Title: Fantasy
Author: compos_dementis
For: mparf on LiveJournal
Fandom: DN
Pairing: Matt/Mello pre-slash
Rated: PG-13
Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note. This was not for profit.
Summary: After four years, they meet again, but Mello is no longer the Mello that Matt had fallen for.
Prompt: Cosplay
Four years.
Roger had made the announcement the day after Mello's departure. "Near has left the Wammy's House to take L's place. Mello has chosen to live on his own, and his whereabouts are unknown as of now."
Matt hadn't known what to think at the time, what to feel. Fifteen and confused, he struggled with the idea that Mello was gone, that his best friend had vanished off the face of the planet. Mello had always been there even when Matt didn't want him to be, leaning over him, clothes hanging from a wiry frame.
His own decision to leave had been quick and unplanned. With just his shirt and a bag full of equipment, Matt left the institution that was Wammy's House in search of that little boy in the sweatpants, for a tiny build and frightened eyes.
When he did finally meet up with Mello, after four long years spent in dirty American rent, it was no longer the boy that Matt remembered. Leather pressed into the curves of Mello's body, the blond hair longer and untamed, eyes wild with obsession and power.
His little Mello had become a stranger, and Matt couldn't stand to acknowledge the change.
"Matt."
Mello's voice was cold and forced familiarity as his eyes raked Matt's body boredly. "Drop your things anywhere. My men will pick it up."
Matt tried to find something he recognized – a motion, a tone. He shrugged off the backpack that weighed heavily on his shoulders, and he gently placed it on the floor so as not to damage the equipment inside. Tracing the room with cautious green eyes, he counted the bulky men on the sofas.
Three, four, five… all disgustingly American, muscles grotesquely huge and faces depicting only ugly boredom and slight amusement as they eyed the newcomer. Matt didn't give them the satisfaction of humiliation, eyes scanning them behind orange lenses.
"Who's this goon?" one laughed in absurdly perfect Japanese. "Mello, I thought you said we weren't accepting newbies."
He'd been expecting this. Ridicule and cruelty, probably on how he dressed. He tried to grit his teeth and let it slide, hands shoving into his pockets.
Mello turned to look at the speaker with a smirk. Then his eyes flicked back to Matt, who awaited the response.
"This isn't a newbie," Mello replied, clasping his hand onto Matt's shoulder in faux friendship. "This is Matt. He…" Mello paused as if thinking. "He does computer work. He's… a friend."
Matt's stomach turned at the tone, and he had to bite his own tongue to keep from making any remarks.
"So he's a techie?" It was a different man this time, just as muscled but with a sickly-skinny prostitute in his lap. Matt wondered how much he had paid for her, noting the oily hair and the dark bags beneath her stoned eyes. "He messes with gadgets and stuff?"
Not expecting anything better, Matt replied, "I'm good with technology. I work with cameras and hidden microphones, computers, communication, and breaking into enemy networks. I'm a computer hacker."
The man blinked slowly, and Matt could see the struggle to follow both the fluent Japanese and the description of tech. Meanwhile the prostitute's dainty little hand traced the button on his fly despite the company, Matt's nose wrinkling in distaste.
"So… you're a geek, then? Like with gadgets?"
Matt sighed. There was no point in trying to explain it to them.
"Yes," he said. "Like gadgets."
"Anyway," Mello cut in, adjusting his leather vest so that it hugged his chest even tighter and walking over to sit on the sofa. "Make yourself at home, Matt. Take a beer, take a woman."
Ah, so the girls were complimentary. If possible, that disgusted him even more.
"Actually, Mello…" Mello looked up at him, all awareness and attentive respect. More respect than Matt had ever received in the past. "I was hoping I could talk to you. Alone."
That earned him some looks from the Americans. Silent accusations, confusion in their otherwise lifeless eyes.
'Fuck you,' Matt thought, pent-up rage storming inside of him. 'Fuck you, and fuck your free whores. After four years of searching, I'd like to see you do better.'
Mello tilted his head, giving a look of sheer insanity that made Matt have to avert his eyes. "Alone, Matt?" he asked, half-mocking. Matt felt his face go hot and silently cursed Mello for being able to manipulate him like this.
"If you don't mind."
Mello gave another one of those smirks. How could so much change in just a few years?
"Certainly. Anything for a… friend."
Matt had to swallow back his retort, ready on his tongue.
Mello's bedroom was less impressive than the main room, if possible. Matt glanced over the small bed and bedside table, the narrow window half-covered with a moth-eaten drape. How typical; put up a front with the exterior, all intimidating and dark, only to have the impression fade as you delve deeper inside.
"Well?" Mello sat on the bed, splaying his legs open wider than Matt was entirely comfortable with. "What do you want to say, Matt? Or rather… what do you want me to tell you?"
Where should he start? So many questions raced through his mind, all crying to be answered at once. He thought about it, sitting in a chair directly across from his friend.
"Where have you been?"
Mello leaned back a little, opening the drawer in the table and extracting a chocolate bar. That was a little better, at least, the sight of perfect teeth snapping chocolate squares familiar.
"Here," Mello replied, gesturing around him. "Building my mafia. Gathering men to help protect me as I try to capture Kira."
"To beat Near?"
Mello looked away, mouth set. "I'm meeting him at the finish line." He turned back, shadows dancing over his face. "Anything else?"
Matt fished in his vest pocket for a moment, removing his box of cigarettes. He slid one between his lips, lighting it, taking a drag and sighing at the rush of bitter nicotine and smoke in his lungs. He exhaled the wispy gray into the air, watched it curl up between the two like a barrier.
"Why did you call me?"
Mello rolled his eyes. "You already know the answer to that one. I need someone who's able to think abstractly, someone good with computers. Plus, I know you've been looking for me… I just kept a step ahead of you until you cooled down, then tracked your clients to find your number. It was dullingly simple, Matt." He snapped another piece of chocolate. "You haven't changed much since Wammy's."
"You have."
"Not as much as you think." He eyed Matt again. "My turn. What the hell are you wearing?"
Matt glanced down at his own wardrobe, then at Mello's. "You don't have room to talk, you know."
Mello shrugged, crookedly snapping off yet another square of chocolate with his teeth. He kept it there, tongue running over the piece lovingly and Matt found that he couldn't pry his eyes away.
"I couldn't stay innocent little Mihael forever, you know," Mello said, eyes giving that unfamiliar look of coldness that caused Matt to instinctively shrink back. "I need to call attention to myself. I need to acquire that impression of intimidation or else I'll never accomplish even the barest first steps toward capturing Kira. Toward beating Near."
Matt looked away, instead examining the carvings on the side table. Dragons, fairies, all fantastical creatures that existed only in bedtime tales and the video games that Matt seemed to be so fond of. Nothing Mello was interested in and certainly nothing worth investing belief. As Mello said, they weren't children anymore. A mob leader and a hacker, no longer the friends they had been at the orphanage, no matter how much Matt tried to lie to himself.
"If you thought I was still the Mello you knew four years ago…" He laughed, tossing his hair. "You're even more foolish than I remember."
Matt felt his face heat and looked to the floor so that his burgundy red hair covered up his blush of shame. He was out of practice; four years ago he could take Mello's insults with a nonchalant laugh. Now every word out of that pretty mouth made Matt feel inferior.
"You never answered my question," Mello reminded him, leaning forward on the bed. "Why do you dress like that? You look like one of those American punks."
"You asked what the hell I was wearing, not why," Matt mumbled, tracing the stripes on his long sleeve with the finger of his glove. His eyes locked onto Mello, who gave a look of annoyance and slight embarrassment – probably at having his mistake corrected. Matt looked it over with a forcefully uncaring attitude.
"I moved to America to look for you," Matt admitted, causing Mello to raise his eyebrows in interest. "That was four years ago. I'd sharpened up my technology skills and became the best hacker in Los Angeles. For a while, I tried to follow your tracks – a changed name, a falsified train ticket – but you were always a step ahead of me." Matt took a long drag from his cigarette, blowing smoke out the side of his mouth.
"So I stayed. I knew that if you needed me, you would find me. I dress this way because if I adorn myself in items from the common Hot Topic, American adults will look me over as an everyday American teenager. I don't have to stand out."
Mello looked at him coldly, then gave a slow nod. "You got smarter since Wammy's," he noted, something resembling praise. "Good. You'll need that to survive here."
He stood, leaving his chocolate on the table. Then he left, and Matt put his smoke out on the hardwood floor, grinding it in with a heavy boot.
Like dragons and fairy tales, Matt had been living in fantasy for four years. A fantasy in which his skills were praised, his intelligence sought after. Too much time spent in his own company, no doubt. Life wasn't a fantasy. He wasn't the smartest man around, took abuse like a beaten puppy, and Mello was no longer the frightened little boy he remembered, but someone to fear.
Real life meant no masks or vivid costumes, no true love to be found beneath golden blond fringe, and (for Matt at least) no happily ever after.
It was with this thought that he decided maybe fantasy was better than the real world.