Horrible Violet Kryptonite

If I go crazy, then will you still call me Superman?

— Kryptonite, Three Doors Down

Alfred gripped helplessly at Mattie, ignored the pain in his shattered fingers, grit his teeth and beared it as he held Mattie close, ears deafened by the bombs until it seemed like winter, when sound was muted and everything smothered in snow.

"Al-Alfred?" Mattie whispered, thin fingers reaching up to graze his ashen cheek, violet eyes so wide and intense that they seeped through the fog. Alfred took one look in his eyes and sobbed, holding Mattie closer, crying into his hair even as Mattie gave him a surprised squeak.

"A-Al, what's wrong?" Stupid question, they both knew. But Mattie looked so endearingly sweet, despite his cracked glasses and the mixture of blood and mud swiped across his cheeks. He looked so fragile with his gun in his lap, the hint of his collarbone covered in bruises. He wasn't supposed to be here.

None of this was supposed to go this way.

"Everything's wrong!" Alfred sputtered, and felt the heat of Mattie's neck against his face, ignored the cling of gunpowder to smell jasmine and peaches and sighed. "I'm weak. I'm weak, Mattie. And you're out here." The touch of his fingers against peach skin almost burned, but he needed it, needed to remind himself that Mattie was here, he was real, he was beautiful and sweet and kissing him.

Mattie sighed quietly, took Alfred's hand away from his hip to kiss his broken fingers and allowed Alfred to push him back against the trench wall, smearing golden waves in mud. There was no starlight to catch, not through the acrid smoke that festered in the lungs and collected on the skin. But Alfred thought Mattie was beautiful.

"Tell me I'm your hero." Alfred whispered tenderly against the shell of Mattie's ear, pressing kisses to his temple, staring into those atrociously innocent eyes. Mattie put his arm around his neck, pulled him close, smashed their lips together. Both ignored the way the earth rocked when the artillery shells landed close by.

Mattie made a quiet whimper in the back of his throat, eyes squeezing shut as he felt Alfred on him, around him, in his mouth. The sound was music, and Alfred delighted in it, kissing the tip of his nose and feeling for skin beneath his dirt encrusted uniform.

He wanted to be strong. He wanted to be god. He wanted to be invincible and that all hurt more because he wasn't. He wasn't. He held back a sob, and Mattie turned his face up to his. The flash the shells made reflected in his eyes.

Those same eyes tore him apart.

"You're my hero."

Alfred broke then. He sobbed. He held Mattie so tight he felt he might break his ribs. Thought he should because then he couldn't fight, he would be out of harms way. Heroes did that, didn't they? Heroes sacrificed for the greater good? He bit his lip, smelled Mattie's hair and let out a shaky breath.

"Say it again." And again. And again. And again until he believed it and power welled into him, taken from the very earth. Until he could smash and protect and fight and not be afraid. "Tell me that you're my damsel in distress, that I'm your knight in shining armor, that I can go out there and fuck over this fucking dragon swallowing the whole world."

Mattie kissed him then, slow and sweet and agonizing and Alfred knew then that his greatest weakness wasn't his fear. It was Mattie. Mattie was a sort of drug, and Mattie kept him going.

"You're my hero, Al. You're my hero. You're my hero." He closed his eyes and let the words roll over him, drowned in them, soaked them up so that he would be able to taste them whenever he wanted. "You're my hero, and you're strong, and you can beat this, because you're the United fucking States of America." Mattie let his fingers graze Alfred's forehead, pushing his hair away so he could plant a kiss to the dirty skin.

Alfred grinned, kissed Mattie hard and pushed him back again, tasted him and fucked him and didn't think past that, because he didn't feel strong.

And he didn't feel like Superman. Not with his violet kryptonite beside him.

Owari