Author's Note: Game time again—"Spot the 'Casablanca' Reference"!
IV. Shirts
Matt's back had a shirt on it by the time Mello staggered in and slung the bags of booze onto the kitchen table.
Mello tried not to think Damn, but he couldn't help himself.
Matt withdrew his head from the refrigerator, turned, and raised an eyebrow. "What's all that?"
He was wearing the Queen shirt. The stupid bastard was wearing the stupid Queen shirt.
Of all the shirts in all the closets in all the world, he picked the Queen shirt.
"It's booze," Mello answered as autopilot kicked in. "It's a shitload of booze, 'cause I drank half of yours last night, so I figure it's only fair I buy you some more."
Matt stared at him. Mello stared back.
Matt blinked first.
"Thank you," he said.
"No problem," Mello replied. He turned to the table, fought his way into the plastic bag amongst the paper ones, and unearthed eight bars of chocolate for his pains. These he collected and jammed into the cupboard. "Got to restock the important stuff," he noted.
Matt didn't respond. Bare feet snked across the linoleum as he went back into the bedroom, and the sheet-less mattress creaked as he sat.
Mello wasn't feeling brave enough to approach him yet.
Matt slipped on a stranded wrapper, pinwheeled his arms, and fell onto the bed, succumbing immediately to a fit of uncontrollable laughter. Mello lingered in the doorway, the neck of the brandy bottle loosely between two fingers, and watched him for a moment—just watched, just looked for the sake of seeing.
Matt beamed at him, tossing his head to get the hair out of his eyes. Red and blue. Primary colors supplemented by the warm pink in his cheeks, stark against the white of the sheets and the dark in the corners, a dark that wouldn't care, that wouldn't tell, that wouldn't whisper…
"Undressing me with your eyes?" Matt purred.
Mello wasn't. Or at least, he hadn't been until he got the suggestion.
"Damn it, Matt," he groaned, throwing his free hand melodramatically over his eyes.
"Here," Matt offered, bouncing to his feet and taking the hem of his shirt in both hands. "Let me help."
It had been much too easy after that.
No, that wasn't true. It had been easy all along—easy to love that stupid, goggle-toting, piece of shit boy, him and his big dumb grin and his bright blue eyes and his wide-open candor.
Mello fingered his crucifix and stacked chocolate bars, over and over and in different patterns. He felt like Near, and the fact that it didn't make him want to puke his fucking guts up seemed like a pretty incontrovertible indicator that something was horribly wrong.
Damn it, Matt.
He didn't like this whole emotional honesty thing at all. He supposed that wasn't too surprising, given that it combined two things that didn't agree with him.
Glowering at the refrigerator magnets, he wondered if perhaps the struggle with it was part of the reason that he was starving to death. Or maybe that was because he'd eaten nothing but a little bit of chocolate today.
Toss-up.
Mello made himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and some chocolate milk (using approximately a quarter of the bottle of chocolate syrup) and went into the bedroom.
Matt was sitting in the chair, the comforter Mello had thrown there laying over his legs, and looking out the window, pale smoke tracing a lazy path upwards to settle in a hazy halo around his head.
"What?" he asked around the cigarette.
Mello battled the peanut butter clinging tenaciously to the roof of his mouth. Milk reinforcements were required.
When the good fight had been fought, he answered, "Changed my mind."
"Taking the booze back so we can't get drunk and fuck around again tonight?"
Mello hesitated. Matt was being sarcastic—bitingly sarcastic. This was mean sarcasm. Matt didn't use mean sarcasm, if he used sarcasm at all.
But he was using it now. And he was good at it.
Shit.
Mello took a deep breath. Rise above that, he told himself firmly. Rise above it. Retaliation would just send this whole thing spiraling out of control and careening off the road, onto the fast track to the Land of Even Worse.
"I wanna talk about it," he said.
Matt didn't move. "The booze?"
RISE ABOVE THAT, TOO, GOD DAMN IT.
"You know exactly what," Mello gritted out.
Matt said nothing. Cigarette smoke swirled.
"Look," Mello persisted, discovering that it was impossible to roll one's eyes and look sincere at the same time, "can I just… I don't want to forget. Put it that way. I don't want it to be the end of the story. I give a shit."
Matt took a long drag and then looked at him, intently and unflinchingly. "You're getting crumbs on the carpet," he declared.
Mello's stomach lining turned to lead.
Fucking asshole piece of shit son of a bitch—
"Fuck you, Matt," he snapped, turning on his heel and going for the door.
"You already did," Matt called unconcernedly after him, the echoes following Mello down the stairs.
Author's Note: Eltea, my beautiful beta goddess, adds, "They'll always have Wammy's…"