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Our Lord Jesus Christ, on the night when he was betrayed, took the bread.
Mello's hands were shaking. He couldn't tell if it was adrenaline or blood loss causing it. The trigger burned on his finger as he aimed, the muzzle of his gun shaking in time with the shallow rise and fall of his chest. Footsteps rang out around him, gunshots firing synchronized with each movement.
Everything had been fine just minutes ago. He’d found his buyer at the place they’d agreed on- an old, rundown church, with faded stained glass that caught the sunlight and sent colorful reflections across the ground. Even now, in the barely-morning darkness, he could make out the stories on the windows: the creation of Adam, Eve’s fall into sin, Judas’ betrayal, the last supper. Mello clutched at the cross at his neck with one hand. He hadn’t been to church in upwards of half a decade, now. He was probably too far gone to be forgiven by any holy man, anyway.
And when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples and said: Take; eat.
A bullet tore through his leather shirt and his shoulder, snapping him back to the reality of his deal-gone-wrong. Mello grit his teeth as blood dripped down his front, soaking his shirt red. His gun clattered to the ground, the cord of the rosary wrapped around its handle snapping. Prayer beads rolled across the blood-slicked ground, the silver cross bouncing across the pavement. He cursed under his breath as he dove behind a light pole. Bullets ricocheted off of it, metal bouncing on metal until they embedded themselves in the street.
This is my body, which is given for you.
The gunfire paused for a second. Mello dove for his gun, tucking and rolling for cover behind the fender of a nearby car. Burning agony raced up his arm. blood dribbling down his shoulder. He ducked, pulling his gun closer to his chest. It burned through his gloves, sending painful jolts up his arm and down his spine as he fired. A bullet flew just past his head, and another grazed past in his lower calf, spurting a thin line of blood and tearing through the leather of his pants.
Do this in remembrance of me.
Tires screeched on pavement. A familiar red car- scuffed to hell and back, missing a mirror and its windows practically shot out- drifted next to him. Cigarette smoke drifted out the windows, and the passenger's side door popped open. Matt was sitting in the driver's seat, cigarette held loosely between his lips as Mello dove in. The door wasn't even closed before they were tearing down towards the highway. Matt had never been much of a good driver, and even less of a cautious one, and Mello had never been more grateful for that fact as the arms deal-gone-wrong became nothing but a speck of dust in the mirror behind them. He hadn't gotten much from them, but a few hundred dollars cash was better than nothing. Another night or two in a hotel, rather than the streets or a church's homeless shelter.
And in the same way, after supper, he took the cup.
He sagged into his seat, elbow on the center console, and a leg dangling out the window. The wind was like pins and needles being shot through his leg, but it was nothing like the burning of the bullet hole in his shoulder or the other leg. Mello braced a hand over his bleeding shoulder, letting the warm red steep between his fingers and stain them red.
"You're lucky, Mells," Matt whistled around his cigarette. "I almost overslept. Could'a left ya there."
"You were late already," he hissed through his teeth. "A little earlier next time."
"Maybe give me more directions than some unlabeled coordinates next time, Mello."
And when he had given thanks, he gave it to them saying, Drink of it, all of you.
He rolled his eyes as they slowed, pulling sloppily into the exit. The roads became a little more familiar, the distant sound of gunfire replaced with more suburbanesque white noise. A vacuum down the street, the barking of a dog, someone laughing with a friend. He gagged, his blood-coated hand instinctively coming to cover his mouth. The blood was warm and metallic on his lips, sweet and rich like dark chocolate. Before he knew it, he had lapped up all the red from his hands. They fumbled over his wounds as if possessed, desperate for the taste of crimson on his tongue.
"Damn, Mells," Matt glanced at him through the rear-view mirror. "There's a bar of chocolate in the glove box if you're that hungry."
Mello didn't bother replying, rolling his eyes as he licked the blood off his middle finger. Still, he felt around the glove box for the alleged bar, pushing aside boxes of ammo, sheathed knives, a handgun or two, until he found a half-melted bar of milk chocolate. His mouth watered.
This cup is the New Testament in my blood.
The melty chocolate wasn't nearly as sweet the blood in his mouth, but Mello bit into it anyway. He hadn't even realized how lightheaded he’d been until he tasted the sugar on his tongue.
Matt pulled into a lot a few blocks out from the motel, the car askew between two spots. A streetlight flickered, casting dramatic shadows over Mello’s face as he stepped out of the car. His knee collapsed underneath him, twisting under the pressure as blood soaked into his leathers.
“Christ-” he bit out, tongue between his teeth as he leaned back against the car. Matt was by his side in a second, looping an arm around his waist and jostling the bullet in his shoulder. “Fuck, Matty. Fuck.”
“I’ve gotcha, Mello. C’mon.”
Shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.
The walk to the motel he’d been staying at was agonizingly long. He’d thought he’d had a good tolerance for pain- he’d been caught in explosions, he'd dropped a building on himself, he'd been shot and stabbed and strangled and tortured and beaten and hurt in every way he could possibly ever imagine. And yet- nothing (bar almost being burned alive and trapped under a collapsed building at the same time) had made him want to scream in utter pain. A tear slipped out of his good eye, but he refused to acknowledge it. It fell to the ground harmlessly as Matt unlocked their room and pushed him towards the bed.
The room stank of stale blood, bleach, and cigarettes. He all but crashed onto the bed, dirty bedsheets already stained beyond restoration. A little blood wouldn't hurt them anymore.
"I'll get the bandages. Just sit and don't pass out," Matt breathed, exhaling his cigarette smoke into the air. He stomped it out on the ground, but in the blink of an eye, he had lit another.
"Are you really gonna smoke inside?"
"Are you really gonna complain?"
He didn’t reply.
This do, as often as you drink of it.
“Strip and bite down on this.” Matt tossed a leather glove into his free hand as he dug through their liquor stash. He swirled a bottle around with one hand, too fast for him to read the label. “I’m not letting you leave a bullet in your shoulder.”
“Buy me dinner first, next time,” he grumbled as he unbuttoned his vest, letting the bloodied fabric fall to the bed. Dried blood pulled at the wound, and he grit his teeth as it met the cold night air. Matt set a bottle of alcohol next to him, piling it in with a roll of gauze and medical tape. The taste of the leather glove in his mouth made him want to gag. It tasted like dirty wine, like dust and rotten oak, but it was at least a weak distraction from the pain.
It wasn’t much of a distraction from the sensation of Matt’s hand inside his shoulder.
His vision whited out, a monochrome static filling his eyes. He thought he might have screamed, but Matt had slapped a hand over his mouth before he could hear it. Matt's fingers squirmed in his shoulder like worms, sending sharp, burning spasms through his arm.
Mello was certain he was dying. When he'd been shot before, he'd never needed to remove the bullet- it had just blown clear through him before. It had healed like a bitch, but it was worth it if it meant that he didn't have to writhe in bed while Matt dug through his shoulder with two fingers.
With a wet pop, Matt pulled the bullet out of his shoulder, his plastic glove stained red with blood. They both panted, chests heaving in an uneven, harmonious rhythm. Mello spat the leather glove onto the ground, punctured with little holes and tooth fragments.
“Just- leave it in, next time,” he panted, running his tongue over newly-chipped teeth.
“How about we just avoid a next time?”
“I fuckin’ hope so.”
Matt pulled his cigarette out of his mouth. It was almost burned out, left with just the end glowing. He pressed it to an unlit cigarette until the heat caught. He stubbed out the older one against the cheap, laminate bed frame, tossing it to the ground.
Do this in remembrance of me.
“You’re chainsmoking again,” he commently idly, not meeting his eyes. It was an empty accusation; he knew Matt wouldn’t reply, not in any meaningful way, but some part of him wanted that argument, that conlfict.
Matt tore open a gauze pad, eyes skimming over Mello’s body again. He didn’t reply, only working methodically though the motions of aid. It was the most focused he’d seen him in forever; he didn’t drive or shoot or smoke with even a fraction of this attention. It made him feel like something regal, one-of-kind, a damaged renaissance painting being restored by a conservator. But Mello wasn’t an artwork. He was a criminal, a distant second-place, almost a god but instead a common, pathetic man.
After a bout of silence, Matt spoke up softly. “Gonna start disinfecting. This’ll hurt.”
“I’ll be fine.”
The alcohol burned in his skin as Matt disinfected it. Their bottle of Everclear was almost empty. Mello kept cursing under his breath as he continued to dab at the wound, hissing expletives under his breath.
“Are we- fuck, fucking hell- are we out of rubbing alchohol, or- mati božja-”
“Couldn't find it. I'll getcha some better booze to replace this crap.”
“I- prekleto- I wanted to drink that, Matt- jesus, sranje.” Slovenian had slipped into his speech, even though he hadn’t spoken it in years. He was almost proud of the fact that he still remembered how to swear in it, even if he knew everything.
Matt rolled his eyes as he shook another gauze pad against the bottle mouth, letting the alcohol soak into the pad. “I said I'll buy ya more. Just don't die of an infection first. Or blood loss. Or anything.”
The peace of the Lord be with you always.
“‘m not gonna die, Matty.”
“Damn right you won't.” His voice had taken on something softer, more human. Like they were just normal almost-twenty-somethings and not domestic terrorists with multi-million dollar warrants for their arrests. Mello could have laughed, but his mind was still hazy with pain and the tastes of blood and chocolate and rotten leather. “I’m not gonna let you die.”
Mello wanted to return the sentiment, but the pain in his side flared as Matt started taping over the gunshot wound. He dug his nails into his leathers as he wrapped the wound, leaving little crescents in his pants. For a few, blinding moments, that was the world. Nothing existed beyond pain, him and Matt, and the agony of alcohol in a gunshot as he taped off the gauze.
Mello experimentally shrugged his shoulder. It sent sparks of pain down his spine, but they were more bearable. He sagged into the bed below him, going limp in the rough, stained sheets.
Their room only had a single bed. They’d been trading it nightly, and Mello knew it was supposed to be his turn on the couch. Matt seemed to know it too, but he instead started to move toward the dark brown sofa, blinking exhaustion out of his eyes as he stomped out another cigarette. Something in Mello twisted, something he hadn’t felt since before Wammy’s, something from when he was Mihael.
“Wait! Matt-"
He’d already settled on the too-short sofa, arms wrapped around himself uncomfortably. He pried his eyes open, his goggles discarded on the ground for rest. That same thing in Mello ached, and before he was speaking before he knew what he was saying.
“It’s your turn on the bed.”
“I’m not the one who got shot. Take it.”
“It’s big enough. Share.”
He hesitated, eyes narrowing in the early morning darkness. “You sure?”
He nodded, and his head spun at the movement. Blood loss was hitting him a lot harder than he thought it would. “C’mon. I’m tired.”
Matt’s body was warm against him under the grainy bedsheets. They hadn’t slept by each other like this since they were kids, either. Usually, the situation was reversed- Mihael Mello crawling under the covers with a scared Matt until they both fell asleep.
Sleep’s gentle grasp seemed far away, but in the still silence of dark morning, he fell right into it. He was asleep before he even knew it.
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.