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-AdRenaline
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Am I more than you bargained for yet?
I've been dying to tell you anything you want to hear
'Cause that's just who I am this week.
- Sugar we're goin' down, Fall Out Boy

Chapter Five

Their apartment is somehow a little too dark for ten in the morning. The windows are kept shut, curtains drawn, and there isn't a single light in here, save for the television, displaying a commercial for shampoo, but it is otherwise on mute. The floor is scattered with wires extended, leading into her bedroom. Mello closes the front door behind him, and he faintly hears the whirring of the alarm system she's placed there, and he gives a small lopsided smile, vaguely amused at Hex's heightened paranoia.

He knows she has good intentions for the alarms and cameras she's had installed, her now being a wanted criminal and all, but he honestly thinks that she should loosen up, if only just slightly, because he's getting a more than a little irritated at her newfound motivation. Like she's lost her reason to bother him constantly, like she has no time left to have pointless debates with him, like nothing else is important, like she absolutely must be taking those mantels now.

It grates at his last nerve.

Hex is too tense, too suspicious of the outside now. She behaves like.. a criminal.

But Mello knows she is, and that he soon will be. He's resorted to this, the exact fate that L never wished for his successors, there are too many consequences, and Mello is breaking the law. Going against justice, all L has worked for. He shakes the thought away, wanting to focus on the now.

"-o negotiate," Hex scoffs, rolling her eyes in annoyance as she spins on the swivel chair, waving at him as he enters the bedroom. Mello raises a blond eyebrow, closing the door behind him almost soundlessly with his foot, and he sets the shopping bags that had dangled from his wrists on the floor lazily. "Fix the problem, then! It's not that hard to shake them off your ass!"

Hex is imitating the voice of an older woman's, her octaves lower and more sultry, more dangerous, and he recognizes this as her 'Wedy voice'. He breaks a piece of chocolate between his teeth, watching her in all curiosity. "It's the FBI," Hex hisses after too long a pause. "Not God! It's not fucking impossible to hide yourself from them!" Hex furrows her brow, sending the wall a scathing look, as if it is the reason for her misery here. "No, you listen. Either you do it, or I'll hunt you down personally." And she hangs up, leaning back into the chair, spinning it around in a faster motion.

"What was that all about?" Mello inquires, sauntering behind her, and he presses both his palms onto the arms of the chair, halting her movement immediately. "And who was that?"

Hex scoots slightly away from him, and turns to face him with a smirk on her face. "Curious little thing, aren't you?" she returns, taking her own voice this time. By his unimpressed stare, she sticks out her tongue, tinged blue with cotton candy and she answers, "There's this dude in the FBI called Ill Rat- I'm trying to get him to see my sense."

"What sense?" he teases, just for the sake of doing so, and he lets her smack him on his arm impatiently, the grin never faltering from his face. He waits for a fast retort, the sly and smart one that never comes.

"Pay attention!" she demands instead, pouting childishly, and she looks away, sinking back into the chair. "So this Rat-guy's on our side, and he's going to let some info slip for us whenever he can." She looks pleased, "I arranged us to meet some twenty miles east tomorrow night in a warehouse I've got secured."

"No," Mello immediately disagrees, and he takes to see her displeased expression, and she whips out from her seat, fair hair flying around her head like some sort of fan. Mello cocks his head aside and he elaborates, "Since you've been," he glances briefly at her bandaged abdomen, "Out of commission for this whole week, I've took it upon myself to hunt the mafia down myself."

She gives him a look, waving a single hand in the universal "go on," motion. "I found out that they rented out the entire of a club. Tomorrow night," he's added this, crossing his arms as if daring her to say otherwise. What he didn't add, however, is that this entire piece of information had been stumbled upon purely out of luck. Mello's got a pride, damn it. "I will not have this chance slip, Hex. I've been waiting too long."

Hex scowls, seething. "How is four months too long for you, mister patience-is-a-virtue? We've had chances before-"

"You mean to tell me," Mello hisses, eyes narrowing at her suspiciously, "That we've had plenty chances had you let us go for them?"

"Ease up," she orders, pouting. "I've got good intentions for missing them out, asshole, and they've concerned you. Shall I elaborate?" She holds her hand up to his mouth to silence him, and Mello almost bites the limb when she starts counting off. "One, you couldn't even deny me ice-cream when you're supposed to be a stingy badass asshole. Two, you were afraid to shoot me when I told you to. Three, you can't take a fucking directive-"

"I. get. It!" Mello grits out, grabbing hold of her wrist and he pulls her hand away, yanking her forward, and Hex falls off the chair without so much of a sound, despite the fact that her wound is being given rough treatment. "But I don't see why we can't go tonight! I don't want to waste anymore fucking time than we already have!"

"Why can't you do as I say? Just for once?" Hex hisses in his ear in agitation. "We need this contact. Why can't you see that he'll prove to be an asset to our goals? Charging in there will be like suicide, and I don't wanna die until I'm in the fucking mafia!"

"Hex," he sighs, calling her name firmly, then tightening his hold as she struggles, and she stiffens suddenly, as if only noticing the contact. "Why look for some guy when Loss is right there? I don't want anyone else involved with us, asset or not." He looks to her, forcing her to listen, "Do this my way, Hex."

"Give me one good reason to."

Mello smirks, already expecting her request. "What's life without the risk?"

Hex snorts, shaking her head as she turns away from him, muttering a few particularly nasty things, because she knows he's won this round, or maybe she lets him, already edgy. She doesn't spare him a second look as she swings the other door –leaving it wide open- entering the tiny bathroom, and Mello thinks she must be on her period. Why else would she be so damn intolerable?

"What are you doing now?" he sounds as if he's almost whining, but Mello knows that he is absolutely not. Whining implies immaturity, and Mello is all but mature, in his opinion. He follows her inside at a much more relaxed pace, chucking the now empty chocolate wrapper and it falls into the waste bin by the sink directly. He takes to lean against the cool, blue-tiled walls as he watches her produce a first aid kit from the cabinet behind the mirror, and she is still ignoring him. "Come now, Hex. You're not throwing a tantrum, are you?"

She narrows her eyes at him, lifting her shirt slightly so she'd be able to undo the bandaging on her wounds easily. "I am trying," she seethes, "To keep myself from strangling you." Finally free of the wraps, she studies the wounds in the mirror, grimacing slightly in disgust. "I'll contact them for you- If I gain Loss's favor, we'll be meeting them when you want."

"You're being dramatic." Mello snorts at this, crossing his arms as he continues watching her unabashedly, because while he is a genius, he is still a normal, hormone-driven boy, and Hex, while stiff, doesn't look too worried about him being there. It didn't matter too much. They've got bigger plans to worry about, and modesty is irrelevant at this point of time. "We'll be in the mafia soon, Hex, we'll both get what we want. Why can't lighten the fuck up and relax? At least you see things my way now."

"I don't see how that's a good thing," she remarks dryly, a wry smirk on her lips. "You realize that you'll be complicating things a bit, don't you? I can't guarantee success, so if we fail, we lose both Ill Rat and Loss, and that'll suck." She pokes at her wound repeatedly, like show akin to childish thinking, and she appears satisfied that it no longer bleeds out to the touch as it did only nights before.

"We should at least make an attempt now." Mello's eyes are fixed on the trail of scars on her abdomen, like daggers and bullets alike have gone to her over and over, and they gleam like silver under the light, and he wonders why he didn't notice them before. Insensitively, Mello asks, "How'd you get them?"

She follows his gaze and her smirk falls, and she peers at them like she's only taken notice of them now. "Mentors have different methods of teaching," she answers. "While Aiber was more careful with me, Wedy liked me to learn on the job. Her method was most effective, methinks."

"That's fucking brutal not effective," he comments, pushing himself away from the wall to study them more curiously. "You did everything by yourself, for yourself.. It's like Wedy taught you nothing at all."

"She's taught me well," Hex's tone is clipped as she argues. "She's taught me to trust my instincts, how to survive." She glares at him from the vanity, a scowl set in place. "I've learned to keep moving, Mello. No matter what.. And she's taught me that injuries, Mello?" she nudges harder on hers, as if to make a point. "They don't matter much- they're just a slight complication. The priority is to always get the job done."

"Now you're only being hypocritical here," he rolls his eyes, deciding to end the subject before she gets a little too touchy. "You've implied it in your own words, Hex. Complications don't make anything impossible, Hex, you know that." He pushes her fingers away from the wound impatiently, knowing that her constant prodding will not do much for a quicker healing. "So don't make poor excuses- nothing you say will change my mind."

"Yeah, yeah," Hex murmurs, glaring at some random tile like it offended her. She runs a hand through her hair, pouting suddenly. "That's what you say now.." She lets her words hang in the empty air, her voice quieting slowly as if she's only realized that Mello is closer now, towering over her like he always does, but she looks somehow, lost.

"That's what I'll keep saying," he tells her, voice softer. He stares at her, gaze unreadable, and he asks her again. "Why can't you lighten up? Relax."

That single right hand of his is still on her waist, not pressuring down, neither too light, but it is still there like a lingering presence that they are both too aware of, and she looks up to meet his eyes, her own wider now, then quietly, curiously, Mello breathes out softly, lowering his head and his lips brush against hers, feather light and almost non-existent.

Too suddenly. Too randomly. Completely uncalled for.

Hex pushes him back, and they both pull away too fast; Mello letting his back hit against the cool wall again as he forces himself to look away, eyeing the slight stain on the tile flooring too intently to be natural. He can hear Hex knocking over a few bottles on the sink counter in haste, and then the tap runs, but the water rushes out far too loud in his ears for some reason, just ringing.

"What was that?" Hex asks then, her tone light, and Mello only hates that he can't tell her mood.

Mello's head snaps up, and just in time to see Hex splash water onto her face, her messy bangs wetting and matting her brow, and she keeps her head down to the sink, eyes shut tight. "Nothing," he says curtly, straightening, and he decides that he should leave the room. Now. He makes for the door. "Absolutely nothing."

And the door closes.

Just like that.

Mello melts into the threadbare couch, like he's been made to sit in it, and he massages his temple with one hand, the other holding his fix, and he stares at it intently. Dark chocolate now- the type that he only eats when he needs the energy, or when he needs to stay up for hours after midnight, for his studying or plotting against Near. He didn't succeed too much in the latter, but the candy still does serve its purpose. He needs to think now.

He takes a large bite, snapping the chocolate between his teeth before he allowed himself to chew. It tastes bitter and sharp in his mouth, and as he swallows, his throat goes parched. Mello grimaces, but continues to eat, and he thinks he might be a potential chocolate glutton in the near future. Whatever. The taste is alright enough, and the candy is cheap and all but convenient.

When his eyes stray to the black coat she always wears, thrown carelessly over the arm of the loveseat he's on, Mello scowls, remembering what has happened, or what didn't happen. It is the same difference. Mello isn't an idiot; he knows he is attracted to Hex, at least just physically, because he isn't a fool to deny that she is actually quite attractive. But it is only lust, he knows, because her actual person, the everything else that isn't physical, on the other hand, doesn't leave much to be desired. Just lust, just a phase and nothing more.

It will eventually pass.

He's thought it plenty times before, and even said it aloud sometimes; Hex is a bitch. Forgetting entirely that she isn't always like that, that she's offered him a play to stay in the first few nights he's known her, this cheap apartment she's had rented just because he wanted space, even giving the money he doesn't know where from, and he actually has food –takeout, but still- waiting for him sometimes. Okay, so he didn't forget. Mello merely overlooks these facts. He needs a defense, damn it.

But Hex is also proving very, very useful, so he really should just stop moping and just live with it, because it will all be worth it in the end. It must. Mello sees no other future than to have Kira's head, and Near on his knees.. The latter probably won't happen, but hey, he's still hoping. And L always did say that things will always be made possible if they set their minds to it.

Rather contradicting, since L said he'd solve the Kira case, and he is kind of.. dead now, but Mello wants to forget that for a while. Or at least, banish all thoughts of his predecessor to the back of his mind. Just for the moment. It shouldn't be so hard. He's second after all. And he isn't second for nothing.

Suck it up. Hex will quicken your steps, not slow you down. he tells himself firmly, Two is only one after one. You're close. So close.

"Melly-bean!" Hex's voice is amused as she snaps her fingers in front of his twice. "Get your butt in gear; we need to go out."

"Didn't you say you'd contact Loss?" he reminds her, peeling himself off of the seat and he throws Hex her coat. Mello shoves his feet into his ratty sneakers, ambling towards the front door. He supposes he shouldn't be surprised that she is acting like nothing has happened; she did take the bullets in her somewhat lightly, so what happened shouldn't make her bat an eye at all.

Mello is strangely disappointed.

"I can do that later," she shakes her head dismissively, sashaying out the door past him as she pulls her gloves on. "We need to get a few things; maybe some more cell phones, laptops.. Then sulfur, wires.. Basically, we're going to set up a detonation system for the entire club, just in case things go the wrong way.. Uh.." She looks at him with a slightly sheepish grin. "Do you have any clue on how to make control explosions?"

"I'm a detective, not a terrorist," Mello deadpans, and he raises a blond eyebrow, unimpressed. "What kind of goddamn plan is that?"

She huffs, crossing her arms under her chest tightly as she waits for the whir of the door's alarm to beep. "I don't think too many things through, okay?" She confesses this, agitated. "What's wrong with making with what I've got so far? I mean, I'm still alive here! It shouldn't be too hard. I mean, we're pretty fucking intelligent, remember?"

"You're impossibly humble," he tells her, tone dripping with sarcasm. "But that so-called plan of yours will do nothing but heighten the risks." He shoots her a sly glance, "And we both know how you feel about these things now, hm?

"Shut the fuck up," Hex grits out, patience obviously thinning out like an unraveling spool of thread. And this is the Hex Mello's learned to dislike so much. "You said not to waste time, so let's be quick. I need to get a hell lot sorted out." Briefly, he contemplates on the theory that her behavior is due to losing Aiber and Wedy, but he immediately disagrees with himself. She's already cleared out that deaths hardly bother her anymore.

But why is she still like this?

As she takes a few steps ahead of him, going moving down the corridor swiftly, she spares him a quick glance over her shoulder, and she speaks blandly. "Hurry up."

TBC

A/N: Yesterday was my birthday- gah, I feel so old. Uh, anyway, this one is somewhat of a filler, I suppose. I thought that they could use a slight break from all the action they've been doing, so I had them talk more.. and well, this was the outcome. So, any opinions, comments, constructive criticism will be absolutely great! :)

A special thanks to C. Holywell-Black (Thanks for the compliment! :) I'm glad Mello's overprotective-ness didn't come off as OOC for you; I have this belief that Mafia!Mello is cold, but he's not heartless, right? I'm really glad you liked the previous chapter, and I'm seriously hoping I didn't disappoint you on this one.), Overboard343 (You quote the story? haha, wow. Here's a little more Mello/Hex relationship building for you- hope it didn't suck, I'm not much for romance. I'm not revealing anything to you, that would spoil the suspense, wouldn't it? :P, oOxCreativexOo (Thanks for liking the story! :) Here's your update!), and ChicalaMoya (Good to know! :D I'm only gonna say that she's the type who'll do anything to get what she wants, but I think Hex is a little too serious here..) for reviewing! Sadly, I don't have a preview for you yet.. It's been a slow week for me. :(

Review if you think Mello's awesome!