February 14, 2005
The man's eyes slowly raked up and down Mello's body, a grin spreading across his flabby face.
"You're even prettier than they said you were. Come on in; this is going to be fun."
Expressionless and silent, the fifteen-year-old boy stepped into the threshold of the lavishly-furnished apartment.
"Can I get you something to drink?" the robe-clad man held up a wine glass, shooting a grin at Mello. Still silent, Mello nodded and, when the glass filled with deep red liquid was placed in his hand, Mello gave it no more than a cursory sniff before tossing it back in several hurried gulps.
The man settled on the sofa next to Mello, tossing one arm casually around the boy's shoulders.
"Not exactly talkative, are you? Guess that's not necessary; there are always better things that can be done with that mouth of yours."
When Mello made no attempt at a response, the man gave a grin and tipped his head forward, sealing Mello's mouth in a kiss.
Tightly shutting his eyes, Mello sat as stiff as a board, not even breathing in the man's foul scent as the man attempted to plunder his mouth.
Growing frustrated, the man sat back.
"Kid, you're going to have to respond a little. Candy said that you were the Valentine package; try to act like it, huh?"
Moving back to the teenage boy, the man placed his hand on Mello's chest, stroking his skin through the leather top Candy had given Mello. A rosary dangling from around the man's neck swung forward, catching Mello in the cheek before the man's mouth was once again sealed over Mello's.
Leaning forward and pressing Mello back into the richly plush sofa, the man leaned heavily against Mello, drawing Mello's tongue into his mouth and sucking gently on the tip.
Mello opened his mouth wider and the man grinned—finally, a response—before letting out a sharp scream. He reared on his backside, staring at the dagger hilt that protruded from his abdomen in astonishment before rounding his wide eyes back on Mello.
"You…!"
The man lunged towards Mello, his ham-like hands shooting for the boy's delicate throat, and Mello used the man's momentum to kick the man sharply in the spot where the dagger protruded with both feet, causing the man's eyes to roll back in his head and a high-pitched squeak to emanate from his lips as he fell from the couch onto the floor, shaking the ground with its thud.
Leaping atop the man, Mello sneered even as he pulled a roll of piano wire from his clothes. The man's pupils dilated fearfully, already knowing what the outcome of this situation would be.
`.`.`.`.
Several hours passed before Mello stepped from the apartment, past the two burly bodyguards who stood, oblivious, outside the door, identical leers on their faces.
"Boss give it to you good?" the taller of the two asked. Mello gave the man no more response but an intense stare before faking a limp down the hallway, his black duffle bag swinging heavily from his arm. It was imperative the guards believe that the "boss" wasn't emerging from his rooms because he was spent after a long session of kinky Valentine "fun", instead of the real reason, as long as possible.
Exiting the building where a taxi rumbled, waiting for him, Mello pulled out a cell phone and dialed a number.
"Hey, kid. That you?" the husky voice of a woman came through the speakers.
"Yeah, Candy," Mello replied. "Hey."
The woman gave a long pause, and Mello heard the inhalation of cigarette smoke as she took a long, contemplative drag.
"You ok, hon?" her concern was genuine, whether or not she wanted it to be. "I know it's rough, especially the first few times."
Mello sighed. She had no idea…
"No, I'm not ok." Here he began to spin another of the many lies he had told since coming into America. "This was too much for me; I'm done with the 'hooker' business. I'm not coming back—I'm going back to my parents in Louisiana."
There was a long pause as Candy seemed to think of the right thing to say.
"You'll be missed, kid, but this is probably for the best, for you anyway. Go be a kid, ok? Go play on a swing set or some shit like that."
Mello smiled. "Thanks, Candy." Faking the tears in his voice, he gave the duffle bag on his lap a pat. "I appreciate everything you've done for me."
Few more words were spoken before Mello closed the phone and, waiting for the taxi driver to make a sharp left turn, he tossed the piece of plastic out the window.
Eyeing his mental checklist, Mello could have given a relieved smirk. After "find the mafia headquarters" and "find the mob boss", item three on the list, "behead the mob boss", could now be crossed off.
"Where to, Mello?" the beefy driver asked in his low growl of a voice.
"To headquarters, Rod. There's going to be a lot of changes around here." replied the youngest Mob Boss Chicago had ever seen, fiddling with the somewhat bloody rosary that dangled from his neck.
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October 8, 2004
Dressed in a warm-looking pea-coat and a fashionably tilted, matching hat, Wedy grinned, flashing her accomplice a wink. Then, without further ado her mouth was opened in a piercing alarm of a scream.
Aiber cringed from where he lay sprawled on the ground, his limbs carefully bent at awkward, unnatural angles, one knee crushed under his chest to make himself appear shorter (he was, after all, five inches and fifteen pounds too big for this role), his cheek pressed into the filthy pavement. Parbleu, but she was loud. Even the strands of the too-hot, scratchy black wig he wore could not protect his ears from the assault of her howls.
He had been there for a while, holding completely still, waiting for the thunk that signified people were about to look over the railing. Soichiro was several floors up and had obviously just dropped the black bag of heavy junk out the window. That must mean Matsuda was safe.
Opening her mouth even wider, Wedy howled. Merde; why is she over-acting so much? He was irritated; if only Matsuda was a woman! Then it would be he who stood screaming, not this thief-woman. She was going to get them all caught.
"I heard a noise!" she was jabbering in her (admittedly decent) Japanese, "He must be dead! SOMEBODY call an ambulance!"
He felt the tar underneath his face vibrating, obviously from the traffic a few yards away. This role is terrible.
It took less time than it should have for the ambulance to reach him. Through slitted eyes he watched Wedy slip into the trees, no doubt in search of the stolen ambulance she had parked a few blocks away. Who scripted this? The disgruntled man griped to himself. He was a professional con-man; had L bothered to consult him, he could have come up with a much better plan, timing and all.
A person stepped to his side, turning his back to the building the Yotsuba group was inside, shielding Aiber's face from the murderous crowd inside. If they had even the smallest inkling that this was forged…
Cold hands gripped his face, turning it on his side. Aiber opened his blue eyes fully, giving Light a smirk. "Nice outfit", he whispered. Light's face clouded into a scowl, and Aiber held back a chuckle; L was fully dressed up in a medic's garb, box-hat and all, and he was obviously not too happy about it.
"He's dead!" Light announced loudly, with perhaps a little too much relish to his voice. "Somebody bring a body bag, stat!"
And why does it have to be 'stat'? Aiber critiqued, with the passion of a director tweaking a scene in his prized movie. I'm "dead"; it's not like I'm going anywhere.
The somebody, improperly carrying the black bag slung over his shoulder, was L, dressed identically to Light. Not daring to insult his employer, Aiber kept his smirk to himself.
He felt the two men force his feet into the black plastic bag, gently hoisting him to slip it underneath his entire body before tucking it over his face and zipping it completely closed, before he felt the two men lift his body onto a sort of wheeled cart. The cart began to move at a slight upturned angle, obviously going up the ramp into the vehicle.
He held as still as he was able, hearing the mumbled voices of the Yotsuba group nearby. Though the thick black plastic was too dense for him to be able to hear their words, he registered the relief in their tone. Good. Despite its multiple flaws, they believed it.
But he couldn't hold still for long. The cloying plastic, the pressing darkness… he was brought back to memories of his childhood, where his psychotic mother would wake him by forcing a pillow over his face and eyes, pressing it down so hard that he thought, for sure, he would suffocate. Unable to help himself, he gave a violent thrash, his fingernails scrabbling at the plastic.
"Hold still," he heard Light mumble under his breath. "Yotsuba's leaving, but they could turn back at any time…"
Aiber did his best, feeling sweat trickle down his face. Fear, primal fear, gnawed at his stomach. God, he couldn't do this…
The cart stilled and Aiber heard the ambulance doors shoosh closed, felt the vehicle start to move, before he felt hands above his face, gripping the fabric and tearing it in one swift move.
"Wedy," he heard L chide. "You didn't need to destroy the body bag. You could have easily unzipped it."
She ignored her boss, as Aiber knew she would. Gathering his face in her small, glove-clad hands, she raised her sunglasses away from her eyes and nested them up in her hair so that she could bring her face close to Aiber's, scrutinizing him.
"What's wrong with you?" was all she asked, more curious than accusatory.
Aiber could only pant wildly, his breath sending her hair flying in multiple directions. She looked his face over sternly with her brown eyes—Aiber had never seen her eyes without her sunglasses before, Aiber noticed benignly. His heart was thudding so loudly against his chest that he knew she could hear it.
Finally she shrugged, resettling her trademark sunglasses over those heavy-lidded brown eyes, but not before Aiber saw something in them that he had never seen before in this seemingly cold woman; concern. This shocked him so much that he forgot to be afraid.
"I need to leave now, don't I?" she asked L, who nodded.
"If you would please hack into the Yotsuba meeting quarters, like we discussed, and—"
"Yes, yes," Wedy interrupted impatiently. "Give you a call. Got it."
"And then don't forget to come back to headquarters," L reminded her sternly, as if he had never been interrupted. "We are all staying there tonight; it's too dangerous for you to be seen around here for a while."
Looking unhappy but resigned, she nodded. Waiting for Watari to pull over to where her beast of a motorcycle gleamed in the otherwise empty parking lot of a random grocery store, Aiber watched the woman leap from the ambulance with cat-like grace, leaving her disguise-coat and hat behind and clad in nothing but her preferred skintight black leather. He watched as she mounted the motorcycle before the doors were closed once again and the ambulance began making its journey back to headquarters.
Bonne chance, Wedy, Aiber silently thought out to her.
`.`.`.`.
She heard a knock at her bedroom door and, expertly tucking the blue towel's ends until it formed a perfect turban on her damp hair, she approached the solid block of oak, opening the oiled door without a creak.
"A-Aiber?" She was startled; having expected L (or at least Watari) bearing news of tomorrow's work plans. She hadn't expected the blonde con-man to just boldly show up at her bedroom in the middle of the night.
He smiled at her, his pale blue eyes softening as he took her in, looking her up and down before he began laughing.
"Sheep pajamas? Sheep pajamas? I—" he wheezed for breath between hearty guffaws of laughter. "Y—you don't strike me as the "cuddly jammies" type, Wedy. I guess I was expecting leather lingerie or something."
Glaring, she hastily began to shut the door in his face, but he moved his bare foot to catch it in his tracks.
"Ow."
"What do you want?" She demanded, irritated.
Instead of replying, he forcefully pushed her door open all the way, striding in as if he owned the rooms.
"Hey!" she protested loudly, even as he sat himself on her mattress, bouncing a little.
"They gave you a bigger bed than I got. How is that fair?"
He watched with interest as her usually stoic face turned white, then red with rage. Wow; for a thief-slash-sometimes-spy, she was awfully transparent.
"G—g—get out of my room!" she sputtered, enraged, hands planted firmly on her sheep-pajama-clad hips.
He looked at her quizzically, a confused expression on his ruggedly-handsome face.
Wait. Had Wedy just thought of him as ruggedly handsome? No. No way, that was just the sleep-deprivation talking.
"Why?" he asked, genuinely puzzled. "I just want to talk."
She seemed to struggle for the right words to say, before she composed herself. Padding to her bathroom in her fuzzy blue slippers, she grabbed a wide-toothed comb from the sink counter. Brandishing it with a stern expression on her face, she attempted to explain her unusually frustrated state.
"Where I come from, people don't just barge into woman's bedrooms in the middle of the night."
She tugged off the towel and, returning to her bathroom where she stood in front of her mirror, viciously combed her way through her mane of fair hair.
"Where do you come from, anyway?" he asked curiously, watching her slowly turn the tangled, damp mop into a nicer, damp length of streaky blonde strands.
"Not telling. I'm a thief, idiot; I can't give out things like that. Get out of my room!" she dabbed moisturizer on her cheeks, squeezed toothpaste on a travel toothbrush and stuck it in her mouth.
"Want to know where I'm from?" he teased, turning on his full-wattage con-man charm while crinkling his eyes.
"No." Clearly she was immune; she spat a mouthful of toothpaste into the sink in a deridingly un-ladylike fashion. Then she smirked in her teasing fashion.
"As if it wasn't obvious, Thierry Morrello from Dreux, France."
He felt absolutely floored, as if he had been ran over by a steamroll.
"H—how did you…"
"I have my ways," she grinned wickedly as she sat on the edge of the bathtub and began applying lotion to the bottoms of her feet.
"Then that's not fair; you have to give me something about you. A name, a place of birth…"
"No."
This conversation was going nowhere. Aiber sat up and fixed his eyes on her.
"Look," he told her, seriously; the tone must have been obvious because she set the bottle of lotion down and turned to look him in the eye.
"I just wanted to say thank you," he smiled at her. "You know, for saving me from the Evils of the Body Bag." He allowed some self-deprecating humor to enter his serious voice.
Her eyes softened and Aiber was once again reminded how exotic they looked against her blonde hair. He stood and began walking towards her door, but she stopped him by speaking.
"You're not the only one afraid of things," she told him, and the raw honesty in her usually emotionless voice touched him, a little.
Re-inserting her feet into those slippers, she walked him to the door, holding it open for him.
"Goodnight."
"Goodnight."
The door was closed gently behind him, but just as he started to head back towards the elevator, it opened again. Before he had time to turn around, she spoke, quickly but very quietly.
"My name is Mary."
Aiber grinned, even as the door closed with a loud click.
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DBL here! Wow, this began dark. I know this chapter is longer than the others have been, but I couldn't find a way to make it shorter.