eyemind | event } was there somethin' that made you come back again?

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event } was there somethin' that made you come back again?

WHO: Everyone!
WHAT: Missing passengers return to Navi, trauma recovery begins (or not).
WHERE: Anywhere on Navi.
WHEN: March 21 until the next event (date TBD)
WARNINGS: Add these to your comment subject lines as needed! And if you end up getting lovingly strangled by another passenger, please record it on the death page.

There’s no fanfare to signal the return of passengers who’ve been missing for the past few weeks, just a sudden influx of familiar faces, returned to their respective cabins like they never left. Anything that was on their person at the time when the shift occurred came along for the ride, so those bellbottoms from the magic closet? Yeah, you’re stuck with them now.

Another thing the returning passengers will be stuck with is their memories of their time in Xanadu. Add those to the memories of their time on Navi, before their “death,” which have all now been restored. Ain’t the multiverse a wacky little thing?

Have fun getting to know your new neighbors and reuniting with old friends! Oh, and watch out for goose droppings - the feathered menace’s reign of terror hasn’t entirely been cleaned up yet.

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“No. But I asked first.”

There is quite a lot Mello wants to say, after stewing in his own thoughts for weeks, but he is - how did Matt put it? Ah, yes - a selfish bitch. So he’ll take what little upper hand he has in this situation and try to use it, even if it’s only to get Matt to speak first.

“Go on, then. Out with it.”

Matt had answered, but he knew that out of all of them, Mello was going to make this a pain in the ass because he really was petty. That was something that Matt could let roll off his back for nothing else. "I don't like the past weeks of no Mello in my life but I'm going to give you respectful space to figure out what it is you really want." That was as honest as he could be. "Then when you figure it out, I'll be here to listen. Whichever way you want it."

Mmm, yep, that’s about what Mello expected, that Matt would double down on the bullshit he’s slung around back in that revoltingly suburban house. Mello laughs - a low, unhinged sound, the sort of unfunny sound that barely holds back a scream - and shakes his head.

“Unbelievable. You are such a fucking hypocrite, Matt - do you even hear yourself?” Mello rubs a hand over his mouth - no gloves, today, which feels like a mistake, because he’s exposed. “You rail at me for - as you say - making decisions for you, and then you have the audacity to presume that you know better than me what I want? You dare to think that you know better than me whether I know my own mind when it comes to the decisions I make?”

Expression pinched in anger, white-hot heat singing in his nerves, Mello pushes off from the counter and crosses the kitchen floor toward Matt, coming to a halt in front of him. “You know what I think?” he says, voice low but no less venomous with the shift in volume. “I think you’re scared. I think you’re so scared that you’ll follow me around with puppy-dog eyes for years and never make a move, but when I’m practically throwing myself at you, you can’t even summon up a shred of courage to take what you want. That’s what I think.” And he punctuates his statement with a jab of his finger toward Matt’s chest.

There are a lot of things Matt doesn't like. That was one of them. That low, unhappy laugh somewhere deep from the unforgiving depths of how Mello really could just be that vicious. Even something like a laugh wasn't a true sound unless it was a warped one and he hated it, deep down he hated it. He clenched his jaw tightly, keeping everything held back behind it while Mello spoke finally, that dry unhappy sound felt like it dripped behind the words, too.

His teeth almost hurt for how tightly he kept his jaw together. Every other thing about him a stoic tribute to how they were taught to hold back what they did or didn't feel. Mello was right, he was a hypocrite, but it wasn't specifically the reason Mello had started to detail out. Or ... well maybe it was in his own way. Really he hadn't given it much thought because every time he thought of Mello he wanted to storm back in and apologize for feeling something and that wouldn't help either of them. Not one bit.

The only thing that gave Matt away was when Mello came at him, he stood up straighter just a tiny bit, eyes locked on Mello's. He took in a more accurate description. Matt had always, and would always, remain scared. When Mello was done and Matt wasn't readying himself for more than just being jabbed at, he looked down at Mello's bare finger and slid his own hands into his pockets, gloves and all to hide away in his jacket. "My problem was your hesitation. You're sure not hesitating right now, but if I asked you how you felt, you couldn't give me a straight answer. That's what I'm most afraid of, you're right."

“Matt, what do you want from me, a dissertation? I kissed you. How is that not a straight answer?”

Mello throws up his hands in exasperation and turns to take a few steps away from Matt. Without turning back around to face him, and in a quieter, almost broken voice, he asks:

“Why isn’t that good enough for you?”

That what he says, but what Mello means is: Why am I not good enough for you?

No. This is slipping out of his control, and he can’t have that. Much of his bottled-up anger has already been released, so Mello inhales a slow, calming breath, and he feels like he can look at Matt again without crumbling. He pivots back to face his friend, expression still pinched but less in anger and more in hurt.

“The reason I hesitated is because I wanted to verify that you were sure about what you wanted, that you really knew what you were asking for. I’m not that kid you knew at the orphanage anymore, and I meant what I said - I’m not a good person to be around. People around me get hurt. Haven’t I hurt you enough already?”

That was one of the main points Mello took from their last talk - in trying to protect him, he’d hurt Matt in ways he never intended. He’d hurt Matt for years before that, by overlooking him and taking Matt’s willingness to be at his side for granted.

“But you made it clear that you want to make your own decisions, even if they’re bad ones. So I said yes, and you immediately pushed me away. How am I supposed to take that, Matt? If you’ve changed your mind, say so, but don’t keep saying you want me and then turn me away when I give you what you’ve told me you want.”

The sound in Mello's quieter, more open sounding voice was the only thing that saved him from Matt saying that anyone could kiss anyone. It stopped his open jaw in it's tracks and he raised his eyebrow at it. Starkly, that wasn't going to change just because Mello turned around. Though, seeing Mello turned around like that, looking hurt. That he didn't like and that also calmed whatever suddenly unimportant thing it was he had been wanting to say, long forgotten for seeing Mello with some sort of raw emotion. This was what he had wanted, he wanted the truth and Mello's acting skills were incredible, but this wasn't acting. Even Mello would've fallen short on wanting to look hurt and to what end? None. There was no gain in looking vulnerable in the middle of a late night kitchen.

Where his voice probably wouldn't have been tempered before if he hadn't heard what he deemed to be true hurt in Mello's voice, he probably would have had a lot more to say about this in a lot more harsh tone. Instead, he spoke evenly with a soft sigh. "I see your point, Mello, but you're missing mine." Again a softer voice than maybe he wanted. "I followed you for more than a decade. You knew my decision before you wanted verification. If actions are supposed to speak louder than words, and that's what you're saying here, that should have been enough."

The point was made, but he wanted to continue on. "But it isn't, is it? Actions. I don't want this to just be me telling you how I feel. Currently, because I've been hoping you'd just tell me." Which was dumb, Mello wasn't the type, but the hope had been there. "You are the same person I grew up with, you're the same person I've known all my life. All that other shit doesn't matter. You matter. L doesn't matter, Near might be my friend but he doesn't matter. None of that shit factors in to Mello. It never has."

Pushing himself take a few steps closer, regardless what Mello did or didn't do, Matt concluded. "Now that it's in voice and words, I'll ask you again. Did you figure out how you feel about me, not about your guilt over what I do or don't do, or not?"

He’s had a lot of time to think in the last few weeks - to analyze and obsess about Matt, his own feelings, the choices he’s made with his life. The machine he was molded into by the House, and the monster he made of himself after, all because he had a singular goal - winning. Who would Mello be if he’d chosen another path, one that included Matt instead of keeping him at arm’s length?

“I’ve known for a while now,” he says, quietly, closing what little space remains between them. “But knowing isn’t the same as having the agency to act on what I know. There are parts of me I’ve had to compromise or lock away because I couldn’t let anything cloud my focus for reaching my goals. I had to kill the parts of me that make someone human.” He taps two fingers to his chest, where his heart impossibly beats.

“I’ve known since you pulled me out of the fire, Matt. When you asked me to stay, I stayed because I wanted you. I still do - I want you with me. I want to be with you. I wanted more, but I couldn’t let myself have it. If I did, I wouldn’t have been able to do what needed to be done.”

He wouldn’t have been able to sacrifice himself if he’d allowed his attachment to Matt to grow stronger. At the time, ending Kira through his own ended life seemed much more important. It’s only now, in the aftermath of everything he lost that Mello can see that how wrong he was in his assessment.

“I don’t know why I’m alive again, but I know I have a chance to fix a mistake, because it was a mistake to leave you. It was a mistake to not be with you. And I don’t want to keep making that mistake. I don’t want to spend another day, another minute without you, Matt.”

This is far more honest and vulnerable than Mello has been with anyone, ever. It’s almost physically painful to strip himself of the walls he erected over the years, the armor he fashioned to keep himself safe from a cruelly painful world. He’s taking a huge gamble, and if it doesn’t pay off, Mello thinks he may not survive the loss.

If it doesn’t pay off, Mello thinks he won’t want to survive the loss.

Matt wished that Mello knew for a while a few weeks back. Again his mouth stayed shut, he had asked for Mello to explain himself and he knew if he interrupted now that he wouldn't be able to get this out of him again. There was no movement on Matt's behalf, he wasn't going to let himself move away, not when what he was hearing was what he wanted to hear. It could be Mello having sussed it out, figured him to a T and then relaying what he wanted to hear but it... didn't make sense. Again he didn't have much to gain, he had Matt to gain back but to what point? They had no job here to do, just exist from station to station.

Where normally Matt's eyes wouldn't have left a conversational partner to know every direct tell on their face, his eyes ticked down toward Mello's fingers and the tap over his heart. They stayed there even if Mello's fingers did or didn't. The fire he didn't like thinking about, seeing Mello broken and all but half burned. If this was a lie, it was the most well crafted lie he could ever think Mello had performed. It didn't feel like a moment of a lie and while his eyes pulled back up, Mello's face looked as sincere as any training had ever told him.

Actual emotion behind the words that he was saying, more words strung together than he was used to when Mello wasn't crafting some sort of plan or a story or the like. There was honestly no reason to disbelieve that he really was just being sincere. His eyebrows pulled together, searching Mello's as he went silent before picking his hands out of his jacket to slide around his waist and give him a small urge forward. "Alright, alright. I didn't say make it gay, I said how do you feel." Anything to try to lighten Mello up, not in a way to disrespect it, just in some way to let him know it was alright. "I missed you, too. I don't want to miss you anymore."

The time between when Mello finishes speaking and Matt answers him feels like it will stretch out to infinity. Will Mello be left hanging in limbo with his heartbeat racing and his stomach twisted into knots until the end of time? Of course not, but it feels possible, even likely, until Matt opens his mouth to crack that joke.

Mello is a little startled by Matt’s choice of words, but he understands - Matt’s just Like This. There’s no offense taken, because Mello knows there is nothing wrong with being gay, and it’s a pointless distinction that simpleminded people get entirely too hung up on anyway. He laughs under his breath, surprised at how relieved he is to feel the tense uncertainty of the past weeks drain away as Matt encourages him to come closer.

“Idiot,” Mello murmurs fondly, easily nudged to press against Matt and slip his arms over Matt’s shoulders. He’s missed this too; weeks of silence between them was a nagging reminder of the years they’d spent apart. Mello turns his head to offer a playful retort in a low voice in Matt’s ear:

“You have no idea just how gay I can make it.” Mello presses a soft kiss to Matt’s neck, just underneath his ear. “Though I guess I can show you sometime.”

If Matt hadn't agreed about it being Okay To Be Gay he wouldn't have chased after a person of the same sex almost his whole life. Sure, there were stops in between of convenience but none of them were Mello despite his affinity for blondes. No, the man in his curled over arm was his ultimate goal and there was one thing to be said about the dedication of successors. Goals were meant to be met and then bust through. This must have been the busting through if he actually got Mello to say something meaningful. A little veiled but he was able to look past a lot of things.

Matt will also take the charge of being an idiot. "Guilty." Because he was guilty of it this time and it was meant to be playful, he could tell as much. Though, really, he was more distracted by the sound of Mello's voice in the tone of a laugh to worry about more semantics. Then there was a certain other tone and having tipped his head to set against the other man's, that voice rang very clear even if it was meant only for him.

If the voice hadn't rung clear, by God the offer paired with the sensation of that kiss sure as hell had. Despite how much he joked, how much he told himself he wouldn't really be surprised by Mello being forward if it ever happened— He sure didn't know how to respond to it, it left a momentary lag and he didn't want Mello to think that was a no. "I'm putting my bets down that I could manage a guess but... You know." His head turned a little more, mindful not to hit him with the side of his goggles. "I've always been a more hands on, practical learner."

Smooth and not at all the most clinically unsexy thing he could've said. Okay it was middle ground and he might have done a small bit of cringing at it. "I mean. Yeah."

Yeah? Alright. yeah.

"Yeah?" Good - this is very good, a step toward finding equilibrium between them. Mello leans in, presses himself tightly against Matt's chest, sinking into the shared warmth. This mended bridge between them feels fragile - he'll need to tread carefully.

"My cabin or yours?" he murmurs in Matt's ear. Not a joking suggestion but an actual offer, here and now. He'll prove how serious he is about wanting Matt with him. "Or should I show you right here?"

This is very good indeed. Mello melting against his front made his heart beat faster, thrumming in heavy, steady beats underneath Mello's perch on his chest. Frail as things were, Matt's take on it is to try at least. This might even be a farce in itself, something Mello figures he has to do to keep him around and right now? Maybe not how he wants to think about it.

Especially not with Mello's voice against his ear again. "H-here?" he asks, almost choking on the word before quickly saying something, before Mello thinks he's choosing right there. Sure they had a lot of room and that large entire wall couch but, boundaries. "Mine, you live next to Near and mine's only one floor down..." Because as tempting as right now, maybe the small emotional cooldown will make sure for Mello that this is what he wants too.

Matt's voice is light when he speaks. "C'mon." Taking Mello by the hand he comfortably begins to tug him along, time to go. Now is the time. "I'll even toss my stuff off my bed." Which he's not sure what he owns he'd leave on there but you never know. His nerves are alight with the thoughts of what he's on his way to do. It seems surreal.

slidin' this over yonder now.

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