#mattmelloweek

Prompts 2019:

October 14th theme: Childhood

“Adults are just obsolete children and the hell with them.” ― Dr. Seuss

October 15th theme: Scars

“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.” ― Kahlil Gibran

October 16th theme: Colours

“I find him in the curves of certain lines, in the loveliness and subtleties of certain colours.” ― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

October 17th theme: Firsts

“The beauty of any first time is that it leads to a thousand others…” ― Pico Iyer, An Innocent Abroad: Life-changing Trips from 35 Great Writers

October 18th theme: Confessions

“If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.” ― Virginia Woolf

October 19th theme: Free day

“Everything you can imagine is real.” ― Pablo Picasso

October 20th theme: Comfort

Mello couldn’t remember the last time he had been in a playground. The coloured metal and brightly coloured wood was still and silent for a few more hours yet.

Matt strode over the swing set and plopped himself into the seat. “Your eyes were bugging out of your head. Thought if we came here you’d get that fat stick out your ass ya’know? Like, damn Mell I know you’re stressed and shit but if you don’t take a breather I’m gunna come home and find you dead on the toilet trying to curl one out and I don’t want you to go out like Elvis cause then I’d owe Linda a tenner.”

Mello scoffed and kicked the woodchips at Matt. Kira couldn’t take him down, the Task Force couldn’t take him down. Hell, a bomb couldn’t take him down, like fuck stress would. Mello shuffled on the spot for a moment before letting out a loud sigh. He rearranged the gun tucked into his waistband and put it into his pocket instead. He huffed out another large sigh as Matt patted the swing next to him and sat down. He pushed out his feet a little and let the chains gently rock him back and forth.

How long had it been since he had done this? Uncomfortably warm feelings swirled in the pit of his stomach as he wrapped his hands around the freezing chains, pushing his legs out slightly more, gaining a little height, losing a little breath. Higher and higher he climbed, bitter November air painful against his ruddy cheeks.

And for once, Mello didn’t care.

About anything.

Maybe, just maybe, if he let go of those frigid chains he would never have to come down.

No expectations, no pressures, no pain, no Kira.

Wouldn’t that be wonderful.

No fear, no self-loathing, no disgust, no regret.

Only the giddy childish pleasure of going as high as possible. Once upon a time he had bought into the idea that anything was possible. If he jumped out of the seat, was he sure, was he sure he could come down?

Would he even want to?

He dug his heels into the woodchips, violently stopping himself from swinging more. Matt blinked at him in surprise. Mello’s fingers wound tighter around the chains, the metal pressing into his skin until it began to turn red.

“We should leave.” Mello said. He had been out here for long enough

“But you’re having fun-“ Matt began to protest but Mello quickly stopped him with a shake of his head.

“We’re not kids Jeevas. We don’t get to have fun.”

“I was gunna push you though?”

“…Five minutes. You get five minutes.”

‘I want you to have a say.’ Mello insisted. He was birdlike in his huge feather ensemble, pecking away at his beans. ‘You can’t tell me you haven’t thought about it at all, Matt.’

‘About what, though? I mean, I don’t really... I’m just content doing whatever you’re doing.’

‘Ok.’ Mello rubbed at his eyebrows with his salty fingers. ‘Forever?’

‘Duh.’

‘Is that all I’m gonna get outta you?’

Matt shrugged again. He had built his home in Mello, and he wasn’t the nomadic type. ‘I just don’t know what you’re fishing for, dude.’

‘When you were a kid, what did you want, then?’

Smiling, Matt said, ‘Same as now.’

‘Little Matt didn’t want to be an astronaut, he wanted to do whatever I wanted. Really?’

‘Sure. But don’t worry, Mello, I won’t get jealous when you tell me you’re still trying to run for President or assassinate the Queen or whatever it is you’ve set your manic little sniper-sights on, now. We can’t all be as cool and one-track minded as I am.’

‘You think you’re cool?’

‘I do.’ He wiggled his fingers, and Mello snatched them up to hold them still. Leather on leather, they were permanently sweaty as sex in August. ‘Reckon my sick finger-less gloves will agree.’

Mello’s ugly snort was his most beautiful feature. He laughed like a pig dying, and it made Matt wish he were a comedian or a little kid falling down a flight of stairs (Mello found the latter funnier than the former, actually). The grotesque pink scar that split him like a cracked watermelon had used to bleed when Mello opened his mouth too wide, but now it had adapted to Mello’s bettering moods: it shifted willingly under laughter and big grins. These days, it let Mello be happy without paining him.

Kira had been dead six months. Just a corpse in the rear view, now. Just a grave to spit on.

‘I used to want to be like my parents, when I grew up.’ Mello said. Anything Mello said about the distant past was a precious thing, and breakable. Matt held his breath to listen, afraid of blowing the ghosts away. ‘I still want some of what they had. The simplicity, and the happiness, and the love. I’m not gonna assassinate the Queen.’

‘Ok.’

‘I’m gonna write a book.’

‘Ok.’

‘I’m gonna marry you.’

Matt’s answering laugh deflated him, left him loose with his elbows sprawled across the table. ‘Ok.’, he said without enough air to say any more, smiling, flushed red with tipsy surprise.