you want to hold onto me, i want to hold out on you. [closed, ongoing.]

[virucide]

WHO: Mello (virucide) & Matt (lungrot).
WHAT: An extremely aggravated Mello returns home to an otherwise apathetic Matt.
WHERE: Their shared apartment.
WHEN: Day 160. Early morning.

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[lungrot]

Tucked and tangled in a womb of colorful, rubber-encased wires and blinking lights at the back of their apartment, it's a miracle in and of itself that the redhead glances up from his screen when Mello steps in, slamming the door shut behind him. Bone-thin fingers glide over a stained keyboard, the lightening-fast clicking of it's keys resonating throughout the room, and Matt huffs, snuffs his cigarette into the butt-choked ashtray at his side.

"What?" He either didn't hear him, or doesn't care enough to. Either way, the younger man's gaunt face is expressionless aside from the arch of a russet-colored eyebrow and the slight downward twist of his chapped lips.

[virucide]

Oh, and that's not the place for Matt to be, not when the blond gets like this--angry, riled up and prone to paving paths of destruction. So it really shouldn't be a surprise that Mello would make sure to smash as many coiled wires under his boots as he can when he corners the redhead on that side of the room, a sneer split across thin lips. He's used to this apathy, but it's always made him angrier, always pissed him off more than fighting with someone who could match his foul mood (and there are few, if any) would have.

Mello's hand hits the keyboard, presses several middle keys and a couple fingers down with the weight of his palm, and looms over him, the corner of blue eyes pinched with frustration. "What the hell do you think? Where'd that little opinionated bitch I talked to on the phone go?"

[lungrot]

More concerned with the state of his keyboard than the sick cracks of protest hummed by his knuckles underneath the weight Mello's palm, Matt struggles to slip his hand from the blond's grasp. Heavy lids flutter open, wider, and in the light you can almost see the fine red mapwork of nerves beneath paper-thin skin-- or you could, if Matt wasn't so determined to hide those sunken eyes behind thick amber lenses.

"Oh." Sounding any less preoccupied would be a difficult task, indeed. "I still think your job is shit, yeah." He shrugs, cants his head to the side and cranes his scrawny neck over Mello's looming form.

"Could you move?" I can't see the screen.

[virucide]

White teeth come together in an audible snap, and Mello visibly tenses, the frustration rolling off in waves. He isn't the type to hold himself back from acting on the emotions that steer him, and it's just so very like him to do what he does then: to reach forward with his free hand and wrap long fingers through red hair, tight, holding Matt's head back. The other lifts from the keyboard and hooks thumb through the goggles piece that goes between the eyes, and he holds them back off Matt's face so he can see him.

"Yeah?" The blond's tone is ice, worse than that golden quality his voice often takes on, worse than the embittered sarcasm. Because this is sharper, full of ill-intent. He lowers his head close. "If you really want to speak your fucking mind, Mail, how about you give me a reason instead of this vague teenage bullshit?"

[lungrot]

Crooked and angular, the redhead rests his weight against kitchen's creaking wooden framework. The room is cluttered and stale, filled with various pots and pans and yellow-ringed coffee mugs Matt's left in the sink for too long, emptied grease-laden cartons and foil wrappers, the omnipresent stench of too much smoke

[virucide]

From across the apartment, Mello makes no sign of having heard those words, which is probably for the best and perhaps unusual, even by their standards. A round two would bruise his knuckles and stain the carpet more than he's willing to allow; he might crack a few teeth out of the redhead's foul mouth, too, and he doesn't want to deal with that mess. So he lets the conversation drop like a hot stone, even as frustration still churns thick, unsettled, in his gut

[lungrot]

He almost expects Mello to come stomping back, vision flooded an angry red, bones and knuckles ready for round two ; one hit K.O. Stagnant in the kitchen's doorway, Matt palms the spilled tabacco idly and waits, listens;

No footsteps. No flurry of bruised fists, no angry, sharktoothed sneers-- just the usual creaking of ancient floorboards, and a quiet spray from copper pipes some rooms away. He's taking a shower.

Matt can almost count himself lucky, though he knows luck has little to do with it. Face swollen, pink and tender, he's left to an empty kitchen and a throbbing headache, silence heavier than any of the punches Mello could throw. He runs his tongue over blunt teeth, mouth still plagued by a metallic tang, and steps forward; heads down the hallway to where he knows he'll find the older man, wet, still seething.

Maybe it's thanatos, or just plain stupidity. Either way, Matt's always had a knack for sticking his head in the jaws of the beast. The door is wide open; an invitation if he's ever seen one.

[virucide]

There's a strange, methodical, ghost-like quality in the way Mello handles himself, the way he favors his right hand when he twists the cold knobs of the shower. The knuckles of both gleam wet pink under the gush of water, but he doesn't linger on it, keeps moving, settling into a bearable temperature even if it's still hot enough to cloud mirrors and scald skin.

It's one of the only things he can do to calm himself down. To find something with more hot fury than his own temper, to find something that'll burn the frustration right out of him.

Mello's aware of the redhead's invasive presence before he's even through the bathroom door, but he doesn't react, not at first. All that separates them is a thin curtain of clear plastic and thick, humid air. It may even seem like he's not going to do anything--but as soon as Matt's near enough, the blond leans his shoulder against the cold tile wall, tugs the plastic curtain back with two fingers, and gives him this look. A flat, level look.

"Of all the times you could decide to finally