Log
Who: Matt and Envy
What: ...well.
When: now
Where: Tokyo
Why: Something about starting a war? idk ;__;
Rated: I wanna say hard R.
Envy clenched his hands into fists and alternated between releasing and squeezing them. The last time he had been this angry . . . he couldn't remember. It had been a while since he'd snapped and wanted to kill someone just to watch that person writhe in agony as their blood drained away and made pretty patterns on the ground. When Envy's fights with Greed were bad, this was how angry he'd get. So fucking angry that he was crazy. It was like he was his old self again and it made him miss those days. Those days were when he could kill anything and anyone and not feel any remorse. Now he had to make sure it wasn't someone he cared about or someone a friend cared about.
The fury was pouring off him in waves as he stalked down the streets of Tokyo, eyes looking for nothing but someone he could take his anger out on. It was easy enough to kill a weak human, and it made him feel great. It was like he was in a daze as he walked, shoes scraping on the asphalt. When he rounded the corner to what used to be a familiar area, he didn't even blink.
Matt had been on a pretty good kick this week. He'd flown to America briefly to see the vampires, which had been...interesting, he'd been to see Misa once or twice, and he'd even taken Chadwick for a walk just yesterday. After the weeks he'd spent holed up indoors for days and days on end, it'd felt nice to finally get out of there for a while, and for so often. So he'd actually made the trek to the convenience store a couple blocks away for the cigarettes that were nearly two hundred yen cheaper. He'd spent the leftover on those stale candy hearts released for Valentine's Day. Chadwick was addicted again.
So the very last thing he expected to see when he walked out of the front doors was Envy, and if he weren't so surprised he might have turned around and walked right back inside. As it was, though, he simply stopped in his tracks and stared, and let loose the first thing that came to mind.
"What the fuck are you doing here?"
Envy stopped immediately when he heard someone speaking in an unfriendly tone and he was fairly certain it was directed at him. The homunculus glanced up beneath his wild hair and it took him a moment to place where he knew the guy from. Red hair, dressed like an idiot. Envy stopped moving his hands and kept them clenched so that his nails dug into his skin. It was hard to remember the last time he'd seen the bastard. It might have been on that stupid fucking car ride. What Envy really couldn't remember was how long he had wanted to kill Matt.
"It looks like I'm walking," Envy hissed, his voice strained. "Is it that hard to see?"
It might be fun, he thought, to tear Matt limb from limb. They had been threatening each other for so long and the idiot redhead hadn't ever believed that Envy would do it. It was time to correct that mistake; Envy was in the perfect mood for it.
Matt believed that Envy would do it now, though, every inch of Envy's short frame screaming rage and violence. He took a step back and urged the cigarette to the side of his mouth so that he could speak more clearly around it.
"Well, go walk somewhere else," he said irritably, and as he did his immediate fear lessened and he was able to give the homunculus and annoyed look. "Christ, you look like a walking seaweed rag."
"Really?" Envy laughed and tossed his messy hair. He didn't always brush it. Sometimes he liked the way it looked when it was messy. "Do you really think it's smart, Matt, to be so disrespectful?"
Envy's fingers lengthened into claws as sharp as knives and he studied one hand like it was a prized possession. Then, with a grin, he looked over them at Matt.
"Do you really think I'm going to let you talk to me that way? Like you're not some pathetic human bug?"
Matt resisted the urge to take another step back as his gut twisted with his natural tendencies toward self-preservation; he knew that if Envy meant that another two feet would hardly matter. "I think," he said slowly, mind turning over for any hint of an escape from this, "that it's a beautiful day out, and I know you don't smoke but I do, and I just bought some more, so if you like candy hearts I guess you can take Chadwick's, but otherwise shouldn't we just go about our own separate ways?"
Candy? Matt was trying to bribe Envy with candy like he was some fucking baby? Envy was tired of people not taking him seriously. Not even Greed took him seriously. The stupid bastard seemed to forget that Envy had the means to seal-and even kill him-if he wanted. They didn't know just how powerful he was.
"I don't like candy hearts." Envy's grin was wider and he moved forward. "They're not nearly as sweet as the real thing. If you run fast enough and get yours moving, it'll taste even better."
Matt moved back, keeping what he hoped was a respectable distance between them. A dozen thoughts ran through his mind-what Mello was doing, how far away his apartment was, how long it would take for him to reach for his phone, how long it would take Envy to gut him if he tried-but outwardly he managed to not look anything but mildly confused, and maybe a little apologetic that Envy didn't enjoy the main holiday treat.
"I'd offer you chocolate, but Mello ate it all," he joked, quickening his step just a little. He was far from graceful, though, and he knew it; he was already pushing the speed it would take for him to trip and crack his head open. "Uh. I think I have gum?"
There were a lot of things that pissed Envy off. Crying babies, loud women, smelly humans, flea-ridden dogs, liars, traitors, those who abandoned others. But what he really hated was being treated like less than who he was. Dante was able to get away with it because she had what could destroy him.
Matt, though. Matt had nothing but a silly gun that was like a toy to Envy. A bullet would pierce his skin and heal within seconds. The fact of the matter was that Envy had been searching for someone to tear apart and now he'd found the perfect prey. An unimportant, weak, fucking stupid human who had done nothing but tried to make his life hell. There wasn't much better than slaughtering someone you hated. Matt had been on that list for a long time.
Envy cracked his neck. The normal and smooth shape of his eyes had morphed into the crazed ones of the killer he was and they glowed with the very thought of finally destroying someone who meant something to others. Matt's death would continue to hurt even after he was gone.
Envy lunged forward. "Think I'll have some of you."
Matt tripped over his own feet and fell over backwards with a squeaked curse. He ignored the pain that shot through his hands as they scraped over the rough cement and scrambled to the side, trying to get back to his feet again so that he could run. Part of him suspected that Envy was just teasing him, that he'd get back up and Envy would be laughing and making fun of him for his reaction, but a much, much larger part recognized that look he'd gotten in his eyes, and knew it was better to be safe than sorry.
Now Matt was scared, wasn't he? Fucking good. The little fucking bastard had been cocky for far too long and it was time that stopped. Envy wasn't going to let the shithead act like he was perfectly safe any longer. This was something that Envy should have done a year ago, but he supposed it was better late than never.
He could feel the blood rushing through his body and making his heart race as he pictured how Matt would look splattered beneath him. The clumsy idiot had tripped but Envy would have caught him anyway. As Matt scrambled to his feet, Envy fell onto him. Envy couldn't have weighed much over a hundred pounds but that didn't mean he wasn't strong. Even with his small frame he could easily lift hundreds-if not thousands-of pounds.
Matt fell again, painfully, and immediately started to kick, the movement more a reflex than anything else as he struggled to throw the homunculus off of him before he could do any real damage. There was no doubt anymore; Envy wasn't fooling around, he was here to hurt Matt, and the last thing Matt wanted was another Kadaj incident. He rolled onto his back and fumbled for his gun, the glock, the one he'd been forcing himself to carry around no matter what since his last random attack on the street. "Get off he grunted angrily, as if it would really help, "you stupid little spider monkey."
Spider monkey, huh? Envy's laughter was wild and as his body began to shift, his voice grew drier. Instead of four long limbs with smooth skin, they became eight with bristled hair. Instead of two purple eyes, they grew into eight black ones as dark as coal. There wasn't really such a thing as a beautiful spider-not with the way they moved all eight legs that supported that huge body. Thick fangs clicked together and a stinger as sharp as a blade threatened to drive itself into Matt's body. The giant spider was easily the length of Matt, and three times his width.
"Now," Envy laughed, "why don't we see if we can peel off your skin and make your face match your hair?"
Matt blanched. The knowledge that Envy was not a real spider didn't make him feel any less real, or look it. An involuntary shudder rolled through him, and he fought back the urge to retch.
"You're sick," he said shakily. He tried pulling himself back out from underneath that disgusting form. He had the gun in his hand now, but hesitated at firing at that thick exoskeleton, thumb hovering over the safety just after flicking it off. "Although I guess it's all right that your body matches your bug-eating brain now." If he thought about making fun of him hard enough, he wouldn't have any brainpower left to let himself be sick.
The form Envy was in was shaking Matt up. What a fucking coward; he was afraid of a spider that wasn't even real. What else was he afraid of? Envy's large frame shrunk down to a leather-clad one with one of the worst haircuts in existence and the ugliest scar along one side of his face. The skin began melting away to expose rotting muscle and white bone. One eye sagged from its socket and tumbled out to hang at his cheek.
"Is this better?" Mello's corpse asked. "This is more your style. Ugly, imperfect, easily killed." Envy grinned with Mello's rotting face and it stretched torn lips so that blackened gums were revealed. He leaned down quickly to kiss Matt as hard as he could.
This time Matt had to fight back an actual surge of bile in his throat, not really because it was Mello-he'd never minded the scars, and the fact that he was rotting or whatever was more stupid than gross and way more gory in some of the choice horror films he'd watched-but because it was Envy pretending to be Mello, and this bastard had fucked Arrancar and stuff, and the last thing Matt wanted was to feel his tongue down his throat.
He shoved Envy off of him as hard as he could, wiping a hand across the back of his mouth and spitting to get rid of the taste. "You fuck." That wasn't Mello to him, he wasn't that stupid. "Next time keep your own shape if you want to kiss me so badly, it'll make it that much easier to throw up in your mouth."
Envy landed in an easy crouch and the disgusting appearance of Mello melted away to be replaced the perfect form of himself. "I'd never kiss you like this," Envy purred. "This is saved for two people only." It was fun to fuck with people without physically hurting them. It made them suffer in ways that physical pain couldn't and Envy had had four centuries to master that.
But now he wanted to see blood. There couldn't be real death without blood. Envy grabbed Matt's feet and started walking backwards with them. "I think I'm tired of playing. Aren't you?"
Matt didn't hesitate this time. As soon as Envy was in his own form he breathed a sigh of relief, his next action made much easier whether that was the real Mello before him or not, and as soon as he felt himself being dragged he raised the gun and fired off a couple shots point-blank at Envy's chest. Two was the number it took for him to remember he hadn't brought any extra clips with him. He had ten bullets-eight now-and he wasn't dumb enough to think a little bitty 9mm would be able to stop someone like Envy. Maybe if he shot strategically...
"Let. Go." Maybe in the head? Maybe in the eye. He could do that, headshots were easy enough in his games and bullseyes were always better. Or maybe in the feet, and he could run and call someone while Envy was healing from it. Rukia, maybe; she had a sword. He hated to get her involved, but he knew he was pretty much useless on his own. The thought made him curse.
The bullets hit Envy's small body and tore right through. They hurt like hell. Envy fucking hated pain and it forced him to let go of Matt so that he could stumble back. There was blood coating him front and back now and even as the wounds began to heal and push the bullets back out, they hurt. They hurt something fucking fierce and Envy clenched his jaws in agony to keep from making any sounds. Matt didn't think shooting him was going to make him win, did he?
Envy took his bloodied hands away from his chest and glared darkly at Matt. "You ruined my cute shirt," he hissed. "I hope you had a chance to say your fucking goodbyes to everyone before you left, because you won't ever be seeing them again."
Envy darted in again, lower in case Matt tried firing another shot where he had been standing, and grabbed his feet once more. Instead of dragging, though, he used his inhuman strength to throw Matt through the air and into the nearest building.
Matt managed to squeeze off another shot as soon as he saw Envy move, but the homunculus was faster, and he barely had time to register that he'd missed before he was being tossed into a very big, very hard wall. This was not the first time, and while he'd never seen stars when his head had been thrust against solid objects, he did see a brief flash of light, and falling to the ground afterwards barely registered on the same scale of pain.
It took a moment or two for his head to clear enough to think past the throbbing ache in the back of it, and when he ran a hand through his hair it came away wet. He didn't know where the gun was, let alone his bag of convenience store goodies. He didn't know if it made any difference anyway. He swore in some random language, maybe English, and tried finding his balance back so he could push himself up to his feet.
Envy wasn't going to let Matt get very far. He wanted to break him up and make him suffer. The homunculus moved forward quickly and caught Matt around his throat while he was standing. Nothing in his movements was gentle and he slammed the redhead back against the wall with more strength than a normal human could ever have.
"How do you want to die, Matt?" Envy asked, grinning up at him. "Gutted? Skinned? Beheaded? Strangled? Come on, Matt. I know you can be creative. If you want to be eaten alive, I can do that, too." The more he spoke, the tighter his fingers got around Matt's throat. "I can rip you apart with one hand."
Fuck that hurt. The light appeared again, briefly, and Matt dizzily wondered why the fuck everyone liked holding him against walls by his neck; it hurt and it was stupid and he could barely breathe. He clawed at Envy's hand in an effort to loosen it, wondering if kicking him in Certain Areas would have the same effect as it had had on Kadaj.
"How about in a plane crash?" he finally wheezed, glaring down at Envy through the blur the pain in his head was stirring up. "I always thought that would be quick and fiery. Or a car crash. I could crash into you." This time was so much like the time with Kadaj that he didn't bother being scared, even as he processed the fact that, unlike the time with Kadaj, he might not walk away from this alive. Which was ironic. This was the first week in a long time he'd spent outside of his apartment with a clear intention to come back. Fear bubbled up in his gut, but he quickly shoved it back down. Fear was fine when it was helping you escape, but in a situation like this it was just useless and crippling.
"You just don't get it, do you, Matt?" Envy asked and cocked his head to the side as he stared up at the stupid bastard. "You're about to die. You're not going to get to say goodbye to your friends, you're not going to get a quick or painless death, and you're not doing to die a hero. I'm going to slaughter you."
A tentacle extended from Envy's back and reached far and wide for the gun that Matt had dropped. Matt loved guns. Maybe he'd enjoy being shot by one of his own. The tentacle brushed over cold metal and wrapped around it. With a roll of his shoulders Envy used two more tentacles to wrap Matt's entire body and arms and press him to the wall, and shoved the gun against his right shoulder.
"I hear bullets can bounce around inside a body and kill you even if it wasn't aimed at a fatal spot."
Matt felt his stomach sink, his breath coming faster as those disgusting appendages wrapped themselves around and held him securely in place. He was getting it now. With Kadaj, at least, he'd repeatedly told him he wasn't there to kill. Envy, on the other hand, had the means and the intent, and now he had his gun. Matt tried not to squirm with unease and disgust.
"Let me down, Envy." He wasn't going to beg; he knew the homunculus was either going to kill him or he wasn't, and nothing he could say would influence that. But he wasn't going down without a fight, either, even if his words were his sharpest tools right now. He thought desperately of the cell phone tucked in his pants pocket, of the keys to his car with the emergency button wired in, sitting uselessly next to the bottle of soda he'd opened that morning. There had to be something he could do to at least let Mello know. He could send Itachi or Rukia or someone. He knew that was cowardly, but he also knew he was next to helpless on his own. He needed a distraction, at the very least. Even just a brief one.
"That depends where you shoot," he half-taunted, his voice a little stronger than he thought it probably should be. "Are you seriously going to kill me with my own fucking gun? That's just lame. I thought you boasted about imagination and all that shit, but given the chance, all you can do is steal my piece and taunt me with it."
"Kill you with this gun?" Envy laughed and shook his head. "I already killed someone with a gun. It was fucking boring and he died right away." No. The gun would only be to hurt Matt, because Envy wasn't going to use something human to kill someone else. With his strength and intelligence, he'd already long thought of a way to tear Matt apart. It would hurt like fucking hell.
Envy pulled the trigger and fired a bullet at point-blank range into Matt's right shoulder so that it would hurt, but not kill him. The sound was loud and hurt Envy's ears being so close to it, but that was just fine. Because he'd just gotten to shoot Matt. The little fuckface who had only ever pretended to be Envy's friend to stay on his good side. "And to think that once I almost liked you," he added as an after-thought.
The explosion of pain pulled a strangled cry from Matt's throat. He'd never been very good with it, and even after all the gunfights he'd found himself privy to in New York, this was the first time he'd ever actually caught a bullet. It felt like Envy had set his shoulder on fire, and the burn only spread.
"Fuck you," he spat breathlessly. He was panting and squirming and it was all just making him hurt more, but with that gun still pressed painfully against him he could hardly make himself stop. "You stupid little bugger, you're the one who actually believed me. I should have crashed the car with you in it while I had the chance." He was being irrational now, but he didn't care. That gun fucking hurt.
Envy slammed the butt of the gun into Matt's shoulder where the bleeding wound was and then threw the gun far off to the side. "If you had crashed it, I would have been the only one to survive. You see, Matt, you and Mello are these weak little things called humans.."
Envy stepped back, lifted Matt into the air with the tentacles, and slammed him down hard onto the ground.
"You break easily."
Envy slammed him into the wall again.
"You scare easily."
The ground again.
"You die pretty fucking easily, too."
Envy doubled his strength to slam Matt from the ground, to the wall, to the ground again. Then he stepped on the redhead's shoulder and leaned his weight into it. Maybe Matt would suffocate from all the pain first.
"Me? I'm perfect. You can fucking shoot me in the head a hundred times and I'll come back. I'll always come back, Matt. But you humans just die and it's really fucking hard to play with your bodies when they break and don't repair."
Matt could barely hear Envy through the ringing in his head. He couldn't move, he couldn't think, and even breathing grated against something rough and fragile in his chest. He'd never studied medicine, one of the few things he'd never cared to see if he could learn, but even a quick assessment of the blinding pain shooting up from every inch of his body was enough to tell him this alone was probably enough to kill him. If he didn't have a concussion, he'd certainly punctured something vital with at least one broken rib, and Envy's words weren't helping. He cursed his own fragile human body and wondered yet again why he hadn't let it get shot up three years ago, it couldn't have hurt as badly as this did.
How ironic that he'd promised Rukia only days ago that he wouldn't do anything stupid to get himself killed. He wondered if this counted. She was going to murder him either way.
"Lemme shoot you, then," he gurgled after a moment. He could taste blood in his mouth. Fuck, that was never good. He tried turning his head to glare at Envy but winced and was forced to stop when a searing pain flared up in his neck from the bullet wound in his shoulder. That was when what was happening really set in, and Christ, it just wasn't fair. Envy had barely even done anything. Death by Yagami's book would have been a lot simpler. Or even by those machine guns like he was supposed to. Really, the whole thing felt a little too Final Destination to him, and he had to scoff at the shinigami's sense of humor. Wasn't sending Envy after him kind of overkill? He knew he wasn't that important.
He couldn't remember what he'd just said. Then he did, and he scowled, forcing more words out despite the rough pain in his throat. "Lemme just shoot you once, if it's so fucking useless. It'll at least make me feel better, you coward."
"Oh, I don't think so, Mattiekins," Envy laughed and shoved his foot down harder. "That would be assuming you can even still hold a gun anyway, and I'm sure you can't."
Envy crouched down on top of Matt with his entire body and hung his arms over his knees. It was so easy to kill humans. It really was. When he and Greed fought, they could kill each other for hours and keep coming back. That was a real fight. With a fucking human they just fell apart on you. And with the way Matt was already coughing up blood, he would probably die if Envy left him there.
But Envy wanted to kill him his way. A creative way. Tentacles still in place keeping Matt down (not that he was likely to be able to move now anyway), Envy feigned a pout. Then he removed Matt's goggles from his head and studied them.
"Do you even know how fucking stupid these make you look? Like you're a little kid with some new, high level of brain disease." Envy broke them with one hand and let all the pieces tumble onto Matt. When he tried studying the bleeding redhead he started laughing. "I guess I was wrong. You look the same even without them. Any last words, dipshit?"
Matt grimaced. The point of pain in his shoulder wasn't a point anymore, but a source for the shards of it that seemed to follow his skeletal structure and flare out through the rest of his body. He tried to remember why this wasn't such a bad thing, but it was difficult. None of his half-assed attempts had included being tossed around like a ragdoll by someone he loathed as much as Envy. Of all the fucking pathetic ways to go...
Envy's outline was a little blurred as he glared up at him. Everything was kind of surreal. He was finding it hard to believe that the bastard was actually going to kill him-already had killed him, in all probability-and maybe that was why he was trying to chuckle, despite the ache it roused in his chest. Envy was trying to hurt him with his looks? Now? Of all the stupid fucking things...
"What a fucking moron," he thought aloud, squinting now to see Envy better. "Trying to insult me like you really believe I care what the fuck you think. Yeah, I have some last words. I'm not mad at you. I don't really give a shit about what you're doing. I only had a couple years left anyway, three tops, so really you're just saving me a hospital bill. Thanks for that. Killing a human. How horribly fucking horrible. You should pat yourself on the back when you get home; you've really accomplished something today. Ask Greed to give you a gold star or something, you won't get any awe from me."
He was pretty sure he'd ripped open a lung, because he had to turn his head to the side and spit before he choked on the blood pooling in his throat. He peered up at Envy again with a painful eyebrow raised. "Is this it? You're just gonna talk me the rest of the way to death? Figures." He chuckled again. "Being bored to death by you's as quick a way to go as any." He hoped it really was quick. Lying prone on the ground without the strength to even throw a punch or two was ridiculously humiliating.
"Remember Mello?" Envy asked calmly and stood off of Matt. All but one tentacle unwound from him since he couldn't fight anyway. "Rukia? All your little fucking pathetic friends? They're going to cry over your death, and I'm going to win. I'm going to win because in succeeding with your death, it won't just destroy you, but their weak little hearts as well."
Envy tossed Matt carelessly onto his stomach and stood over him with one foot on either side. Matt's clothing was really fucking annoying. With one knifed-finger Envy sliced the back of Matt's shirt open so he could study the bruised back he was presented with. There were probably some broken ribs which would make things a little more difficult, but that was fine.
The small homunculus ran one slender finger down Matt's spine, up again, and once he reached the middle, he shoved it through Matt's back. He loved the sound of slicing into skin.
"I have feelings, too, Matt," Envy laughed as he wrapped that one finger around Matt's spine and gave it a tug. "You always acted like I was just some monster. And maybe I still am a monster. But monsters have feelings just like you. If you were smart, you'd know to never step on those feelings. Monsters are what make people disappear."
Matt had been trying very hard not to think of Mello and Rukia during all this. He thought again of the phone in his pocket and decided in that moment that it just wasn't worth it. Pain laced through him again as he was rolled over and he shuddered with it and disgust when he felt Envy touching the bare, mottled skin of his back. At least Mello had Itachi now; he wouldn't be alone in that apartment with Chadwick. Chadwick. Christ. He hoped Chadwick got along okay. He hadn't gotten a chance to tell him about the Vanquish. And Rukia, ugh, he didn't want to think about Rukia. He'd promised to do so much stuff with her. And right after that fucking conversation about what would happen if this happened, too. What shitty timing. He'd been an idiot for thinking this was okay with him in the first place. But Christ, he thought he'd at least be able to fight back a little, instead of gasping in pain and trying not to curl up when he felt Envy manhandling him like a toy.
The sudden jab was completely unexpected. Matt cried out as his body shook with the pain, knives shooting up and down his back as he felt himself being tugged. He tried to squirm out of the way, but that only made it worse, and when he realized what the homunculus was doing he started shaking with the effort not to throw up. "What the fuck, Envy!" Any comebacks he'd been preparing were gone in that one instant. He felt feverish, that finger hurt so much. He wanted to writhe, but that only made the rest of his body ache too. "It's not enough that I'm fucking...whatever, you have to fuck with me, too?"
Envy sat back on his heels and looked up at the sky as the wind blew his long hair over his face. He and Greed should have been spending time together right now. Valentine's Day had been so nice and they had been so happy. But today was a different day. Today, Envy needed to destroy someone he truly hated. Someone who had used him and lied to him.
"I don't like liars, Matt," Envy explained. "I don't like it when people tell me one thing and mean another. I'm sick of people pretending to be my fucking friend, Matt. Sasuke, Yukimura, you, Mello, Gaara. All of you. You're all the fucking monsters. I'm the victim here."
The more Envy spoke, the more he could feel his anger rising. It felt like his entire body was on fire even though it was normally cooler than a human's.
"I've spent centuries being abandoned and betrayed. Centuries, you little fuck. After four centuries you came along and thought you could fuck with me. I warned you. I fucking warned you and you didn't listen."
Envy didn't remove his finger and slowly stood so that he was hunched over Matt's back. It was such a thrill to kill people. He used to do it daily and since coming to this disgusting human world he hadn't been able to do it as often as he liked.
"Don't you dare blame this on me. Don't you fucking dare. This is your fault and Greed's fault and Gaara's fault. This is Mello's fault for not being here to save you. This is Rukia's fault for turning you into a fucking baby. This is your fault for betraying me and not being my friend."
Envy's eyes were wild when he shoved the rest of his hand into Matt's back, gripped onto his spine, and pulled from the center. With Greed, he had ripped his spine out from the top to behead him.
Now, with Matt, he was tearing his spine straight out of his back in a way that would keep his ribs (the ones not broken) completely in-tact once they were freed from their prison.
Matt screamed. He couldn't help it. He thought he'd been pretty good about the pain so far, actually, but this was just way too much. He didn't even know what Envy was doing, just that he'd never even imagined something could hurt this much, and the ripping sound only made it worse, and that very suddenly and unexpectedly he couldn't move, and it felt like someone had dipped him in a vat of freezing liquid to put out the massive fire that had rolled through him.
His lungs weren't working. Before he could suffocate, though, he numbly realized that nothing else was either, and that he couldn't really see anything, and holy fuck that stupid bastard really had killed, him, hadn't he. He could have at least given Matt a last phone call or something he hadn't even told Mello he was going out, he still had a bunch of fucking comments open in his inbox, viruses half-written and a DDR song on pause. He'd just gone out for some fucking cigarettes. All that time he'd spent with Misa trying to get Yagami mad enough to kill him, and this was how it happened? It felt like he was the butt of some stupid cosmic joke, the one about the guy who escaped death and spent the rest of his life trying to find it again, only to be granted it after he'd promised to shape up again. Har fucking har. He hated Mello's God.
And Toushirou. Christ. He supposed he could think of Toushirou again if he was actually dying. Somehow he'd always known he wouldn't see him again before this happened, but somehow he'd always hoped otherwise, too. He supposed this was fair. He'd been the one to insist it wasn't going to work anyway.
He was having trouble thinking, his thoughts coming through like they were rolling in molasses, whatever the fuck that was. It had only been a second or two, he realized suddenly, and his brain was already shutting down. Well that was kind of nice. He wished he could have shut it down like this sooner. It was kind of quiet, only being able to think of a few things at once; like being drunk, only without the nausea. And now that the pain was gone, dying really wasn't so bad. Kind of scary to think that he'd never think again. Maybe it would be better for Mello, since he still managed to believe in God somehow. He hoped it would be. And he hoped no one he knew would see him like this. It was kind of embarrassing to be stripped like a fish. He'd tell Rukia not to do anything about it if he could. Envy really wasn't worth that.
And that was it, really. He couldn't force his brain to come up with anything else. It was a little like falling asleep, only quicker; he knew his sense of time was messed up right now. His thoughts faded with his eyesight, until everything was just black.
With a smug grin Envy watched Matt die. The way it felt to watch the life drain out of the fucker was liberating. This, he thought, was the way he had to kill them all. Gaara, Sasuke, Mello, and all the others in the past who had left. They had no fucking idea what they had unleashed. Envy was far stronger now than he had been before.
To finish things up, Envy crouched down to the spine and ribcage and began to snap off the ribs one at a time. Some were cracked or broken due to the beatings Matt had received, but that was fine. Once off, Envy broke them all into smaller pieces. Rukia would find Matt. Envy would tell her where he was. This would be a special message for her when she got there.
Envy finished five minutes later and left a bloody trail of footprints behind him. A portal of darkness opened in the air and he stepped through it so that the trail ended. Before he let it close behind him, he looked over his shoulder at the heart he'd made of bloodied bones around Matt's body, laughed, and vanished into thin air.
What: ...well.
When: now
Where: Tokyo
Why: Something about starting a war? idk ;__;
Rated: I wanna say hard R.
Envy clenched his hands into fists and alternated between releasing and squeezing them. The last time he had been this angry . . . he couldn't remember. It had been a while since he'd snapped and wanted to kill someone just to watch that person writhe in agony as their blood drained away and made pretty patterns on the ground. When Envy's fights with Greed were bad, this was how angry he'd get. So fucking angry that he was crazy. It was like he was his old self again and it made him miss those days. Those days were when he could kill anything and anyone and not feel any remorse. Now he had to make sure it wasn't someone he cared about or someone a friend cared about.
The fury was pouring off him in waves as he stalked down the streets of Tokyo, eyes looking for nothing but someone he could take his anger out on. It was easy enough to kill a weak human, and it made him feel great. It was like he was in a daze as he walked, shoes scraping on the asphalt. When he rounded the corner to what used to be a familiar area, he didn't even blink.
Matt had been on a pretty good kick this week. He'd flown to America briefly to see the vampires, which had been...interesting, he'd been to see Misa once or twice, and he'd even taken Chadwick for a walk just yesterday. After the weeks he'd spent holed up indoors for days and days on end, it'd felt nice to finally get out of there for a while, and for so often. So he'd actually made the trek to the convenience store a couple blocks away for the cigarettes that were nearly two hundred yen cheaper. He'd spent the leftover on those stale candy hearts released for Valentine's Day. Chadwick was addicted again.
So the very last thing he expected to see when he walked out of the front doors was Envy, and if he weren't so surprised he might have turned around and walked right back inside. As it was, though, he simply stopped in his tracks and stared, and let loose the first thing that came to mind.
"What the fuck are you doing here?"
Envy stopped immediately when he heard someone speaking in an unfriendly tone and he was fairly certain it was directed at him. The homunculus glanced up beneath his wild hair and it took him a moment to place where he knew the guy from. Red hair, dressed like an idiot. Envy stopped moving his hands and kept them clenched so that his nails dug into his skin. It was hard to remember the last time he'd seen the bastard. It might have been on that stupid fucking car ride. What Envy really couldn't remember was how long he had wanted to kill Matt.
"It looks like I'm walking," Envy hissed, his voice strained. "Is it that hard to see?"
It might be fun, he thought, to tear Matt limb from limb. They had been threatening each other for so long and the idiot redhead hadn't ever believed that Envy would do it. It was time to correct that mistake; Envy was in the perfect mood for it.
Matt believed that Envy would do it now, though, every inch of Envy's short frame screaming rage and violence. He took a step back and urged the cigarette to the side of his mouth so that he could speak more clearly around it.
"Well, go walk somewhere else," he said irritably, and as he did his immediate fear lessened and he was able to give the homunculus and annoyed look. "Christ, you look like a walking seaweed rag."
"Really?" Envy laughed and tossed his messy hair. He didn't always brush it. Sometimes he liked the way it looked when it was messy. "Do you really think it's smart, Matt, to be so disrespectful?"
Envy's fingers lengthened into claws as sharp as knives and he studied one hand like it was a prized possession. Then, with a grin, he looked over them at Matt.
"Do you really think I'm going to let you talk to me that way? Like you're not some pathetic human bug?"
Matt resisted the urge to take another step back as his gut twisted with his natural tendencies toward self-preservation; he knew that if Envy meant that another two feet would hardly matter. "I think," he said slowly, mind turning over for any hint of an escape from this, "that it's a beautiful day out, and I know you don't smoke but I do, and I just bought some more, so if you like candy hearts I guess you can take Chadwick's, but otherwise shouldn't we just go about our own separate ways?"
Candy? Matt was trying to bribe Envy with candy like he was some fucking baby? Envy was tired of people not taking him seriously. Not even Greed took him seriously. The stupid bastard seemed to forget that Envy had the means to seal-and even kill him-if he wanted. They didn't know just how powerful he was.
"I don't like candy hearts." Envy's grin was wider and he moved forward. "They're not nearly as sweet as the real thing. If you run fast enough and get yours moving, it'll taste even better."
Matt moved back, keeping what he hoped was a respectable distance between them. A dozen thoughts ran through his mind-what Mello was doing, how far away his apartment was, how long it would take for him to reach for his phone, how long it would take Envy to gut him if he tried-but outwardly he managed to not look anything but mildly confused, and maybe a little apologetic that Envy didn't enjoy the main holiday treat.
"I'd offer you chocolate, but Mello ate it all," he joked, quickening his step just a little. He was far from graceful, though, and he knew it; he was already pushing the speed it would take for him to trip and crack his head open. "Uh. I think I have gum?"
There were a lot of things that pissed Envy off. Crying babies, loud women, smelly humans, flea-ridden dogs, liars, traitors, those who abandoned others. But what he really hated was being treated like less than who he was. Dante was able to get away with it because she had what could destroy him.
Matt, though. Matt had nothing but a silly gun that was like a toy to Envy. A bullet would pierce his skin and heal within seconds. The fact of the matter was that Envy had been searching for someone to tear apart and now he'd found the perfect prey. An unimportant, weak, fucking stupid human who had done nothing but tried to make his life hell. There wasn't much better than slaughtering someone you hated. Matt had been on that list for a long time.
Envy cracked his neck. The normal and smooth shape of his eyes had morphed into the crazed ones of the killer he was and they glowed with the very thought of finally destroying someone who meant something to others. Matt's death would continue to hurt even after he was gone.
Envy lunged forward. "Think I'll have some of you."
Matt tripped over his own feet and fell over backwards with a squeaked curse. He ignored the pain that shot through his hands as they scraped over the rough cement and scrambled to the side, trying to get back to his feet again so that he could run. Part of him suspected that Envy was just teasing him, that he'd get back up and Envy would be laughing and making fun of him for his reaction, but a much, much larger part recognized that look he'd gotten in his eyes, and knew it was better to be safe than sorry.
Now Matt was scared, wasn't he? Fucking good. The little fucking bastard had been cocky for far too long and it was time that stopped. Envy wasn't going to let the shithead act like he was perfectly safe any longer. This was something that Envy should have done a year ago, but he supposed it was better late than never.
He could feel the blood rushing through his body and making his heart race as he pictured how Matt would look splattered beneath him. The clumsy idiot had tripped but Envy would have caught him anyway. As Matt scrambled to his feet, Envy fell onto him. Envy couldn't have weighed much over a hundred pounds but that didn't mean he wasn't strong. Even with his small frame he could easily lift hundreds-if not thousands-of pounds.
Matt fell again, painfully, and immediately started to kick, the movement more a reflex than anything else as he struggled to throw the homunculus off of him before he could do any real damage. There was no doubt anymore; Envy wasn't fooling around, he was here to hurt Matt, and the last thing Matt wanted was another Kadaj incident. He rolled onto his back and fumbled for his gun, the glock, the one he'd been forcing himself to carry around no matter what since his last random attack on the street. "Get off he grunted angrily, as if it would really help, "you stupid little spider monkey."
Spider monkey, huh? Envy's laughter was wild and as his body began to shift, his voice grew drier. Instead of four long limbs with smooth skin, they became eight with bristled hair. Instead of two purple eyes, they grew into eight black ones as dark as coal. There wasn't really such a thing as a beautiful spider-not with the way they moved all eight legs that supported that huge body. Thick fangs clicked together and a stinger as sharp as a blade threatened to drive itself into Matt's body. The giant spider was easily the length of Matt, and three times his width.
"Now," Envy laughed, "why don't we see if we can peel off your skin and make your face match your hair?"
Matt blanched. The knowledge that Envy was not a real spider didn't make him feel any less real, or look it. An involuntary shudder rolled through him, and he fought back the urge to retch.
"You're sick," he said shakily. He tried pulling himself back out from underneath that disgusting form. He had the gun in his hand now, but hesitated at firing at that thick exoskeleton, thumb hovering over the safety just after flicking it off. "Although I guess it's all right that your body matches your bug-eating brain now." If he thought about making fun of him hard enough, he wouldn't have any brainpower left to let himself be sick.
The form Envy was in was shaking Matt up. What a fucking coward; he was afraid of a spider that wasn't even real. What else was he afraid of? Envy's large frame shrunk down to a leather-clad one with one of the worst haircuts in existence and the ugliest scar along one side of his face. The skin began melting away to expose rotting muscle and white bone. One eye sagged from its socket and tumbled out to hang at his cheek.
"Is this better?" Mello's corpse asked. "This is more your style. Ugly, imperfect, easily killed." Envy grinned with Mello's rotting face and it stretched torn lips so that blackened gums were revealed. He leaned down quickly to kiss Matt as hard as he could.
This time Matt had to fight back an actual surge of bile in his throat, not really because it was Mello-he'd never minded the scars, and the fact that he was rotting or whatever was more stupid than gross and way more gory in some of the choice horror films he'd watched-but because it was Envy pretending to be Mello, and this bastard had fucked Arrancar and stuff, and the last thing Matt wanted was to feel his tongue down his throat.
He shoved Envy off of him as hard as he could, wiping a hand across the back of his mouth and spitting to get rid of the taste. "You fuck." That wasn't Mello to him, he wasn't that stupid. "Next time keep your own shape if you want to kiss me so badly, it'll make it that much easier to throw up in your mouth."
Envy landed in an easy crouch and the disgusting appearance of Mello melted away to be replaced the perfect form of himself. "I'd never kiss you like this," Envy purred. "This is saved for two people only." It was fun to fuck with people without physically hurting them. It made them suffer in ways that physical pain couldn't and Envy had had four centuries to master that.
But now he wanted to see blood. There couldn't be real death without blood. Envy grabbed Matt's feet and started walking backwards with them. "I think I'm tired of playing. Aren't you?"
Matt didn't hesitate this time. As soon as Envy was in his own form he breathed a sigh of relief, his next action made much easier whether that was the real Mello before him or not, and as soon as he felt himself being dragged he raised the gun and fired off a couple shots point-blank at Envy's chest. Two was the number it took for him to remember he hadn't brought any extra clips with him. He had ten bullets-eight now-and he wasn't dumb enough to think a little bitty 9mm would be able to stop someone like Envy. Maybe if he shot strategically...
"Let. Go." Maybe in the head? Maybe in the eye. He could do that, headshots were easy enough in his games and bullseyes were always better. Or maybe in the feet, and he could run and call someone while Envy was healing from it. Rukia, maybe; she had a sword. He hated to get her involved, but he knew he was pretty much useless on his own. The thought made him curse.
The bullets hit Envy's small body and tore right through. They hurt like hell. Envy fucking hated pain and it forced him to let go of Matt so that he could stumble back. There was blood coating him front and back now and even as the wounds began to heal and push the bullets back out, they hurt. They hurt something fucking fierce and Envy clenched his jaws in agony to keep from making any sounds. Matt didn't think shooting him was going to make him win, did he?
Envy took his bloodied hands away from his chest and glared darkly at Matt. "You ruined my cute shirt," he hissed. "I hope you had a chance to say your fucking goodbyes to everyone before you left, because you won't ever be seeing them again."
Envy darted in again, lower in case Matt tried firing another shot where he had been standing, and grabbed his feet once more. Instead of dragging, though, he used his inhuman strength to throw Matt through the air and into the nearest building.
Matt managed to squeeze off another shot as soon as he saw Envy move, but the homunculus was faster, and he barely had time to register that he'd missed before he was being tossed into a very big, very hard wall. This was not the first time, and while he'd never seen stars when his head had been thrust against solid objects, he did see a brief flash of light, and falling to the ground afterwards barely registered on the same scale of pain.
It took a moment or two for his head to clear enough to think past the throbbing ache in the back of it, and when he ran a hand through his hair it came away wet. He didn't know where the gun was, let alone his bag of convenience store goodies. He didn't know if it made any difference anyway. He swore in some random language, maybe English, and tried finding his balance back so he could push himself up to his feet.
Envy wasn't going to let Matt get very far. He wanted to break him up and make him suffer. The homunculus moved forward quickly and caught Matt around his throat while he was standing. Nothing in his movements was gentle and he slammed the redhead back against the wall with more strength than a normal human could ever have.
"How do you want to die, Matt?" Envy asked, grinning up at him. "Gutted? Skinned? Beheaded? Strangled? Come on, Matt. I know you can be creative. If you want to be eaten alive, I can do that, too." The more he spoke, the tighter his fingers got around Matt's throat. "I can rip you apart with one hand."
Fuck that hurt. The light appeared again, briefly, and Matt dizzily wondered why the fuck everyone liked holding him against walls by his neck; it hurt and it was stupid and he could barely breathe. He clawed at Envy's hand in an effort to loosen it, wondering if kicking him in Certain Areas would have the same effect as it had had on Kadaj.
"How about in a plane crash?" he finally wheezed, glaring down at Envy through the blur the pain in his head was stirring up. "I always thought that would be quick and fiery. Or a car crash. I could crash into you." This time was so much like the time with Kadaj that he didn't bother being scared, even as he processed the fact that, unlike the time with Kadaj, he might not walk away from this alive. Which was ironic. This was the first week in a long time he'd spent outside of his apartment with a clear intention to come back. Fear bubbled up in his gut, but he quickly shoved it back down. Fear was fine when it was helping you escape, but in a situation like this it was just useless and crippling.
"You just don't get it, do you, Matt?" Envy asked and cocked his head to the side as he stared up at the stupid bastard. "You're about to die. You're not going to get to say goodbye to your friends, you're not going to get a quick or painless death, and you're not doing to die a hero. I'm going to slaughter you."
A tentacle extended from Envy's back and reached far and wide for the gun that Matt had dropped. Matt loved guns. Maybe he'd enjoy being shot by one of his own. The tentacle brushed over cold metal and wrapped around it. With a roll of his shoulders Envy used two more tentacles to wrap Matt's entire body and arms and press him to the wall, and shoved the gun against his right shoulder.
"I hear bullets can bounce around inside a body and kill you even if it wasn't aimed at a fatal spot."
Matt felt his stomach sink, his breath coming faster as those disgusting appendages wrapped themselves around and held him securely in place. He was getting it now. With Kadaj, at least, he'd repeatedly told him he wasn't there to kill. Envy, on the other hand, had the means and the intent, and now he had his gun. Matt tried not to squirm with unease and disgust.
"Let me down, Envy." He wasn't going to beg; he knew the homunculus was either going to kill him or he wasn't, and nothing he could say would influence that. But he wasn't going down without a fight, either, even if his words were his sharpest tools right now. He thought desperately of the cell phone tucked in his pants pocket, of the keys to his car with the emergency button wired in, sitting uselessly next to the bottle of soda he'd opened that morning. There had to be something he could do to at least let Mello know. He could send Itachi or Rukia or someone. He knew that was cowardly, but he also knew he was next to helpless on his own. He needed a distraction, at the very least. Even just a brief one.
"That depends where you shoot," he half-taunted, his voice a little stronger than he thought it probably should be. "Are you seriously going to kill me with my own fucking gun? That's just lame. I thought you boasted about imagination and all that shit, but given the chance, all you can do is steal my piece and taunt me with it."
"Kill you with this gun?" Envy laughed and shook his head. "I already killed someone with a gun. It was fucking boring and he died right away." No. The gun would only be to hurt Matt, because Envy wasn't going to use something human to kill someone else. With his strength and intelligence, he'd already long thought of a way to tear Matt apart. It would hurt like fucking hell.
Envy pulled the trigger and fired a bullet at point-blank range into Matt's right shoulder so that it would hurt, but not kill him. The sound was loud and hurt Envy's ears being so close to it, but that was just fine. Because he'd just gotten to shoot Matt. The little fuckface who had only ever pretended to be Envy's friend to stay on his good side. "And to think that once I almost liked you," he added as an after-thought.
The explosion of pain pulled a strangled cry from Matt's throat. He'd never been very good with it, and even after all the gunfights he'd found himself privy to in New York, this was the first time he'd ever actually caught a bullet. It felt like Envy had set his shoulder on fire, and the burn only spread.
"Fuck you," he spat breathlessly. He was panting and squirming and it was all just making him hurt more, but with that gun still pressed painfully against him he could hardly make himself stop. "You stupid little bugger, you're the one who actually believed me. I should have crashed the car with you in it while I had the chance." He was being irrational now, but he didn't care. That gun fucking hurt.
Envy slammed the butt of the gun into Matt's shoulder where the bleeding wound was and then threw the gun far off to the side. "If you had crashed it, I would have been the only one to survive. You see, Matt, you and Mello are these weak little things called humans.."
Envy stepped back, lifted Matt into the air with the tentacles, and slammed him down hard onto the ground.
"You break easily."
Envy slammed him into the wall again.
"You scare easily."
The ground again.
"You die pretty fucking easily, too."
Envy doubled his strength to slam Matt from the ground, to the wall, to the ground again. Then he stepped on the redhead's shoulder and leaned his weight into it. Maybe Matt would suffocate from all the pain first.
"Me? I'm perfect. You can fucking shoot me in the head a hundred times and I'll come back. I'll always come back, Matt. But you humans just die and it's really fucking hard to play with your bodies when they break and don't repair."
Matt could barely hear Envy through the ringing in his head. He couldn't move, he couldn't think, and even breathing grated against something rough and fragile in his chest. He'd never studied medicine, one of the few things he'd never cared to see if he could learn, but even a quick assessment of the blinding pain shooting up from every inch of his body was enough to tell him this alone was probably enough to kill him. If he didn't have a concussion, he'd certainly punctured something vital with at least one broken rib, and Envy's words weren't helping. He cursed his own fragile human body and wondered yet again why he hadn't let it get shot up three years ago, it couldn't have hurt as badly as this did.
How ironic that he'd promised Rukia only days ago that he wouldn't do anything stupid to get himself killed. He wondered if this counted. She was going to murder him either way.
"Lemme shoot you, then," he gurgled after a moment. He could taste blood in his mouth. Fuck, that was never good. He tried turning his head to glare at Envy but winced and was forced to stop when a searing pain flared up in his neck from the bullet wound in his shoulder. That was when what was happening really set in, and Christ, it just wasn't fair. Envy had barely even done anything. Death by Yagami's book would have been a lot simpler. Or even by those machine guns like he was supposed to. Really, the whole thing felt a little too Final Destination to him, and he had to scoff at the shinigami's sense of humor. Wasn't sending Envy after him kind of overkill? He knew he wasn't that important.
He couldn't remember what he'd just said. Then he did, and he scowled, forcing more words out despite the rough pain in his throat. "Lemme just shoot you once, if it's so fucking useless. It'll at least make me feel better, you coward."
"Oh, I don't think so, Mattiekins," Envy laughed and shoved his foot down harder. "That would be assuming you can even still hold a gun anyway, and I'm sure you can't."
Envy crouched down on top of Matt with his entire body and hung his arms over his knees. It was so easy to kill humans. It really was. When he and Greed fought, they could kill each other for hours and keep coming back. That was a real fight. With a fucking human they just fell apart on you. And with the way Matt was already coughing up blood, he would probably die if Envy left him there.
But Envy wanted to kill him his way. A creative way. Tentacles still in place keeping Matt down (not that he was likely to be able to move now anyway), Envy feigned a pout. Then he removed Matt's goggles from his head and studied them.
"Do you even know how fucking stupid these make you look? Like you're a little kid with some new, high level of brain disease." Envy broke them with one hand and let all the pieces tumble onto Matt. When he tried studying the bleeding redhead he started laughing. "I guess I was wrong. You look the same even without them. Any last words, dipshit?"
Matt grimaced. The point of pain in his shoulder wasn't a point anymore, but a source for the shards of it that seemed to follow his skeletal structure and flare out through the rest of his body. He tried to remember why this wasn't such a bad thing, but it was difficult. None of his half-assed attempts had included being tossed around like a ragdoll by someone he loathed as much as Envy. Of all the fucking pathetic ways to go...
Envy's outline was a little blurred as he glared up at him. Everything was kind of surreal. He was finding it hard to believe that the bastard was actually going to kill him-already had killed him, in all probability-and maybe that was why he was trying to chuckle, despite the ache it roused in his chest. Envy was trying to hurt him with his looks? Now? Of all the stupid fucking things...
"What a fucking moron," he thought aloud, squinting now to see Envy better. "Trying to insult me like you really believe I care what the fuck you think. Yeah, I have some last words. I'm not mad at you. I don't really give a shit about what you're doing. I only had a couple years left anyway, three tops, so really you're just saving me a hospital bill. Thanks for that. Killing a human. How horribly fucking horrible. You should pat yourself on the back when you get home; you've really accomplished something today. Ask Greed to give you a gold star or something, you won't get any awe from me."
He was pretty sure he'd ripped open a lung, because he had to turn his head to the side and spit before he choked on the blood pooling in his throat. He peered up at Envy again with a painful eyebrow raised. "Is this it? You're just gonna talk me the rest of the way to death? Figures." He chuckled again. "Being bored to death by you's as quick a way to go as any." He hoped it really was quick. Lying prone on the ground without the strength to even throw a punch or two was ridiculously humiliating.
"Remember Mello?" Envy asked calmly and stood off of Matt. All but one tentacle unwound from him since he couldn't fight anyway. "Rukia? All your little fucking pathetic friends? They're going to cry over your death, and I'm going to win. I'm going to win because in succeeding with your death, it won't just destroy you, but their weak little hearts as well."
Envy tossed Matt carelessly onto his stomach and stood over him with one foot on either side. Matt's clothing was really fucking annoying. With one knifed-finger Envy sliced the back of Matt's shirt open so he could study the bruised back he was presented with. There were probably some broken ribs which would make things a little more difficult, but that was fine.
The small homunculus ran one slender finger down Matt's spine, up again, and once he reached the middle, he shoved it through Matt's back. He loved the sound of slicing into skin.
"I have feelings, too, Matt," Envy laughed as he wrapped that one finger around Matt's spine and gave it a tug. "You always acted like I was just some monster. And maybe I still am a monster. But monsters have feelings just like you. If you were smart, you'd know to never step on those feelings. Monsters are what make people disappear."
Matt had been trying very hard not to think of Mello and Rukia during all this. He thought again of the phone in his pocket and decided in that moment that it just wasn't worth it. Pain laced through him again as he was rolled over and he shuddered with it and disgust when he felt Envy touching the bare, mottled skin of his back. At least Mello had Itachi now; he wouldn't be alone in that apartment with Chadwick. Chadwick. Christ. He hoped Chadwick got along okay. He hadn't gotten a chance to tell him about the Vanquish. And Rukia, ugh, he didn't want to think about Rukia. He'd promised to do so much stuff with her. And right after that fucking conversation about what would happen if this happened, too. What shitty timing. He'd been an idiot for thinking this was okay with him in the first place. But Christ, he thought he'd at least be able to fight back a little, instead of gasping in pain and trying not to curl up when he felt Envy manhandling him like a toy.
The sudden jab was completely unexpected. Matt cried out as his body shook with the pain, knives shooting up and down his back as he felt himself being tugged. He tried to squirm out of the way, but that only made it worse, and when he realized what the homunculus was doing he started shaking with the effort not to throw up. "What the fuck, Envy!" Any comebacks he'd been preparing were gone in that one instant. He felt feverish, that finger hurt so much. He wanted to writhe, but that only made the rest of his body ache too. "It's not enough that I'm fucking...whatever, you have to fuck with me, too?"
Envy sat back on his heels and looked up at the sky as the wind blew his long hair over his face. He and Greed should have been spending time together right now. Valentine's Day had been so nice and they had been so happy. But today was a different day. Today, Envy needed to destroy someone he truly hated. Someone who had used him and lied to him.
"I don't like liars, Matt," Envy explained. "I don't like it when people tell me one thing and mean another. I'm sick of people pretending to be my fucking friend, Matt. Sasuke, Yukimura, you, Mello, Gaara. All of you. You're all the fucking monsters. I'm the victim here."
The more Envy spoke, the more he could feel his anger rising. It felt like his entire body was on fire even though it was normally cooler than a human's.
"I've spent centuries being abandoned and betrayed. Centuries, you little fuck. After four centuries you came along and thought you could fuck with me. I warned you. I fucking warned you and you didn't listen."
Envy didn't remove his finger and slowly stood so that he was hunched over Matt's back. It was such a thrill to kill people. He used to do it daily and since coming to this disgusting human world he hadn't been able to do it as often as he liked.
"Don't you dare blame this on me. Don't you fucking dare. This is your fault and Greed's fault and Gaara's fault. This is Mello's fault for not being here to save you. This is Rukia's fault for turning you into a fucking baby. This is your fault for betraying me and not being my friend."
Envy's eyes were wild when he shoved the rest of his hand into Matt's back, gripped onto his spine, and pulled from the center. With Greed, he had ripped his spine out from the top to behead him.
Now, with Matt, he was tearing his spine straight out of his back in a way that would keep his ribs (the ones not broken) completely in-tact once they were freed from their prison.
Matt screamed. He couldn't help it. He thought he'd been pretty good about the pain so far, actually, but this was just way too much. He didn't even know what Envy was doing, just that he'd never even imagined something could hurt this much, and the ripping sound only made it worse, and that very suddenly and unexpectedly he couldn't move, and it felt like someone had dipped him in a vat of freezing liquid to put out the massive fire that had rolled through him.
His lungs weren't working. Before he could suffocate, though, he numbly realized that nothing else was either, and that he couldn't really see anything, and holy fuck that stupid bastard really had killed, him, hadn't he. He could have at least given Matt a last phone call or something he hadn't even told Mello he was going out, he still had a bunch of fucking comments open in his inbox, viruses half-written and a DDR song on pause. He'd just gone out for some fucking cigarettes. All that time he'd spent with Misa trying to get Yagami mad enough to kill him, and this was how it happened? It felt like he was the butt of some stupid cosmic joke, the one about the guy who escaped death and spent the rest of his life trying to find it again, only to be granted it after he'd promised to shape up again. Har fucking har. He hated Mello's God.
And Toushirou. Christ. He supposed he could think of Toushirou again if he was actually dying. Somehow he'd always known he wouldn't see him again before this happened, but somehow he'd always hoped otherwise, too. He supposed this was fair. He'd been the one to insist it wasn't going to work anyway.
He was having trouble thinking, his thoughts coming through like they were rolling in molasses, whatever the fuck that was. It had only been a second or two, he realized suddenly, and his brain was already shutting down. Well that was kind of nice. He wished he could have shut it down like this sooner. It was kind of quiet, only being able to think of a few things at once; like being drunk, only without the nausea. And now that the pain was gone, dying really wasn't so bad. Kind of scary to think that he'd never think again. Maybe it would be better for Mello, since he still managed to believe in God somehow. He hoped it would be. And he hoped no one he knew would see him like this. It was kind of embarrassing to be stripped like a fish. He'd tell Rukia not to do anything about it if he could. Envy really wasn't worth that.
And that was it, really. He couldn't force his brain to come up with anything else. It was a little like falling asleep, only quicker; he knew his sense of time was messed up right now. His thoughts faded with his eyesight, until everything was just black.
With a smug grin Envy watched Matt die. The way it felt to watch the life drain out of the fucker was liberating. This, he thought, was the way he had to kill them all. Gaara, Sasuke, Mello, and all the others in the past who had left. They had no fucking idea what they had unleashed. Envy was far stronger now than he had been before.
To finish things up, Envy crouched down to the spine and ribcage and began to snap off the ribs one at a time. Some were cracked or broken due to the beatings Matt had received, but that was fine. Once off, Envy broke them all into smaller pieces. Rukia would find Matt. Envy would tell her where he was. This would be a special message for her when she got there.
Envy finished five minutes later and left a bloody trail of footprints behind him. A portal of darkness opened in the air and he stepped through it so that the trail ended. Before he let it close behind him, he looked over his shoulder at the heart he'd made of bloodied bones around Matt's body, laughed, and vanished into thin air.