Thanks for all the reviews and faves, guys! They definitely made me work harder to get this chapter finished. It's still kind of short, I know, but the next one will be extra-long to make up for it.
Characters: not mine.
--
It was frightening, watching Mello's composure shatter, but it was equally frightening to watch him wrench it back into place. His next words were not panicked, but icily resolved.
"Soichiro Yagami can kill me," he said.
"Better hope he likes you," Matt responded, ignoring the shudder that went through him at Mello's tone. It wasn't like him to take death so calmly– but then again, there wasn't anything he could do. If what he said about the Death Note was true, and Yagami wrote down Mello's real name, he would die. And Mello was undoubtedly smart enough to know that.
"Better hope he really died, you mean. I didn't have time to check after Jose shot him." Matt wondered, again, about the people Mello had been spending the last four years of his life with, accompanied by the same absurd twinge of anger he'd felt when Mello referred to "his men." Then he shook himself. There were much more pressing things to be worrying about.
"If Yagami is dead, I should be all right," continued Mello, mostly to himself. "I didn't let any of the others see my face." Matt could almost see the plans and analyses whirring in Mello's brain. As for Matt himself, his main plan revolved around getting Mello to eat something that wasn't chocolate, and maybe retying the loose bandage currently trailing down Mello's back. He supposed that was why Mello was second and he was third.
"Well then, if you suddenly collapse, I know who to blame," said Matt flippantly, trying to lighten the mood. "Want some lunch?" Mello waved the remains of the chocolate bar in his hand. "Real lunch, I mean."
"I have to think," Mello said.
"You can think and eat at the same time."
At this point, Moxie took the opportunity to headbutt Mello in the knees. He jumped. "What the fuck, Matt. Your cat is psychotic."
Matt snickered. "That must be why she likes you," he said.
"Well I don't like her," Mello replied, but Matt could tell he was lying. Maybe Mello didn't have quite the soft spot Matt did for abandoned kittens, but who could resist Moxie's big green eyes and silky soft fur?
"I'm making you a sandwich," Matt announced, and though he grumbled to himself the whole time, Mello followed him into the kitchen. It was only after Mello asked where exactly he was supposed to sit that Matt realized the state of his apartment.
"Messy" wasn't exactly the right word, because that implied an overflow of clutter and useless objects, but "Spartan" was also wrong, because there was a severe lack of organization in Matt's few possessions. The chair next to the small kitchen table was occupied by a stack of papers, while the worn-down couch across the room had laptops on the cushions and wires trailing across the floor.
"Oh," said Matt. He grabbed the stack off the chair– newspapers and spam mail, mostly, but with a worksheet of useful hacks and a few data printouts looking for some gangster named Mello– and put it on the counter. Mello sat down on the newly-vacated chair, arrogant even covered in bandages and with no shirt on, and gave Matt the look that meant "I'm waiting."
Matt slid easily back into the role that, for a long time, had simply been the way life was for him. Doing things for Mello was so ingrained that he didn't even think to be resentful until the mustard he was spreading on a piece of cheap white bread burned into a paper cut he hadn't known he had. With a perfunctory curse, Matt stuck his finger in his mouth to lick off the mustard, unconcerned about the pain but amused and exasperated that he should once again be feeling it for Mello's sake. Hadn't these past four years been time enough to break that habit, even if being deprived of the blonde's mischief had led him to pick up that first lung-searing cigarette? Addictions, it seemed, could be replaced, but never lost.
"Cut that out," Mello snapped from behind him.
"Mluh?" said Matt, his finger still tucked absently into his mouth.
"Stop sucking on your finger," said Mello, in a weirdly strained voice. Matt reflected that his throat was probably still raw from smoke inhalation. "You're going to get your spit in my sandwich."
"That's what you get for not tipping me," Matt replied, but he wiped his finger on the striped shirt he was wearing and was careful not to touch it to the bread as he finished arranging the salami. He slid the plate across the table and pulled out a cigarette for himself.
"Matt," said Mello warningly. Matt blew smoke at him.
"What? I stayed up all night to make sure you weren't dead; I deserve a break."
"So now you're aiming to kill me with secondhand smoke," muttered the blonde around a mouthful of sandwich. Matt ignored him and took another long drag. The nicotine pleasantly dulled his nerves and allowed him to think, for a while at least, that things were going okay.
"When you're done, we need to change that bandage of yours," said Matt presently. Mello glared.
"Since when do you give the orders, Matt?" growled Mello, and for the first time Matt could fully understand how he'd gotten to the top of the Mafia. But he remembered the little blonde boy who'd been too scared to sleep for the first week at Whammy's.
"Since you blew yourself up and showed up here." Matt slid the goggles over his eyes and stared down an orange-tinted and extremely angry Mello. He was glad he'd safely hidden Mello's gun; the other man's fingers were twitching. "It's not like I'm trying to tie you down and rob you, Mello," said the redhead, exasperated. "You know as well as I do that you can't ignore that burn, and the bandages are supposed to be changed every few hours anyway."
"I'll do it myself," Mello bit out.
"Like to see that," Matt muttered. Mello tried to glower, but the twist of his face caused him to let out a low hiss of pain. Matt moved forward involuntarily.
"Did you get better pain meds?" Mello asked, trying to sound nonchalant and tough. Matt pulled the bottle of pills he'd recently bought out of the grocery bag on the counter and tossed it to Mello, who caught it deftly. "And the chocolate," Mello added. Matt rolled his eyes and threw him another chocolate bar. Mello unwrapped it and loudly snapped off a chunk, his teeth bared in a manic grin. The chocolate disappeared in less than a minute, and Matt announced that the time for medical treatment had arrived.
"Am I going to get a shirt this time?" inquired Mello acidly as Matt finished removing the loose bandage. The skin underneath was a raw, puckered pink, but it didn't look like it was infected. Matt's fingertips hovered all along the burn, wanting to touch it and make sure but afraid of hurting Mello.
"I'd advise against it," Matt replied. He sprayed more antiseptic on the broken skin, just to be safe, and due to the aforementioned lack of shirt he could actually see Mello clenching his muscles to resist the sting. To the former gangster's credit, he did not cry out, even to curse. As Matt taped on a new set of bandages, Mello did something completely unexpected: he yawned.
"Are you tired?" asked Matt in surprise. What he meant was, You're showing that you're tired?
"It's the medicine," Mello said peevishly, followed almost immediately by another yawn that he tried (and failed) to swallow. He looked so much like the cats that it was difficult for Matt to suppress his giggle.
"Shut up, Matt."
"You're funny when you're tired. Remember how you used to sneak out of your room in the middle of the night and–"
"I remember." The chill in his voice immediately cut off Matt's reminiscence, the words dying before they could be said. Of course, Mello probably didn't want to be reminded of his childhood escapades. He'd been doing important things, making a name for himself, trying to catch Kira. What good were memories when you had the Mafia at your disposal? "I'm going to get some sleep," the blonde continued tonelessly, and without even bothering to ask he walked into Matt's bedroom and curled up in Matt's bed.
This was about what he'd expected, Matt reminded himself, but he still felt like he'd just had a door slammed in his face. Almost instinctively he reached for a cigarette, only to remember that they were still sitting on the counter in the kitchen, many feet away. Oh, well. He pulled the Nintendo DS out of his back pocket and turned it on. Video games worked too.
A few levels later, Matt noticed a calico tail disappearing into the bedroom. He crept in after it and, once he'd determined that Mello was safely asleep, sat in his computer chair. Moxie watched him out of the semi-darkness. He couldn't help but notice that she was standing on Mello's stomach.
"You're a guard cat now?" Matt whispered sarcastically. Moxie turned around a few times and then settled into her favorite curled-up sleeping position, still watching Matt.
"He's not going to like you guarding him," Matt said matter-of-factly. "Mello takes care of himself, you know." Moxie huffed.
"I know that. But he thinks he can, and that's what matters."
A twitch of the ear.
"He won't let you. That's like admitting weakness. Mello's not weak."
Moxie's eyes glowed eerily in the gloom, unblinking. Matt sighed.
"Then I guess we'll have to look out for him anyway, won't we?"