Matt's direction. Matt caught it, checked it over.
"A smoke gun? What the hell is this for?" It was actually pretty annoying - watching crazy teenage (?) Japanese girls was bad enough, but he's never been a fan of fieldwork. That's Mello's thing - it's Mello that always wants his feet on the pavement and hands in the dirt, on the knife, on the gun. And Matt was almost tempted to object, but when he lifted his gaze, Mello wasn't looking at him or the map. Instead, he was looking up, eyes rolled back in his head like he was in some kind of trance, head dropped against his shoulder, thinking. Mello's fingers crinkled the foil wrapping on his latest chocolate bar, and Matt decided then that he shouldn't interrupt. Thinking is like sleepwalking, at least for them. Best not to wake the dreamer.
Still, even for someone like Matt time can run a little short, and he wanted to say "Wake up," after two and a half minutes.
He wanted to, but he didn't. Instead Mello snapped his head up like a snake, eyes suddenly focused, and said, "You distract them. I'll get that bitch Takada." He said, "We're ending this tonight."
"Right," Matt said, "I guess that's a good reason to celebrate. Think we'll be home by midnight?"
He knew as soon as he said it that something was wrong.
And Mello didn't answer; just snapped the cap back on his marker and put it down onto the table with a harsh bang. A split second later, his hands pushed through Matt's hair, and his mouth found Matt's, and Matt didn't think about anything, anymore.
* * *
Takada's entourage mills through the streets ahead, all black suits, surrounding this tiny, pretty Japanese woman in fur. She's hotter in person than she is on TV. Matt narrows his eyes behind his goggles, hits the gas, turns the world outside his window to streaking colors, blurring lights.
He knows Mello hasn't told him everything about this mission - he could see it on that beautiful, lying face he knows so well.
But whatever it is he's holding back, Matt hopes they both can make it back.
(When he was young he thought they'd laugh forever in the yellow sunlight, the crimson dawn, and beneath the silver light of the moon.)
A little kidnapping. Not such a big mission, really. Maybe they'll even be home in time for dinner. Not that they ever eat dinner anyway.
Matt reaches into his vest and pulls out the gun.
It was a lovely burn.
-Terami Hirsch-