Archive of Our Own

This is the sixth time in a row they’ve called Near. It’s midnight in LA. Matt reminds Mello that midnight in LA means 3AM in New York, and Near’s probably asleep right now, because 1) Near keeps real-people hours instead of college-student hours, and 2) Near’s finals aren’t for two weeks.

“Fuck off,” Mello says in response, and dials again. Lucky number seven, Matt thinks.

“Your call has been forwarded to an automated voice message system.”

“Fuck damn it! Fuck New York. Fuck time zones.” Mello rears back and throws their phone. Matt catches it before it puts a hole in the wall.

“Jesus fuck, dude, calm down. He’s not even graduating this year, what is your deal?” Matt pockets Mello’s phone. “What do you even want with him anyway?”

“Give that back.”

“Are you gonna call Near again?”

“Give it back.”

“Answer my question.”

“Matt.” Mello glares daggers at him. The daggers are blunted by sleep deprivation. They are admittedly slightly resharpened by caffeine and sheer willpower, but to be really frank Matt’s just not that intimidated. Mello at this point is about as dangerous as a mildly irritated kitten.

So Matt stares back and crosses his arms. “Don’t you have studying to do?”

Mello huffs and glances back at their mountain of notebooks. “No,” they say. “Give me my phone back.”

Matt pulls the phone out of his pocket and slowly begins to hand it back.

Mello pounces for it.

“Hah! Gotcha.” Grinning like an idiot, Matt stands up on his chair and holds the phone at arm’s length above his head. “Sorry, Mel,” he says, not managing to sound very sorry at all, “it had to be done.”

“You fucking dickhead, give me my shit back or I’ll–” Mello demonstrates exactly what they’ll do. They grab Matt’s knees and pull him down, toppling the chair–and both of them–over in the process.

Matt is damn lucky this bedroom is so small. He lands on his bed, mostly unharmed. His head knocks against the wall a little, but he’s had worse bumps getting into or out of cars.

He still has the phone. “You can study,” he says, “or you can sleep. Oh, and I’m imposing a strict moratorium on caffeine consumption until you’ve gotten a full eight.”

Mello screeches. “I don’t need you to be my mom, asshole,” they spit petulantly. They seem to realize right after they’ve said it that they’ve only proven Matt’s point, and they deflate a little.

Matt rubs the back of his head. It hurts. “So,” he says, “bed?”

Mello shakes their head. Instead of getting into their own bed, they come over and sit beside Matt on his. “I don’t think I can sleep. I’m like. Buzzing.”

Matt looks at the empty Red Bull cans that litter the floor. Mello usually drinks coffee, even during finals week. “Fair enough.”

Mello scoots a little closer. “Can we…can we just…talk? For a bit. Until I can sleep.”

Matt looks at them. “Sure,” he says.

Then Mello lies back and stretches themself out along the width of the bed. Their legs dangle off the side, not quite hitting the floor. The bed is tall, and they are short (though taller than Matt, as they always point out). They sigh. “Psych tomorrow.”

“That language acquisition class?”

“Yeah.”

Matt lies back too. He stares at the ceiling while he talks. “How was it? Learning about the kiddos and shit.”

“Interesting. Frustrating. They used puppets in their experiments. Don’t you think that’s stupid?”

“I mean, if you’re an adult, yeah. Probably not so much if you’re three.”

“Whatever.” Mello kicks their legs out and uses the momentum to sit up. “I’m done with it. I’m done with all of it.”

“All of the psych?”

“All of the this.” Matt watches their face as they survey the room. “This tiny apartment, this sprawling shithole of a city, this life.”

Matt sits up too, a little concerned. “This life?” he asks.

“College,” Mello clarifies. “I don’t want to be here anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve….” Mello trails off then, and looks around the room once, twice more. They lean back on their elbows and stare at Matt for a few seconds, then look down to contemplate their own knees. “I’ve been here long enough. I’ve overstayed my welcome, even. I’m tired of college life and college students and college campuses and just…college.” They make a sound that could possibly be mistaken for a laugh. “I’m just tired. Don’t you feel it too?”

Matt shrugs. “I don’t know,” he says, because he doesn’t. He hasn’t really taken the time to feel things about graduation. It’s right around the corner, and he still never has an answer for when well-meaning people ask him, So how does it feel? He doesn’t know if he’s the type of person who will ever have an answer, even ten, twenty years after the fact.

Mello heaves a giant sigh. “Not helpful,” they say. “I just mean. I don’t feel accomplished. I don’t feel like, when I get all dressed up in my cap and gown and walk across that stage and get my fake diploma and shake those hands and smile for that camera, I’ll feel like I did something important. I’ve spent four years here, and I don’t feel like I’ve done anything important. How much does that suck?”

“Kind of a lot,” Matt says, because he guesses that’s the right thing to say. He doesn’t feel accomplished either, but that doesn’t mean much. Compared with Mello, he actually hasn’t done anything important, and to be honest he never really expects to.

“Again, unhelpful.” Mello grabs Matt’s arm and tugs him down so they’re both lying down. They gesture toward the ceiling. “The sky’s the limit,” they say, and it’s at this point that Matt realizes that Mello is probably very very tired. “But really, in all seriousness. I guess I just…can’t believe that it’s going to just end like this? Nothing special, nothing groundbreaking, no reminiscing on how far I’ve come because I don’t actually feel that far off from where I started. And meanwhile, Near’s off in New York being a maladjusted manchild and somehow he’s still got the more fulfilling life.”

“He’s not graduating yet,” Matt reminds Mello a second time. “Who knows, maybe he’ll feel the same way next year.”

“Like hell he will. I’m sure he’ll call me up with some big story of all the great accomplishments he made during his four years, and he’ll drone on and on in that monotone of his like he thinks they’re no big deal. Just to make me feel like shit. You know he acts like all the shit he does is nothing impressive? And here I am with basically nothing under my belt–”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on,” Matt interrupts, though he’s pretty sure Mello would have preferred to rant. “You’re not here with nothing under your belt. You’ve had internships, you’ve written for the Daily Bruin, you’ve juggled work and class and founding a goddamn club–”

“–for rock climbing–”

“–whatever, you still founded it. You’ve fucking written an honors thesis. You’ve done all this stuff, and you’re trying to tell me you’re leaving here with nothing? Fuck off.”

Mello’s silent for a long time. Then they say, “I just feel like it’s not enough, is all.”

Matt blows a strand of hair out of his eyes. “Enough for what?”

“For…for…I don’t know. For a climactic ending to my college career. For going out with a bang.”

“Like, wrapping up your narrative and tying it off with a pretty little bow?”

“Oh, shut up. For, like…for proving myself.”

“Proving yourself?” Matt sits up. “To who?”

Mello shrugs.

Matt holds Mello’s phone out in front of him. “To…Near?”

Mello shrugs again.

“Because I’m sure that you’ve already proven yourself to him thrice over. Quarce over, even.”

“Quarce?”

“You know what I mean.”

Mello joins Matt in sitting up. “I don’t, actually. I haven’t proven myself to him, he still doesn’t think anything of me.”

“And that’s why you’re calling him repeatedly at three in the morning his time? What’ll that prove, that you’re a maniac?”

Mello groans and covers their eyes with their forearm. “Ugh. Ugh ugh. No. I don’t need his approval, I don’t need anyone’s approval, but I just want to. Like I said, feel like I’ve done something important. Near, I could give a shit about. The academics, I could give a shit about. But,” and they think for a while before they finish their sentence, “I want my experience to have been meaningful.”

This is absurd. Mello’s starting to droop. Matt thinks the last of the caffeine is making its way out of their system. They’ll probably be out like a light in a few minutes. Until then, Matt just has to BS his way through this mood Mello’s managed to drag themself into. “I think,” he says carefully, “that your experience doesn’t have to be perfect to be meaningful.”

“Well, I know that, but–”

“No, hear me out.” Matt’s got something, and he’s going to get it out before it’s gone. “I mean that it doesn’t have to feel perfect, or make narrative sense, or whatever. And it doesn’t have to feel meaningful in order for it to be meaningful, you know what I’m saying? I know that’s pretty much all bullshit, but think about it. Maybe the meaningful part of your experience is this moment right here. Maybe ten years from now you’ll look back on college and see this moment as the culmination of everything you felt and experienced and learned. Maybe this feeling that you have right now is the most important feeling you’ll have in college.”

Mello doesn’t look too happy with Matt’s spiel. “Dissatisfaction? The most important thing I’ll feel in college is dissatisfied with the whole ordeal. Thanks, Matt, you really know how to cheer someone up.”

“I’m not trying to cheer you up.”

“Clearly.”

“No, really, I’m not. I just don’t think meaning is gained solely through satisfaction.”

“Well, neither do I, but–”

“You’re meaningful to meeeeeeeee, Mello.” Matt makes a little heart with his hands and puts on his best ‘lovestruck heroine’ face. He probably looks ridiculous.

Mello snorts. “Good God,” they say, “what did I ever do to deserve this?”

“Must’ve been something pretty awesome.”

They roll their eyes. They’re almost falling off the bed. “Okay,” they say, attempting to stand up straight and looking somewhat like a limp noodle. “I’ve been up since a lot of hours ago. Final at three tomorrow, don’t let me forget. I’m gonna head to bed. Can I have my phone back?”

Matt hands it back. “Remember, Near needs no more phone calls.”

Mello makes their way across the room to their bed. “I know.”

“No caffeine until eight hours of sleep.”

“I know.”

“Did you brush your teeth?”

“Get bent.”

“Will do. Now go the hell to sleep, you crazy motherfucker.”

“Whatever.” Mello turns the light off. 

Within moments, Matt hears their breathing even out. He stays awake for a little longer, wondering if he really believes anything he just said. He supposes he’ll find out, at some point. He doesn’t want to dwell on it, though, so he forces himself to think of other things until he slips away into the world of the sleeping and the unencumbered.