Hey ya'll! This is actually my first time writing a fic with no OC protagonist, so I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing. Help me figure this out, guys, haha! Is this going somewhere, or should I just drop it?
It hadn't always been like this.
There had been a time when Matt's presence hadn't annoyed or burnt Mello like a flame in his gut. There had been a time, when they had been friends.
Matt was, in fact, the only friend Mello had ever had.
He had never been a popular kid, not even before Wammy's house. He had always been too much aware of the fact that he was way smarter than other kids - and other kids had always sensed that there was something amiss, something broken in Mello.
Most of the time, Mello hadn't really cared. He had preferred to be alone anyways. If there was one thing that he had learnt in his short life before Wammy's, it was that people will always hurt you and they will always let you down.
So, better to trust no one. Better to be alone.
There were people he looked up to, sure. Like L - but he was way too old and way too peculiar to be called a friend.
And there were people Mello tolerated. Like Fay, who always brought chocolate, and Watari who treated Mello as if he was an adult, not like the kid his years indicated.
And then there were people Mello despised. Like Near. Just the thought of Near's fluffy hair and his infuriating coolness made Mello's brain boil.
But friends? Those he had never had - except for Matt.
It had begun the day Matt had arrived in Wammy's house - just an ordinary Tuesday afternoon - but that ordinary Tuesday had became a turning point in Mello's life. The day that marked the line between before and after. Before, was his lonely, bitter existence in Wammy's house, days and nights filled with studying and nothing more. And after - after, there was Matt. There was laughter, there were pranks they played on the others together, there was Matt sneaking out in the middle of the night to smoke a stolen cigarette, there was Matt sitting silently in Mello's room, when he had one of his migraines and the pain was slicing his head like a knife.
He didn't know how it had happened. That he had let Matt break his shell, and to see him - the real him - when he had been so careful never show it to anyone. But there was simply something about Matt that had called to Mello since the day one.
Maybe it was the way he just didn't seem to give a fuck about anything. It called to Mello, like light calls to a moth.
He admired Matt for it, his ability not to care.
For Mello himself, had always been one to care too much, to love too deeply, to feel more emotion than his slender frame could handle.
But Matt - he seemed to take life as it was, and not crave for more.
It was extraordinary. It was curious. It was intoxicating.
Since the day one, it had been settled. Where Mello went, Mat followed. And so it had been for years, they had been partners in crime, they had been Bonnie and Clyde and Thelma and Louise, they had been a duo that had brought havoc and outrage throughout Wammy's and ended up in Watari's office more times than Mello cared to count for.
Mello felt his lips curving to a crooked smile, remembering some of their best moments.
Like when they had switched sugar for salt in L's personal sugar bowl in the breakfast table.
Or when they had stolen Watari's glasses and hidden them in the drawer where Fay kept her underwear.
Or when they had used their few pennies to smuggle porn mags to Wammy's and replaced the pages of Near's school books with those of Playboy and Penthouse.
It had always been so, that Mello was the one to come up with the idea, and Matt followed to execute the plan, to perfection. And they had been flawless together. Brothers in arms, the two musketeers, a match made in heaven. Up until this goddamned spring of Mello's 14th year of existence, when everything had begun to change.
He sat on his bed, staring at the wall and the self loath - no, the disgust - was eating him alive.
He couldn't shake the memory of sunlight in Matt's hair. Of Matt's slender fingers gripping on the pen, his black sneakers moving under the his chair.
Mello was far from stupid. He knew what this meant.
All you have worked for. All, and for nothing. You're no better than the rest of them.
A drooling idiot.
He clenched his fists, dug his fingernails deep into his palms, to drive away the haunting thoughts, the agonizing images, but it did no good. Matt was in his head, as he had been since the day one, and there was no driving him away.