Wednesday, 11.11.2009, midnight
Mello was ordering Matt to the hideout for something ordinary like “I don’t feel like eating Greg’s shitty food, come get me some Chicken Tikka.”. So Matt was already on his way when he suddenly heard an explosion nearby and went "Oh fuck.“ and goes full throttle. A few minutes later another explosion - this time louder - followed by lengthy rumbling and seeing a massive dust cloud rising. When he finally arrives, he finds himself digging through debris in a thick cloud of smoke and dust looking for Mello mumbling a constant "shit shit shit shit shit shit“. He hears sirens in the distance. Mello is fading in and out of consciousness at this point. Left eye is bloody, his vision blurry, one sided hearing loss. I can feel the sheer panic and horror Matt must feel when he finally sees his buddy laying in the dirt below a piece of ceiling, face half molten smelling horrifically like a mix of burnt hair, meat and leather, maybe even weakly reaching one hand out for him. After some failed attempts, Matt is actually able to lever the piece of ceiling off of Mello with a steel beam and sheer fucking will and pulls him out of there. Matt can be surprisingly strong if necessary but you better believe he’s going to have the nastiest muscle ache in his life after that. To calm himself down he‘s constantly chatting to himself "Oh shit oh fuck that doesn‘t look good, come on buddy, let‘s get you outta here, stay awake, will ya? Just a bit more - are you still there? Oh shit you smell horrible mate, come on let‘s get you home, yeah?“ as he‘s dragging Mello to his car (Rautek grip!). Stuffs him in there and gives full throttle again. Matt tries to keep the conversation going to keep Mello awake while googling his symptoms at the same time on a laptop on the passengers seat. Mello keeps checking away, trying to describe his condition the best he can without screaming.
"...the guy knew my name, man ... they know my name now...“
"YEAH, WE CAN TALK ABOUT THAT LATER - ARE YOU HAVING MORE OF A SHARP OR DULL PAIN?!“
While driving like the devil, the indian takeout spills all over the car and the smell mixes with the burnt flesh to a horrific stench. Matt can never eat indian food ever again because he feels like throwing up even smelling it. Matt knows he can‘t take Mello to a hospital. too much attention etc etc. So in his helplessness, maybe he steals some hospital equipment on the fly quickly buys some suspiciously large amounts of painkillers and bandages at a pharmacy and just plainly drives Mello to their apartment.
"Ugh, what‘s that smell?“
"Uuuuuhhh I uuhhh messed up making meatloaf.“
"...uh-huh, okay...“
"Yeah I uuh messed up bad.“
Maybe he even runs into a neighbor on the hallway to their apartment and quickly covers Mello with his vest, dragging him with one arm over his shoulder, babbling about how they drank too much, to avoid the neighbor asking questions. Puts him on the couch and starts to do whatever Google tells him to. Puts cool sheets on his burns, bandaids the whole torso up and cleans his other wounds as good as possible. He probably needs to rip off some clothing from Mellos skin.
"Here, bite this. This is gonna hurt like a bitch now. Sorry.“
Starts undressing him to check if there‘s an unnoticed wound worth of immediate care. After giving him a good amount of painkillers, Mello passes out and Matt just sits there in the uncanny silence slowly calming down. He takes a deep breath outside, hands shaky and bloody, lighting a cigarette.
Matt doesn’t leave Mellos side that night, guarding him like a support dog while he’s probably on reddit or some sketchy forums asking for help with treating large surface burns. He jolts up at every little movement or sound coming from Mello, as he’s probably afraid he’s not going to make it through the night. Matt is checking every couple minutes if Mello is still breathing.
Mello wakes up multiple times during the night, hazey-minded, in pain, shivering with Matt pressuring him to down a glass of water and covering him in blankets and jackets.
The next day, Matt takes Mello to a sketchy af vet, who takes care of him properly but sends them home again with some strong stuff (morphine and the such) and directions on what to do. In the event, Mello suffered a concussion, lots and lots of bruises from flying/falling debris, some nasty abrasions, large second degree burns on his left torso, arm and face from a burst of flames. The blurry vision isn’t permanent but his hearing on his left ear is now permanently impaired. The heat slightly melted parts of his clothing/mask to his skin and burned his hair partially off. His burns should take at least 2 weeks to heal, rather 3-4 weeks and need permanent treatment for at least a week. Speaking, applying and changing wet sheets on the burned areas twice a day etc etc.
When they get home, Matt puts Mello on the couch once more and tells him to chill. He leaves to do some errands. Mello just sits there, full of painkillers, a buzzing head, ears ringing like crazy, everything hurts, he’s cold and shivering when reality hits him. The gravity of the situation just runs him over like a truck and he sits there all alone and sobs.
and i also remember seeing a post, i don’t remember who’s it was (my bad :/), about matt being super worried about mello that he slept on a recliner next to the couch where mello rested and woke up with a sore neck and mello was like “my assistant has to get good sleep in order to help me somehow” and so they both ended up sleeping in matt’s bed together from then on and slowly fell in love. idkkkk i just found it kinda sweet that it would end up like that haha!!
Regarding the whole “sharing the bed” scenario: I can 100% see that happening in 2.0 and 2.1. Even before the whole explosion thing, they probably don’t mind sharing the bed in either universe. Especially when the wounds are fresh, he needs to be kept warm at all costs as he risks hypothermia from his thermal regulation being all messed up by his skin not being able to cope. Ideal premise to share some body heat with cuddles if there wasn’t a fucking huge hurting open wound involved. Matt maybe organises some red light lamps but the majority of the time they’re probably just chilling on the bed anyways and sleep under the same blanket at night for Mello to be able to sleep at all without red lamps shining down on him menacingly. Though I don’t see the whole thing play out in any romantic or friendly way, regarding how bad Mellos mental health is at that point. If he talks at all, he’s probably passive or openly aggressive as fuck and says a lot of hurtful things to Matt. In 2.1, I can imagine after a particularly nasty lash-out, they’re both laying in bed at night, Mello on his side, turned his back to Matt, Matt laying on his back staring angrily at the ceiling when he notices a hand reaching out to him. Mello doesn’t say anything, doesn’t turn around but just ever so slightly strokes Matts arm or whatever skin he can reach. Matt can barely swallow his anger and just watches this weird try at an apology play out. Maybe there’s some things he heard someone say resonating in his head about how people will not always be there, to cherish what little time you have with them or something the like and his expression softens. He grabs Mellos hand, not fully but just with a few fingers, interlacing. “I’m bitter but I love you.”
The days are fading into one another and it almost feels like time has become meaningless. Matt takes care of his wounds, tries to lighten the mood, walks him to the bathroom if necessary, cooks, cleans, tries his best to make everything seem normal. After almost a week has passed, they take a walk and Mello finally breaks down. After this breakdown, it gets significantly better.
Ideale Gelegenheit für noch eine schöne heartfelt Szene. Die sind so in ihrem Haze drinne und hocken auffer Couch oder gehen ausnahmsweise mal raus, mitten in der Nacht am Ende der Welt - es ist scheißgefährlich für Mello, sich draußen blicken zu lassen, er wird immerhin gesucht. Die hocken auf jeden Fall irgendwo und haben eine Konversation wie bei Stand by Me, wenn Chris vom Geld erzählt, das er gestohlen hat. Jedenfalls hocken die halt irgendwo, egal ob draußen oder drin. Und Mello redet zum ersten Mal freiwillig drüber, was da vor einigen Tagen passiert ist. Und dass er sich wie das letzte Stück Scheiße fühlt und dass er nie das Gefühl hat, gut genug zu sein, und dass er niemanden mehr hat und dass er am liebsten einfach verschwinden will, wenn er drüber nachdenkt, dass der ach so feine Herr Near in seinem Wolkenkratzer in New York hockt und bestimmt total gelassen ist etc, und dass er alles in Frage stellt, was er jemand gemacht hat und das Gefühl hat, sein Leben vergeudet zu haben und er schluchzt und weint und bricht so ein bisschen zusammen, weil plötzlich alles auf einmal rauskommt, was sich über ne sehr lange Zeit angesammelt hat. Und Matt sitzt daneben und hört zu und ist super überfordert, aber er hat große Empathie für Mello, weil er selbst ab und zu schlimme depressive Phasen hat und er legt nur nen Arm um Mello “It’s okay not to be okay.” And it feels like they’re the sad little kids from the boarding school again and not the super badass criminals on their way to hunt down a supernatual serial killer.
Back home, Mello asks Matt what happened when he found him, as he has hardly any memory of it. Matt tells him how he panicked when se saw him lying under a piece of ceiling and that he lifted the thing up and pulled him out. He describes in detail how he lifted the chunk (with clever use of leverage, steel beams jammed into crevices, really difficult, ...), how heavy it was, etc. and Mello thinks, yeah, he’s exaggerating greatly, it can't have been that heavy. "Dude, I was afraid you'd kick the bucket under there! I heard sirens and didn't know whether it was the fire department or the cops!" Maybe Mello even hears about the "explosion" on the news and gets his hands on the police files on the case surreptitiously. He gets wide-eyed when looking through the crime scene photos. His rosary was found at the crime scene and he can also see where: under a fucking huge piece of ceiling that had to be lifted away with a crane. Mello looks over his shoulder at Matt, who is quietly complaining about his aching muscles and Mello just thinks to himself "Holy shit".