My Own Way

"No, that\'s a good sign." Matt commented, comparing Mello\'s face with the pictures of similar burns on the survivors\' forum. "We need to switch to the other ointment now."



As their lives had settled, so had the fire in Mello. The second day he had been here, Matt had gone out and bought him a bed, which had been set up in the spare room. Mello had taking to spending most of his time lying on it, sleeping as best he could, reading or just lying there thinking. Matt had never seen him so motionless. Mello had many moods, but they almost all involved being animated. Matt was more worried now about the depression than he was the burns. On the third day, blisters had finally appeared, alongside a strange, almost glossy, white coating in some areas. This transulent skin had been slowly spreading from the reddened edges ever since, but had yet to touch the deep injury on his shoulder, where Matt had scratched charred flesh away. Now, almost a month later, this white coating was starting to come away too. Underneath, something new was occurring. It was patchy, but Matt was confident that they were skin buds. Mello was going to heal. He was going to have the mother of all scars, but he was going to live. Looking at his friend now, Matt wondered if that was a disappointment to him.



"Right." Mello stared at the images too. Without the bandages, his left eye seemed too blue, too white. It was piercing in its aspect and yet the right eye contrived to match its intensity. "Then I\'m nearly out of your hair."



Matt bowed his head. Mello had been speaking like this since the beginning, acting as if he was an imposition and that Matt couldn\'t wait to regain his life. The redhead had tried reassuring him, but it didn\'t seem like it was that which he needed. There was nothing easy about having Mello in his home - his friends had stopped coming to visit - but Matt feared more the loss of his presense. Even ignored and even having had his head bitten off a dozen times or more, Matt wanted him to stay. He couldn\'t offer baths that you could swim in, but he had hoped that something of their relationship could have been salvaged from the wreck of the past. He decided to actually say it. "Mello, I want you to stay."



Mello gave him a scathing look and pointedly picked up the ointment. "Lather me up, Matty."



"What will you do?"



"I\'m down but I\'m not out." Mello spat back, his glare making Matt feel so insignificant under it. "I\'ll renew contact with our friends in Britain and rebuild. I can still beat Near."



"Can I help?"



"You?" Mello said it with such contempt that Matt winced. Then, more softly, "I\'ll call you if you can. It\'s only natural for you to want to catch Kira too. You might only have been the third, but you grew up with this hanging over your head too."



Matt sighed. "I never wanted to be L. But I do want to help you." With practiced movements now, he applied the ointment and gauze, then wrapped around the roller gauze to hold it all in place. The bandages came last. Mello sitting meak as a lamb until they were secured in place. Matt lingered perhaps longer than he should have pinning the final one in place across the bridge of Mello\'s nose. Green eyes met a single blue one, blazing back at him. "What\'s going on inside your head, Mello?"



"What do you expect?" Mello sneered and Matt couldn\'t stand it.



"You have never once said thank you! You\'ve implied it and skirted around it, but you have never..."



Mello grabbed his wrist and pulled him close. The eye was icy. The grip was bruising. Mello hissed right into his face, "How could I say thank you in the way you want me to looking like this?"



Matt jolted back. "What?" Disbelief hit like a sledgehammer. "You think I want your body?"



Mello let him go. He rose and stormed out the room, yelling after him. "No! Matt! I don\'t!"



Matt sat stunned for a few seconds, then raced after him. "You\'ve got it wrong!" The spare room door slammed shut in his face. "I meant in thanks! No! I wanted you to say thank you!" He leaned up against the door. "Mello, please listen to me. I know you\'re not gay. I know I don\'t stand a cat in Hell\'s chance with you. I\'m happy just being your friend. " He sighed. "What do you want me to say? We\'re only just met back up again and the one time I tried it on with you, you ran out on me and I didn\'t see you for four years. I learned my lesson. Ok? I fucking learned it." He cringed against the wood, trying to determine how far to go here. "Look, would it make you feel better if I told you that I still fancy the arse off you? But I know I\'m never going to get it, so why ruin what we have trying?"



There was silence, then the door opened. Matt caught it in time not to go flying inside, instead loitering nervously in the threshold. Mello glared at him. "I\'m hideous!"



"What?" Matt blinked. He had expected castigation for his own unnatural lust, not this. "No you\'re fucking not. I reserve the right to know precisely what floats my boat. You.... ok, I\'m shutting up now." He blushed bright red and slouched off up the passageway again, wanting to just hide his face forever.



Mello followed. "How can you say that?"



Matt stopped, looking to the Heavens, breathing deeply. He turned. "Mello, you always had the face of an angel. You still do, just with a badass scar. You now look like a very dangerous angel. Yes, you turned me the fuck on in Los Angeles, kissing me and touching me up. No, I\'m not sorry you\'ve stopped that, but only because I know you don\'t feel the same way. You were just using it as a hook to keep me by your side. Yes, I know you\'re a fucked up bastard. And yes, if you said jump, I probably would say \'how high?\'" He fumbled for his cigarettes. "And yes, I\'m humiliated enough about now, so please just accept that you\'re fucking gorgeous and leave me alone." He turned and walked on a few paces, then stopped and called back. "But don\'t move out. Not that kind of leave me alone. I like having you around."



He was followed into the front room. When Matt turned, Mello was standing there fists clenched. The portion of his face still showing was creased, though whether in fury or sorrow, Matt couldn\'t tell. "You still fancy..." Mello\'s hands jerked on either side of his body, "this?"



"Fancy?" Matt sat down and picked up his games controller. He switched it on, intently watching the screen. "Mello, I wank over you every other day."



Mello turned and stomped off back down the passageway. Matt waited for the slamming down, shrinking down inside himself. He\'d gone too far. He knew it. He would never be able to look Mello in the eye again. But the footsteps returned. Mello hanging off the doorframe, glaring at him with a furious stance. "Why not every day?" Matt roared with laughter, setting down his controller and curling into a ball. A moment later, there came the most unlikely sound. It was Mello laughing. Not the cruel snicker he had learned recently, but the belly-laugh remembered from their childhood. The blond disappeared behind the armchair. "Ouch."



Matt ran across, kneeling on the armchair, leaning over the back to peer down. Mello was holding his face, over the bandages, but he glanced up with almost a shy smile. "You ok?"



Mello nodded, but when he stood, he seemed just a little bit bigger. A little bit more Mello. A gloved hand rose to cup the redhead\'s face. "I missed you, Matty. A lot." Matt froze, but Mello leaned in. "Heh?" His eye searched, flickering from one of Matt\'s eyes to the other. "I almost saw you, Mail. Just for a moment." Then he kissed him. A peck leading into a lingering, probing, seeking kiss. Despite his misgivings, Matt melted into it and Mello\'s arm snaked around his back, holding him, their mouths still joined until it felt like orchestras played and stars formed in the air around them. Matt\'s back and thighs too weak to support him, Mello\'s arm strong around his waist and still the kiss went on. It was Mello who broke away finally, kindness and triumph in his gaze. "And there you are." He nodded. "Thank you."



Mello released Matt, turning and walking away into his room. Matt slumped, stunned, into the armchair. His heart pounded painfully against his ribcage. It might be charity, but he\'d take it. His arms wrapped around himself, Matt grinned until his jaw ached, little shivers of worth and delight passing as seismic shocks through his frame. It had almost felt like Mello meant it.