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Chapter Ten
"You live here?" exclaimed Mello, staring up at the posh skyscraper. He wasn't even going to guess at the price of the condos and apartments inside. Even though he and James had made quite a lot of money from their counterfeiting operation, they had to be careful how they spent it, so they hadn't bought anything too lavish. But Matt…
"Yeah," replied Matt in a monotone voice, leading him through the front lobby and into an elevator. Pressing the button for floor twenty-five, the redhead leaned back against the elevator wall, closing his eyes in exhaustion.
He really did look terrible, Mello mused. Even though Matt had some striking features—those green eyes were one of a kind, really—he had a sickly, unhealthy pallor to his skin. Those cigarettes certainly hadn't done him much good.
Mello hadn't spent much time, over the past few years, wondering what had become of the redhead, but if he had, perhaps he could have predicted this. Matt had always had an addictive personality; he'd been way too enamored with video games. After leaving Wammy's House, who knows what kinds of bad influences he'd been exposed to without having any parents or guardians to keep him in line. Actually, considering that, Mello was impressed that Matt wasn't even worse off.
They reached his floor and walked across the hallway, turning the first corner and unlocking a door. Right behind the redhead, Mello stepped in.
The furniture in his place (not to mention that huge big screen TV) was high-end, but clothes and empty cans littered the place. A box of cereal sat on the coffee table, open and surely getting stale. The room, like Matt, smelled very faintly of smoke, but it could be much worse. Mello refrained from commenting on the state of the place, but Matt could tell what he was thinking.
"Sorry," he muttered, starting to walk around the room and pick things up.
"It's your place, dude," said Mello. "I'm just happy to be out of that cell. Really, anything is better than that."
"I guess," said Matt, grabbing the cereal box and disappearing into the kitchen. Soon thereafter Mello heard the sound of running water and subsequent scrubbing, and when he looked round the corner, he saw Matt trying to clean some pan in his sink.
"Hey," he said, walking over to the redhead and laying a gentle hand on his arm. "You don't have to do that. I'll take care of it. You go to bed."
Matt blinked at him uncomprehendingly. "What? It's my mess."
"I'm not denying that, but you need to get some sleep, and I will most likely be up for the whole night anyway 'cause of this time change and the fact I slept for nearly the whole damn plane ride. I have plenty of time to straighten your place up."
"Still," said Matt. "This isn't your problem."
"Flying to England to break me out of a bad situation wasn't your problem, either, but you did it, didn't you?"
"I suppose."
"It's the least I can do. Don't worry about it, all right?"
Matt still looked uncomfortable, but he stepped away, dropping his sponge back in the sink. "If you say so."
"I do."
"Right," he said. "I'll be, uh, in the bedroom, over there. I'm afraid I don't have another proper bed here, but the couch has a pull-out if you want to get some sleep, and it's actually pretty comfortable. There are extra sheets in the linen closet right there."
"That's fine. Perfect, really. I spent the last two nights sleeping in a wooden chair with my hands cuffed behind my back. Seriously, I don't think you recognize how low my standards are right now."
Matt nodded. "Okay. I guess… we'll talk more about everything in the morning, if you can wait that long?"
"Of course. Now go to bed, Matt."
For the first time in hours, Matt cracked a small smile, and Mello couldn't help but stare at how it lit up his whole face. "Yes, mother."
Mello watched as Matt disappeared into a room at the far end, which clearly had an en suite attached by the sound of a sink running and a toilet flushing. Within fifteen minutes, however, the house was dark and empty and still once more.
When Mello was fairly certain that the other man was asleep, he looked around the apartment once more. It was now prime time to snoop and find out more about Matt, if he could.
Padding softly around the family room, Mello scanned the walls. For the most part, the place was bare except for a couple of black-framed video game posters—one of Master Chief, the other of Mario. There were certainly no photographs hung up, nor were there any picture frames propped on any of the surfaces in the room. Unsurprisingly, the cabinets next to the TV were chock full of gaming consoles from the past two decades. Mello had never been much into video games, but even he could recognize that this was quite a collection. Super Nintendo, Sega Dreamcast, Atari VCS, PS2, N64, Gamecube, Xbox 360… the list went on and on. In a drawer, he found stacks of games, all sorted by console. Then, of course, there were the requisite controllers for each system, which were kept neatly in another cabinet, their cords wrapped carefully.
No surprises there. Closing the cupboard doors, Mello straightened from his crouch, feeling a pain shoot through his chest. Ouch. Those muscles were sore and bruised.
Thinking to find himself some Advil or something, Mello wandered to the main washroom and pulled open the medicine cabinet. Sure enough, there was a bottle of Advil… some Tylenol… and holy shit, there was quite a collection of pills in here. There were some normal things, like eye drops and Sudafed, but there were also some caffeine pills—NoDoz—a metric shit ton of NyQuil, sleeping pills, Valium, Vicodin, and… fuck, were those ecstasy tablets?
Shaken, Mello closed the cabinet. Right. Well, he had somewhat suspected this, what with Matt's cigarette habit and his somewhat groggy, spacey state, but it was one thing to guess and another thing to see the evidence for himself.
The guy was probably an addict. Mello ran a hand through his hair, wincing when he passed over a bump on his head that was still healing. He didn't get the impression that Matt would be particularly dangerous when high, but it worried Mello. After all, while he was here in Chicago without any belongings of his own, he was basically subject to the redhead's whims. This was his only place to stay—even if he wanted to return to England, there was no way he would be going back to live with James.
And if he was honest with himself, he was worried for Matt's health, too. Consuming all this shit—hopefully not at the same time if he had any sense—could seriously fuck a person up.
Making his way to the kitchen to keep his promise and actually do some dishes, Mello reminded himself not to make too many assumptions. He'd watch Matt and see for himself. Then again, how could Mello ever trust his own judgment again? He'd obviously never seen James's betrayal coming, and he'd dated the man for more than a year.
Bitterly, Mello pushed those thoughts out of his mind. He didn't want to face the hurt about that right now; if possible, he'd avoid it forever.