AN: And we finally move toward our true plot and conflict... Speaking of conflict, there will be plenty in the next chapter... And it only gets darker from there, so I hope you enjoyed the fluff while you could...
Oh, and also another original character to help out our antagonist is introduced in this chapter. Enjoy, and as usual, please review! (And a HUGE thanks to all our reviewers and subscribers as well!)
A soft groan escaped his lips as he disentangled a pale arm from the blanket to throw over his tightly shut eyes, blocking the tendrils of sunlight pricking his eyelids. Mello turned over roughly, burrowing into the covers and letting out another moan, golden strands wisping across his face and sticking out at angles from beneath the pillow he dragged over his throbbing head.
Throbbing...
Mello cracked open an eye, squinting into the striped sunlight streaming through the half-open blinds. The angle suggested it was late afternoon. The muffled snoring by his side informed him Matt was still asleep. The angry growl his stomach let out told him he was hungry. And the thick pulsing headache in his temples...
Wait, why the f-ck was his head throbbing like that?
Another throaty groan slipped past his lips and he tried to sit up slowly, blinking stupidly around the room. Vague memories of last night whirled in his head in multi-colored hues, strong drum-beats, and chocolate rum. Somewhere in there was also the fuzzy remembrance of a certain brunette nearly losing his dinner in the bathroom sink and having to be dragged away and into a cab that smelled like feet where he had practically passed out on Mello's lap.
The blonde started to give a loud yawn -- then stopped abruptly, wincing as a twinge in his temples let him know his head wasn't particularly pleased with the noise.
He turned foggy blue eyes on the bit of striped arm and red-brown hair peeking out from beneath a steadily snoring pile of covers and pillows, peering at them balefully as it slowly dawned on him.
Holy shit, he had a hangover. Wait... how? He'd only has two or three small shots of rum. He was the first to admit he didn't have a strong stomach for alcohol, but c'mon, a f-ckin' 12-year old girl wouldn't even be this affected by such a measly amount!
Maybe he just had a head cold...?
A suddenly very loud, grunting snore from the pile of pillows sent a sharp pang of pain into his head as Mello's still-lethargic senses protested the noisy abuse. Nope, definitely hung over. F-ck.
"Goddamn it, Matt," Mello growled, gritting his teeth at the persistent throbbing in his temples. Extricating a bare leg from beneath his own mass of covers, the blonde delivered a sharp kick into where he judged the gamer's side should be. "F-ck you, Matt, get your ass up!" he hissed, golden hair in utter disarray and looking for all the world like Hell's palest and scrawniest demon of death in a huge gray t-shirt and red boxers.
Matt woke cursing as a sharp jab made contact with his side, jarring him from his dreams, and forcing him to his feet immediately.
"What the hell?" he cried, trying to figure out what on earth he'd done to deserve such a wake up call.
He instantly regretted the sudden movement, along with the volume of his own voice. His head protested, sending a wave of dizziness to wash over his already disoriented state of being and the queasiness welling in his stomach wasn't helping. The gamer barely managed to suppress the urge to gag when his over responsive senses caught whiff of days old chocolate, an aroma that normally didn't bother him, but at the moment caused him to hold one hand over his mouth and nose, trying in vein to block out the nausea inducing stench.
"F-ck!" He whispered vehemently as the pounding in his head seemed to multiply ten fold when the smallest sliver of sunlight reached his eyes.
The noises were too earth shatteringly loud, the light too disgustingly bright, and the morning too damn early.
He moaned as he sat down on the side of the bed, careful not to move his head anymore then absolutely necessary, and letting out an unhappy moan as he attempted to coerce his head into ceasing it's rebellion.
He remembered now how much he f-cking hated hangovers.
He felt like he'd been hit wit a semi, carrying cement, hauling a cruise liner behind itself, and he wanted nothing more then to go back to sleep for another ten hours or so.
He had a feeling though, judging from the glacier melting glare that he was receiving from the other occupant of the room, that such a luxury was not an option.
"What, "he started, irritation building in his voice as he went on, "The hell is your problem?"
Mello scoffed. "Judging by your sorry state, I assume you feel about 20 times worse than I do, since you had about 20 times more alcohol," he muttered, slowly pulling himself out of bed and slinking over to the window to draw the blinds shut as far as possible. No use. Damn sunlight still found cracks to peek through.
He glared at the window for a second, then turned a slightly disoriented grimace toward Matt.
"Shit, Matt, what the hell? I've never gotten hung over from such a small amount before," he complained, joining his companion on the edge of the bed and staring in annoyance at the pile of Matt's socks peeking out from beneath his own discarded leather vest from before. Damn, he didn't even remember changing. He hardly remembered anything.
Something about the bar and the club and dancing...
And shit, Matt was breathing too loudly.
He turned a deadly scowl upon the gamer. "Hey, Matt, you f-cking asshole," he hissed, another foggy memory swimming into his mind like a lost tadpole. Vaguely, very vaguely, he thought he recalled Matt pointing and turning and distracting him for just a second... and then after that for some inexplicable reason he'd gone to the dance floor and... What the f-ck? But it was the distraction that caught his attention now and Mello's icy eyes bored into Matt's unfocused green ones.
"You f-cked with my drink, didn't you?" he growled, fist clenching on the sheet. Goddamit Matt, that wasn't funny!
Matt froze, conflicted for a second, torn between denying the obvious truth, and coming clean. After a moment of inner debate, he shrugged in admission, though probably more from the realization that Mello wouldn't believe him if he tried to lie anyway.
Besides, he thought to himself with a grimace, I have a better chance of Mello relenting if I fess up to the deed. It was a relief that his pounding head could use.
"Yeah, so? You had a good time didn't you? I mean, it's not like it was that big of a deal."
He rose from the bed slowly, searching the room for wherever the hell he'd discarded his goggles the night before when he must have stumbled into the room in a daze. He decided they would be helpful right about now with the sun filtering through the cracks of the shutters, blinding his vision, and contributing to the rhythmic pounding of drums against his skull.
He didn't remember taking the damn things off, let alone where he had put them.
Hell, he didn't even remember leaving the club.
After searching fruitlessly for a few seconds, he turned to the still fuming Mello, ignoring the glare sent his way.
"You seen my goggles?" He inquired, using one hand to shield his eyes from the attack of lethal sun rays.
The blonde shot him a bloodshot look of death. "Who the f-ck do you think I am, Matt?" he snapped. "Your maid? I don't keep track of your belongings! And it's not my goddam fault you don't either. Look, we've only been here a few days and the place already looks like a f-cking pigsty," He stared around distastefully for a few seconds, then pushed himself up and off the bed, wandering over to a cabinet near the door to the adjoined bathroom, burying his head inside and rummaging around for a minute before he dragged out an armful of fresh towels, cursing under his breath about bastards who spiked people's drinks.
He dumped them on the bed temporarily, blinking around in slight confusion again, not because he was confused so much as because thoughts didn't really appear to be in the mood to form coherent trains right now.
Oh yeah. Clean clothes. Of course.
Mello commenced a quiet-as-possible rummage through the dresser and closet in an attempt to locate his own belongings while shoving Matt's out of the way, grumbling and cursing to himself. "Jesus, no f-cking wonder you keep losing shit, Matt," he growled under his breath, pulling out a clean black turtleneck for himself. It was cold, and like f-ck he was going to add a cold to his body's list of irritations. "Try searching on the dresser if you can find the top of it, anyway."
The blonde shot a scowl at the gamer around his own arm as he tugged the large t-shirt off, noting vaguely the large picture of a scantily-dressed woman with a gun on the front which claimed she was some manner of evil resident or something... though it failed to mention resident of where. Eh, whatever.
Which reminded Mello of something. He straightened, dropping Matt's borrowed t-shirt on the bed and blinking into space for a few moments before the thought returned to him. Oh. Right. They'd be returning to LA soon, probably, now that the case was over. He had been originally planning to ask Matt to get them tickets back sometime this week, but as he watched the gamer weave around, disoriented and squinting around for his goggles, Mello sighed and decided he'd ask tomorrow.
He found his anger had diminished somewhat as he scooped the towels and clothing into his arms and trudged toward the bathroom with a yawn.
"Taking a shower," he announced the obvious. "Don't go back to sleep," he added sharply, scowl returning darkly when he barely avoided stepping on a gameboy. "And try cleaning up this mess or we're both gonna trip and die, you hungover clumsy bastard."
Matt sent a silent glare in the direction of the blonde's retreating back, his plan to go back to sleep the minute Mello left the room thwarted by the parting command.
Was he really that predictable? The gamer shook his head at himself before turning his eyes to the unmade, extremely inviting pile of blankets on the bed.
For a minute he debated going back to sleep and disregarding the blonde's words, but eventually decided it wasn't worth the trouble it would inevitably cause, especially considering Mello's mood this morning.
Well, more like afternoon really.
He glanced to the digital clock by the side of the bed and the bright numbers steadily blinking 2:49 confirmed his suspicions. The faint glow of the numbers also reminded him that he was still without his beloved goggles.
Sighing, he began to scavenge through the cluttered mess on the floor, crawling through the jumbled mess and groping half blindly through squinted eyes. Godamn sun.
After several minutes of crawling about and cursing fervidly under his breath, he gave up, and could only assume that the goggles were not there.
He stood, brushing dust and crumbs off of his hands and knees and made his way into the living room. Ambling into the room with a hand carefully shielding his eyes from the sun's blistering rays that continued their relentless pursuit, the gamer finally located his goggles when a particularly sneaky beam of light bounced off of the orange lenses and into his already aching eyes.
He reached for the protection with a sigh of relief, sliding the goggles over his head, and feeling almost instantly better when his world returned to a familiar burnt red.
His fingers grazed the lenses softly, and he smiled at the comforting feel of smooth plastic beneath his bare fingers.
His headache had finally receded some, but Matt was eager for the remaining pounding to leave him and sauntered into the kitchen with every intention of doing something about it.
Opening the fridge and peering inside, the gamer was relieved to remember that Mello had gone on a grocery run a few days ago. He frowned for a moment before pulling out what he would need, the orange juice carton, a few lemons, and the from the counter next to the stove the salt shaker that had been there when they'd gotten there along with a few other condiments, courtesy of Near.
He pulled two glasses from the counter (dishware also courtesy of the white haired boy), and poured two glasses of the juice, squeezed a few lemons into both, and finally added a dash of salt to the concoction.
He set one glass on the kitchen table, and took the other for himself, taking a swig and nearly draining more then half in one gulp.
He pursed his lips together at the taste, but took another drink.
One hundred percent sure to work hangover remedy, copyright Matt.
Hey, when you were a borderline (borderline?) alcoholic for more then a year, finding a good remedy to get you back on your feet as quickly as possible (even if it was only so he could get trashed again as quickly as possible) was vital.
He polished off the rest of his drink before meandering over to the couch and half sitting, half falling onto it.
Screw cleaning, he could do it later.
He settled himself into the cushions, and reached for the pack of cigarettes that he knew was somewhere around the floor of the couch, but then decided against it, a vague recollection of his thoughts from the night before coming back to him.
He couldn't remember exactly what he'd been thinking given his rather, eh, inebriated state of mind at the time, but the basic idea remained. The idea that he and Mello were, well, were survivors. There was really no other way of putting it.
They'd survived Kira, and were alive and kicking enough for Matt to celebrate another year.
And despite the fact that he'd ignored and disregarded everything about cigarettes that Mello had been telling him for years, somehow, it didn't feel right anymore.
He eyed the package with some odd mix of remorse and disgust.
He knew that what Mello and everyone else had always told him about smoking was true, always had known, it was just it had never mattered before.
Because before, when anyone yelled at him about slowly killing himself he only laughed bitterly, knowing that chances were he was going to die a long time before anything that tobacco could do to his body could take hold of him. And chances were his death was going to be anything but slow.
He was pleasantly surprised to find himself wrong, if barely, and he flinched slightly at the memory of how close he had come to death, his hand brushing his chest lightly where a bullet had entered and become lodged beneath his collar bone what must have been less then two years ago but seemed like more than a lifetime ago.
No, it wasn't right to kill his body like that anymore, with nothing but a meaningless habit, not after everything he'd survived.
It would have been extremely stupid to survive Kira, being a bounty hunter, and everything else that he'd been through only to succumb to some self-inflicted disease.
That just wouldn't do, and with a flick of the rest he dropped the carton on the ground with every intention of trashing them later. He'd have to go out and buy some of that nicotine gum for sure though, he thought.
Withdrawals were going to be a bitch.
Matt sighed for the umpteenth time, and reclined his head against the pillows waiting for the blonde to finish with the shower. He grimaced at the tang of dried sweat that clung to his skin from the night before and wished that Mello would hurry up already.
- - - - - - - - - -
Dark chocolate eyes intently watched the screen of the laptop sitting on the desk beneath the large window of the tiny one-room apartment. The afternoon light streamed in at an angle to dance with a faint orange glow upon the thick river of ebony hair which spilled over the young woman's shoulder and cascaded to her slim waist.
An eager smile played on her lips, brown eyes darting toward the opposite building visible through the good-sized window, staring fixedly at the for a few moments at the tightly drawn blinds on the first floor apartment directly across the street from her.
From here, she could only barely make out the tiny spot on the windowsill which was currently transmitting the image visible on her computer screen. It was a very small camera after all, and even knowing exactly where it was, it was difficult to locate.
Still, she thought idly, she was lucky the current residents of the apartment the camera was monitoring had been stone-cold drunk last night or she'd never have been able to do it. After all, she wasn't too used to spying on people, actually; her cousin had other people for that.
But this time she'd volunteered eagerly for the job.
The girl grinned, scooping some whipped cream into her mouth from the end of the straw on her Starbucks Frappucino (never mind the snow outside; Frappucinos were good year-round) which declared in loopy writing on the side that her name was "Tammy."
No, this time was different. This time, she'd practically begged to do this, despite Paul's protests andshe grimaced in remembrancehorror stories.
Something about what "that bastard" was "capable of," what he'd do to her if she was caught, vivid descriptions of exactly the kinds of cruelty Paul would "not put past him."
But regardless of her cousin's warnings, she had insisted and he had finally relented and here she was, and perfectly willing to risk it just for the giddy, guilty pleasure bubbling in her stomach now as her eyes shifted back to the screen and s/he watched the golden-haired object of her fascination slowly waking up and blinking dazedly around the messy shared apartment bedroom.
Tammy licked the whipped cream off her lips with a devious shine in her dark eyes.
Last night, she had merely dragged her too-uptight cousin to her favorite nightclub in order to try to get him to have some fun for once. She'd never expected… this.
But when that fascinating creature had sauntered through the door and lounged in the bar sipping chocolate rum, she had not been able to pull her eyes away.
He was the most beautiful man she had ever seenand Tammy had seen her fair share of men.
The way the multihued lights had reflected in his hair as in a golden mirror, shining darkly on the slick leather of his clothing, his pale skin practically glowing in the dimness.
The way he moved, confidently, proudly, smoothly, like a self-assured black panther on the prey.
The way the tight leather molded to his hips, showed off the well-toned muscles in his chest, hugging his thighs, leaving little to the imagination yet allowing so much to be desired.
The way his golden hair swayed and flowed, framing his smirking face, that mysterious scar which only added to his intrigue, the way his knee-high black boots clicked softly when he walked, the sweet cacao aroma on his breath when he spoke, voice like velvet steel.
Even the way he flashed a frosty smile, and rejected her coolly, and teased and danced like the flames of desire right before her eyes without giving a damn what anybody ever thought.
The dark eyes glued to the screen shone covetously.
Tammy was the first person to admit she had a fondness for the different, even the eccentric, and that she had problems with becoming very obsessive about her latest attractions. And of course she also loved supernatural Gothic novels and movies and games…
God, he looked as if he had just stepped out of Devil May Cry, silver crucifix and all, as if he was about to start shooting demons or something…
Tammy had wanted to stop, stare, and drool right then and there, but Paul had put an end to her fantasies as soon as he'd recognized the "villain." He was the enemy… the cause of all their grief. Tammy understood that.
Well, that was fine then. It didn't mean she couldn't enjoy herself anyway. So she couldn't have him? Ok. She settled instead for spying on him and sipping at her coffee and staring at the screen, entranced.
The boys were awake now, the beautiful demon-hunter and his plain boring friend. It seemed they were arguing for a bit, and judging by their dead-give-away dazed expressions and overly photo-sensitive squinting around the already-dim room, they were clearly pretty hung over.
Tammy laughed, noting how utterly adorable the blonde was in his pajamas. A few seconds later, however, she almost choked on her drink in delight as the gorgeous male actually began to divest himself of said sleeping garments…
Eyes wide and eager, Tammy let herself gape appreciatively at the pale, sculpted bare chest of her new obsession, admiring the porcelain skin, noting the scattered white scars which decorated his back, old and faded but only gracing his figure with more unique flavor in her opinion.
Slightly disappointed when the attractive sight was hidden behind an armful of towels and slipped into the other room to shower, Tammy leaned back in her chair, smiling eagerly and running her tongue along the edge of her plastic cup to collect the last bits of cream clinging to the rim.
Oh yes.
This Mello was definitely something special. Stunning. Unique. Delicious.
A rare eye candy Tammy Mercado was quickly beginning to crave.
She knew what he was, what Paul thought of him, didn't even really care either way though she knew her cousin only wanted him dead.
None of it mattered as long as she got to drink her fill of that slender body with its fluid serpentine motion and smooth porcelain skin and hair the color of the summer sun.
Eye candy.
Her tongue slipped over her lips to catch the last bits of sweet cream. Delicious.