DISCLAIMER: I OWN NOTHING!
NOTE: I meant to update sooner, but I got caught up in some stuff. AKA, I WAS DISTRACTED. It happens a lot ^_^ Anyway, I'm gonna try to keep this to a twice-weekly update schedule until school starts, because I have no life right now and like to keep occupied. x3
ANONYMOUS REVIEWS:
jell: Awesome, I appreciate it. Thanks for being my first reviewer ever. 8D
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If I were a poet, I'd probably describe what happened to me when Mello so graciously graced me with his goggle-faced grin – hey, pre-poetry alliteration! – as bright. Enormously bright. Painfully bright. Brightness ten times brighter than either the street lamp outside my shabby window or the sun greeting me in the morning. Bright enough to make your corneas bleed. The kind of brightness that gave you skin cancer. Bright enough to question whether plants needed sunlight or Mel-rays.
But I'm not a poet, so forget that shit.
Anyway, I just stood there with my nose dripping, wondering when I'd be able to finally collect my jaw from the floor. Maybe I should get a job as a fortune teller – lord knows I'd need the money whenever that old standby of stealing dead people's social security numbers finally got me in trouble – because I had known something would happen. Something bad. I was more nervous than I ever had been...well, maybe not as nervous I had been I was gonna tell Mells th- –
Wait, no. Not something bad! Mells' arrival was good, wasn't it...? I mean, I kind of lo- well, not really, not now, but that didn't mean I don't still revere him as a fucking god! I mean, he's Mell-fucking-o! Strong, brave, intelligent, Mello! The guy that was there for me at least ten percent of the time, and that was saying something, since generally people hover between zero and a third of a percent! I admire his bluntness, his manipulative skills, his slyness, his his tight, tight ass in leather pants...!
...why was I so paranoid-feeling and stuff, then, like I sensed something bad was going to come? God, what if Mello came to kill me or something? Were those the vibes I was getting? Homicidal vibes? But he wouldn't do that, would he? Cue a chorus of evil little demons screaming "HELL YEAH HE WOULD!"
I wasn't even looking at him anymore – I was just kind of staring through him and instead experiencing firsthand whatever insanity he had brought with him. I'm sure my face was either blank or displaying my tendency to be batshit when distressed. I'm guessing it was the latter, considering the words Mello said to bring me back to the somewhat ordinary dimension I formerly occupied...
"Hey Matt, if you had told me beforehand that you were considering skewering yourself on the street lamp I'm on, I'd have taken the stairs."
"...what?"
"You look like you're a danger to yourself and possibly everyone around you...what the hell was that face you just made? You looked like some kind of possessed squirrel."
"A possessed squirrel? Kinda like Justin Bieber, then?" I smirked at my own stupid joke. I was into all of that celebrity stuff, American celebrities in particular, and I followed that dumb pussy on Twitter for shits 'n giggles. What a fucktard. Lord knows I don't know what girls saw in that squirrel-y face. Squirrels are nasty.
"Who the hell is Dusty Beaver? That's a stupid name."
At this I could only laugh, stuttering out "N-n-nooooo...J-j-jus-justin...Bie-bie-ber!" in a way that made Mells look kind of concerned, which was rare for him. "You know, the gay sq-sq-squirell one? That one that doesn't know what the word 'German' means?" I laughed more, despite his awkward expression.
I must really have looked like I had gone off the deep end. And sure, I did cry a little as I was trying to tell him about Justin Bieber, and maybe I slapped my knee a time or too, and maybe I did snort so hard my nose ached...but I stand by the fact that I am not in need of a straight jacket and a nice, padded cell. I just had a crazy day – that's all.
The fact that we had that short conversation while Mells was clinging onto my windowsill for dear life was sheer proof that we were probably both off our rockers. First off, just a few minutes earlier I was sobbing over loss of my goggles. My knuckles were bloody, my vocal chords were sore. I had a meltdown. Then, I started laughing hysterically from a bizarre mix of fear and relief – and because of my stupid joke and Mello's ignorance toward pop culture. Second off, Mello was behaving as if the year we'd been apart hadn't even happened, like it was merely a couple days time. Hell, he was being much more civil than I'd ever remembered him being. These points more than screamed "crazy."
But then again, Mello seemed closed-off. A bit preoccupied. Perhaps even nervous himself...? My observational skills and intuition were working, despite the hysterics I had been in. In the covert glances at him I caught between my heaving laugh-sobs, his eyes seemed to be darting behind my goggles...an almost infallible sign of anxiety. I would know. Sometimes I pretended they were dark enough to hide my expression, too.
"Uh, Matt. You do realize that you have further reinforced my opinion of you as a maniac in the last ten minutes...?" His tone was venomous, but with a little hint of teasing that I have come to associate with a happy Mello. A happy Mello that I would certainly not expect from this situation...yeah, there's no way this is completely genuine. I could be arrogant and think that he's just happy to see me, but lying to yourself gets you two blocks past nowhere.
I didn't answer. I just looked at him suspiciously.
"Am I supposed to straddle this thing til dawn, Goddamn it?" There's that Mello I know and lo- – not anymore, Matt! Quit thinking that!
"I guess you leave me no choice – I'll just have to shut the window!"
Mello just glared through the goggles. He looked ready to spit.
I sauntered toward him and took them off his face, faking closing the window before neatly putting them over my head. They were too big – Mello had probably adjusted them to fit his fat head. My body relaxed as I pulled them through my matted hair, but my mind sharpened. My goggles really did help me with more than protecting my eyes from the light from my various electronics. Tch, it was almost like L's posture thing...
And now, cue drama. As if he had read my mind.
"MATT, YOU FUCKING MORON! You care more about your goggles than you do MY SAFETY! WHAT THE HELL IS YOUR PROBLEM! Aren't you even gonna ask about why I went out of my MY WAY to steal YOUR GOGGLES, if you care about them that much? HUH?"
"Actually, Mello, I just assumed you took them to get my attention after so long," I said, almost stiffly. Even his exaggerated melodrama seemed forced. Usually his bitching required no time to get out – I liked to think Mello had very poor brain/mouth coordination – but this time his little spiel was punctured briefly by pauses. His face wasn't as red as it usually was when he screamed, either, though his voice was loud enough. Again, I wondered what the neighbors would think and whether I'd get enough complaints to be evicted.
Okay, so maybe he really is plotting my imminent death. But at least it's bothering him; I wouldn't want to know that he put seventeen bullets through me without a second thought...
Against my better judgment, I decided I ought get on his good side and help him into my apartment. Even though we were just – well, I was just – joking around, and I used to lo- like him, I trusted my own instincts more than I trusted a volatile force such as Mello. I narrowed my eyes at him as I leaned out the window to grab him. He was situated so that his fingers were gripping the windowsill, his forearms were against the brick of the building, his chin was resting on the sill, and his legs were wrapped around the street lamp. It looked painful, and required more strength than anyone his size should be entitled to. I felt a little guilty that I didn't help him sooner.
I put my arms under his arms, clasping my hands behind his back and heaving him upwards. He kicked off of the street lamp and caught foot on the side of the building. He was essentially hanging down a two-story drop in my "gamer's arms" (read: noodles) with his feet barely clinging to anything. But he was still the bird-boned kid I always knew, so my muscles weren't screaming in protest or anything (more like whimpering)...besides, he was helping hoist himself all he could...I guess.
He ended up kind of lunging at me as well as he could. He ended up toppling me over onto the floor. My head hit the tile hard, but I tried not to wince. Wincing while a leather-clad chest was on top of you was decidedly uncool. I tried not to notice the fact that I could feel his heart beating on top of mine...
He stood up quickly – almost in embarrassment – before covering it up by turning his nose up a bit at the state of disrepair my apartment was in. Hey, I was a 16 year old boy. What'd he expect? But Mello had high expectations for everything, something I'd never allowed myself to have...but that's a different story...
"Glad to see you've fixed up the place nicely." The blonde took a bar of chocolate out of the front of his pants – good ol' Mello – and promptly plopped down on the pull-out couch.
"What, no hug for the best friend you haven't seen for a year? Really, what has the world come to?" I joked, sitting beside him.
"I'm not your best friend, Matt, I'm you're only friend." He scooted away slightly as he bit into his bar, but just enough so that I would get the picture that he wasn't going to be affectionate with me.
"True. But why do you say I've fixed up the place? You live here before? I thought this place was so cheap because someone had been murdered here and they were trying to get rid of some evidence, or something." I kept a casual tone, but my eyes were narrowed behind my goggles.
"No, Matt, of course not," he said, sounding reminiscent of a harsh-tongued grandmother scolding an argumentative child.
"Hmmm?"
"I'm just your landlord."
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ANOTHER NOTE: This was a lot more light-hearted than I intended it to be, really. BUT WHO CARES, I HAD MUSE AND THAT'S ALL THAT COUNTS. 8D I even changed the other category to "humor." I'm probably going to change the thing other than drama a lot. Oh, and next chapter may be a Mello, if I can find the muse. C;