My Own Way

Matt sat on the coffee table, peering at the left side of Mello\'s face, exposed now without the dressings. The blond just stared blankly forwarding hating these moments, when the ointment stung, then soothed and his skin received blessed relief from the itchiness of the gauze before it was reapplied. Only this time, the redhead had paused. He leaned closer, then pushed up his goggles to gain an even more intimate view of the burns.



"What?" Mello snapped.



Matt sucked in a breath. "You know what? I think the time has come to leave these off now. On your chest, back and face, the skin buds have all met in the middle and the dermis is recovering. There\'s that patch on your shoulder that still definitely needs covering, but I\'m inclined to start letting the air get to the rest of you." His hand tapped against his thigh. "Bearing in mind that I\'m not a doctor. But it\'s your call at the end of the day."



Mello stared. While his spirits rose at the thought of never having another piece of padded cotton attached to his cheek, there were nerves too. This was it. From this moment, he would have no mask to hide behind and scars that he wore would be on public display. He slowly nodded, then spoke gruffly. "Get me a mirror, Matty."



Fringe covering his eyes, Matt wore a neutral expression. Mello was watching him carefully for the grimace, but it never came. The redhead acted as though he wasn\'t dreading Mello seeing himself so starkly and that was reassuring. The little shaving mirror was fetched from the bathroom and held up, without hesitation, in front of Mello\'s face. The blond irritably took it from him and gazed at his own reflection. It wasn\'t that he hadn\'t seen his scars before. Though the dressings were usually changed by Matt, Mello did occasionally do his own and had monitored their healing process for himself. But each of those times had just been precursors for the whole mess to be covered up again. This time, it was being made real. This was the face that Mello would have to carry with him into the future.



Mello stared. Cold, blue eyes gazed back from under a messy fringe. His hair grown jagged and uneven, strands brushing against his cheekbones, hid the damage to his forehead. His own hair-style could no longer be distinguished though and that hurt more than he was willing to admit. The left eye wasn\'t so bloodshot anymore, but he had only added the drops half an hour previously. Then there was his skin. It did look better. No more open sores and white patches, but the flesh was a vivid red, purple in places. Not at all smooth, with its ridges and bumps, twisting his skin, especially where it met unblemished areas. It started from the corner of his right eye, passed over the bridge of his nose, then continued in a steep diagonal line down over his jawbone and onto his neck. So ugly.



"What do you think?" Mello whispered eventually, determined to be stoic about this. Matt sat, three feet away, just watching him. No emotion from the redhead at all. "Don\'t pity me."



"Why the fuck would I pity you?" Matt smiled. "This is a happy day. You\'ve finally got the dressings off that have been doing your head in."



"Yes." Mello replied, hollowly. He glanced again into the mirror and couldn\'t help himself. For all his pride and resolve, the glass swam in his vision and he blinked rapidly. He caught Matt\'s hands rising, in quick invitation, from his thighs, before sinking again. Mello nodded swiftly and pushed himself forward to be held tight in the redhead\'s embrace. He stayed there until he could see without breaking, but his voice rasped with unshed tears. "I\'d like a hot chocolate."



Matt patted his back and, unaccountably, kissed the scarred side of his cheek. "I\'d better make one for you then, gorgeous."



Mello nodded, but didn\'t let him go for long minutes. They sat there, side by side on the small table, clinging to each other without speaking the words that neither one of them knew how to express. Eventually, Mello gulped and sat back, straightening his shoulders. "You must think me really stupid for being like this."



Matt smirked. "You are many things, Mello, but stupid isn\'t one of them. Notably so, in fact. Beat yourself up all you like, but when I look at you I see exactly what a fourteen year old Mello would have wanted to be." He shook his head, as Mello glanced up sharply at him. "A beautiful, tragic hero, like something out of a nineteenth century Gothic novel. Only we\'re working through the tragic and moving straight onto you being the beautiful hero." He rose. "Hot chocolate?"



"It matters." Mello whispered and Matt stopped en route to the kitchen and turned attentively. "To me, I mean, it matters. It shouldn\'t but it does."



"How you look?"



"Yes." He swallowed. "What you think I look like."



"I\'ve told you, a beautiful, tragic hero." Matt waited, but Mello merely sat there, staring at the carpet. "Alright?" The blond nodded, so Matt carried on. By the time he was back, Mello was standing looking out of the balcony window, at the lights of the estate and the town beyond, but not really seeing them. "One hot chocolate, as requested." Matt placed his own tea on the table, but carried the other mug to his lover, slipping an arm around his waist. With only a brief hesitation, Mello took his hot chocolate and put his arm around Matt\'s shoulders. "You feel really tense, man."



Mello bowed his head, "I\'m sorry I\'m such an arsehole. Aimee was right, you would be better off without me. I\'m just going to end up dragging you into deeper shit than you can get into on your own." He bit his lip. "I\'m out of ideas, Matty. I\'m just rehashing the old ones, trying to get back to the point where I was checkmated."



Matt shook his head. "You\'re not out of ideas, Mello. You\'re just knackered." He lit a cigarette and watched his lover. "Come on, Mell, where\'s that fire? You don\'t give up, no matter how terrible the odds are for winning. You gave Near a run for his money years after the rest of us gave up. You\'re still doing it. You give up now and we really have handed Kira the world on a plate." He bent slightly to better see his lover\'s face. "The great Mello cornered? You always came out fighting. Always."



"Maybe you\'re right. I am exhausted."



"Ok." Matt nodded. "Then go to bed. Let Near win."



Mello\'s head shot up, his eyes blazing. "Like fuck!"



Matt smirked. "Then let us pool resources. You plan like you always did and let us bring the bastard in. You and me against the world, Mello, when did that combination ever lose?" He leaned to engulf the blond in a lingering kiss. "You will catch Kira, Mello, and I\'ll be right behind you cheering you on. Right?"



"Right." Mello smiled. "It\'s a deal." He stared back outside, focusing upon his reflection in the darkened window. The shadows lessened his scarring, a kinder view than in the mirror, but still the enormity of what had happened and what must come descended dauntingly. Nevertheless, a plan was already forming, a way which might succeed where dozens of other attempts had failed, to persuade Rio to place Mafia resources at Mello\'s deposal for the sole purpose of catching Kira. It could be done. He just had to maintain his focus and not let lesser concerns, like the loss of the weapon of his looks, distract him from his goal. Mello glanced at Matt again, his smile widening into a grin. "A beautiful, tragic hero?"



"Yeah."



Mello sniggered. "Don\'t they tend to die?"



"Eventually."



The blond shook his head. "You don\'t half talk some..." But he let the rebuke drop, catching sight of his reflection again, like some dark angel in the glass. No. It was no time for depression. There was work to do. Mello pulled together his reserves of energy, marvelling again that just when he thought he had none, the seemingly bottomless well of it rose up to animate him again. He recognised again that sometimes the only thing required to move forward was to find the will to start walking. The destruction of the left side of his face couldn\'t be eradicated; but Kira could be. That was where his mind should be right now. Self-pity was for losers.



Mello patted Matt\'s arse lieu of asking to be excused, then carried his hot chocolate across the room and into the passageway. Mello caught the song that his subconscious had thrown up to play out in his mind. It was \'Helter Skelter\' and he hummed it as he walked, softly singing as he approached his room, where his laptops were set up. "\'When I get to the bottom, I go back to the top of the slide, where I stop and I turn and I go for a ride, \'til I get to the bottom and I see you again...\'" He paused at the door and glanced back towards the bright doorway to the front room. Out of sight there came the sounds of a game being loaded and a cigarette being lit. Mello smirked and walked on into his own room, switching on his laptop. "\'Do you, don\'t you, want me to love you, I\'m coming down fast, but I\'m miles above you. Tell me, tell me, tell me, come on, tell me, the answer." He reached for his chocolate and snapped off a piece, as the monitor sprang into life and Mello opened his files. "Oh will you, won\'t you, want me to make you, I\'m coming down fast, but don\'t let me break you." He selected a folder and opened a document. A series of circles, words typed inside them, presented themselves for his analysis. This was the evidence amassed to date, arranged so to be surveyed tidily at a glance. There would be answers in here, because there had to be. Failure wasn\'t an option. "Helter skelter, helter skelter." Mello sang. His voice faltered and faded to a stop, as he cogitated implications of the information and sought to weave strategies from thin air. It would come.