Chapter Text
Authorities confirmed that a fire broke out late Thursday night in downtown New York, leaving two dead and one survivor critically injured. Witnesses reported hearing shouting from inside the apartment before the fire spread to the upper floor. Officials suspect alcohol and substance abuse may have played a role in the incident.
The screen changed briefly to flashing ambulance lights reflected against wet pavement, then to the remains of the apartment building, blackened windows, smoke stains crawling up the walls, firefighters moving through ash and debris.
“The survivor, a twenty-year-old male, remains hospitalized in critical condition.”
The report ended there, just another tragedy for strangers to stare at before moving on.
-
The first thing Mello became aware of was the sound.
A steady, rhythmic beeping somewhere near his head. Sharp enough to cut through the heavy fog in his mind.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
His eyelids felt glued shut. When he finally forced them open, the light hit him immediately, bright and sterile. Everything around him blurred together into white walls and pale ceilings. The air smelled painfully clean, buried under the faint scent of disinfectant and something burnt he couldn’t stop imagining.
His throat felt raw, for a moment, he couldn’t remember or figure out where he was.
Then the pain hit, not all at once, but his body was waking up piece by piece just to remind him how badly it hurt.
His arm burned first. Then his shoulder. His face. Every tiny movement pulled at skin that felt too tight around his body, like it had been stretched wrong and stitched back together carelessly. He inhaled sharply through his teeth.
The beeping beside him sped up, it was testing his nerves.
Somewhere nearby, a chair scraped against the floor.
„Oh, Mihael is awake!“
A female voice, it sounded exhausted. But Mello didn’t care, he frowned immediately.
“Don’t,” he croaked before she could say anything else.
The nurse paused. “Don’t what?”
“Talk.”
Then a quiet sigh, he heard movement beside the bed, the sound of someone adjusting wires or checking machines. Mello kept staring at the ceiling instead of looking at her. Even turning his head felt exhausting.
“You’re in the hospital Mihael,” she said gently, like he was stupid enough not to know.
No shit sherlock.
He closed his eyes again, small fragments came back slowly after that. Heat. Smoke. His mother screaming at someone. Glass shattering. The smell of alcohol soaked into the apartment walls so deeply he even used to notice it even in his sleep.
Then fire.
He still felt how his skin was burning, his parents faces completely melted off.
After that, nothing.
He felt nauseous afterwards. The nurses talked too much. The doctors stared too long. Every conversation sounded rehearsed, fake sympathy wrapped neatly inside soft voices and careful expressions.
After he regained his strength a bit the nurse gave him a small mirror to look at the damage. When Mello looked at his expression he gasped, he didn’t recognize himself anymore. He used to be handsome and charming. But now? The entire right side of his face was covered in bloodstained bandages. He genuinely didn’t want to see what he looked like underneath them. His day was already ruined, he set the small mirror on his bedside table.
“How are we feeling Mihael?”
Terrible. Obviously.
“You’re healing well.”
Didn’t feel like it.
“We were worried about infection, but—”
“Can you leave?” Mello interrupted flatly.
The nurse rolled her eyes and left the room. After that Days blurred together quickly inside the hospital. Time barely existed there. Morning and night looked almost identical under fluorescent lighting, and sleep never lasted long before another machine started beeping somewhere down the hall.
Mello learned to cooperate with the annoying beeping, the sound of squeaking shoes against tile floors, the fucking smell there.
Disinfectant. Medicine. Clean sheets.
Everything smelled artificial, like the building itself was trying too hard to cover up the fact that sick people died there every day.
His burns had mostly healed by now, at least according to the doctors. The bandages covering parts of his shoulder and torso became smaller each week, exposing patches of damaged skin underneath. Some areas were pale and shiny. Others stayed an angry pink.
None of it looked right.
The skin along his shoulder hurt constantly. Sometimes it burned for no reason at all, sharp enough to make him whine. Other times it simply pulled every time he moved, stiff and uncomfortable beneath the thin hospital gown. The itching was somehow worse. Deep beneath the skin where scratching didn’t help.
He avoided mirrors whenever possible. Not because the scars upset him, or at least that’s what he told himself. He just got tired of people watching his reactions whenever he accidentally looked at them. Like they expected fucking horror, or grief.
At first Mello tried to talk with some of the other patients, he felt lonely most of the time.
BIG MISTAKE.
Most of them looked at him the same way the nurses did cautious, hesitant, pitiful, even disgusted. He hated it instantly. He didn’t even want to talk about the kids there; they were corny and kept rambling about something called “Six Seven.” Mello felt old.
One woman in the room across from his kept apologizing whenever she looked at his burns for too long, which somehow made it worse. Another old man spent twenty minutes telling Mello how “lucky” he was to survive.
Mello rolled his eyes „right, i’m so lucky.“ he thought.
There was also a pale guy a few rooms down who introduced himself as Beyond Birthday and immediately made Mello regret leaving his room in the first place. The guy talked too much, smiled too wide, and ate toast with strawberry jam almost every morning in the shared lounge area. One morning, Mello watched him drag jam-covered fingers across the plate before licking it off slowly without breaking eye contact with anyone nearby.
Mello never sat near him again after that.
The others weren’t really better than BB, honestly. Some asked questions about his parents, Mello clearly didn’t want to answer.
His parents were dead. He still couldn’t bring himself to care very much. After all they were bad parents and deserved to die anyway, just sayin.
His father spent most nights drunk enough to forget where he was. His mother wasn’t much better. The apartment had always smelled like smoke, alcohol, and chemicals. Half the time they screamed at each other until sunrise. The other half, they ignored him entirely. Mello had planned on leaving eventually anyway, but the fire simply done it first.
…
When a month passed, he stopped asking when he could finally leave. The answer never changed, he needed more rest and more time to recover. As if lying in bed every night in a hospital bed isn’t enough.
Mello didn’t even know where to go when he got out. Maybe to his uncle Ray, who wasn’t better than his parents.
Mello has grown a small reputation in the hospital, always pissy and a bad mouth. Doctors were annoyed by him before they even interacted.
He ignored medication schedules, argued with doctors, and unplugged one of the monitors twice because the constant beeping got on his nerves. One nurse stopped trying to make conversation entirely after he told her her voice was irritating.
At least she learned.
Mello was a nightowl, but ever since he came here. He hated the nighttime, because hospitals are never fully quiet. Somewhere somebody was always coughing. Screaming. Machines hummed endlessly behind walls. Occasionally, muffled crying drifted down the hallway before disappearing again.
Mello usually stayed awake staring at the ceiling until exhaustion forced him asleep.
That night wasn’t any different at first.
Rain tapped softly against the window beside his bed while the digital clock near the door glowed 3:34 in dim red numbers. His shoulder burned again, the ache spreading down his arm beneath layers of tight scar tissue.
He shifted carefully with a quiet curse under his breath. Suddenly he heard shouting in the distant.
Mello frowned, do doctors never shut up? More footsteps followed, fast enough to echo through the hallway outside. The usual slow nighttime atmosphere disappeared almost instantly. Doors opened somewhere nearby, someone whispered. Wheels squeaked violently against the floor.
His room door remained slightly open, Mello turned his head toward the hallway just as a hospital bed was pushed past.
That whole situation was new to Mello, it was kinda scary. Was it also like this when Mello got transferred into the hospital? Gosh. He saw Beyond Birthday also standing there, watching with his giant creepy red eyes.
Several nurses surrounded it, moving quickly enough that everything blurred together for a second. IV poles rattled beside them. One doctor was already speaking before they disappeared down the hall.
„Possible overdose!“
Mello only caught some pieces, Male. Young. Unconscious. The blonde was too busy staring at the new boy.
For a brief moment, the patient’s face turned slightly beneath the harsh fluorescent lights.
Messy red hair, freckles, pale skin. The patient almost looked death. The hallway swallowed them seconds later, footsteps fading into the distance.
It all happened to fast.. but for some reason, Mello kept staring after they were gone.