Disclaimer: ...uh, nope, still don't own it. And my Jaffa Cakes are now gone. Onligatory quote line is Shel Silverstein and has little relevance to this chapter unless you're thinking the same way I do or know the poem. Even then, it's pretty out there.
Note: Ack, sorry this chapter's a little short. I wanted it to be the bridge between "I OWN YOU NOW" to "LET ME SLEEP ON THE FLOOR OF YOUR BATHROOM MY HIDEOUT WENT KABOOM". I don't think I did a very good job. I wanted to show Halle not just rolling over and putting him on the back foot, and Mello respecting that and coming to hang out with her a bit. In an agressive way, because that's just what Mello does. DN13 tells me he hasn't met up with Matt yet, and his appearance will be explained in the next chapter. Which will be the last one and probably stupidly long in comparison to this. Anyway, enjoy.
Also the real summary for this story is pretty much: Halle does things in her kitchen while Mello bothers her. It's so sad but it's true.
x
if you are a dreamer, come in
-
When Mello appears in her apartment for a second time, she is already inside. She has taken a shower, and now, with a towel wound round her hair and a robe tied round her waist, she is fixing a late-night sandwich. Snacking after midnight is something Halle Lidner never thought she would stoop to, but the Kira case is making her redefine her boundaries, even in trivial, silly little things like this.
"Ooh, looks good. Make me one?"
It's a taunt, a tease, and it makes Halle freeze because someone is in her apartment, but she knows that voice.
"Mello. Don't you knock?" She pulls two more slices of break out of the bag and starts to butter them.
She can almost feel him shrug, even though he is behind her. She hates this - leaving her back exposed to him - but she knows that it's the best thing to do. Show no fear, give him ample opportunity to attack and prove that you don't care, that he's not a threat, even if you heart is trembling in your shoes.
"Much more fun this way. Your neighbour saw me. I told him I was your boyfriend. So he thinks you have a toyboy now."
Halle's stomach contracts a little, and she thinks it's in anger. "You're here to blackmail me, remember? Leave other people out of this."
"Hey, I didn't go knocking on his door." Mello sounds petulant, and she imagines him crossing his arms. "It's hardly my fault he came out at exactly the same time I was coming into your apartment."
"How did you even get in, anyway?"
"Trade secrets."
Of course. Halle peels some more ham out of the packet, lays it onto the second sandwich.
"Your information is over there." She tips her head towards the microwave. On top of it, a brown paper envelope is lying, containing six sheets filled with her neat script. "I couldn't type it because it would leave a trace and Near would find out. I assumed you'd rather he didn't, because then he'd fire me and you'd have no information."
Footsteps, rustling of paper. Halle doesn't turn around. She adds cheese and chutney to the sandwich, presses it together.
"Hm. Near doesn't seem to be doing much."
Halle reaches up to a cupboard above her head and extracts a plate. It's blue, with a green rim, too big for one sandwich. She tries again. "He isn't. Mainly because of you. Partly because of the Japanese taskforce."
"The taskforce?" More footsteps, and now Mello is behind her. "What have they got to do with anything? I thought they were useless."
"Yes, they are," Halle replies, finding the plate she wants. "For the most part. The L replacement, Near wants to know more about him. He's sure he's making a move soon. He's waiting on that."
Mello brandishes the papers in front of her face. His hand is the only part of him she sees. "And why isn't that in here?"
She turns, holding out the plate with the sandwich on it. "It is," she says coldly. "I assumed you'd learnt to read, so I didn't provide an illustrated contents page."
Mello slaps the sandwich out of her hand. The plate crashes against the floor, and crack neatly in two, chutney sprayed out across the floor like the tail of a comet.
Halle surveys the mess. "I'm not making you another one."
Mello snarls.
She looks at him properly. He looks more tired than the last time (first time) she saw him. Like he hasn't been getting much sleep. Then again, neither have they - she's never, ever seen Near sleep and only Gevanni, who has an almost child-like ability to fall asleep wherever he is, has been getting the regulation eight hours.
"You should rest," she says, and it irritates her that her voice comes out more tender than she had intended.
"What's it to you?" he snaps.
"The more irritable you are, the more likely you are to kill me on a whim," she explains. It has to seem professional. It has to - because it is, isn't it? It's not that she's worried about this kid who holds her life in his hands. Even if he doesn't even look twenty and is driving himself to his death.
He snorts. "Fine. But you try sleeping in a mafia hideout." He jabs a finger at her. "I guarantee you you'd wake up pregnant."
Halle raises her eyebrows. "I'm a very light sleeper."
"And sleeping drug work quickly. Believe me, I know."
For a moment, she almost queries the story behind that statement. Then she catches herself, and smiles thinly. "You can sleep on the couch if you want."
Mello's mouth is already open in an automatic response when he realises what she's said. "I - what?" He looks confused. Halle is pleased that she's finally been able to repay the favour.
"Sleep. My couch. Provided you promise I won't wake up pregnant." It's just a joke but the vague hint of colour that stains Mello's cheeks amuses her. "You need the rest. You're no use to anyone, least of all me, if you drop from exhaustion."
"Shut up. I'm not going to be 'of use' to you at all - you're useful to me!"
Halle almost laughs at how childish his comment sounds. "I find it very useful to not be dead, and that is sort of thanks to you. So, am I making up the couch or going to bed?"
Mello doesn't reply. Halle wraps her arms around herself, wishing she'd changed out of the thin robe before making her now-forgotten sandwich.
"Well?"
A mumble in reply.
She's not going to force him to embarrass himself anymore.
"Right then. It'll be ready in about ten minutes."
-
Every time Mello visits, he arrives unannounced. He trashes her apartment a little when she makes comments insulting his masculinity, grabs the papers and says he's leaving, and then hangs around. He sleeps on the couch, and wakes up before her, and disappears before he has to say thank you or act like he didn't just accept alms from the woman he's extorting.
So when Halle comes into her living room, hair a mess and pyjama bottoms trailing a little on the floor (looking everything like a soft, innocent teenager and nothing like the professional, hard-assed woman she's styled herself to be) she is taken aback to see him, still lying on the couch, one arm drooped over the side.
She thinks about waking him, and then makes him eggs instead.
It's probably the smell that brings him round. Halle hears a dull groan, followed by the unmistakeable sound of someone rolling onto a floor they didn't remember was there. Mello swears, and a few seconds later, appears in the kitchen, bleary eyed and furious.
Halle, by comparison, is feeling serenely calm. A crazed mafia man has been sleeping on her sofa and is now glaring at her across her kitchen, but all she can do is smile absently at the humour of it all and ask him how he likes his eggs.
Mello doesn't see the funny side He squares up to her, asks her what she's doing. She replies, very slowly, that she's making eggs, and how does he like them so he doesn't trash another plate. Mello still appears to be more asleep than awake, and so his response is little more than a muted glare. Halle decides she'll just cook his eggs the same way as hers.
They eat in the living room, off of plastic plates because Halle has long since stopped offering Mello anything on china. He puts his feet, heavy in boots of leather and iron, up on the arm of an expensive chair and ruins the upholstery for good. Halle would have minded if it was anything else, and is alarmed to find that she's letting this boy, with his head of gold and heart of ice and soul of fire, get away with much, much more than she's ever let anyone else.
She notices, after they finish their eggs and she washes the plates and Mello is gone and the world moves on, that he comes more often after that. Sometimes he is waiting when she gets home, demanding what happened during the day. He waits while she showers, demands her opinion on things as soon as she turns off the water and climbs out.
She notices, but she tries not to think too much about it. And then his hideout blows up, and a redhead turns up at her door heaving the blond's unconscious body over her threshold, and she doesn't have any choice but to think about it.