Ragdoll, a death note fanfic

I'm in another Mello and Matt fix. There's no cure but excessive plot bunnies turning into somethings like this.

My apologies for not updating my chapter fics at the moment. Don't worry, they're coming, just let me clear my head of all these dusty little oneshots first. Particularly my MelloxMatt ones. -blush-

I don't own Death Note. The lyrics are Placebo's "Blind".

ragdoll.

[if i could tear you from the ceiling,
i know the best have tried,
i'd fill your every breath with meaning
and find the place we both could hide.]

"Tomorrow's it."

It's Mello's voice that tells Matt he's not the only one awake tonight. Matt's been lying here on the floor for hours, drenched in double meanings and soiled bandages and disconnected musings, and this whole time Mello has been awake.

Matt turns his head, tries to catch sight of Mello and finds none. It's too dark in this damn apartment, they could really use some lightbulbs that aren't dead and rattling, but who can be bothered? "Tomorrow?" he asks in a casual whirl of cigarette smoke.

Mello makes a pained sound in the back of his throat, and Matt hears the faint squeaking of the couch springs that tells him he's trying to sit up again. "Hey," he interjects, "cut that shit out."

"Cut your own shit out," Mello mutters. "I'm not a fucking ragdoll, Matt."

But the squeaking has stopped. Mello falls back into place on his back, which is good enough for Matt, who simply watches the glowing tip of his cigarette and says, "So, what's happening tomorrow again? What's 'it'?"

"It," Mello whispers. There's a brief, suspended silence before he goes on, and something in Matt's stomach turns over as he listens. "Getting out of here again. Getting things done instead of just sitting around, waiting-"

"You got blown up, man-"

"-for something to…to pull me up on my feet without anything to hold me back, and - ah, fucking shoulder - and getting back to me."

Matt can't take his eyes off that burning tip. That, or he doesn't want to look around and see that burning Mello.

"I can't take this staying-put shit, Matt, you know that," Mello continues. "These walls, these windows, this whole damn place, I can't take it."

"Well, sorry I can't make your stay at Hotel Matt that pleasant, Mel," Matt says breezily. "Pay at the door and have a nice day."

The squeaking of the couch comes back and Matt hears Mello attempt to stifle a groan of pain at the sharp movement he makes in trying to sit upright. A grim smirk curls at Matt's lips, nothingness in the heavy satin night. Mello scoffs. "That's…Jesus, Matt, that's not what I meant."

I know what you meant, Mel, Matt thinks as he dives deeper into the yellow orange red of his cigarette. I know everything you meant and mean.

But he doesn't say that. He doesn't say anything. That's always been his job: say nothing, let Mello do the talking, and just happen to be there to listen. Before the explosion and the gore and the purple-pink scar tissue, he'd always been more than satisfied to oblige, but something is different tonight. Matt is biting his tongue and wishing he had something decent to say before Mello can say it first, and something horrible and hot is rising in his throat at the thought of what that might be.

For once, he wants Mello to say nothing, let Matt do the talking, and just shut the hell up and listen. Stop trying to sit up on the couch and just lay on the pillows that Matt had fussed over for five minutes straight, cursing beneath his breath to make it as tolerable for Mello's raw state as possible, and listen. But that's out of order in an awful, impossible way, a way that would never suit the duo even for five minutes, and because of that, Matt does his job and says nothing. He does nothing but listen and stare, hazy-eyed, at that little smoldering note just inches from his fingertips.

"But tomorrow, Matt," Mello murmurs in the darkness, "tomorrow's it. It's going to be the day. I'm getting out. No, I'm breaking out. And you're going to help me."

This is where Matt has to say something. He snaps his head to the side and glares at Mello in spite of not even being able to make out his eyes (which are as blue and unflinching as a robin's egg falling from its nest, falling, falling to its death until it's caught in candid hands). "Well, here's the problem with that, Mel," Matt says with mock thoughtfulness. "Uh, you got yourself caught up in a nice little explosion, got rightfully fucked up to the point where you can't even walk without having to lean on me, not to mention the fact that half your face nearly melted off like goddamn Two-Face or some shit-"

"Which is why I said you would help me, not just sit back and-"

"And who said I would do either of those, Mel?"

"Matt!"

"What?" Matt shouts in return. He's angry, and for what reason, Mello will remain in the blissful unaware for the rest of his days. Besides, another part of Matt's job in working alongside the fire-eyed blonde is to keep any thoughts that can lead to distraction to himself, and he gets a slight tugging feeling that telling Mello that he's been burning off of excuses, cigarettes, and the blue of his eyes for the past month would be a notch above a distraction.

Mello's hollering brings him back to ground zero. "For Christ's sake, are you hearing me at all right now?" he demands. Squeak, squeak, fucking squeak goes the springs of the couch as Mello jerks himself up, ignoring the pain that Matt is more than sure he's in at the motion. "What are you getting out of this, Matt, watching me lose my fucking mind in this place? You should know more than anyone that I'm not cut out for this laying low bullshit, the stuff that people like…people like Near do. They lay low and do everything under the radar so that they don't get hurt, but what do they get out of it in the end, huh? What's the big picture to them?"

Living for another night. Bitching and eating chocolate and getting their bandages changed. One more day with their partner in a shit load of crime.

A tense silence ropes between them like barbed wire. All Matt can see is that round little ember, barely able to be called a life, but it's still burning, it's still there, it's laying low and under the radar of his eyes. He hears Mello make a strangled sound in the back of his throat when he retires onto his back.

And then, quietly, Mello: "Just…"

Matt lets his gaze drift from his cigarette and up to the darkness that holds Mello's face somewhere above, dazedly thinking, This is how it always is. You get loud, I get loud, we both get quiet, and then this.

"You know what?" Mello's voice is steely again. Goodbye to quiet murmurs, the boy's reverted right back to the cold, hardened part of the sequence again. Matt is barely surprised and listens numbly from the floor. "It's fine. Forget it. We'll see in the morning."

No, we won't.

"Yeah," Matt mumbles, "in the morning."

"I'm going to sleep."

No, you're not.

"Yeah, alright. Try and…yeah, try and get some of that. Sleep."

And Matt shuts up right quick, because it's always in these moments after Mello's words have had their explosions and tempests that it all becomes more tempting. He knows that if he keeps talking now, he won't stop for anything, and it'll all be one big distraction and Mello will leave while Matt's in the shower and get himself caught in another one of his fires and, this time, Matt won't be able to wrap him up, carry him off, bring him home and make up more excuses that he's been frantically feeding off of ever since the first wailing night of Mello's healing.

Matt wants to keep him just a minute longer, a single second in space. But he knows Mello is aching to storm back into the war, and that his excuses of keeping him close are running short.

The glowing note between his fingers dies out. Mello feigns sleep with too-rhythmic breathing, and Matt listens.

[don't go and leave me, and please don't drive me blind.]

Morning comes uninvited. Mello goes through the motions of waking up as Matt makes a sad excuse of a breakfast for the two of them; something that looks like eggs and four burnt pieces of toast. Good enough, he conjectures upon realizing that neither Mello or himself are morning people, and neither will do much eating today either way.

Mello doesn't try to sit up when Matt comes in with his plate. Instead, he opts for staring up at him with robin egg eyes narrowed slightly, lips parted keenly, his hair unwashed and falling straight and golden along his jaw. Matt grits his teeth before carefully setting the plate of food on Mello's lap. "Eggs came out shitty," he says, finding words to fill the silence. "Think I didn't use enough Pam or something, I don't know-"

"Matt."

And here we go.

"Yeah?" Matt swallows air and raises his eyebrows, aching for his goggles so that Mello can be coated in orange plastic instead of glossed over in the amber light of morning. The gold and azure that make up his somebody would be bumped down a couple notches and Matt could look at him without feeling sick to his heart.

Mello, however, decides that it's suddenly his job to say nothing. Something turns cold in his eyes, unwavering, unmoving, and Matt knows that now's the time to untie all those pretty excuses and let them loose like locusts.

"Look, Mel, I…I don't know. I really don't know, okay? It's…you're not in the right shape right now to, you know, take on things the way you did before…before this happened." He makes a vague gesture with his hand to the heavy bandages that weave and wind along Mello's chest, wrapping up and around his shoulders, his sides and back, then tied succinctly at his navel in a brusque little knot. Matt will have to change them at noon, see Mello's warped and discoloured skin again, and feel that conscious, crushing feeling in every nerve and fiber at the sight of it.

The words keep coming, all meaningless and misshapen. "I mean, come on, man, how's it gonna pay off if you do get out of here today all torn up and shit, barely able to walk without little old Matt holding you up? And - hey, don't look at me like that, it's true - how would it look to everyone else out there to see you limping or bleeding or whatever instead of seeing you all big and bad and…well, whatever you try to look like, you know? I think you'd have to tell a lot more people that you aren't a ragdoll besides me, right?"

But Mello isn't buying it. He has gone completely still on the couch, his face like stone and his eyes like blue bullets poised to kill. In the beautiful catastrophe that is Mello's face, Matt sees a limit being crossed, a barrier that he just had to leap over and try to break down for the sake of his own selfish need to have Mello here.

This isn't just for me, Matt thinks in a glaze of mild panic. Jesus, look at him.

Yes, look at him. It's all Matt's been able to do lately anyway. Get new bandages, look at Mello. Make shitty breakfast, look at Mello. Chain smoke and craft gentle excuses, look at Mello.

Or sometimes it's reversed. Look at Mello, feel sick. Look at Mello, feel his mind wander. Look at Mello, cave in little by little and wonder what the hell is going to become of the two of them. More importantly, what's going to become of the boy that still remains to look like a seraph regardless of burn tracks and battle scars.

The boy that's staring up at Matt with dead eyes. Eyes that don't belong to him. Matt bites the inside of his cheek and heads back into the kitchen when they darken.

Seconds later, the sound of a porcelain plate smashing against the living room wall. Mello's calling him a bastard or something, a fucker of sorts. Matt's glad he didn't put too much effort in those eggs.

[you don't believe me, but you do this every time.]

Night; it's back for the world is ready for it. Matt's on the floor again, Mello lying mutely on the couch beneath a thin, rust-coloured sheet. Complete darkness aside from the soft blush of Matt's cigarette between his fingers.

Mello takes in a breath, Matt lets one out; it's all the same dry custom, night after night, breath after breath.

And then, quiet, barely there at all, there's Mello's voice.

"Tomorrow's it."

know

you're

broken.]