Matt, depressed and pissed off that has friend had left him, didn't remain behind for long

Matt, depressed and pissed off that has friend had left him, didn't remain behind for long. He tried though; they sure couldn't say he didn't try. Everything just reminded him of Mello. The school just felt like something was missing after Mello was gone; as if he took a significant part of it with him when he left. Maybe it was just the atmosphere, the way teachers could now get away after class without having to argue with him about something. That they could give a test and not have to have the same feisty blonde at their throats attempting to argue up his marks.

He couldn't face going to class. He tried, but it just made the fact that his best friend of almost his whole life was missing, painfully obvious. So he left.

He joined a band of hackers. It just seemed to fit. The seedy underbelly of society accepted him and his already adept talents with open arms. He worked hard, partly to rise through the ranks of their illegal hierarchy, but mainly to keep his mind distracted. He had to be distracted. If ever he found himself alone, without something to do, the suppressed side of his mind would betray him and spray painful memories of his bestest friend throughout his mind, leaving him with a painful throb in his heart.

So, to keep himself away from such thoughts, he stopped allowing himself such quiet moments. He immersed himself into his work more, and started going clubbing. He would go clubbing almost every night, and come him and pass out in the early hours of the morning, sleep a few hours, down a few Red Bulls, and do it all again the next day.

He continued this destructive life pattern for a good many months, before he caught onto a most interesting trail. In his line of work he knew the workings of many a business, this suspicious one in particular, which had been rising steadily for the last few months, and rapidly the last few weeks, had been at the forefront of his 'to hack' list. So, it was to his great surprise when he attempted to hit up their systems.

He was at it for a few nights, diligently breaking away and into more and more of their exterior system files, attempting to divulge the source if it all; their main bank account. He found the figures in one of the exteriors, and figured he could go for a face to face heist. He had been analysing their security also, and found it to be not as tight as it should be. Maybe they thought no-one knew about their little criminal racket.

So, Matt gathered two of his more trusted friends one night, and they prepared for what he thought was to be a relatively simple snatch and grab. They snuck their way in, each possessing somewhat of a lazy demeanour, giving that this task was significantly easier than what they had previously been partaking in. He thought that he could have easily completed this job himself, but brought along the two guys anyway. Matt directed them carefully around the large building, quietly incapacitating a few of the guards on the way.

They rounded the last corner, finding themselves in front of their target. The door to it didn't even have a posted look-out. Matt thought that they couldn't have made this whole thing any easier if they tried. He lazily sauntered towards the door, taking out a small lock-picking set and breaking in with ease. His men quickly got to work loading up the cash, and out the door again they were, before he felt the cold metal of a gun against the back of his neck. He felt more than heard the gun cocking, and pressing harder into his neck as if mocking his presumed victory.

"Drop the bags. And your weapons."

The voice of which sounded cold and harsh, albeit strangely familiar. Matt heard his own gun clatter to the ground, and those of his companions soon follow, accompanied by the bags loaded with stolen money. He felt a dark pillow case slide over his head, and knew that the same thing would be being done to his friends.

He felt the gun ease from the back of his neck as its owner's hands began working on tying a small rope around his wrists. He felt the hands were soft and warm, not what he would have suspected from such a hard sounding guy.

"Walk."

Was all the verbal command they got, before the three of them were pushed none too gently in the assumed "Walk" direction. Matt kept feeling as if he was going to run into a wall, and several times almost tripped over his own feet, wanting desperately to have his hands out in front of him to feel his way around.

After what felt like hours, but could have only been a few minutes, they were shoved through a doorway and pushed into seats in a room obviously heavily occupied. The dark material was not yet removed from their heads, so they were forced to just sit nervously awaiting their undeterminable fate.

"So…Who the fuck are you and why did you decide to try and rob me?"

The same harsh voice from before. He felt his hands being untied, and only assumed the same was being done to his friends. He could tell this task was being carried out by multiple people, as he could feel multiple sets of hands pulling and tugging at the knots. It wasn't long till one of these sets of hands found there way to pulling the bag none too gently off his head. He had to blink and rub his eyes a few times to try and get used to the lighting, but it wasn't particularly bright in the room.

Bright enough that he could see many sets of eyes directed at him and his two companions, and also bright enough to see that a good many of them had weapons unholstered, ready to take aim if necessary by the looks of things.

Matt had to try and think up something convincing, and fast.

"Should I ask again? How the fuck did you and your cronies find out about us? Are there any more of you? To what extent do you know what we do here?"

Now that was to the point. Matt scanned the room, finding the source to be that same voice from earlier, part way across the room, with his back to him, staring at a portrait hung high on the wall.

From what he could see the man was decked entirely in leather. He had short blonde hair, sitting just above his shoulders. He still was yet to turn around, and Matt wasn't sure if he would be able to see his face anyway, seeing as he was partly hidden by shadow on that side of the room. The man then began to walk across to the side of the room, and whisper something to a beefy looking guy, who was probably a security guard here that they had missed or something similar. Matt was yet to see his face.

He felt the guy start to walk again, this time out of Matt's sight and behind him. He took this chance to look at his friend's situated on either side of him, with a small gap between each of their chairs. All three of them were no longer tied up or blindfolded, but they were unarmed and surrounded by people who unfortunately, were. Matt felt at a bit of a loss for what to do, till he felt warm breath tickling his ear.

"Are you going to fucking answer me, or will I have to resort to some less than ordinary interrogation methods….?"

He proceeded to bring his hands to fall and tangle in Matt's hair, leaning in close, so close, hovering his lips dangerously close to Matt's, before he brought his hand out and back before Matt could react, and smashed it across his face, propelling him to the floor.

"I won't be fucked with. You got that? I worked too damn hard to get here, and I won't have that fucked up by some tool who comes in here, and attempts to rob me of all I fucking have. Who the hell does that? Seriously? It must have taken you some serious effort to find out about us. Why not just rob a fucking bank or something? Seriously, kids these days."

Matt groaned and looked up at the face of the guy hovering above him. It was still partly shrouded by shadow due to the lighting in the room, but he could tell the guy was young, about the same age as himself. He couldn't be more than nineteen, maybe twenty.

He brought a hand to his face and felt the warm trickle of blood beginning to seep out of his nose. He wiped the sleeve of his shirt against it, adding a new colour to the repetitive pattern observed there.

He slowly got to his feet, and damn the fucking consequences, wheeled his arm backwards and slammed it as hard as he could square in the nose of that fucking leather clad blonde.

Damn he went flying. He slid across the room, followed by horrified gasps of his men, before coming to a stop just before the opposite wall.

He also slowly got to his feet, stumbling a little bit, and headed back towards Matt, still holding his weapon. Matt thought he was dead right then and there, wouldn't even have a chance to say goodbye to his friends of the past few months. Wouldn't ever get a chance to find his old friend again. Wouldn't ever hack, steal, club again.

But he wasn't greeted by the sound of a gun cocking, then a finger slowly tensing against the trigger, then a loud sound of a bullet flying into his body before he could blink, either his heart or his brain being targeted then splattered across the room to add a new shade of paint colour to the boring walls. Oh no.

Instead, he was greeted by a rather different sound altogether. The unnerving, silence shattering sound, of laughter. A sick, twisted sort of laughter, emitting from none other than the now inches in front of him, leather and now blood coated blonde. Matt had gotten a good one in, socking him square in the nose, leaving it pouring out blood and almost instantly bruising. He continued his unnerving sort of laugh, inching closer to Matt until they were almost touching.

He threw his gun across the room and instead moved his hands to Matt's face, gently bringing them up to the goggles of the only guy who had not tried to kiss his ass for the last several months of his life, although it felt like more than that. He slowly pulled the goggles off of the guy, and was now able to see his wide, shocked, green eyes in the light that was above their heads. He was sure his were as equally wide and shocked. Recognition, remembrance, and year's worth of memories flooded into both of their heads at the same time. Matt and Mello. Inseparable old Matt and Mello. Old break into and out of everything and argue to anyone about anything, Matt and Mello.

Mello tugged off the leather glove of his right hand with his teeth and then brought it up to rest gently against the cheek of the friend he had thought he had lost. The friend he had thought he would never get to see again. The friend he had hoped he would never get to see again, would never have to know and feel the horrible way of life that Mello was leading now. He had wanted Matt to stay. Why hadn't he stayed? He wanted him to live innocently at Whammy's and forget about him. To stay safe from harm and sadness.

"Matt…"

Was all Mello could manage to whisper, before tears he had been attempting to fight back began flowing freely from his eyes. He managed to bring his eyes up to meet his long lost friend, and found him to be in a similar state, trying to fight back his emotions, not let them get the better of him.

"Fuck…I didn't know it was you, Mel. I…Didn't get any sort of information about who has been running this crime ring, only knew it was someone, someone with pretty shit security and a whole lot of cash just asking to be stolen. I…Couldn't help myself"

Matt had to give a bit of a small laugh at the insanity of the situation. How the fuck could he have known this would happen? That the big shot mob boss running all of the damn crime in this area could have been Mello, his Mello? He didn't really know how to react.

Neither of them did. All Matt did know right then was that he wanted a fucking cigarette and a fucking Red Bull.