Heaven in my arms

by Vecordia

Summary:

As memories catch up with the both of them, their bond is finally torn and peeled from their hearts, like skin from a body. The yearning of hearts that had never learned the language of the other, communicated through the blink of an eye, the flash of a smile and the touch of a soul that had always been one.

Notes:

I actually wrote this in 8th grade, but the other day, now years later, I found it again and thought, why not publish? I remember that this piece of writing genuinely meant a lot me in order to become an author, since it inspired me to write my own, actual book, that I am going publish traditionally soon.
Please note that English is not my first language nonetheless.

Chapter 1: And like your truest word I have held heaven im my arms. Amen.

Head bowed hands clasped, and I felt the words I spoke echoing through my blood. I’d picked up the habit of using a prayer rope too, not that it meant much or that I felt anything other than my own words in the church. By the age of 5 I’d gotten baptized in Tyumen while me and my mother had found refuge there during the war and we had lived with her family. My churches little blond angel, eyes cerulean with innocent faith and believe. Hope devouted trust covered by white wings. I had made my promise to never slip away from my religion back then.
And I kept it.
I kept my promise.
Even after my mother and I had moved back to Subotica, Serbia in 1996. I could barely remember the language back then, as I had spent most of my life in Russia. One year prior to us moving back to Serbia, my mum had received a letter, which told of my fathers death. I clung to what I knew, that he had never wanted to go to war, to leave us just like that. I clung to the mercy of heaven, praying that one day I could see him again. Not that I had known him all that well, most of what I knew of him had been stories my mother had told me.
Once back in Serbia the war was not fully over yet, but my mother could not take it any longer to stay away from where she had lived after getting married. Even after everything that had happened in the past 11 years, I tried to know what had helped me to halfway understand my mothers decision to take her own life, hoping that something like her suicide would be understood by God. She had slit her wrists, lying on the kitchen floor, curled up next to the counter. She had seemed smaller than me.
I had been alone afterwards, going from one orphanage to the next in the mess of a post-war society. And going back to Russia was no option for me, they would blame me for not realising that something was wrong. Or maybe that was just me.
It had been all kinds of orphaned children there, Croats, Serbs and Bosnians. I never understood the drama the politicians had anyway, in the end, all of us lost everything we had had, our feelings were the same.
After a few years Matt and I had both been transferred to Wammys house to a completely strange country.
Neither of us could even speak English properly.
We were alone, but we always were.
Even with each other.
No matter how many of the big philosophers I had studied in these years, it never seemed to change the one thing that gave my life a stable ground. The memory of a church that smelled like the honey candles on the golden altar. I’d made it to church on every Sunday, no matter what country I had lived in so far- Russia, Serbia,England or even the USA
I didn’t even know who I would be without it.
What was I if there was no meaning, no plan and no security?
What if there was no forgiveness?
No right and wrong and all my conscious did was lie to me about everything I had done in my life so far?
What if there was no one who understood what I did and why I did it?
No one that cared nonetheless?
I was aware of the fact that there was a chance that what I had learned was not the universal truth, but then again, even if it was this way-why would it matter?
If God wanted to keep me in his house, I knew he would. And he did.
Most of the people I had worked with had been roman catholics, so it had been strange for them to have an eastern orthodox person at their table.

I sat at on the kitchen counter keeping my mind clear off all thoughts that dared to come. My eyes were focused on the smoky air around me before I opened the window of the apartment, staring at the house across the road as the roaring engines of fancy cars from the street continuously passed by.
I turned up the radio, hoping for a distraction.

Farewell my darlin‘
For I shall be your memory fine

It was an old song, maybe from the 70s‘ I reckoned. It wasn’t the best one, but at least some words to help clear my head. And I was bored of waiting. Why had I even done this in the first place? Hell, it had only been a day since I had gotten back here. I breathed in the polluted city air, at least it was better than the one in this trashy apartment we had found when on the run.

Only thing of mine that can be thine

This was the only thing that broke the silence.
“What took you so long?“ I asked looking at Matt. I remembered the nights, the NYC Apartment, shortly after we had reunited, when my greatest sins caused me-
I broke the thought off.
“Show me everything that turned your wings to velvet black, all that made your skin become unholy and let me love it free from the world”
I still heard the whisper in my head. It had been a purification, a confession. Having his hands on my body, holding me while I lost my mind.
Nothing in my life had ever been more of a sacrament to me than him. He would never know, because I would never tell him. There was no space for this. God would never let me have him, as I knew it was only alright with redemption. If I showed regret for restoring myself. For feeling what I had never felt. If he were to be damned in separation of the one the at watched over us? I didn’t know, judging was not what I wished to do when it came to him. I had no concept of hell, it changed too much over time for me to have a clear image and perception of it. But I knew it to be eternal separation, if that was a bad thing? I believed it was, what was a creation without its creator? As if it had never existed? But would God do that to me? Take what made me pure away? Maybe God knew me better than the church knew him. But since years I have separated my own thoughts from those of the others. Yet the loneliness stayed. It was to stay for eternity. What sweet pleasure fire could be when my body lit itself. Lost in thought I still looked outside, slowly regaining my awareness.
“Just stop nagging me for 5 minutes“ he seemed done.
I didn’t know with what but I was right.
“Mello, why did you wait anyway “, he said quietly.
It was no question, it was simply something he had noticed and was surprised by. Surprised that I had waited for his return. I did not even know where he had gone earlier.
I looked at him, tired brown eyes met mine.

Farewell my darlin‘

“Just leave“, he broke the eye contact and I had to refocus my vision.
I tried to say something. But his voice controlled me.
He seemed upset now.
He had nothing without me, we both knew it. If I left now, he had nothing. How long until we were to find back to one another?
“What did I do this time“, I laughed bitterly.
“You’re being cynical, just stay away this time“, he said while his eyes stayed silent.
I raised my eyebrows.
“Then stop picking up the phone if you’re that sick of me“ ,I said with a defensive chuckle.
He never answered me and I took his silence as an apology, or maybe I was just seeing it wrong and misunderstood his ways. I never drank, never took drugs, because my memory was enough to make me call at 4:15 in the morning. I needed him, of course I did. Always had. But it was not something he could ever find out, because then it was real, what I felt would be real to me once he realised.
He always ended up picking up the phone, kicking out whomever he had wrapped up in his sheets that day.

Farewell

The song finally stopped. About time. The all night fights had caught up with him. All the things I had said to him. I had made it impossible for him to see my presence as an escape, while he shall stay mine for as long as I were to possess consciousness. So I left the apartment, I did not look back, didn’t see his reaction to my not fighting back as I usually did. I put a cigarette between my lips when I walked down the street, shielding the flame of the lighter with my hand. For a second I looked at the flames’ light making the pale skin of my palm seem orange and warm. I felt a tingle in my nerves.
Like a thought that turned lethal if you made it a fact.
Maybe it was better this way.
I got what I deserved for being the way I was.

 

The other side

Maybe this letter will reach you,

We have always had some problems with one another. It was nothing new that I sent you away, we mostly act like this, I suppose you have noticed this. Especially on Wednesdays for some reason. You sent me away plenty of times as well, or you just disappear. It was not just you losing everyone you know after the war, you know? We were all we had at the orphanages, being sent from one country to another, all before you run off just like that, no announcement other than you losing against Near. If that is all I was to you, fine, stay away this time.
Don’t call, don’t use me again.
Keep going to bars, stay clean, get high of desperation and make out with people that you don’t even want.
You know you see me in everyone you decide to chase after.
Don’t come crawling back again and again, just know that I told you so. But keep up the repentance, the endless apologies in your prayers.
You called me back to you, knowing about what you felt like since forever, you deny it still and force yourself to feel something you never have.
To be honest, I thought that after all the shit we went through, we could always have each other, but it seems God hates you for not being alone in any of this.
Or maybe, it is not God that hates us, but our own minds that keep all love away from us, that keep us from eternal love, the type God wants us to recreate through the stolen glances, me taking your hand when we were all alone, did not even speak the same language and still felt words through tears and smiles. I had always wondered in which language you had formed your thoughts.
I think I told you about what happened to my family back in Bosnia, as we had not had enough money to find another country to flee to.
What had happened to my mum in the room next to mine, me hiding away in the goddamn loft of my room, hearing her scream. My older brother and father were both in the war, only my dad had returned though. He never forgave himself for what had happened to my mother or my brother, he seemed to not understand that a kid, especially younger than 10 years could not do anything to prevent a grown soldier to hurt a woman like that. After they had left and taken everything they could, destroyed what meant nothing, I had seen her violated body pushed in the corner of the couch, as though she had fallen asleep sitting. Bleeding, face destroyed fully and bullet holes covering her entire body. They had also ripped her hair out, leaving bald spots on her head. She used to have beautiful full brown hair underneath her veil. My dad had started drinking, and the alcohol poisoning was what sent him to the afterlife.
Maybe my parents found each other again there.
I hope so at least.
I just hope you remember that maybe, just maybe, God, or the God you believe in, doesn’t want you to suffer. Is it really cruel when we think about one another?
Is it really harming us to feel what others too feel?
Do our bodies matter, when their sole purpose is to hold the part of us captive that is not physical?
It’s not your body I long for and neither do you.
One wrong translation and human words are not worth our both lives that have been connected from the start.
Maybe the book of life has a spot left for our names next to one another, because what we have belongs in eternity.
Life never got us anywhere, maybe we just aren’t made for this world and death is where we belong. The entire situation made me see death from a different perspective, not as something cruel or as a punishment, but as a part of life, a part of us. Something that can save us.
What if that is what death actually is? You always say we just pass through life, that it is just a temporary state. But maybe death is that as well?
But none of this matters right now, because right now I know that I only have this moment. And in this moment eternity doesn’t matter.
All I feel is that I miss you. Please be safe. It has been 18 days by now. You still haven’t called. You know, I never said this seriously.
I have no fucking boundaries when it comes to you, please let me know that you are safe and just come back to me. I need you back right now or my mind will just snap.
Just come back.

Chapter 2: Sunset’s blessing

Notes:

Self indulgence as a ballad and that’s about it.
Matts feelings put into words.

Sunset’s blessing 

 

Tell me the stories of our nights together,

The halo of your golden hair splayed out on the dark sheets.

When the heavens cried on our bare arms like acid dropping from above

We burned like the fire in your eyes.

 

Tell me the stories of me walking through the grey streets,

As I tried to catch relief in the endless noise,

Your reflection in every window I walked past.

It was just your emotions that I saw, never your face.

 

Tell me of my vitality without your voice talking back to mine;

My hands shaking as my vision is fading.

My fingertips red with the sunset we had reached for behind the Manhattan skyline.

The sky ripped into shreds once you turned your back.

 

Tell me of how I drew the lines of your body with exactly this shade of red on my fingers;

As its immaculate contour was right before me when the world was brighter than during the day.

The last bit of strength the world had and you seemed the embodiment.

All the peace in the world turned to war that moment.

 

Tell me where you conceal yourself now.

Tell me when you stopped needing me;

When your mind stopped yearning for seeing me on Sunday morning.

When my heart stopped aching and went numb.

 

Tell me when you stopped looking for me in your church.

When I stopped going there for you.

Tell me when I began to feel despise for you

In the depths of adoration.

 

Tell me of the moon in the heavens

That we both saw when I found you again.

Show me why I should still feel what I always have.

Show me that I don’t have to fight.

 

And if you never return,

Tell the sunset of its blessing months ago,

When peace visited us with its silent steps.

Tell the sunset of me and how I painted you with the love turned desperation.

Chapter 3: Calautica mortis

Notes:

The title is in Latin.
Calautica mortis = (the) veil of death

“Hello?” I heard through the speaker. I did not reply, this was so damn embarrassing.

“Who is this?” He asked getting annoyed, probably rightfully so.

“Hey” I said, trying to sound confident. He was quiet for a bit, I could almost feel his thoughts through the phone.

“The hell do you want?” His words were breathy, sounded far away.

“Listen, I need you to do somethi-,“ I started but he interrupted me.

“The fuck, you disappear without a trace and then want me to do something for you? Where the hell even are you?” He sounded angrier than I had expected him to be. Well, I suppose he had every right to be, but I had no time to deal with this. “I’m in Belgrade right now, I’ll leave tonight,” I admitted, as I decided that he deserved to know. It turned out that he was not even surprised by me having left the country.

“And why, if I may ask? Did you get my letter by the way? ” He had nothing else to say?

“Man, listen, what I said when you left, I didn’t mean it, you know that, right?” He added. My heart felt heavy, but I knew that it was my fault that he had said I should stay away.

“Uh-huh, I don’t have time to discuss this right now, so meet me in five days in St. Petersburg, alright? At the airport.” I knew that this confused him, and that he had a bunch of questions, but anything that was necessary of a discussion could be taken care of at another time.

“Fine,” whatever he felt right now would pass, so I tried not to worry about it too much. He had hung up on me, probably feeling a hatred that I decided not to imagine. I wondered if he would actually come to meet me in Petersburg, but I had the feeling he would. I wanted to get away from here, of course Belgrade was nice, it was beautiful, but the memories of the orphanages kept popping up in my mind, how I had found my mother dead on the kitchen floor after she had taken her own life. It had been in this country. Only 11 years ago. In 1998.

I really needed to get over it, I was 19, a legal adult now. There was no excuse for grief anymore, was there?

After almost reconsidering my plans, I felt the warm September breeze on my face, through my hair, I looked lifted my head to the sky, soft clouds covering the sun, but they were so translucent that the sun light hit the old pavement, warming it up ever so slightly. I had been away from Matt for two months now, so he was probably rightfully shocked that I had called him out of the blue after not having actually been gone from him for two years now. He had found me when I again when I was 17, running around Chicago trying to get by and gather information about Kira at the same time. But that was not something worth thinking about right now. All that mattered was that we had gone to LA then. After I had made enough contacts in LA we went to New York City, I had to snoop in on what the hell Near was up to now if I was still trying to win this game. My connection to the mob was solely information based. They got my help if they helped me catch Kira. Their ways were radical, above any law that ever existed, their own society so to say. If I had them on my side I could use a short cut.

And it was by no means a coincidence that I left the States a month after leaving Matt. It had been a necessity, I suppose pissing off the Government of the USA was no joke, but I had to find out how close they worked with Near, but it helped me find out that there were some agents in the SPK that were easily manipulated, they told me of the Death note that I needed to get my hands on in order to knock Near off his throne. But I had to take the next step now, which was getting closer to the west coasts mob closest partners, which was the St.Petersburg family. The power they could have if the Death Note were in their hands had to have an effect on them, and since the ones in LA trusted me, this should be no problem for me.  After all, LA had been my key to St.Petersburg, as I got the contact from them. Kidnapping a someone from the NPA would be my next step, but that still had time. Plus I needed the Petersburg connection for that. They had sent a spy to Japan, that would give me the much needed information and take some crew members of LA with him to kidnap one of those idiots.

Tonight I would leave for Tyumen.  I just wanted to see it once again if I had to go to Russia anyway. The reason why I had stayed in Serbia for almost an entire month was that I did not want to stay in Russia for longer than necessary. It was bad enough that I had to go there in the first place. Choosing to stay in Belgrade was obviously just a stupid nostalgic decision, but it was only right for me to be here, since I did not know if I would ever have the chance again. The city’s night life was amazing, but the infrastructure an absolute mess. But neither was actually that important to me.

I did have some connection to this city, since I had been put in an orphanage here right after my parents had died. Sometimes I wondered if I could still find my mother’s graves in Subotica. But there was no point, it’s not like I could see her again. Dear God, how her eyes had looked when my dad’s body had not even been brought back. We never got to know why. But I was drowning in memories again, so I had to focus.

“Блокирате седиште. Или нешто наручите или одете” you’re blocking the seat, either order something or leave.

I heard the annoyed bartender say as I sat there lost in thought holding my phone without looking up.

The bar was relatively full, so it did make no sense for me to block the seat, but after that I had no intention of staying here anyway.

“јеби се”, fuck you. I said rolling my eyes and stepping out of the bar. There was no reason why I should take this.

 

I wandered around the streets, headed for the church I had visited here before being put in the next orphanage, I had gone there almost every day now when I had the time. Something about it just felt different than in other countries.

It was Saturday afternoon, and service was not until evening so there weren’t that many people right now, I had my peace for a while. As I knew that I could not make it to service later, I had just decided to go to church now rather than not at all.

Upon entering the church I made the sign of the cross from the right to the left. Afterwards I lit three candles and put them in the sand. I watched the little flames flicker, a small smile crossed my face. The church itself was beautiful, like most orthodox churches the colours were vibrant and mesmerising to look at. Lots of gold and blue covered the wide ceiling, paintings of the Saints and Angels on the walls. Columns of polished marble decorated the elegant altar room, I could not get enough of how beautiful this church always was.  As there are no pews, I either prayed standing up or kneeling. I knew that I had to leave again, but no matter where I was, it was always similar. A home that stayed, that I could find almost everywhere. People that grew up with similar beliefs, that did not ridicule me for it. At Wammys they trained us to be as rational as one could possibly be, and any belief was frowned upon. It was understandable, especially as we all were now trained detectives, replacements with no identity. We did not even have our own names anymore. I had had my new name before entering Wammys already, I had kept it and put a disguising veil upon my actual name. I buried it, I buried that person that had a past.

At 8 pm I got to the airport and it was not as full as the ones in the USA, something I rather appreciated. The flight was boring and dragged itself exhaustingly. Denying how much I hated flights was useless, because I could not even pretend that I thought it to be relaxing or some shit like that. It was a waste of time. Nothing but a waste of time that I did not even have. Once in Moscow I began to feel like this was absolutely useless and that I should just go to Petersburg directly, but I already had it all planned out, so I decided to just get it over with and got on that damned 3 hour flight to Tyumen. A city in damned western Siberia, eastern of the Uralic Mountains. It was not that cold in September, but I felt a raging sadness as I stepped out of the airport.

I immediately recognised it, everything around me seemed familiar, smelled familiar, even the air gave me a deja vu.

It was afternoon by now, a little after  12 PM to be specific, I hoped that I would be spared of some kind of jet leg, like when I had arrived in Belgrade.  The first thing that I noticed was that it had changed quite a bit in the past 12 years from when I had lived here. The streets looked better, the houses did not look as old and absolutely dilapidated as back then. I was actually pleasantly surprised by how much nicer and more open the city appeared to be. It was your typical Russian oil and gas industrial city that got rich over the past years, slowly improving itself. I wished to come here again someday during winter when it was colder than anywhere I had ever been. Admittedly, sometimes I really missed it. I remembered my mother and aunt teaching me how to ice skate here. If my aunt still lived here with her family? I had no idea, and I did not want to know, since my life was complicated enough already. I remembered that every time my mother and I went ice skating I got better and better, I regretted that I had never gone skating again after she had taken her life. She had loved it so much, and I had just stopped. It was the only thing I actually had to train to get good at. School on the other hand had never been a problem, never. I had skipped primary school entirely and my mother had felt a little clueless on what to do with me, how to give me an education without me being bored by everyone and everything around me. I got bored to the level that I bullied my classmates for how ridiculously stupid I thought they were. So my mum went to a psychiatrist with me to have my IQ tested. She obviously knew that I was gifted, but in order to get me in a school specifically designed for kids like me, I needed a certificate. It got better there, but whenever I saw someone score higher than me, a wrath built up in me that I could not even describe or define back then.

As I arrived at the apartment I had rented when I started planning this trip, the amount of grass and trees that surrounded the houses here did not fail to surprise me, I sat on the bed, wondering what I was supposed to do now that I had nothing to do for the next 3 days. And I doubted that I was endangered here, in Siberia.

But I could do something, now would be the right time for this, as I suspected that making it out alive and living on after the Kira case was very unlikely.

I would start tonight after finally getting something to eat. I could basically leave the apartment right after arriving, since I had brought almost nothing with me other than a random notebook, very few clothes and my laptop that had nothing saved on it. Most of my information about the investigation was saved on a computer stick.

I decided against wearing a jacket, because the 5 degrees Celsius outside would hit my skin so perfectly that I could finally test out if my immune system was still as stable as it used to be, when I ran around in the snow with no shoes because it just made me feel alive and my mother proud that her kid could adapt to the conditions of her home town so well.

“Your dad hates the snow, I’m glad you take after me” ,she laughed.

“Has he ever been here?” I wanted to know.

“Of course, he met your aunt here,” she answered, and I could not get enough of the stories she had told me about our family.

These were my thoughts when I got on the next best bus to a restaurant in the outskirts of the city, as mostly locals would be there, and the food would be traditional, as I remembered it.

Just for a few days I wanted to be allowed to be a person.

It was 4 PM when I got back to my apartment, which was only about one block away from Вознесенско-Георгиевская церковь, Voznesensk-Georgievskaya Tserkov , the church I had been baptised in. The church my family had gone to. Even though I would not go in, I could still stare at it from the outside, do the sign of the cross when I walked past its beautifully carved dark red wooden double door. I would go to any church but the one I had made so many memories in. But none of them mattered. Nothing in my life had a meaning if I could not avenge L. I had to get rid of myself, and the only way to do that was by rising above my own memories. Maybe it had been a huge mistake to come here.

When night pulled a blanket over the sky and the city decorated it with colours, I could not refuse the pull I felt towards going to Мост Влюбленных the lovers’ bridge I knew that it was mostly a tourist attraction, but I just could not not love this bridge, and how it was illuminated in a soft pink at night.

As far as I knew smoking was a sin, but at least I could keep a clear mind as I smoked, unlike alcohol that always got me so damn confused. And I doubted that God would punish me for a cigarette in my collection of sins that I could take a bath in by now.

As I stood there, leaning against the railing, cigarette in my hand, I thought about how I had fucked up Matt, and how much happier his life could have been without me, to be as straightforward as possible. I watched the river and how it reflected the lights of the bridge, I could not escape the constant reflections, no matter where I ran to. I could not escape from myself.

 

Back then at an Orphanage in Serbia I had begged for forgiveness every evening, hoping I was being listened to. It was the only time I had a vulnerability to myself. Matt knew that, he liked listening to my prayers. I only started to notice it at Wammys when we shared a room. He had never believed, I knew that as well. His parents and his brother had visited a Mosque. Sometimes I had seen him carry his mother’s Quran with him. He probably still had it.

He was definitely not the type that got overly religious, he hadn’t these emotions. He was too rational. From what I knew of him, he was hedonistic, doing what he liked and not beg for his mother’s soul to enter heaven.

Once I had asked him where he thought his family was now. He had only shrugged and asked me back why they would be gone just because they are dead. According to him there was endless nothingness and we were nothing and everything at once.

“Do you not believe then?” I was almost sad, although back then we had only known each other a few months.

It was like he had a key to my mind, opened its horizon beyond the sunset.

Not comparable to anything that had ever happened to me before.

He had laughed a little at my question.

“I never took it that seriously, Mihael,” I started to giggle. He never told me his real name, only his last name.

It was like he had let go of himself way before I could.

I still had not let go of who I had always been.

“Call me Mello,” I replied.

“Is that some kind of nickname?”

We then created a sort of language to communicate with each other, a mixture I could not identify for the life of me, sometimes he threw in words in Bosnian that he had taught me, I tried to do learn it as quickly as possible but spoke with the heaviest accent imaginable and we soon combined what we learned from each other, as he became everything I had left.

But sooner or later, after being sent to Wammys we spoke English. It was only sometimes that we could use our weird way of speaking.

“If you want it to be, yes”, I have had this incredibly strange nickname since forever. My parents had called me that in the letters they had exchanged when my dad was in war.

Matt had always been more open minded than me.

I would have done anything to meet his parents, but then he told me of his father’s alcoholism after he had found out about the cruelty that had been done to his mother.

My soul felt exhausted.

“Do you think they are fine now?” I asked him.

“I’d like to think so, it would be a little unfair if they aren’t, now wouldn’t it?” He gave me a look.

“Yeah, definitely”

It was me who made it hard for him, it was alway me who pushed it all on him, not him.

“And i think there must be something, right? That protects them now, my brother as well. I want there to be something, you know? I really do”, he pleaded.

I found it fascinating, because my mother and the rest of my family in Russia never told me much a lot about other Religions, although in the city there had many Muslims and Atheists, but I had never had much contact to them. When Matt told me that there had been bombs dropped on the Mosque his family had visited I felt a stab in my guts. There was a great shame I had not known before.

It was my country that had done this.

For the first time in my life I stayed quiet.

But he did not say anything mean to me, he had no intention of hurting me as well.

 

I always dragged him into everything, the mob, the church and my own misery.

 

 

After we had kissed for the first time I did not speak a word to him for a week, although I had been the one who had initiated the kiss. It was during dinner when I had stormed off to the bathroom after another one sided fight with Near.  This all happened when we were 13, at Wammys for a year now.

Matt had then gone on and on about how stupid I was being again and offered to take some walk with me. He dragged me along with him to the cellar of the orphanage and we talked in our mixed language. I had the urge to hold a pillow over Nears idiotic face and Matt did not even react anymore, as he was used to my fits of rage.  He still held me by my wrist and his warm skin against mine felt oddly comforting.

He was leading me right now, I had let go.

He lead me to a room I had never seen, it appeared to be some type of archive with other students that had gone to Wammys, other kids from all around the world, dragged here to safety, although “safety” was debatable considering the suicide rate in this place.

“What is this here anyway?” I interrogated.

“L told me about it the other day when he was visiting, I think he told all three of us something different about how to survive here”,  he laughed and then sat down against a wall with As folder.

“A took her life” ,I muttered and joined him on the floor.

“Huh, nobody knew about what ha-,“ He turned his face to me.

“L,” I said with a grin.

“What else did he tell you?” Suddenly he was curious.

“About the BB case. I’ll probably write it down someday, I guess. Also about some environmental extremist thing, but he never told me the end, so I guess I have to make one up,” I shrugged. His eyes widened. Man, he was pretty.

“You wanna write?” He smiled.

“I guess, but it’s nothing that…influential? I just dont want Ls work to be forgotten someday,” I explained. Matt nodded.

“Yeah, but you gotta admit, we would be great successors, definitely,” I could not tell if he was being sarcastic or drop dead serious.

“First I need to be better, then we’re talking,” I said sternly. Matt sighed.

“Dude, chill out for like once in your life. You’re  literally second place who cares if Nears like 2 points better than you.” Breaks weren’t exactly my thing. I don’t know why God tested me so much when it came to my ability to work hard, but I never succeeded the way I needed to. Who gave a shit about the second place? In the end Near would be the next L and I would drown under the veil of the forgotten, the veil of the dead.

Just like BB, forgotten because he was not enough. Just like me.

But I could not spiral the way he did. I had to keep it together.

For I knew my life had nothing to offer but this.

He pulled out a cigarette and then stared at the roof of the room, his pretty brown eyes fixated on it. His, now green dyed, hair fell slightly over his eyebrows and I pushed it away, he grinned.

“Thanks,” he whispered. I only nodded.

“You want too?” He held the cigarette between his fingers.

“It’s idiotic,” and a sin, I knew that. But I really wanted to try it out. So I took it and took a deep drag.

“You seriously never smoked before?” Matt burst out into laughter as I coughed. I gave him a death glare, but he stopped taking it seriously at least after I allowed him to hug me for the first time.  He had lied his head against my shoulder, I guessed he was tired so I let him. He was an introvert, yes, but i really was the last thing he had. Although, I never really thought about it from his perspective in this way. A sense of shame overcame me. He needed me then, I had no intention of being bound to anyone again. The memory of my mums corpse made me push him off my shoulder.

“Sorry,” he whispered.

“Don’t worry,” I replied. And at his confused expression I acted on instinct. He was all I had now, and that was a fact. I grabbed him by the cheeks and pulled him towards me. His lips tated like nicotine, but that was the last thing I cared about in that moment. The cross of the prayer rope around my left wrist touched his cheek and my necklace touched his chest as I pulled him towards me. How could I have not have? His body was warm and his hair soft. His lips were all I cared about in that moment and they lured me in, there was nothing I would have rather done. He didn’t let go of my lips, even as I tried to pull back and come back to my senses.

“Matt, this is not-,“ he did really not give a damn. And I stopped caring as well.

I fought myself through a world that had put already put a mark on me the day I was born, if there truly was a plan for me then I tried to follow it with blinded eyes.

All I had were my predictions and my faith.

What I felt was pure warmth in my entire body. Safety and anxiety mixed together when his hands were on my nape. But I knew it to be wrong. It was oxymoronic, why should feeling safe be wrong, why was I being told that this was not right if it felt good? The entire train of thought lead to nothing but gaslighting and I began to panic.

The thing was, I was no idiot. We had covered the entire topic of all human sexuality in Biology at Wammy’s thoroughly, because it was important for all of us here to be well educated. Biology was the simple cause of many crime scenes, which were our specialisation, due to being Ls successors. I knew the science behind it all of course, i knew that it was unchangeable, the genetic factors and so on. But once something gets pushed on you from the day you first set a foot in the house of god at three mere age of a month I had some ways of thinking that were way too deep rooted than that I could just switch them off. It was not that easy.

I went back to my apartment in the middle of the night, my skin was cold now, my cigarette gone.

The light of the dim lamp at the desk helped me concentrate as I started to write down my only valuable memory. What L had told me back then, before he lost his life. The night passed by me and I lost track of my words sometimes, having to start the same sentence more than three times.

But at least I could bury myself that way.

Chapter 4: Chained whispers

Notes:

A reply to sunset’s blessing from Mellos point of view

Chained whispers 

 

If you spoke my name

If you called it out, did your voice bleed for it?

You shaped my name like a dagger

Ran your fingers along the edges.

 

If I spoke would you tell me to concede?

Once I see you again I wont decreed

I wont spell my intentions out

In the city lights.

 

You wont understand my tongue

Even if you cling to it

I sang to the night as sunset had passed

I left a deep whisper in your mind.

 

If I spoke would you tell me to flee?

Your wrists tied to the edge of my heart

You tried to reach it as if it were my back

I fled to your chains long ago.

 

Your skin spoke to me

The balcony door closed

City din diminished to indistinct matter

Words stuck in your throat.

 

If I spoke, would you answer?

That day my name bled from your lips onto mine

You gave it back to me

You spoke it with a knife in my chest.

 

Your lashes touched the skin of my neck

Skin so warm leaving prints on my ribs

You sat on the floor, head against the bed frame

My head on the pillows, facing away from you.

 

If you spoke my name

If you called it out, did you search for me?

Did you search for a comfort I never provided?

I gave nothing but blood to an open wound.

Chapter 5: Torn devotion

Summary:

If letting go was no option, then I was willing to drown for him in the ocean of ice cold dependance.

Notes:

This chapter is rather short, but I’d be happy to hear your thoughts on it if you want to share them.

I closed the door to the absolutely trashed LA apartment with my boot, we had rented it way too suddenly to find a better place. The electricity appeared to work normally, but the water refused to get warm, so the showers would be cold the next few days. Whatever would happen, I had no strength to put up with his annoying and pushy attitude, so I just avoided talking to him for the rest of the day.

Tender cruelty,

Such sweet claws of love

Saint Petersburg had yet been another hell that he had dragged me into. He knew that I was attached, he used me, of course he did, probably always had. I wondered if there’re ever had been a time where he actually cared. Genuinely. Not to gain something, but just for the sake of caring.

 

It wasn’t that I had no existence without him. Of course something was missing when he was not around, maybe it was the realisation that I had my own will and no one to order me around as if I were a tool. Maybe that was not even wrong, because it was always the type that I attracted. He was not the only one I ever ran after. Maybe it was just a nostalgic relationship, not being able to let go of the past, the moment, the future. Maybe it was just my own inability to get up on my own without being told to. Or maybe I was just used to having his egoistical self around. It was not love that I felt, it was dependence. When he was around I took his words in my mouth, tasted them, felt them to the roots of my hair as if they were mine. When he was god knows where on the planet my life crashed and slimmed down to my apartment somewhere near Los Angeles, or New York in this case. It was as though I had no meaning without him.

When he had called me from Chicago when we were 17 I felt real again. Because what was a human without a meaning?

As I arrived in Saint Petersburg I first had to call him to even find out where the hell he wanted me to go now that I was here.

There he stood, dressed fully in black leather with oversized mirrored sunglasses.

Ever beautiful, ever arrogant, ever selfish Mello.

He only walked into his desired direction and I had to follow because, why talk to someone? He did not say hello, not bye and he never, not even over his dead body said a simple: “I’m sorry,”. He was proud, when he walked, talked, and smiled. There was something about the way he moved, as if he owned the entire room, no matter where, he made it his own. Captured everyone’s attention in a second.

He lived his religion by his own rules, it seemed.

It was his mind, no one else’s to control.

The city was beautiful in the morning, as dawn approached.

He was the night, the morning and afternoon, the evening in his ever repeating process of living.

He spiralled since years, fought himself against the flow of life.

Unlike him I did not fight against it, against the current. I let it drown me in the never ending depths of life.

We did not talk about anything throughout the entire car ride. I looked at the streets, cars passing by and driving past old ass churches.

Somehow I kept my eyes off him the entire night. I had no emptiness in my chest this night. It was as if him having left me again had been my final straw. Why I still considered him my friend, best friend for that matter was a mystery to me.

“Why did you want me here?” I asked him, facing away from him as he sat down on the ground on the other side of the balcony. The air was cool, the city din gushing around us as we tried to get a single word out of the other. “I told you I need you to make sure I get away from here again,” he stared at the street through the grid of the balcony. “Meaning?” I demanded to know. He chuckled defensively, not letting me command him to do anything. “Just find out if I’m being betrayed,” was all I could get out of him. I raised my eyebrows, hating him with every ounce of my body. Fucking bitch. “Alright,” I said. He set his icy gaze on me, blue eyes almost staring.

“Anyway,” he sighed. “Yeah?” I replied, wondering what he had on his mind now. “How were you doing?” He wanted to know. I thought about it for a second. “Fine, nothing special, just whatever,” I shrugged. He hummed in reply. “How’s that girl you talked about?” Talking to him felt like a job interview every time. “I broke up with her, if you can call it that if you weren’t dating,” I laughed. Mello raised a brow. “Why did you break up with her?” His ego told him it was because of him, which was partially true, but I could not stand being around anyone anymore. “Just did not fit, I don’t know,” I had nothing else to say. “Okay, well, good for you,” he said, taking a deep breath. Throughout my entire relationship with the girl he had mentioned he and I had slept together almost every goddamned night. Why was he concerned about it in the first place? Neither of us wanted to actually be with the other, consumed in a relationship.

“Remember Wammys, when we ran away for a single day just to see the city on our own?” I said and he suddenly softened his gaze. “Yeah, it’s been a while,” I nodded in agreement. “5 years, we were 14,” I muttered. “I remember,” the lights hit the smooth pale skin of his face so perfectly.

An Angel stood no chance against him.

I stopped looking at him to not please his ego. We did not talk again for a few hours, he probably did not even think about me, whilst I dwelled in the memories.

 

He was out all day, doing god knows what to achieve his goal of catching Kira first. Keeping me out of his business was his speciality, unless he needed me to find someone, spy on some random person he thought was suspicious or needed to release stress and tell me all about his plans for the next few days. Sometimes I doubted that he even saw me as a real and actual person, other than his side kick that only existed for his entertainment.

Buried in my skin so deep,

Drawing blood with whole devotion

LA was not my city, never had been. To me it was nothing but a depressing place with no reality to be found. But then, every big city felt like this to me. I had no interest in staying here for any longer than he needed me to.

 

St. Petersburg, 2 days ago:

His hand was pressing against someone’s throat, whomever it was, he had been following us after we had left the apartment complex. The sounds the guy made were gross, choking, chasing air with a disturbing amount of force.

Mello said something to him in Russian, I could not really understand what it was, but he sounded angrier than I had ever heard him. I stood there dumbfounded while he dragged whomever that was to the door, up the stairs and into our apartment. He had kicked him, slapped him across the face until he spat out blood and ripped at his arms while forcing him to come with us. If there was one thing to know about Mello, it was that he did not play when it came to his privacy and spying was something that obviously disgusted him. “Whom do you work for and why were you following me?” His expression was something every normal person would have run from if they had the chance. I sat there, carefully watching the scene before me, trying not to get on anyone’s nerves. “I had to- they wanted to know-,” the stranger stuttered. “Who?” I knew whom the guy was talking about, but apparently I was the only one in the room that knew how to use his brain. “Making sure you don’t betray us,” the man whispered before his neck was being snapped with such a disgusting sound that I wanted to get out of here. The sound still lingered above us afterwards, choking the air like a snake its victim.

I felt bad for not being able to speak a single word to him, but I could not get the image of him snapping someone’s head out of my mind. With the same hands he wrapped around my throat for my pleasure.

I sat alone in my car, smoking my 5th cigarette now, feeling loneliness crawl up my spine, a monster cradling my head, clouding my mind. I just wanted to go out and buy something to eat, but the memories hit me like a bullet, leaving me breathless. There was no way out of my body, I was trapped in it until the end. We had no interest in going back to Saint Petersburg, his connection over there were established, and he had finally through with his plan on kidnapping Sayu Yagami or whatever the hell that girl’s name was. He was gone right now, having me watch over the base of his crew. It was boring and I seemed to have finally lost all purpose in my life.

Sharp breaths tear through the heavens

Scream the words through tears you never lose.

He was mad when he came back, radiating his anger so much so that it seemed to envelop the entire apartment. I knew how to calm him, but I was not in the  mood right now, so I left him alone and stepped out in the warm LA October afternoon.

Chicago had brought us back together and LA and New York tore us apart like nothing else before. Our destinies were intertwined, there was no question about it, but the feeling of belonging faded with our wish to have the past be different. I saw my memories in his eyes, we were mirrors of each other, embodiments of things we wished to forget.

The day I had found him again in Chicago when we were 17 would stay with me until the day I took my last breath. 

If letting him go was no option, then I was willing to drown for him in the endless ocean of ice cold dependence.

Chapter 6: Sanctuary

Notes:

Here we go I guess?

 

Sanctuary 

 

Skin ripped on pale hands

Blood found on stone cold floors

Delirious warmth coating it

Splinters of glass buried in red flesh.

 

Desperation grasps for meaning in a white room

A room like your heart leaving your hands craving

A place with nothing to hold

Forgive me, my sanctuary.

 

Living hidden by your shadow

Protected behind it

Thrown in the abyss by it

Trying to catch it as you clasp your hands.

 

The echo of your name ran from me as I pull you by the mind

Taste the light of the darkness in our blasphemy in your prayers

Tender greed rules in your veins, claiming me yours

Forgive me, my sanctuary.

 

Drown in a prayer of salacity

Salvation to our wrath, a high breaking down walls

Grabbing hair, feeling skin, yearning for warmth in a world of morose apathy

Catch your breath with only tears clothing your body

Die a death in my arms my lips following your breath.

 

Longing for breaking free

Obstinate pasts leash us in memories

White rooms painted in death

Visions of blood when I threw away the glass shard

Forgive me, my sanctuary.

 

I had empty hands without yours

I had my warm blood run to my fingertips

Dull goals stared back from a creeping shadow

Sounds losing all meaning falling out of the window

Crashing like my senses.

 

For your tears had found comfort on my cheeks

For my life had helped yours find an anchor

For my destination had been your healing

I beg you now

Forgive me, my sanctuary.

Chapter 7: The lovers’ ballad

Notes:

For alumina13 and of course the characters

The lovers’ ballad 

 

We took the world in our hands

Kept deaths substance on our fingertips

Sharply craved in the silk of our nails.

 

Was the journey our lives last breath?

I dragged you through the neon lights

The depths of my agony.

 

The dim alleyways with memories of vile atrocities

I lead you to the golden altars of hells bloody light

Challenged your persistence like a spear that meets a lovers flesh

 

“You lost it,” you yelled all these years ago and stumbled out

In the pouring bone chilling rain of a cold Chicago night.

Unbound and free I walked on through the gutter of my life.

 

New York, LA passed by me with a ground of bottomless concrete in shimmering visions

A lost past hovered under my feet, ripped my skin, caught my neck

Blindly I passed through strangers sheets gasping for oblivion.

 

“I need you” words that left my tongue, doped your judgement

You translated them correctly in the halls of your mind

Die for me.

 

I handed you a lantern in the dark blur of your life

You are the magnet of my fall

Held more ground than the pages I was built on.

 

Soon I came back, you pulled me to the ground you built for me

My body burnt you captured all fire behind your walls

You washed away the soot, broke the dam and set me free.

Chapter 8: Dawn’s blessing

Dawn’s blessing

Dawn crawled to my soul,

Falling to ash, dust found yours.

Gods house fell around me.

Bright in the night, skin wrapped in heat.

 

Bright red.

“I’m sorry”, a whisper on my tongue, hung in the air, caught the fire.

Burned the dove of words.

Your body stone cold.

Mine in God’s hand, fallen in flames.

 

Blessed be the endlessness of memory, divine guilt.

“I’m here”, falling from your eyes before I found a way back.

The world breathed our names that night,

As I left our walls.

 

Before the night, sunset danced around the city,

As lastly I ruined,

As lastly I accepted,

As lastly sorrow turned pure.

 

Dawn reached us with blood,

Dawn made us one.

With coming light I forgave.

With flames I returned home.