It's been foreveerrrrzzz and a day since I've written a fanfic. And here I started this one, during finals, no less. ; Eeeh...
Anyway, forgive me, because I haven't been keeping up with Death Note so some things may be off. But I will be cosplaying Matt for this year's Anime Weekend Atlanta, so I guess that makes me an offical Matt fan...
"How fucking old are you, Matt? Fucking thirteen? Those things'll kill you!" Mello snarled, snatching the lit cigarette from Matt's hand, "Where've you been getting them from anyway?"
Matt looked up at Mello, blinking and making no attempt to grab it back.
"I steal em. It's easy."
His tone was bored, almost emotionless to the ears of any outsider. But Mello knew better. There was a tug in the inflection on the word 'easy', the tiniest hint of pride.
"So you want to be a fucking thief, huh? Maybe I should call L right now and let him know how you're stealing damn cancer-sticks. I'm sure he'll be real fucking proud of you."
Matt allowed himself a smile. It wasn't a smirk, not the smug half-smile Near would have offered Mello, it was a grin, amused and radiant.
"Like you can just get in touch with L. Besides, I'm sure he wouldn't be too happy about your excessive use of the F-bomb."
"Is that a threat, Jeevas?" Mello snapped, hurling Matt's cigarette to the ground and stomping on it with the heavy black heel of his boot, "You can't get in touch with L, either! Maybe you should fucking remember that!"
Matt just continued to smile.
"I remember."
Matt had never needed help. Hell, he was the help. He was there whenever Mello needed anything, from chocolate to information to dragging him out of the burning wreckage of a former mafia hideout. He was a wraith; detached, for years, from Whammy's House and L and even Mello, yet bound at the same time. He followed, hid, watched, waited, then at last did what he was ordered. And in between orders, he would wait again, basking in leisure time with video games and booze and cigarettes. He didn't worry much. What Mello and Near were after was bigger than him, much bigger.
So, he was content to stay on the sidelines, help where he could, and watch for the safety of his friend. He was his own man, able to pay his own rent, buy his own food.
But he was lonely, sometimes, cut off from the world by his own nature.
The apartment he was living in at the moment was dark and bare. Not so much as a roach skittered across the gray walls. Usually people are wont to avoid roaches anyway, but to Matt it was just further proof that he was the only living thing in the place. He could usually keep himself occupied with video games, opting especially for RPGs where he felt like he was a part of something, part of people's lives, but he had beaten all the ones he owned numerous times and it was too late in the night to go pick up another. Besides, he thought, best to keep out of sight for a while. Mello was wanted, and since he was an accomplice, Matt was wanted too.
And, as painful as it was, he would rather have been alone than in a jail, being molested and prosecuted.
He sat in a creaking wooden chair in the tiny kitchen, all the lights off, wondering idly if, if they caught him, would they try to torture Mello's location out of him? How bad would it hurt? What exactly would they do?
He had heard about that Chinese water torture, but to him it didn't seem all that bad. He was the type of guy it probably wouldn't affect.
But Mello. God, Mello. It would have driven Mello batshit insane.
A car passed on the street below and lit up the lonely kitchen in a wash of light, stretching out Matt's shadow on the tiled floor. It seemed to pass quicker than it came, leaving him in the dark again.
He stood and stretched, lit a cigarette and headed out the door.
As was his way, Mello had left only the most vague clues as to his whereabouts. Matt was a smart kid, he could follow them well enough, but it required a bit of sniffing around on his part. He was an obedient dog, after all. He packed the pockets of his suede vest with his PSP, cell phone, lighter and cigarettes and took off.
Left at the church, right at the pub. What a combination.
Past the electric company, over the bridge and into the slums.
He got out the car, slammed the door shut without a second thought and lit a cigarette. The place was a dump, cold metal walls beaten and scrawled over with grafitti. The midnight sky was made darker by the thick clouds that infested it.
'Only Mello' he thought, shaking his head. 'Don't you deserve something more?'
A tap on the door with a gloved fist. A pair of shifty eyes peeking out from a gauged slit in the metal door. Two names, a password...
"Matt here for Mello. Faustus." He thought it was funny that this was the way it really worked, the passwords and all. He used to need passwords all the time when he was little, magic words that allowed him passage into tree houses and No-Girls-Allowed Forts. But into the mafia? He could have laughed, but he didn't want to offend anyone.
Especially not a gun-toting mafia hound.
Matt could feel himself being eyed warily before the door opened to let him inside.
It was dark and cold and wet. The man who let him in was impossibly big, at least two feet taller than Matt, who allowed himself an amused glance , his smirk hidden behind his hand as he took a deep drag from his cigarette.
Sweet nirvana. Nothing was better than a good cigarette. When he had a pack of cigarettes and the opportunity to see Mello, he just couldn't be happier, not even if he had beaten the last boss and uncovered all the secrets on Wild's Whim 2: The Arms of Reason. Which he had, by the way, numerous times.
"Matt, huh?" the guy said in a deep voice befitting of him. Matt nodded quietly, puffing his cigarette contentedly.
The man said nothing else, but led him down a maze of hallways flickering with faulty lights and less than hygenic creatures, until they got to another metal door. He opened it and beckoned Matt inside.
A dozen or so men looked up from their lounging positions on broken-down couches and armchairs.
"This here's Matt," the man who opened the door grinned, a grin that showed broken teeth and malicious intent, "Mello's friend. You all remember Mello, don't you, boys?"
Rousing peals of laughter echoed through the dirty room. Matt shivered involuntarily and slowly reached behind him for the gun he kept stocked in the elastic of his pants. He kept a clueless smile plastered on his handsome face, a smile that said "Yeah, my name's Matt and I'm an idiot."
That smile got him out of a lot of trouble before. No one ever bothered with a guy who had nothing to offer.
He shrugged politely.
"Mello's still shacking up here, ain't he?" he asked in a pleasant, innocent tone, "Last I heard he--"
Everything went black and he felt himself falling, crashing to the ground and landing on his arm. He could feel his gun's bullet champer pushing into his wrist. The big guy that had opened the door hefted him back up almost immediately, grabbing both his arms behind his back.
"Hey," Matt sputtered indignantly, still woozy from the punch to his skull, "Hey, why'd you hit me if you're just gonna help me back up?"
"Shut the fuck up, boy," the big guy said. Some sleazy rat-faced guy had slinked off the couch and started patting Matt down. He removed the gun, along with the contents of Matt's pockets.
"Ooh, a gamer, huh?" he wheezed, waving the PSP in front of Matt's eyes, "I always wanted one of these, thanks, kid."
"Take it," he answered coolly, hands still held roughly behind his back, "Back home I have a limited-edition red God of War--"
The man smacked him across the face, the PSP in the palm of his hand, enough to offer a stinging blow and crack both the console's screen and a lens of Matt's goggles. He stared around at them with broken vision as his PSP was thrown onto the floor.
Another man, even more impossibly big than the doorman, strode up. The gang's leader, Matt noted silently, a guy with dreads and muscles and a snarl that would have made his grandma hang herself.
"Mello ain't here no more, he decided to move onto better things. With half our money and one of our cars."
"Is that so?" Matt asked, raising his eyebrows in fake concern.
He knew he was fucked.
The leader smashed his massive fist into Matt's gut. He let out a choked, breathless gasp as his legs gave way beneath him. His body tried to fall, tried to get out of the way of those "These Fists Are Made For Beating And That's Just What They'll Do" hands. But the man behind him still held him up, held him vulnerable and open to more abuse.
More punches came, more pain, more laughter. The world turned blurry again before cutting out into total blackness, like the end of an old film.
Yeeep...okay, I'll get back to work.