St Michael and the Damned Apostle
El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora Reina de los Angeles sobre El Rio Porciuncula
(The Town of Our Lady Queen of the Angels on the Porciuncula River)
L.A.
Part One: Used
Four days from death:
Matt ambles up the street, maintaining a stringent 50 meters between himself and Kiyomi Takada while punching buttons on his Nintendo DS. It's cold, and his vest—cheaply made—isn't doing shit to block out the wind. He ran out of cigarettes three blocks ago. His feet hurt and…
"…now what's she up to?"
The speaker in his ear causes Mello's voice to sound high and obnoxiously tinny.
"Nothing. Shopping. Seriously Mello, I…"
"Quit complaining, Matt! This is damn important, and I can't have you sulking around like a fucking child! Do you understand?"
"…yeah." The redhead heaves a sigh and stares up at the graying sky. He wonders if it's going to rain. "I get you."
"Good. Be home at six. I picked you up some cigarettes."
"Thank…"
The line goes dead before he has the chance to finish.
Sighing again, Matt redirects his attention to Takada. She's entering a fancy hotel; this is the second time she's done this in the past three days. This is problematic because Matt can't sneak in after her. Planting bugs is also out of the question. The woman is at least smart enough to change hotels. This leaves Matt with another problem: a very pissed off Mello.
"She went into another hotel? Fuck! How much do you wanna bet she's talking to Yagami?"
"Should I return to the apartment?"
"What are you, Matt? Stupid? Of course you should! How the hell will you be useful standing out there on the street?!"
Ripping out the earpiece in aggravation, Matt begins making his way back to their residence. Mello is his best—his only—friend, but that doesn't stop the redhead from acknowledging that he's a bit of an asshole.
He curses as the clouds above hemorrhage, allowing torrents of rain to bleed down onto the city streets. Shoving the DS safely into his pocket, Matt picks up the pace. Weather is one of the main reasons he abhors spending time outdoors.
The other reason is crowds. Crowds make him nervous. He feels as if the people are watching him, tailing him, closing in on him from all sides. It's a paranoia Matt's had since childhood. Something he finds deeply unsettling.
Not that Mello gives a shit.
Finally reaching the cruddy apartment building that serves as headquarters—sorry, Mel, but the SPK's got you beat when it comes to lairs—Matt begins the laborious trek up six flights of concrete stairs. Smoking and lack of exercise have left him grossly out of shape. However, Matt won't take the elevator. He doesn't…he doesn't trust it.
How many people are victims of elevator-related deaths each year?
Probably a shit load more than you'd expect.
Mello—he takes the elevator—makes fun of him for this, but Matt doesn't care. The stairs are good enough. He…so maybe he's a bit paranoid. It doesn't matter. I'd rather walk.
Which, coupled with smoking and his lazy lifestyle, brings about the subversive fear of asthma.
The door swings open, and Matt allows himself to flop soggily onto the couch. He's going to take a nap, a long one. Screw the Kira Case. Kira can wait until he's rested.
"Matt!"
Mello's nagging pulls him prematurely from his stupor.
"Damn it, Matt, get in here! I need you!"
Unhurriedly extracting himself from the vacuum-like cushions of the sofa, the redhead gets up to see what his boss is yammering on about this time. Mello is perched on the windowsill as he was this morning, staring with unerring fanaticism at the video feed of Misa Amane's empty apartment.
"I see you've been keeping busy."
"Yes. Quite."
Matt's sarcasm is lost upon the blonde.
"Come here for a minute."
The redhead approaches carefully. He knows from experience to be mindful of those ice blue eyes. "What is it?"
"How maneuverable is that Mustang of yours?"
"Very. Why?"
The blonde smirks, lip twisted further on one side because of the scarring. "We'll need it when we take Takada."
"Now wait a minute!" The Mustang is Matt's pride and joy, right up there with WOW and unfiltered cigarettes. "I will not sacrifice my car to the whim of your crackpot idea."
"Crackpot?!"
This was probably the stupidest thing Matt could have said. Above all else, above being insulted, injured, possibly even beaten by Near, Mello hates being labeled crazy. Sanity is a touchy subject for him, and for a long time Matt was baffled by this. However, after years of knowing him, the redhead has come to a conclusion.
Mello fears insanity for the same reason Matt fears asthma. He's at risk.
"Don't you ever, ever fucking talk to me like that again! Got it?"
Matt says nothing. He can't help but appreciate the passionate elegance with which Mello spins his wrath.
"Don't forget who's in charge! Don't forget who gave you a job and got you out of that hellhole in Los Angeles!"
"I…I know, Mello. I'm…"
No place exists in Mello's rage for an apology. He only ignores it and continues to smolder, hands coming up to clench the manufactured vibrancy of his partner's hair.
"You will continue to do what I say without question. Understand."
The blonde has a talent for turning questions into infallible commands.
"All right. I do. Mel…Mello, you're hurting me."
Matt's hair is released suddenly, and the shock of this action causes him to stumble back against the wall. Mello is still fuming, pupils swiveling with the desperation of a dying creature. A bar of chocolate crumbles in his fist. The crucifix swings hysterically on its tether. Matt is afraid of him and, knowing this, Mello's fire increases in intensity.
"Screw it!" Mello kicks a nearby computer screen. The logo of Sakura TV fractures briefly before going dark. "I can do all of it myself! Just get the hell out of here!"
"Come on. Don't be a…"
"Out!"
"You asshole! You can't do that! You can't just use me and than…"
A consul is hurled with exceptional force in Matt's direction. "OUT!"
"Sure, Boss. Whatever you say."
Turning on his heal, Matt marches back into the living room and straight out the door. He's tired of being taken advantage of. He's done with this. He won't come back. Not even if the blonde demands it. Not even if he gets down on his knees and…
But the redhead knows this isn't true. In his state of rage, even, he is aware of this. They both are. Mello needs Matt. Matt just needs to be needed. Together they are something Near isn't, something even L could never be. They aren't cold. They aren't meticulous. They don't really work well together. But Mello and Matt manage to accomplish things. Somehow. In their own stupid and rash and methodless way.
Los Angeles, though? Why'd he have to bring that up?
"Come on, man. Let me stay the night."
Matt stands in the doorway of an acquaintance's apartment. Hair fading back to brown. Laptop wedged securely beneath his armpit. The foul stench of the L.A. air lingers with him on the doorstep. He's been out of an apartment for a week now. Out of a job for two.
"No way, Matt." The acquaintance—Matt forgets his name—shakes his head. "You stayed hear two nights ago. Find someone else's blood to suck."
The door slams, and the redhead turns away. "…fucker…" He ambles back onto the street, barely existent cigarette butt jammed between his lips, hand fingering the computer charger shoved inside his pocket. He wonders if he'll have to sleep outside again. At least the smog will keep me warm.
"Hey, you alone tonight?"
Looking up, Matt is met with the eyes of a tall, thirty-something year old man. He is neither handsome nor particularly ugly. Just average. Remarkable only in the completeness of his typicality. Black hair. Brown eyes. The human race's most common physical appearance.
"Sorry. I got plans."
Matt isn't stupid. He's been hit on like this many times before. The easiest thing to do is blow off the advances. He's never worked up enough energy to be offended.
What makes everyone so sure I'm a faggot, anyway?
"Suit yourself." The man wanders off in affected indifference.
"Yeah, thanks," the redhead mutters under his breath. "I think I will." He continues ambling up the street, wondering if there isn't anyone else he can hit up for a place to stay. Matt refuses to spend another night at the shelter. There are too many people. Everything smells bad. He's afraid some junkie will fuck up his laptop.
So Matt decides to sleep in the park across from his old apartment. Not out of nostalgia, of course, but because he is sure this park is clean—no dealers, no gangs, no prostitutes. Just yellow grass and malnourished oak trees rising up to blot out the garishly lit skyline and invisible stars.
Sprawling out on the dying lawn, Matt wonders for the hundredth time how he ended up like this. He left Wammy's when he was sixteen, bored without Mello and annoyed by the children's attempts to steal his videogames. He never entertained the idea of staying in England but drifted through Europe aimlessly, wasting the last of his Wammy inheritance on a one-way ticket to New York City. But Matt found New York to be too fast-paced. Within a month he woke up penniless and unwashed at the Greyhound station in Sacramento. The dazzlingly superficial gaiety of Los Angeles was his only logical destination.
"Plans, huh?"
A horrible, retching sensation builds in Matt's esophagus. The black-haired, brown-eyed man is standing over him. He seems less ordinary somehow. An anger, a despairing and misguided rage, now taints his normality.
"Sorry. I don't swing that way." Matt attempts to get up, attempts to play it cool in hopes that by some violent twist of fate he can talk his way out of this.
"As if I give a fuck." The redhead gasps in pain as the man's foot strikes him squarely in the side. He doubles over instinctively, all intention of flight lost as he struggles for oxygen. "I hate shits like you!" Another blow, this time in the stomach, causes Matt to cry out in pain. "Not so disgusted with me now, are you!" The man drags Matt to his feet and shakes him. "One day…one day, you'll be just like me! Desperate! Hopeless! Sick of the pity and revulsion!" Tears and snot dribble down the no longer ordinary man's face. "And then…then you'll understand…"
The diminutive click of a silenced gun and the left side of the man's head explodes in a burst of crimson. Matt is drenched in bits of bone and brain matter. He holds the desperate, not yet distant gaze of the man and wonders briefly if he's looking back. The suddenness of the action dulls his growing sense of horror.
"Are you Matt?"
The redhead tries to turn in the direction of the speaker but is stopped by the dead man's hands, still clenched around his throat.
"…yes…" Speaking seems harder than usual. "I…I am…"
"Good." The shooter—a large man, dread locks—walks up and tears Matt from the corpse's grasp. "Get your computer and follow me. Mello's waiting in the car."
Mind stuck between feeling sympathy for the dead man and realizing he's covered in blood and bits of cerebral cortex, the importance of these words is temporarily lost on Matt. It isn't until he climbs into the back of a limousine and is greeted by the twisted smirk of his childhood companion that the redhead realizes just how fucked up this situation has become.
"Hey, Mattie. Long time no see."
God, he needs a cigarette.
Thoughts still lost in his muddled past, Matt pulls up to an abandoned textile warehouse that was once, during his mafia days, Mello's Japan-based hideout. Why did I come here? Matt often goes driving when he needs to blow off some steam. The rev of the engine calms him. Same with the anonymity of the Mustang's tinted windows. But what brings him here? Certainly Mello would not be pleased.
Matt climbs out of the car and gazes up at the dilapidated building. The padlock is broken—does Mello know—so breaking in is not a problem. There's still the matter of what the fuck am I doing here, but at least he doesn't have to smash a window. Standing in the main room of the hideout, the redhead marvels at the extravagance of the mafia. A checkerboard linoleum floor. Red leather furniture and zebra print pillows. Abandoned computers, firearms, bottles of expensive alcohol—left as dusty still-life tributes to the men who used them to extort, blackmail, and kill. Broken mannequins are strewn about everywhere—perhaps one of Mello's sick plays at interior design. They were probably stored in the building before the Mob took it, locked away unwanted and alone.
Matt makes quick work of the room, preferring further exploration to the unsettling companionship of the dolls. A hallway looms before him. At its conclusion stands a metal door. The redhead doesn't shiver because of the eerily cliché setting. He shivers because of Mello's presence, because of the knowledge that the blonde has stormed gracefully through these halls time and time again.
Thinking about Mello, the redhead's body will sometimes break into an uncomfortable sweat. Why is that? He wishes that he didn't know.
Matt isn't surprised to find the door sealed by a keypad lock. However, it isn't hard—for him at least—to figure out the password. 1-27-97. The date of Mello's First Communion. This knowledge comes less from being a genius than from knowing his boss more thoroughly than anyone else.
The door opens with a click, and Matt is inside. Just a surveillance room. He had expected something a bit more intense…a bit more Melloish and violent. Matt studies the workings of the camera system with only the slightest bit of interest. He designed it for Mello not long after recruitment. All video feed is stored on a special zip drive that holds a huge storage capacity. Whenever the drive becomes full, new data is rewritten over old.
This, of course, Matt has neglected to mention to the blonde. Mello—idiosyncratic, brilliant, insufferable genius that he is—baulks at the very mention of deletion. He wants to save everything, to scour it for bits of Near or Kira or L. That Matt's design saves money and automatically covers tracks is completely overshadowed by the blonde's neurotic need for analysis.
Which leads Matt to wonder what Mello's done with his photograph.
The redhead laughs. Because of his design the surveillance system is still working, still eavesdropping on the ghosts of people now bound in prison or in death. He stares at the video feed of the empty hallways, of the broken padlock.
Hmm…maybe if I…
A red light beeps as he rewinds. Time inverts. The present loses meaning. Unaffected are the dusty halls and checkered linoleum. Empty. Timeless. And then…
Mello is sitting alone on one of the horrendous leather couches. His head is down, coarse, uncut hair falling in his face. The redhead breathes a sigh of relief. So it was Mello who went and broke the lock.
On the screen, said blonde speaks quietly into a cell phone.
"He's going to make him write your names in the notebook directly."
For a moment Mello's eyes lift to the mannequins, broken and used, encircling him. And how like a doll he seems, limbs hanging in dejection, eyes listless and hair unkempt.
"It looks like I'm the only one who can do it."
Something clicks in Matt's brain. The resignation of these words, the finality and despair of them…
On the little screen before him, Matt watches the blonde put down his cell phone.
"One of the Notebooks…" Mello clutches impulsively at the rosary dangling from his neck. "One of the Notebooks is a fake."
The laughter that follows this revelation is not the product of Mello's usual, manic glee. Rather, it is sardonic. He seems suddenly aware of some impending fate, a fate so terrible it can't help but be laughed at.
"Takada will be the key to all of this."
Matt enters the apartment, a disjointed panic breathing a flush into his normally placid way of thinking. Mello is not in the living room; nor is he in the kitchen or bathroom. He hasn't gone out. The redhead is sure of this, as sure as the familiar acceleration of his heartbeat, as the volatile tension in the air.
Tearing through the apartment in a state of pseudo-alarm, Matt finally locates Mello in the bedroom. He is sleeping soundly on the cable-choked mattress, facial scarring exposed to the computer screens' unyielding scrutiny. His brows are un-furrowed, disquieting gaze hidden by the relaxation of his eyelids. Even Mello's lips, normally tight and angry against his teeth, are lax and a little bit parted.
Sighing in what he grudgingly assumes to be relief, Matt sinks to the floor and props his back up against the side of the bed. The blonde, a deep sleeper, does not stir. Matt gazes at him in the semi-darkness. He wonders how it is that sinners sleep so peacefully.
The redhead lights a cigarette.
"Who was that on the phone?"
The questions he will never ask surge forth, unreal to all but Matt, for there is no one else to hear them.
"Was it Near?"
Of course not. He isn't stupid.
"That Lidner woman?"
The redhead's frustration is tainted with something just poignant enough to be jealousy.
"What did you mean when you said you were the only one who could do it?"
On the mattress, Mello stirs a little and turns over on his side.
"A fake Notebook? Is that why we have to kidnap Takada?"
Matt feels inadequate, too stupid to understand.
"Why won't you tell me anything?"
"You'll have a better chance of living if I don't."
Blue eyes bore into the base of Matt's skull. Mello's sitting up, hair ticking up weirdly from his disrupted sleep.
I woke him up. I never wake him up.
"Ignorance…"
He's talking now. Matt can't help but listen.
"…ignorance is not bliss." Mello drags himself towards Matt. "…but sometimes…" His arm extends, leather-clad hands reaching out to touch the back of the redhead's neck. "…sometimes it is safety."
"Bullshit."
In daylight Matt wouldn't say this. At least not with such conviction. However, nighttime—the hope that Mello, anger diluted by exhaustion, will not lash out—gives him temerity.
"You just don't trust me. You don't trust anyone."
"You're wrong." Something in the timbre of the blonde's voice causes Matt to turn around. He is shocked by the sight of Mello's eyes, by the fear in them. "You'll never betray me. I know that, but…I never meant to drag you into this, not this far."
The palm on the back of Matt's neck is trembling. "Don't worry." He reaches back, presses his warm hand against Mello's cool one. "I don't mind." And he doesn't. Really. Without the Kira case, Matt's life would lose direction. He would be bored with none of Mello's plots and tantrums to keep him occupied. Without Mello. This concept is literally beyond Matt's comprehension.
"I shouldn't have fought with you." Mello's pseudo-apology is lame but endearing. "It was a mistake."
Matt nods but does not reply. He is content to sit in silence, for once not working, just sharing with the blonde the tranquility of idleness. Mello's fingers twine around the fine hairs at the nape of his neck. It feels nice. Nice enough for Matt to close his eyes and…
Mello watches as his red-haired companion begins to doze off. Goggles slipping lower on his nose, Matt resembles his childhood self. Awkward, but charmingly so. Handsome, even…if you don't mind stripes, Mario, and badly sewn vests. Anyway, Mello's glad he's getting rest. He doesn't seem to be sleeping well lately.
A smoldering stub of cigarette falls from Matt's lips and begins to burn a hole into the carpet. Disentangling his hand from the redhead's hair, Mello rises to stamp it out. His back cracks in protest of this sudden movement, sore from being hunched so long before a computer screen. How does Matt do it? He has no idea.
In truth Mello has little idea of how Matt is capable of doing many of the things he does. Putting up with a psychotic—even as a thought, this word cuts him a little—employer being foremost among them. As a child Matt was lazy, stirred to action only when Mello urged him to it. Adolescence and adulthood proved no different. Still, what actions can Matt be stirred to! What oft unnoticed but fantastic feats can he be coerced into performing! All for Mello. Because they are friends. Because…because what Matt feels for Mello is not adoration but something close to it, something Mello is too frightened to define.
Matt's commitment to Mello's causes has increased since the explosion. His actions seem spurred on by guilt, a fact that the blonde shamelessly extorts.
I've not been very good to him.
Mello has told himself this many times before. However, not until now has this statement so affected him. Gazing at Matt, exhausted and underweight, smoking three packs a day and sporting L-like circles beneath his eyes, Mello begins to realize the enormity of his transgression.
"Deus meus, ex toto corde poenitet me omnium meorum peccatorum,
eaque detestor, quia peccando,
non solum poenas a te iuste statutas promeritus sum…"
Turning sharply from his slumbering companion, Mello gazes out the window towards the city glittering a hundred feet below. He clutches at his rosary and continues.
"…sed praesertim quia offendi te…"
The crucifix bites into the palm of Mello's hand, offended by the pressure of his grip.
"…summum bonum, ac dignum qui super omnia diligaris.
Ideo firmiter propono,
adiuvante gratia tua,
de cetero me non peccaturum peccandique occasiones proximas fugiturum…"
"Amen."
Mello whirls about, finds himself looking into Matt's green eyes. The redhead smiles a little. "The Act of Contrition. Am I right?"
Mello nods and listens as the other recites the same prayer in lilted English.
"O my God, I am heartily sorry,
for having offended Thee,
and I detest all my sins,
because of thy just punishment,
but most of all because they
offend Thee, my God,
Who are all-good and deserving
of all my love.
I firmly resolve, with the help
of Thy grace to confess my sins,
to do penance,
and to amend my life."
"Amen." This time it is Mello who completes the prayer. His fingers are numb, lacerated by the cross's edges. Hoping that Matt hasn't caught the intensity his glance—too long to be called fleeting—he averts his eyes.
"Who were you praying to?"
"God. Who else?"
Mello answers without hesitation, but, to be honest, he's not really sure.
"God, huh? What's his advice?"
Mello smirks wistfully, both amused and irritated by Matt's disparagement of religion. "Once he gets back to me I'll be sure to tell you."
The redhead shrugs and lights another cigarette. "I'll hold you to it." He looks as if he'd like to say more but cuts himself off at the last minute, opting instead for the secular comfort of his DS. Leaning against the windowsill, Mello watches Matt play. His thoughts are far from Kira. Even the crucifix has fallen from his fingers. However, the blonde's mind is not at rest. Their earlier argument plays back inside his head.
Please God, don't let him die on my account.
He hopes somebody's listening.
-UsuakariTOT (Sorry I took so long! School's been kind of hectic, and I have trouble finding time to work on my fanfiction. Anyway, please tell me what you think of this chapter. There's not much in the way of action (that comes later), but I tried to provide more backup information while alluding to M and M's feelings for each other (things WILL intensify, I assure you). Also, I'm trying to follow the canon storyline and facts as accurately as possible. Please tell me if I've messed something up! )
PLEASE REVIEW.