The Separation

   "I can't do this!" Matt screamed.

   Hands clasped on either side of his head. He couldn't stop it…all the voices…all the things screeching through his mind. Each clamored for his attention; every minute detail that needed to be analyzed refused to patiently wait for him. They were incessant sirens screaming for his focus. He couldn't do this!

   "Please Mels. I can't." He beseeched the brick wall. The wall that would never be able to answer him. The wall that would never be able to reassure him, to whisper he could. The wall that would never be anything more than a barrier between him and the one he needed most.

   "Please!" He screamed. Fingers dug deep into his scalp, scratching through the skin.

   Stop the voices. Stop the sirens. Stop everything! But he couldn't. He couldn't do anything about it but scream and scream and scream. Hands left his hair, curling in on themselves. Tight fists now before him were perfect vessels of his frustration. Pounding them once…twice…sixteen times into the worn brick. The barrier. The barrier. The barrier that would never come down.

   Pulse racing, chest heaving, breath unreachable. His voice caught in his throat and instead of more screams, sobs now racked through his body. Fingertips pressed tightly to the wall, bracing himself from the dam that could do nothing now but break. Pain. Frustration. Desperation. They welled up so high that his body was no longer a suitable container for the emotions. There was nowhere else to go but out, out of his mind/body in every conceivable fashion.

   Nails scraped hopelessly against decaying brick. Clawing, scratching, reaching through the thick wall keeping him out. Out of the light, out of the truth, out of the place he needed most.

   "Mello…please…" He begged but he knew…none could hear him now.

   There would be no answer, no reassurance of hope or faith. There would be no one to give him peace of mind, to soothe his wounded soul. The ever raging battle in his mind would continue till it consumed him entirely. It would not stop to give him rest and there would be none to lift the burden from his shoulders.

   Mello was gone. Left to live in a world where he couldn't exist. Calculating and cutthroat. A world, Mello said, where Matt didn't belong. Couldn't belong. Shouldn't belong. The barrier now in place, every brick Matt laid with his own hands. Every piece put up to block that one incessant voice out. He thought, oh how he thought, that it was protection. That somehow the wall could keep him sane, safe, and whole. No…

   It tore him to shreds! Screeched at his presence! Persisted his dreams and haunted his every step! The voices, oh the voices, these grated through his mind like the plague. They hammered into his skull and all because of him. The one whose voice he was desperate to shut out, the one who couldn't know…who couldn't understand. It was his to claim. The plague of his mind, the scars along his body, all Mello's to own.

   And now…they had brought him to his lowest. To the blackest part of his existence. Matt knew nothing now than to scratch the wall. To claw at the bricks that he laid so carefully. He wanted their destruction, their obliteration. The wall had to come down! The voices were too loud! Too insisting on his imminent demise! No…he couldn't do it. He couldn't live in the hole he dug himself into.

   He couldn't do it…He couldn't do it.

   "Mello please…"He whispered against the wall.

   Fighting it was useless. The wall crumbled inside of him, joining the countless resolutions that now melted into the hardwood. The bricks silently tumbled to his feet.

   "I can't do this alone…" Matt breathed.