Feelings and Friends and The Fates

Matt shifted under his bed covers so that his back would face the morning light that was filtering through his thin curtains at five o' clock in the morning. He'd pulled another all-nighter playing his video games, and he was rather proud of himself for completing three rather hard core games in a total of only seven hours. Placing the Play Station Portable on his bedside table and removing his goggles, Matt curled up into the fetal position and tried to sleep.

A few seconds afterwards, his door slammed open and a certain angry blonde came stomping in. Perfect timing, Matt thought. Just as I was about to catch a few Z's…

"Matt!" Oh dear. Mello sounded angry, and a Mello that can be awake enough in the morning to be angry was not good news. This type of alarming behavior, Matt had noticed, meant that Mello had either went to look for chocolate and couldn't find any, spent the entire night up eating chocolate and ran out, or spent the entire night awake doing practically nothing and was therefore no longer Normal Mello, but Insomniac Mello. Either one of those options could have happened, Matt mused, or Near had beaten Mello again at something. Matt was willing to bet that the reason Mello was mad today was because he had stayed up all-night again.

"…Yeah?" Matt asked groggily.

"Get your lazy ass up and look at me when I talk to you!"

Matt shook his red hair out of his eyes before reaching over to his bedside table and putting on the goggles he'd just removed moments before. He crossed his legs and fished around in a drawer before drawing out a chocolate bar and handing it to Mello. "Deep breaths Mels. Eat the chocolate."

Matt felt the chocolate being snatched away, and heard the wrapper rustling and tearing. A loud snap sounded as Mello bit off a piece of the chocolate. Matt yawned and stretched. Man, no human being should be up in these ungodly hours… Besides himself, who was a total exception; he played video games up until now! And Mello. Matt supposed he was an exception too. Mello always woke up around five and just couldn't fall asleep again, even though he really wanted to. Mello was like the undead in the mornings: He wanted to sleep, and he felt tired, but he just couldn't drift off into La- La Land, so he just sort of shuffled around like some zombie and came to bother Matt.

Sometimes, Matt wished Mello would go hassle Near in the mornings: When you're a serious gamer that falls asleep at five o' clock A.M. because of your various Final Fantasy games and multiple consoles, you don't really appreciate people who wake you up at five after five. Matt rather thought that nobody could live on five minutes of sleep a day, especially himself, who needs at least twelve hours of the stuff.

A chocolate wrapper was crumpled and thrown into Matt's waste bin. Matt guessed it would be a full three seconds before Mello would explode and start ranting about who-knows-what. One… Two…

Three.

"There'sthisnewgirlandshe'satotalbitcheventhoughshesav edmyasslastnightbecauseIwasg oingtobecaughtoutofbedbecaus eofherandWatariandshewearsso mestupidblindfold'causeshe'sblindandshe'sfrenchjudgingbyhersnottyacc entand-"

Matt kind of tuned out by then. Mello was talking way too fast, and until he calmed down, the only thing Matt could do was sit there and 'listen'. At this talking speed, the only words Matt caught were 'new', 'bitch', 'ass', 'caught', 'Watari', 'blind', 'French' and 'snotty accent'. Matt frowned. He thought accents were cool, especially French and Italian ones. Matt decided that he would have to teach Mello a little something about 'good' and 'snotty' accents.

"-andnowI'minthelittlebitch'sdebt!" Mello panted heavily, looking quite deranged, and allowed his arms to drop to his sides. While he had been ranting, Mello had gotten so passionate about whatever subject he had been ranting about that he'd started waving his arms to and fro and gesturing frantically. Matt had found the whole display rather amusing, but his smile was wiped from his face when he focused on Mello's last words. "Wait, Mello, say that last part again, real slow…"

Matt saw Mello clench his jaw in an effort to make his words comprehensible. "I'm. In. The. Little Bitch's. Debt."

Matt wolf whistled. "Who's Little Bitch?"

Mello glared at his best friend hatefully. "Did you not listen to a single thing I said just now, Matty?"

"Come now, Mels, you know I heard some things… Like 'bitch' and 'Watari' and… Uh…" Matt's voice trailed off.

Mello shook his blonde head and pulled up Matt's chair before plopping down into it. "Aubrey. New girl. Watari came back last night and brought her. I followed them, talked to her a bit, tackled her, found out she was blind, she kept Watari from finding me, I'm in her debt now, end of story."

Nodding sagely, Matt said, "Great. We really need to work on your womanizing skills. Tackling girls doesn't typically get them to fall for you Mels."

Mello looked like he was about to throw a tantrum and strangle something. Namely, Matt. Matt coughed and changed the subject quickly. He wasn't a fan of being strangled to death. It was the least bad ass way to go. "So now what? What kind of 'debt' are you in?"

Taking a deep breath to calm himself, Mello muttered, "She saved me from a 'Roger Lecture' and the punishment 'Chocolate Takeaway'. I'm in life debt to her now. She can ask for whatever she wants, and," here, Mello winced, "I'll have to give it to her."

Chuckling, Matt stood up and mussed Mello's hair. He knew that Mello hated that, so before his friend could tear him to itty bitty Matt strips, he said, "Does she know about this whole Wammy House debt thing? 'Cause y'know, not a lot of other places has this kind of system, and if she doesn't, then you're not in any kind of life debt to her unless she finds out."

"But… That's-"

"Cheap, yeah. But do you want to be indebted to a girl who might grow up to try and hunt you down? Tsk, tsk, Mels." Matt wagged a finger patronizingly, before flopping back down into his bed. "Let's see whether or not she's the kind of person who'll try and kill us or backstab us before we enlighten her about the whole debt thing, 'kay? Then, it's a win, win situation."

Matt knew that Mello would ponder this and chew on the suggestion for quite a while, so before his friend could start spurting out 'what ifs' and keep him awake for any longer than need be, Matt turned over on his bed and grumbled, "Now if you'll excuse me, the Almighty Gamer Matt needs his rest too, Mels. You can go back to your own room to sulk and mope. I don't need the depressive atmosphere while I sleep."

Celeste lay on her new bed nervously. Her sightless eyes stared up at the ceiling while she pondered her thoughts anxiously. Had she gained a new friend last night? Would Mello be nice to her now that she told him why she wore her blindfold and saved him from Wahtairee knowing he was out of bed? He didn't think she was a freak because she was blind, did he? What would the other children think about her? She's never had a friend before, and everybody that she's met in her fifteen years of life has told her that she came off as cold and distant.

All Celeste wanted was a friend, but how was she supposed to change her entire personality so that she'd come off as warm and close instead of cold and distant?

Celeste rather thought that her personality wasn't that bad: She could be funny at times, or sarcastic, but she was almost always nice and polite. She never asked for much. However, Celeste also knew that she tensed up with new people unless she felt that they were… That they were good people. Monsieur Wahtairee felt warm and grandfatherly, but also strict. Celeste thought that he'd be a good judge; she felt that Wahtairee would listen carefully to both the victim and the criminal's stories, and would give verdict fairly and as he saw fit. With Monsieur Wahtairee she'd just been normal Celeste in a new situation. Celeste had felt weak, meek, and scared, and she had shown it, because she thought that Monsieur was trustworthy. With Mello, though, she had felt that he was bitter and rather threatening. And because of how she had felt with him, she had reacted differently than with Monsieur Wahtairee. With Monsieur, Celeste had been open about her emotions; with Mello she'd summoned a towering brick wall and slammed it down between them so that Mello wouldn't see her cowering and could only hear an arctic voice that wouldn't answer his questions.

Celeste really wanted a friend.

In one fluid motion, Celeste whipped the bed sheets off of her pajama clad form and shuffled to her washroom to prepare for the day. Touching her brail clock, Celeste knew that it was only five o' clock in the morning. She hadn't slept a wink since Monsieur Wahtairee had led her to her bedroom and couldn't fall asleep now either, so she figured she might as well get up. Celeste didn't know what she could do once she'd finished freshening herself up and gotten dressed, but preparing herself was something to do, so she did it.

After a shower and the brushing of her teeth, Celeste slumped back down onto her bed, freshened up and dressed.

Now what?

Celeste knew that she couldn't wander around outside in the hallways since she still wasn't familiar with Wammy's and would easily bang into everything in her path and get lost. The only reason she was able to navigate her room so smoothly was because of the landmarks Monsieur Wahtairee had prepared for her before that very night. Her bed, Monsieur had explained, would always be in the very center of the room, so she would only have to walk four paces from either wall of the room to reach it. Her walk-in closet was behind the bed's head board. There was a chest in front of the bed's foot board, and to the bed's left was her in suite washroom. If she walked to the bed's right two paces she would be able to locate a small desk and sitting area in the corner of the room. Monsieur Wahtairee had also been so kind as to include all her favorite books in brail for her in a book shelf beside the desk.

Celeste supposed it wouldn't hurt to read a bit, even though all she could read right now were children's books because of how much her brail sucked.

Mello paced his room, impatient and aggravated. What Matt had told him made sense; after all, who says that the girl had to know about the whole debt thing anyways? If she didn't know, and kept not knowing, then it would save him a damn bunch of dumb trouble and restless nights.

But not performing the life debt he'd somehow gotten himself into – that would screw up his reputation if anybody in Whammy's found out about this whole mess. Even though the whole debt thing was absolutely the stupidest thing Mello had ever heard of, especially the ridiculous code names for punishment, it was tradition at Whammy's and breaking tradition was like openly announcing to everyone that you thought L was an idiot. It just wasn't done. And if it were, then you would be snubbed by everyone. Mello had seen it happen. Linda had somehow earned a life debt to some evil five year old and wouldn't do the debt the kid wanted her to do – eat a plateful of live worms – so for an entire month nobody besides the teachers and patrons would talk to her. The first few weeks had already been unbearable for the chatterbox Linda, but when her drawing tools started to go missing too, she'd snapped and eaten the plateful of live worms almost willingly.

The strange thing – and Mello was no fan of eating worms – was that Mello really did think that he owed Aubrey something for saving him from Watari. He told himself it was the tiny bit of conscience he had left inside him, saying that Aubrey had done nothing wrong and Mello had openly provoked her, but he wasn't so sure. There was something sad about the girl, as if she had seen horrors no normal person should see. Mello didn't know how he felt that from Aubrey, and, hell, he didn't even know if Aubrey felt it herself. But he did feel it and it made him feel pity.

Which brought him right back to square one.

What the hell is he going to do with this life debt?!

Celeste was absolutely, positively, definitely, without a doubt…

Bored. Out. Of. Her. Mind.

Her fingers absentmindedly retraced the brail bumps that were supposed to form words. She was reading 'Snow White', but the experience was the exact opposite of enjoyable; it was almost painful. Were those bumps supposed to be an 'I'? Or was it a 'you'? That was 'Snow', right? No, no, it was 'Bashful', Celeste thought…

She slammed the paperback book shut. This wouldn't get her anywhere, and if she was trying to kill boredom, then she might as well try harder.

Standing up from the desk seat, Celeste stumbled over to her bedside table to check the time. Five thirty.

She'd only killed thirty minutes. Celeste groaned.

That was it! She couldn't take it anymore! There was still three hours until breakfast, and if she didn't do something that would make time fly she would go insane.

When in doubt, Celeste mused while getting off her bed and striding towards her bedroom door, bumping into quite a few stray items on her way there, escape to an instrument.

"That. Is. It!" Mello hissed under his breath. Staying alone in his room with only his thoughts to worry about – he'd even tried studying – was going to drive him completely insane. He didn't care if Matt needed his stupid sleep; he could visit La-La Land in class today like he always does, but Mello needed someone to vent to or shout to, or rant to about what the hell he was going to do right now. Now.

Mello snapped up from his bed, strode over to his bedroom door, replaced the tissue he'd used that night into the door's catch again and headed back downstairs towards the ground floor and his best friend's room for some more raving, whether Matt liked it or not.

Celeste gently slid the door open, as quiet as she could. When she was out in the hallway, she inched the door back shut, but stiffened when she heard the lock on the door automatically click shut. She jiggled the knob, but it wouldn't budge. Biting her lip, she twisted it again. No luck.

Under her breath, Celeste let loose a torrent of French swear words that would have made any French sailor proud. She quickly ran a hand through her hair. How was she to get back in to her room afterwards? And not get caught?

Damn it, damn it, damn it. She should have known that the stupid door would lock on her!

Well… Celeste struggled to think on the bright side. At least… She had to go to the music room no matter what now?

Her sliver of rainbow optimism was struck down by a large grisly foot. The foot began to speak, and it weighed down Celeste's heart with each word. You don't know how to get to the music room, idiot!

However, her sliver of rainbow optimism revived itself magically, and began to swear at the large grisly foot. It told Celeste to use the button Monsieur Wahtairee had given her yesterday and ask Monsieur to guide her to the room, or just unlock her bedroom door. Celeste let out a soft cheer. She fumbled in her pockets for the button.

After a few moments of frantic searching and coming up with nothing, the large grisly foot spat at the sliver of rainbow optimism, coating it in depressive, disgusting, large grisly foot saliva. The sliver of rainbow optimism shriveled up and died, while the large grisly foot turned its attention back at Celeste. It told her, cackling meanly, You have to wander the hallways all alone for three hours now! before poof-ing into a cloud of large grisly foot-ness.

Celeste groaned.

Now she was not only bored out of her mind, but bored out of her mind without a bed to lie bored out of her mind in. She was even worse off than before.

Celeste allowed herself the freedom to swear, mope and sulk slightly louder.

Mello froze on the second to last step of the stairs. What was that?

Yes, there it was again. That strange, muffled, groaning sound. What the hell?

Mello didn't believe in ghosts or the supernatural, but he soundlessly pressed his body against the wall paper of the mansion and edged his way carefully down the steps and to the bottom as cat-quiet as he could. He peeked around the corner, his fringe swinging out to one side and eyed the hallway warily.

Matt's room is at the very end of the corridor, Mello calculated, if I can just sort of snuck pass whatever it is that's making the sound…

And then he caught sight of her. Aubrey. She was slumped against the wall muttering fervently in what seemed to be French and moaning. So she was the one making the noises.

That's great and all, Mello thought bitterly, but what in the seven hells is she doing? Why's she out of her room? He didn't want to confront the girl yet, especially since he still didn't even know what he was going to do once he did.

Is there a chance that Mello could just walk past her and pretend that he didn't notice her? No, there probably wasn't… And even if he did so, she'd probably stop him or something. Could he pull off not knowing her and being confused? Change his voice and tone just to be safe? Aubrey couldn't possibly recognize him after just one meeting, right?

Mello cursed everything mentally. He decided that a detour to Matt's end of the hallway wouldn't keep him for very long, and was a better choice than confronting Aubrey. He began to start up the stairs, back to the second floor and to the stairwell on the opposite side.

As if the Fate's wanted to spite him, the second his foot stepped on the first step up an eerily long creak sounded.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit. Damn. Shit. Mello was paralyzed on the stairs, unsure of what to do. The sniveling that had come from Aubrey had stopped and Mello was positive that she had heard the stairs groan. After a moments' silence, Mello heard the shuffling of fabric and Aubrey's quiet voice ask, "'Ello?""

Damn. Damn, damn, damn. Shit. Damn. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fu-

"Who eez zere?"

Practically hissing to himself, Mello swore over and over again in his head and under his breath now too.

He could hear Aubrey padding towards him now. She was getting closer. Closer, closer, closer.

Fuck. Damn. Shit. Fucking damned shit. Damn it, damn it, fuck it all, damn it all to fucking Hell-

When she was just around the corner, Aubrey whispered another soft, "Who eez zere?"

And Mello was off like a bullet. He leaped up the stairs four at a time, as fast as he could. He didn't give a fucking damned shit who heard him. He needed to get away from this Frenchette. Even though he was probably exaggerating things way out of proportion, sprinting away and all.

He didn't care.

There, he was at the top now. One sharp turn, down a hall, down another flight of stairs, into Matt's room and he would be safe from any crazy Frenchettes. He was just about to do the sharp turn when Aubrey let out an explosive, "Wait!"

Mello waited, even though every fiber of his being told him to get a move on.

"Please. Please, I need 'elp. Are you… Are you steel zere?"

There. That was his chance. If he crept away now, without a sound, she wouldn't know and he could get to Matt's without running. Easy now. One foot in front of the other. Easy…

The Fates didn't like him. The floor boards creaked even louder than before.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit. Shit.

"Please," Aubrey murmured. "Can you please help me?"

No. That was Mello's instinctive response. No. No way.

But did she have to know it was him that was helping her? And what if this cleared Mello's debt? Aubrey had never mentioned what kind of debt she was going to ask of him since she didn't even know about the whole debt thing, so why can't this be the debt? He would be free!

Mello, against his better reasoning skills, walked back down the stairs. With each step, he could see her face relaxing, smoothing out, glad that someone was going to help her with whatever. With each step, Mello tensed up, more and more, the exact opposite. "Thank you," she murmured. "Thank you so much."

When he reached the bottom step, he studied her since he didn't get the chance to the last time he'd seen her. He had been right; she was about his height, and had curly black hair. She was wearing some blue pajamas that looked loose and comfortable. She wasn't wearing her blindfold. He'd seen her green eyes before, and they were still green as ever. They stared right at him, as if she could see him, but if what she said was true, then she really was blind and wouldn't – couldn't – ever see anything again.

Right now, even though the rest of her face was twisted with worry and slight relief, her eyes were dull and emotionless. It made an odd picture.

Mello grabbed her wrist roughly, still against his better reasoning. He tried as hard as he could to mask his voice, and muttered, "C'mon."

"Where are you taking me?" She looked confused.

He couldn't think of a good enough answer, so he just stayed silent and dragged her down the first floor hallway. He didn't have to do the detour to Matt's room, now that he was dragging her along too. Against his better reasoning.

Boy, Mello shook his head grimly, is Matty going to get a surprise. Waking up to his best friend who has suddenly become mute and a girl in his room…

Speaking of which; why is Aubrey in the boy's dormitory wing, anyway?

"Where are you taking me?" Celeste asked. The person had suddenly grabbed her wrist, muttered 'come on' and was now dragging her back towards her room.

The person didn't answer.

Celeste was puzzled about what she should do. On one hand, this person could guide her. On another, she didn't know anything about said person. The person could be a burglar for all she knew.

She tried to figure out whether she could trust this person or not. The fingers that were gripping her wrist were long and smooth, like a piano player's. They had a pretty tight grip. The voice that had said 'come on' was low and soft. The person was very fast, and very quiet. Had he or she not made the stairs and floor board creak, Celeste would never have known that they were there.

Which, of course, didn't tell her a single important thing about the person at all.

She shook her head, slightly annoyed now. The fingers on her wrist hadn't let go, and were still dragging her down the hall. Celeste would've sworn that they were past her room by now. Where is this person taking her?

"Excuse me. Where are you taking me?" Celeste asked again.

The voice that answered her was brusque and curt. "Gamers'."

Celeste was even more confused. Trying the word out on her tongue, she mimicked the word the person had said as best she could. "Gamiersez?"

"No. Gamers'."

"Gamier-"

"We're here."

Celeste felt the tugging on her arm stop, and heard metal against medal, some fiddling, than finally a click. The soft whisper of wood against carpet met her ears, and then she was being pulled forward again, before being abruptly stopped. Another hand had appeared on her shoulder, and was holding her in place. The brief voice said, "Jump forward."

The feeling of confusion Celeste had felt before was replaced with fear. Jump forward into the unknown? No! What if something bad happens? What if someone dies?! What if-

The person seemed to have sensed her reluctance because the hand on her shoulder squeezed her gently. It brought no comfort to Celeste who was starting to hyperventilate. "It's okay. I'll catch you if you fall. You have to jump over this, or else you'll get booby-trapped."

Booby-trapped? Celeste thought that this was a mansion, not an ancient Egyptian tomb. She reached her own hand up and touched the hand on her shoulder, before trailing the hand all the way to the person's elbow, and gripping the joint. Her hand was trembling.

"Must I?" She whispered. Her voice was so weak, so weak with fear.

"Yeah."

Celeste gulped. She thought about all the things that made her happy; the smell of the forest, bakeries, the feel of the piano, music, dance, art…

Calm down… Keep calm.

Stepping back, she sprang.

Mello was bewildered. Why was this girl so scared about jumping a bit? It wasn't as if they were on the edge of the roof. She was trembling now, and her pale face was even more ashen than normal. Aubrey trailed Mello's hand from her shoulder down to his elbow, before stopping and gripping his limb tightly. Mello winced slightly. Man, she clutched things like a sloth…

"Must I?" Aubrey whispered.

After a slight moment, Mello muttered in the same monotone he'd been using before, "Yeah."

She gulped, than stepped back a few. Before Mello could fathom what the hell she was doing, she leaped.

Mello's eyes widened. Aubrey had turned into a blur of blue, black and peach and this blur of a girl was flying right at him. Hastily he stepped to one side and waited for her to soar through the door frame so he could catch her 'round the waist.

That moment never came.

Aubrey's aim was off, and instead of jumping through the doorway like Mello had expected she would, she tripped over the wire Matt had set over the threshold of his room and caused a plateful of pie to soar through the air aimed directly at Aubrey. Luckily for her, she lurched forward and fell face first to the floor and onto Mello's outstretched arm, missing the pie. Mello grunted when he felt a hundred pounds of weight suddenly smash into his arm, and staggered a bit to hold her up.

Mello was just slightly worried. Aubrey was hyperventilating even harder than she had been before, her chest heaving up and down, and Mello didn't know what to do.

Than the Almighty Gamer Matt stumbled onto the scene, a complete mess. One of his hands was fumbling to put on his goggles, and the other was trying to straighten the striped and wrinkled inside out shirt he'd slept in. Matty looked ready to explode, Mello noted, and Mello understood why his best friend was so annoyed. Mello was ready to believe that Matt had pulled another all nighter playing his games and had already been interrupted once by his friend. He probably didn't want to be interrupted again, in his search for sleep. "What do you want, busting my traps and charging into my room in the goddamned morning?"

The Almighty Gamer Matt took a moment to focus hazily on Mello's blonde hair, black shirt and pants. His irritation eased slightly and he said vaguely, "Oh, hey Mels. Why'd you trip the traps?"

Mello stifled the urge to slap his friend. Aubrey was in Whammy's for a reason, and even if the reason was probably musical she should be smart enough to figure that 'Mels' was a nickname for 'Mello'.

Before Mello had the chance to answer Matt's question, Matt's gaze shifted to Aubrey, taking in her curly dark hair and blue pajamas. He suddenly said, "So have you figured it out yet?"

'It' being Mello's dilemma with the Aubrey Debt. Knowing what Matt meant but not being inclined to answer his question, Mello nudged Aubrey closer into the room. He muttered in the quiet monotone he'd been using with Aubrey, "She's about to faint."

It was true. Her pale skin had turned from ashen to pallid, and her breath was coming quicker and quicker. Not a second after the words had left Mello's mouth, she sucked in another breath and promptly fell unconscious.

Matt shook his head and mussed Mello's hair again, exactly like before. "Mels, I've told you, over and over. Tackling girls will not make them fall for you!"