(One more chapter of Doctors Orders and we're finished!)

----------

There is something so tangible about human life. Melone somehow thinks of the word 'significance' when he hears about Formaggio's passing. He's not sure why.

That grief he should feel, he can feel it soon coming. The heavy weight of loss, it'll pin him to his bed and leave him empty, a mass that pulls down his body, he'll be sinking.

But is he allowed to feel grief like that? All that swells in his chest is guilt, when will grief join its wicked partner?

He can hear the nurse down the hall sobbing beneath their covers, muffled and ugly. Risotto had long abandoned the burden of comforting them, for now he resigned himself to his office. The cold, stoic mass of man he is had yet to show regret for giving Formaggio the orders he did.

"A simple miscalculation." He tells his grieving team, like he was just a number he forgot to carry over.

(Y/n) doesn't seem to think it was anyone's fault other than their own. They didn't get to the scene fast enough, so it's their fault, they say. If only they had been faster, if only they had somehow known of his struggle, if they just went with him, it could've been prevented.

There was too many things to consider, so many things they believe they could've done, but those thoughts would do them no good. Still, the sounds of their choked cries refused to dim and cease, and at this point it was starting to cause headaches.

Prosciutto was the first to leave, with Pesci in tow. To some bar, most guessed.

Risotto left next, apparently going to investigate something-- no one bothered to ask about it.

One by one, the rest of the team left, each excuse just as bad as the next. Not like anyone needed an excuse to recover from the loss of a team member.

Melone left, too, once the painful quiet began to mix too well with the echoing cries of the nurse down the hall. It was a struggle peeling his body away from his bed, but to live another moment in the dark pit of his room was to give him another reason to cut and spill himself.

He wasn't even sure where he was going. It was only when he'd made it halfway down the street that it hit him, of course, that he was just wandering. But what was so wrong with that? Maybe he felt it wasn't productive enough, not knowing where he's headed.

But maybe for one day he can allow himself to just be. Not perform or put on a show for others so they're convinced that he's alright, but just let himself be that slice of misery he's so sure he is.

Such self-destructive thoughts were something he would've loved to indulge in, like a bit of candy you can't help yourself to, but he knew (Y/n) would dismantle that desire immediately.

They'd guide him through his emotions and help him along. They'd row the boat through his river of despair and grief, and show him the rainbow in the rain, how the clouds will eventually part and wash everything in a golden light.

(Y/n) would surely do all that, he knows they would, which is why he's such a bastard. He believes so, really, truthfully, because he's out wandering to god knows where, while they're back at the base by themself.

By themself. He hadn't even thought to ask if anyone had stayed behind with them.

On top of the pain they're going through, they were once again left alone to work through it all by themself, to hide away in their office and unravel themself in ragged cries. He wonders, do they feel them sinking like he did? Are they drowning like him?

Well, if he were to ever do one good thing in life, let his return to them be it. Let him set his troubles to the side, and gently wash away their own.

He fondly remembers the day they first came as he turns the street, how he felt a relief with their laugh, how he thought it sounded like a thousand butterflies taking flight from their flowers. Perhaps he's taken for granted such a sound, the privilege of joy.

He smiles at the memory of them exploring his face, puzzling it out like a map, saying what gorgeous eyes he has, what beautiful hair. They could run their fingers through it all day if they really could, they said. And he'd let them.

He remembers the night they talked on the porch, when (Y/n) would ask him to stay with them as they fell to slumber. He remembers sneaking the smallest kiss onto their cheek, and how he kicked his feet in delight of the thrill of it, for they would never know of his quiet confession.

He remembers them preparing meals for him when they discovered his awful eating habits, and the joking lectures about how he needed to be more careful on missions, though he only ever got hurt to watch them fret over him.

And then, he remembered how much they hated to be alone, a grand fear of theirs, how slowly their world would slip away from them as they aged, from specks in their vision to washes of discolor.

And despite that knowledge, that knowing of their only sadness in life, he still left them alone at the base.

He wouldn't do it again, he promised himself, coming to meet the front door. It wouldn't happen again, because now he was sure of himself, and sure that even if he never told them, they would know he cared.

Just beyond the door, he could already hear chaos happening. Something smashed into a finite number of pieces, and there was shouting, something he could barely hear over something else breaking in the background.

In all his years of being in this profession, if there was one thing he learned, it's that stealth is key to every case. The door was left locked and shut, and the window was used to get inside instead. Ironic, how both would've been equally as loud.

But it seemed (Y/n) didn't hear it, or rather couldn't, over their own havoc. Even as he neared their room, silent as ever, they didn't notice him. Odd, he thought, as they realized his presence nearly every other time.

Looking at the ground near the entrance, he thought it odd. It was hard to see, of course, the near-invisible threads that they'd created, but it was even harder to understand how they might've snapped.

"This is why we don't fucking need you!" That voice did not belong to (Y/n), but the scream that came shortly thereafter did. "You can't do shit! It just proves my point, you're goddamn useless!"

And what happened to being alone! Had someone come back before him? He was only gone for nearly fifteen minutes, who would've had the thought to come back sooner?

Not just that, but who would be speaking to them in such a way? The nurse had done all of their obligations every time one arose, patching up the team, fixing a dislocated shoulder or two, and still someone was troubled.

They weren't a wretched person, they never gossiped or spread rumors, they didn't bring anyone down or point out ones flaws-- Now that's not to say they're perfect, because surely they were anything but, though such a distinction wouldn't have been wrong had it been made.

So then who would think otherwise? It only took a staring just a little longer to enlighten Melone with an answer.

The tall, towering mass of a man clad in purple clothing's circled the shaking white smock on the floor, holding some random object in either hand. He spat and cursed and hissed and with each hateful word, the point of his shoe would slam into the weak side of the nurse curled into a ball.

"Just fucking leave the team if you're so inept. Blind bastard, you can't be this goddamn stupid. Get the hell out." Illuso, Melone recognized quickly, sharply threw one of the things in his hands onto their back and let it shatter. "I said to get the hell out!"

A strained noise shot from the nurses bleeding lips as the rubber sole of his boot slammed onto their leg. Apparently, that didn't hurt as much as getting something thrown to their back, though maybe their throat was too sore to cry anymore, or perhaps they were just tired of crying.

Something festered in the broken pieces of his mind, Melone watching as someone oh, so dear to him get stomped and smashed like grapes being made into wine, how they weakened and soon began to slump.

The whimpers (Y/n) made with each impact seemed to become distant, drowning themselves beneath each oncoming plight of pain, because nothing was going to make it stop. In their mind --Melone was sure they thought this-- they would have to put up with it all till the obnoxious groan of the front door interrupted.

His voice finally finds him. "What are you doing?"

Illuso twisted around to look at him, and stared. He blinked, and his fingers began to fumble beside themselves. The red anger on his face began to pale to something faintly guilty, and he dropped whatever was left pinched between his bleeding knuckles.

"This is none of your business." His confident words did nothing to mirror his ghostly complexion. "Why are you back so early."

"I felt bad leaving (Y/n) behind when I left, though I guess I should've come back for a different reason. What did they do?"

"What are you talking about."

"I mean what I said, what did they do? There must be some sort of perfectly logical reason that they're on the floor, near beaten half to death."

"Whatever it is, it's none of your concern."

"It's very much my concern, actually. And it'll be Risotto's, too, if you don't stop."

Illuso seemed to pause, considering for a moment. Any excuse he had, withered, and any will there was to carry forward with his act, died. With a huff, the mirror hanging on the wall became his door, and he slipped into its rippling reflection in silence.

For just a second more, Melone watched the mirror, how it danced and slowed back to a still state, waiting to see if Illuso dared to step back out. When the clock on the wall hit the next minute, and the ragged breathing of (Y/n) on the floor finally became audible again, he accepted that he probably won't see him for a while.

It only took him a moment, a single moment to look at the state of the room as he scooped up the limp body of the nurse, and he recognized something rather peculiar.

Such a dissent into chaos, a madness unwinding, he thought it strange how similar such a scene looked to the average 'breakdown' of the nurse.

"You should've stayed outside, wherever you were." It's the first words he hears (Y/n) say after hours of fixing them, running them though a warm bath and patching up every cut and bruise. It's the same words that make him wish he'd only come back sooner.

"If anything, I shouldn't have left at all. It was selfish of me when you were upset all the same." He replied, finishing a stitch on their thigh. "I'm sorry."

"I wish you never came back."

Melone looks up at them. From where he kneels on the cold bathroom floor, their face and body is mostly shadowed by the overhead light of the bathroom, but the faintest outline showed a wet streak breaching the dryness of their bandaged cheeks.

"What was that?" He says.

The glossy overflow that blurs their white eyes drops in beads. They say it again, words wet and muddled, "I wish you never came back!"

A heart that has already fallen into a thousand pieces, he's sure, can never break again. Though that's to say something else must've been credit to the pain in his chest.

"Why? I thought you would've wanted me to come back." It's all too difficult to get the words out, he nearly needed to take a breath every other syllable just to control the urge to cry.

"I did," They whined, "but I didn't mean for you to actually come, and now he's going to think I told someone and it's going to get worse."

"Illuso's not going to lay even a finger on you anymore. Nobody will as long as I'm around."

"But he said, if anyone found out he was going to-"

"He won't do shit if I tell Risotto."

"Please, don't tell him. Illuso is just going to hate me even more, and I don't want him to."

Melone pulled himself back onto his feet and picked their face up from where it hung towards the floor. He watched as their empty eyes flicked from place to place trying desperately to find him, a effort leaving them unfulfilled and wanting.

"Illuso has always been a bastard who no one has ever bothered to like. Do not concern yourself with him liking you, because there should never be reason to even want that, that shit-stain of a person." He said, stroking their cheeks. "He won't bother you again."

It seemed to finally register to them that everything might be ok. Their shoulders dropped and the gritting of their teeth had come to still, and finally, a peace washed over them, however tense they still were.

With a hesitance so great and movements so slight, their hand carefully navigated the space where his own resided, their cold fingertips brushing along the rough lengths of his fingers as they gently settled atop his own.

"I'm going to be ok?"

Their hands closed on his, and he smiled at the subtle warmth.

"You're going to be ok."