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Days like this are the reason Matt sneaks cigarettes behind the laundry rooms.
When he woke up this morning, the sound of two dozen sociopathic genius orphans enthusiastically making as much noise as possible greeted his ears. The nausea was enough to convince him to skip breakfast, and the splitting headache that followed was more than enough to talk him into skipping his first class, too. Mello would be pissed. It’s whatever. Matt doesn't need a good reason to stay in bed and do fuckall. It’s his favourite thing to do.
Now that he’s been narc'd on (by Linda, in Roger’s pocket again) and dragged into English lessons in his pyjama pants, he gets to feel the pulse of the overhead lights drill into his skull as their instructor drones on and on about something that he’s not going to read before the night of the exam.
It’s so boring that the words swim in front of his glasses until he can’t pull them apart. Matt gives himself the cinematic daydream of his eyes bulging out of his head and spattering across the room with a satisfying water balloon ‘pop’. No more headache, just B-movie gore. When he gets sick of that, too, he finally raises his hand.
“Can I go to the nurse for my meds?”
The vast funds of the Wammy’s fortune (still doing well in terms of the stock market, Matt’s checked their accounts) offer him the luxurious choice between magnesium tablets and propranolol, or the classic everyday paracetamol. What Matt needs is some actual quiet and a smoke, which they’re less keen to hand over. Anything is better than this, though.
Once he’s got his hall pass, he makes his way into the hall and takes his sweet time heading to the small clinic room at the far side of the orphanage, which operates as a decent in-house infirmary.
The nurses are out, when he gets there, or behind the drawn curtain that hides the small setup of cots, so Matt makes a beeline for the medicine cabinet. He takes his beta blockers and acetaminophen, two little rounds and two long and white pills. From a little stash in the desk, he also takes about as many caffeine pills as he thinks he can get away with. He wishes this place was cool enough to stock adderall.
Gulp the pills down and wait for the world to slow, and the pressure behind his eyes to pull away. It’s quieter here, and when the total swarming overwhelm of the classroom fades, Matt realises that he can still hear voices.
“....David Halberg. 1978, Rudolf Nureyev,” someone says, quiet and clear.
And then, a snarling temper that Matt would recognize anywhere, and to be honest, he kind of wishes wasn’t here. “How about you shut the fuck up?”
Man, Matt loves his best friend more than anything, but goddamn does his voice hurt when he’s screaming. Sharp, stabbing, loud-as-hell Mello. There he goes again, cursing something out that Matt can’t even decipher for how much worse it makes his migraine. Matt considers how much more caffeine he can take.
Then, Mello makes that noise in the back of his throat like he’s an animal that hasn’t quite learned how to growl, and something in Matt’s gut tells him things are about to get worse. That’s the way that Mello sounds when he’s actually losing it, when it comes to losing his temper, the way that means shit gets broken, or Mello is about to cry. Matt really hopes it’s not that second one.
“Most recent studies indicate that 80 percent of professionals incur a performance-affecting injury per year…” The quieter voice is definitely Near, which really takes this situation from Mello might come out sobbing to someone is going to die.
Matt takes a deep breath and weighs the option of stepping out, pretending he hasn’t heard anything. It’d make him a shitty friend, sure, but he’s already kind of shit, and Mello usually forgives him for that kind of thing.
There’s also the problem of the thing Matt has for Near, that absolutely no one can know about, not the least because of Mello. He’s not going to call it a crush. Yeah, it’s weird, he knows, but it’s not like he’s the only one who’s ever admired the top kid at Wammys, even if that kid is a freak. Besides, his first crush ever was on Riku from Kingdom Hearts: Chained Memories, and since then, the appeal of rivals with white hair just does things for him. Just try and sue him about it– Matt’s played every available edition of Ace Attorney.
Anyways, the point is Near is freaking cute and Matt doesn't want him to die young and pretty because Mello’s feeling pissed off today. He waits a few seconds to see if the meds might want to kick in (news flash, it won’t happen right away) and steels himself to be the next knight in shining armour.
He’s being casual, so casual and absolutely completely chill as he sweeps open the curtain and steps into the battlefield. “Sup’ Mello. Are you skipping class, too?”
When he first sees Near, his stomach drops, and he wonders if he’s already too late. He’s so small despite being stretched out across the white sheets of the cot, every washed-out inch of him depressingly devoid of life. Matt’s never seen a moment where Near wasn’t moving, fidgeting, holding something, building (yeah, he pays attention to those little hands, daydreams about building robots to share with him), but Near isn’t even twitching, now.
“Jesus christ, what have you done?”
It takes him a split second to glance over from Near to Mello, and in that time Matt registers that he’s done something wrong, even though he has no idea what. Mello is pissed, seriously angry, and with the look he’s directing right at Matt, he may as well have taken a shit on his pillowcase.
Mello is still yelling, and wow, is his ability to project painful volumes and spit at the same time is amazing. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
Near, who isn’t as dead as he looks, gives a weak, wretched sounding cough before responding, “Mello has good reason to be missing class. He has a spiral fracture in his tibia, and after they applied the first cast and tried to give him pain medication, he started a fight and broke it again.”
“Shut. Up.”
Mello lunges, and Matt is fully expecting him to tackle Near and finish the job for good, when his wrists catch against something, and he yanks back against the bed with a slam. They’ve got him tied down, Matt realises belatedly, with velcroed cuffs around his wrists and legs. Mello yanks against his restraints for good measure, and then glares at Matt, like this is somehow his fault entirely.
Near, who’s pretty little head apparently has less self-preservation than even Matt does, decides to keep talking. “As I was saying, it’s a very common injury, with a recovery time of four to six months. Mello is quite lucky, as one in four cases in adults require surgery. There’s no reason that after the healing period he won’t be able to resume–”
“Near, I swear to god I’m going to kill you.”
Near coughs again, and smiles weakly at Matt. “He is a bit late for that.”
And, because Matt is extremely weak to that warm little feeling in his ribs, and that wobbly, creepy little smile, he pulls up a chair between them. Mello has gone back to swearing loudly to no one in particular. He’s gotten pretty creative, really, in the way that he calls down for god to smite Near specifically.
“Hey, at least this time you didn’t bite anybody,” he says earnestly, and when Mello glares again quietly, he takes it as a win.
“They wouldn’t fucking let me go back to class,” Mello explains, pulling at his cuffs again. Angry red marks are already forming at the edges of the rings. Matt knows he usually gets the energy out, in fits like this, by punching the air and pacing. It must be killing him to be tied down. “I should have bitten somebody, they would have deserved it.”
“Dude, you broke your leg twice,” Matt points out. “I think they’ll let you miss a few lectures if you’re hurting.”
He sees the words in Mello’s throat before he shouts again, and braces himself for the noise. It’s nothing Mello hasn’t said before, the stuff he only really means when he's angry. “What, you think that a little pain can stop me? I don’t give a fuck about that. You’re all just trying to get ahead of me.”
Matt sighs, because personally, a little pain can stop him pretty easily. Pain sucks, man. He’s in it right now. “Literally, that is like the last thing I want to have to deal with. I swear it’s not that big of a deal.”
“For losers like you, maybe,” Mello snaps back, and Matt can feel himself flinching before he can tell himself to stop caring about the shit people say. He forces himself to slouch more. “I’d rather be dead than fall behind.”
“You don’t mean that,” Matt says as Near intones at the same time “You’ll never catch up if you don’t let it heal.” And that sets him off again.
As Mello resorts to picking from other languages in order to curse Near out better, Matt looks at the younger boy up and down properly. Both Near and Mello look pretty shit right now, but Near looks worse. “By the way, why are you here?”
“Last week strep throat was going around,” Near explains, and Matt can vaguely remember other students being pulled out of class, and Near’s absence from the usual hang-out places where the other kids gather. It hadn’t really meant anything at the time. “Two nights ago I developed a fever and a cough, and it progressed to pneumonia sometime yesterday morning. They’re monitoring me here because my condition degrades quickly.”
Mello stops his general tirade to consider what Near is saying. “Get the fuck away from me.”
Near looks to be in no position whatsoever to get out of bed. Matt isn’t close enough to touch him, but looking closer he can see the fever and sweat across his pale skin. He realises that it's not just the way Near looks unhealthy that makes him ghostlike– the way he talks, the way he's referring to himself, it's like he already considers himself dead. Near’s coughing is quiet, but shakes his entire body just as much as Mello is shaking with rage. “Mello is quite healthy, and I’m on a strong enough antibiotic course that there isn’t much risk of contagion.”
“Fuck that. I know you’d love to get me sick and out of the way for a few days,” comes the bitter reply, though Matt suspects Near is right.
“You’d still be recovering from your injury by the time the illness has passed,” Near tries to say, and Matt never stops being stunned by how good Near is at accidentally digging his own grave. It occurs to him that Near may actually be trying.
“I’m going to rip your throat out with my bare hands,” Mello threatens him, instead of listening, “If you two don’t stop laughing at me. You have no idea–”
“I’m not laughing.” Near interrupts, and Matt swears that despite barely being able to sit up, the force of his voice has grown tenfold, like the second-stage music of a final boss. Sure, the effort sends him into a spiral of coughing, but the steely glint in his watery eyes means they're both angry now, and Matt needs to think of something to diffuse this before–
“The hell you aren't! You're literally sitting there all smug about how useless this makes me. Shit, second-rate Mello, can't even play a game without fucking up, watch now as he struggles to fucking walk. I'm not going to be able to run for months let alone hold my own in a fight. What shit! How goddamned pathetic!”
Near goes quiet, a kind of cold, scary quiet, and Matt wonders how long it will take for Mello to realise that Near has never been able to run at all.
For a moment, there's just silence, which would be a relief in any other circumstance. Instead Matt feels like the bomb is going to go off any second now, between Mello’s harsh breathing and Near's gentle slump into his own chest.
Then, Near's doll-like, glassy eyes flutter shut, and he looks truly, absolutely dead as hell. Limp and cold and everything.
“Near, shit!” Matt jumps out of the chair to press his hand to Near's clammy face. He can sense Mello is about to say some bullshit, but Matt is absolutely at his limit with that right now. He pinches at Near’s cheek, trying to get him to stir. “Mello, shut the fuck up. Not right now.”
Miraculously, Mello does actually shut up. Matt presses an ear to Near's chest, and relief floods through him when he hears the shallow, rattling puffs of breath. A slow, but steady heartbeat. He tries to shake Near awake, but gets no response. He pries open one of his eyes to find it rolled back, vacant and creepy. “He's passed out completely.”
Mello stares at both of them like they've grown extra heads. and grits his teeth hard enough that he can hear it across the room. His lip is bleeding, and Matt realises that he probably bit down on it to stay quiet.
“Look, we should probably call someone.”
Mello's eyes go wide, with tiny blue circles of ice in big rings around his pupils. “No, don’t.” It's louder than he means to be, Matt is sure, but Mello isn't exactly shouting anymore. “He's done this before he’ll be fine, he just sleeps like that, but don't bring in anyone else.”
Matt watches as Mello shakes apart on the shitty infirmary cot. Hot tears stream down his screwed up face as he grits out through his teeth, “Please.”
Matt has trouble saying ‘No’ to Mello on a good day, when his every limit hasn't already been tested this many times. There's no way in hell he can resist his best friend of all time, crying quiet, furious tears and asking something of him. And Mello is kind of right, anyways. Near passes out a lot, on trips out, or during exams. “Yeah, okay,” he hears himself saying. “Sure.”
He moves over to Mello's bedside holding his hand out in reach of the soft cuffs. Mello takes it, and squeezes so hard Matt thinks his hand might break. Mello's short, filed-down nails dig sharp crescents into his skin. The thing about loving Mello is that it always hurts like hell, but it's always worth it, somehow.
“I don't want to be broken,” Mello says quietly. “I don't want anyone to find out how worthless I am.”
Matt almost wants to laugh, and almost wants to join him in the crying, because Mello is worth a million dollars just by breathing, easy. He's got a model's face and body. There's probably a circle of weird scientists currently bidding on his brain when he dies, because that’s the kind of thing this place does. Near might be the rare jewel, delicate and perfect pinned up like a bug, but Mello’s a freaking racehorse. Sheer performance. And that's all before you get to know him.
Because Mello is a good guy, and he’s pretty damn easy to love. Even if most of what he does is make grandiose plans and complain, no one bothers to talk to Matt but Mello. No one is as funny, and still thinks Matt is funny too like he does. Hell, Mello is probably singlehandedly the only thing that makes this place bearable. He's worth so goddamn much that he makes everything else worth it.
Mello squeezes his hand impossibly tighter (that's right, he's got 52 kilos of sheer muscle, too) and Matt realises that he was supposed to be saying something.
“For someone so fucking smart, that's an awful lot of bull,” Matt says, because it is, and and he dosen't have the energy to put up with it. “And I'm going to have to fight you now, because that's my best friend you’re talking shit about. His name’s Mello, maybe you’ve heard of him? He’s pretty cool, even if he’s full of shit.”
Mello’s hand and jaw slacken at the same time. Matt hopes that’s a good sign.
“Yeah, and it’s really going to suck when we showdown, because I’ve seen you beat the shit out of people before like it was nothing. And I know you can’t pull the fancy kicks you’re used to doing, but I’m pretty sure you could still take me with one hand. It’s fine, though, I was going to go down somehow. You could probably pull a special KO sequence, just for me.”
Mello is still just gaping at him, tears running down his face, so Matt opts to do what he does best and keep his mouth running.
“Seriously, though, no one is going to give a crap if you’re on crutches for a bit. Near used to have a fucking walker, and still he’s everyone’s favorite. And unlike him, I’ll take on anyone who gives you shit for it. I’ll lose, sure, but not before I do something so they regret it. You know, lick all over their face or something.”
Mello stops crying to wrinkle his nose, then wipes his face with his sleeve. “That’s fucking disgusting.”
“Plus, if you can’t spend all your time on the court or in the gym, you’re going to actually have time to play smash bros with me.”
Mello wrinkles his nose again. Matt demolishes everyone at that game, and he knows it. Still, he’s not crying, and he’s not shouting. Matt puts on his widest, goofiest grin.
“Yeah, that’s right. And I’m going to kick your ass again.”
“Fuck you,” Mello says, but he’s smiling, so he dosen’t mean it. He’s still holding his hand, too, squeezing a normal amount that thankfully doesn't hurt at all. “I’m going to get good enough to beat you into paste.”
Behind him, something sputters and coughs, and Matt feels the beginnings of his hard work wash down the rusted floor drain. Shit, Near is awake.
Near’s fever flushes over his face like makeup, highlighting the delicate curve of his cheekbones. Despite his brief interlude of unconsciousness, he somehow looks more exhausted then he did before. His eyes are alight, though, and staring unabashedly at Mello.
He waits for the flint to strike steel between them. For Near to make a cold comment on Mello's state and destabilise everything.
He can follow the way Near's eyes latch onto Mello's bleeding lip, his wet and bloodshot eyes. The black hole of his gaze seems to devour Mello, which makes Matt either nervous or jealous. Near almost looks hungry, but could just as easily be pissed off. And Mello, who's hair trigger could be knocked by a slight breeze, is staring back, like it's a challenge. Feral in his obvious vulnerability. Daring Near to say something, so he can deliver it back ten times worse. And Matt's head still hurts. If God is real, he’s a dick for this, in particular.
Near does open his chapped lips, but only to say, “I would like to play a card game.” With a trembling hand, he gestures to the deck at his bedside table.
It’s so out of left field that Matt takes a second to recalibrate. Mello seems to see something, in this offer, that Matt doesn't, though. Like he and Near can read minds by staring at each other. He solemnly nods at Near, and gestures for Matt to hand him the cards. It feels a little like third-wheeling, to be left out of the silent conversation, but Matt forces himself not to care, and to do what he’s told. At this point, he’s pretty good at that.
Mello pours the cards out of the box with a flourish, and shuffles like he’s performing a card trick, the showoff. He builds a little house of cards, then collapses it back down, shuffling again. Near smiles, at this, and Matt can feel his face heat up at the sight.
“So is this going to be Go Fish, or Blackjack?” He jokes, to see if Near will smile for him, too, and is rewarded with a fiendish smirk from the younger boy, as well as Mello’s amused scoff. Mello deals them out, and Matt tries to pretend he’s not counting cards to keep up with two geniuses. Give a guy a break, he's got a migraine.
If he notices that Near is letting Mello win, though, he keeps that shit to himself.