AN: I'm beginning to enjoy writing this. Yay. And, oi--please review. Seriously. I'm flattered by those who add this to their alerts, but reviewers make me happier still.
Disclaimer: Blah, blah, I own nothing. Except for a pet dragon who lives under my bed.
"Mello—"
"Don't call me that! My name is Mihael, for the last time—"
"Please calm down, Mello, or we're going to have to—"
"Get you fucking hands off of me! Why the hell am I—"
"Hold still, Mello. Aaron, the syringe—"
"What the hell are you—"
Abrupt silence. Matt suppressed a smirk. Even that kid couldn't stand up to the meds, apparently.
"Well, thank God for that, Aaron—it was about time!"
"Yeah, well, you didn't get nailed in the stomach, so don't come complaining to me. Here, help me with him—"
Matt grinned and took his ear away from the keyhole. It seemed that his little finding had been more trouble than Brian had expected—which was saying a fair amount, really, because none of the kids came here from cheerful circumstances. There are only a handful of ways to be transferred to an orphanage—any orphanage—and none of them are pleasant. Loss of parents, loss of family, being disowned, being shuffled between institutions...
The normal response, particularly among the students at Wammy's, was to withdraw. Life and its accompanying emotions was difficult enough; coupled with a mind that made it impossible to relate to the general population, it was enough to drive any of them into seclusion. The staff normally had to tease reactions out of children, not restrict them. Matt had to smile at the thought; Mello was certainly going to be a shock to all of them. He was so loud.
Matt stood and flopped carelessly onto his bed, the Gameboy already in his hands. Let them think he wasn't interested; Mello didn't strike him as the type to be grateful for such attention, and the last thing he needed was for Brian to think him intelligent. That was the paradox, at Wammy's—despite the fact that it was an orphanage for geniuses, some of the staff still had to get it into their brains that the kids trumped their supervisors in brilliance.
His door opened, revealing Brian's harried face. The watchman looked at him warily from underneath a disheveled mop of black hair. "Look, Matt, you know your little find on the class trip?"
Matt glanced up from his game, an expression of polite disinterest stamped on his face. "Yeah?"
"He passed the test, with flying colors. A good find." Except for the fact that he hates you, right, Brian?
Matt shrugged. "Oh. That's good."
"And, well, you're one of the few kids without a roommate, so he's going to be staying here—we're not sure if it'll be a permanent arrangement yet, but for now, you're going to have to clear off that bed."
"What?" Matt was very proud of his acting skills. Of course, he had already hacked into the system and seen Watari's orders, but it wouldn't have done for the staff to know that—not yet, anyway. "But...it's mystuff."
It was indeed his stuff. Matt had latched onto his spare bed greedily, and had transformed it into a sort of working space for his pet project—hacking the Wammy network. He had already gotten into some of the basic layers—Watari's communications with the staff, for example—but he had a while still to go, and with every new layer of security came a new wave of CDs and gadgetry to be added to his arsenal. He had the tangle of wires spread across the spare bed, and by this time they were jumbled two feet high. Matt scowled up at Brian. "I can't just move it all."
"Yes, you can," Brian returned. "And you will. Honestly, Matt, this room is far bigger than you're making it out to be. What do you want—new shelves? We can do that. But Mello need somewhere to sleep."
"Is that what you've named him?"
"Yes, it is—didn't you hear him in the hall?"
Matt motioned to his Gameboy. "I have better things to do."
"Well." Matt had to suppress a laugh at the way Brian's mouth twitched. Condescension, was it? The buffoon was so backwards sometimes. "He'll be joining you tonight after dinner, understood?"
"Yeah, whatever." Matt waved him off. "It's not a problem."
"Good." Brian turned to leave, then paused. "Matt?"
"What now?"
"Why did you bring him back?"
Matt blinked. There was one question he hadn't been expecting. "Huh?"
"Ever the eloquent one, aren't you? How did you know he would do so well here?"
"How can you say he's doing well when he hasn't even started yet?" Matt shook his head and flipped his Gameboy on. "If you must know, it was just a guess. I thought non-geniuses like you knew about intuition? And anyway—aren't we training for L's spot? If I couldn't tell if someone was worth my time or not, I'd make a poor detective. I don't like idiots, and it's in my interest to learn to avoid them."
Brian shrugged, his dark eyes flat. Matt grinned—his comment about Brian's intelligence had hit a nerve after all. Rumor had it that Brian was one of the leftovers from the days before L—a wannabe who had never made the cut. "Well, it's not important."
"Sure thing, Brian."
Matt pulled a face at Brian's back as he closed the door. He didn't particularly like the man, even if he was better company than some of the others. It wasn't like he had anyone to talk to…the only person rivaling his intelligence was Near, and Near was an introvert, plain and simple. Matt's lips twitched at that idea. Having a conversation with Near? Sure, if you didn't mind speaking to brick walls.
He sighed and rolled off the bed. It was going to be such a pain, moving his equipment, but he supposed it was his own fault. He hadn't expected to have to share his room with the kid, but he should have seen it coming. It wasn't as if there were that many spare rooms. He frowned and hesitated in the act of bundling a group of red cords. If the kid was going to be acting half as violent with him as he had been with Brian and Aaron…shit. The little pickpocket had better not mess up any of this up, or there would be hell to pay.
Matt gritted his teeth and returned to the messy task of finding somewhere safe to stash all the devices that made up his pet project. He had an hour until dinner, and he'd be damned if any of it was going to be in any danger whatsoever.
--
Matt returned from dinner to find his room blissfully empty. He sighed and flopped back onto his bed, surveying his room. It was odd to think that after tonight, it wasn't going to be just his room. Brian had better have been telling the truth about the kid's test score—if he had landed himself with a jabbering idiot, Matt was going to get frustrated very, very quickly. His eyes flitted from wall to wall, memorizing the map of his current surroundings. They were for the most part bare—Matt had never seen the point of dressing his room up in colored paint or posters; his only belongings of import were his games and the rest of his gadgetry, which was safely tucked under his bed. Funny, but in the five years he had been in this room, it hadn't changed at all. And now he would have to share.
Ten minutes later, the door creaked open. Matt didn't take his eyes from the dimly glowing screen of his Gameboy. "You're late, Brian."
"Aaron, actually." Aaron limped into Matt's room. The gamer raised his eyebrows at the sight of the hall supervisor. His right eye was quickly purpling, and from the way he was walking, it was obvious that his stomach and his left leg were both heavily bruised.
"Jeez, man, what happened to you?" As if he didn't know. Mello knew how to fight, apparently. Matt didn't see what the problem was—the kid hadn't been overwhelmingly great at it back in the alley, but then again, if the kid was as smart as his test scores claimed, anger would be a stronger motivator than fear.
"I'm fine, Matt." He was embarrassed, then. That could be useful. "Your roommate's a bit…volatile. He's going to be somewhat sedated when we bring him in, so don't expect coherency out of him just yet, okay?"
"Yeah…fine…"
Aaron nodded and turned around. Matt watched as his leg buckled slightly with the added pressure—damn, but the kid had to be a decent fighter. The food he had been given at Wammy must have made the difference. "Shell? Could you bring him in?"
The matronly woman Matt recognized as the infirmary head shuffled in, carrying an unconscious Mello in her arms. "He'll be out for another half hour or so, at most," she told Matt. "If you have any problems, call on of us."
Like I'd need to, with all the cameras in this place. "Sure thing," Matt replied, refocusing his attention on his game as Shell placed the sleeping boy on the newly cleared bed. "Is that it?"
He was pleased to see the vein in Aaron's forehead twitch. "Yes, just about. We expect you to show him around Wammy tomorrow, help him get his bearings. Are you capable of that, Matt?"
Matt kept his face blank. "Sure."
"Good."
And then they left. Matt jumped silently to his feet and padded to the door to check and see if they were truly gone. A quick peek at the keyhole assured him that the adults were already out of earshot. He spun around and dove under his bed, reaching for his laptop. He flipped the screen open and reawakened the machine, his eyes flitting back and forth between programs.
"Hey, kid—don't move, okay? This is important."
The boy didn't acknowledge Matt's instructions. Matt smiled grimly and began tapping away at the keyboard. "And…set. There we are." He paused and looked at the screen admiringly. "Now, there's a job well done." He yawned and shoved the laptop back underneath the bed. "Good god, they're easy to trick. You can stop playing now."
Mello remained silent. Matt rolled his eyes. "You're too limp to be really out of it. She said you'd only have a half-hour to go until you were back to normal, tops, and I know they don't hit newcomers with stuffthat hard, not right off the bat. I've rigged the camera system to keep ghosts of us on their screens, so don't worry aboutthat. As far as they can tell, I'm playing Zelda and you're still unconscious."
Mello cracked an eye open. "They have cameras in our bedrooms?"
"Hey, you talk. What a surprise."
"Ha. Very funny." Mello shifted into a cross-legged position on the spare—on Mello's bed, Matt reminded himself. Damn. "Why the fuck did you land me in this place?"
Matt yawned again and hopped back onto his own bed, ignoring Mello's blue-eyed glare. "I was bored."
"You were bored?" Matt found himself suppressing a smile—again. The kid sure had a talent for being unintentionally hilarious.
"Yep." Matt stretched out and glanced sideways at Mello, who was currently glowering from beneath his matted bangs. "Why?"
"Fuck you."
"What's wrong?" Matt propped his chin on his palm and raised an eyebrow. "Don't you think that—"
Ping.
"Ow!"
Matt scowled and clutched at the pulsing knot on his forehead. "What the fuck was that?"
Mello's face remained flat and cold. "If you must know," Mello replied stiffly, "I don't appreciate you landing me here. Not one whit."
Matt grimaced. "Fuck, then. Why'd you hit me with a bloody rock?"
"Stay away from me," Mello spat. Matt blinked, surprised at the venom in his voice.
"Serves you right, man, for trying to steal my wallet. And anyway, you were starving, weren't you?" Damn. He was backpedaling—this was nothing short of a sparring match, and Mello's flare of anger had caught him off guard.
"I can take care of myself, asshole," Mello growled. Matt looked at his clenched fists warily. Volatile, huh?
"Sure." Matt left it and rolled onto his back. "Look, Mello—"
"Mihael. I have a real name."
"—Mello." Matt wasn't going to lose their first battle—not completely, anyway. He was perfectly fine with a draw; a draw meant he ought to gain at least some respect from his high-strung roommate. "Mello, look, I don't give a fuck, okay?" Liar, the voice in the back of his head whispered. "You're here. Get the fuck over it. You've got food, and a bed, and anything else you ask for, they'll give you. It's too damn bad that your pride doesn't like it, but that's the way it is, sorry. And if your pride is that bad off, you can just show us all up in classes, and no one will dare say a word of reproach. Now, if you don't mind—I'm going to bed."
Matt didn't bother waiting for Mello's response. Instead, he reached into his pillowcase, snapped out a remote, and turned the lights off. He rolled to face the wall and closed his eyes. Mello's anger hissed out with his breath, but Matt could honestly care less. Anger was part of the game. Once they got past the first round or two, it would probably go away.
Either that, or Mello would refuse to play and stomp away in a storm of recriminations and frustrated insults. And that would be exactly the sort of thing this huffy, haughty kid was likely to do.
Life was just one big sparring match, wasn't it?
AN: So, it continues. I decided that I liked writing these two enough to develop this into a full-fledged story...It's my first experiment with a longer fanfic, really, so please feel free to point out anything that you think is a bit off. Is the pacing right? Is it interesting at all? In character? Reviews and critique get you love. I'm enjoying this...Matt's character is barely mentioned in the mangas, and it's so much fun to fit the puzzle pieces together...
Subscribe if you want to see where this one goes. I have plenty of free time in school, so I plan on working this one out some.
So long...
10:05PM, 1/2/08