I love, love, LOVED writing this. :33 -happy fangirl squeal- And I love all you lovely people with the reviews! They make my insides quite delighted :D Happy reading!
A dim light clicked on, revealing mountains of tangled wires that covered the entirety of the space. Tugging his goggles down to hang around his neck, Matt stepped inside, and Audrey followed, fairly sure that he was expecting her to. The room was void of any natural light, despite the bright day outside. Directly to the left of where she had entered was an extremely large television, and hooked or plugged into it was every gaming system imaginable. Controllers sat on and around a dingy yellow futon, which sank in at its center from where he sat, she conjectured. Piled on every surface in the room were stacks and stacks of video games, discs, headsets, guns for shooting games; anything and everything.
Audrey turned to Matt with a slight scoff. "And you said I was the one who hadn't changed a bit." Matt was pulling his jacket off. He looked over at her and laughed quietly. "I never said I didn't either." He tossed the jacket onto his bed, which was situated off behind the futon and flanked by side-tables. Audrey was smiling as she looked around. The guns told her that somewhere in these stacks was a zombie game of some sort, and she began poking around in search of one. She heard Matt chuckle, "Yeah, go ahead and make yourself at home."
After a moment of rifling through his things, Audrey came to realize that he actually had a quite sophisticated system set up. The stacks were all separated into categories, with sections like 'live', 'strategy', 'role-playing', and most important to Audrey, 'zombie'.
She grabbed one she hadn't seen before and made her way through a web of wires to the dresser next to the futon that had the pile of guns. When Audrey picked up the first one her eyes landed on, her primary instinct was that it was heavier than she would have thought.
Matt's eyes flicked up with the flame of his lighter to see Audrey examining his pistol. His insides jolted and his body followed. "No! Audrey, not that one!" With a running start, he leaped over his futon and stumbled up beside her, grabbing the gun out of her slender hands. Shock registered in her cloudy eyes, and he felt like a monster when they met his. He reached a gloved hand out for the top drawer of the dresser and pulled it open just enough to slip the gun into place, finding himself unable to tear his eyes from Audrey's.
She was the first to move; tilting her head just a little to one side. Matt shook his head and scratched the back of his neck, turning around to make his way back to the unlit cigarette he had dropped in his haste. Of course, Audrey wanted to ask why he had a seemingly loaded pistol in his apartment. For protection? Protection from what? Audrey shook her head and made her way to the video games corresponding system. She sat down on the futon to the opening tune of the game, grabbing a wireless controller and clicking it on. An uneasy feeling lingered.
Matt put the cigarette to his lips and breathed in heavily. How could I explain that to her? The look in her eyes… the way her mouth fell open only slightly without words, it made him feel like he had used that gun on small children. She probably thinks I did… He watched her body hunch forward, already so absorbed in her game of choice, and he felt that such an innocent had no place in his world.
And while he knew no good would come from anything that had their two names in the same sentence, he also knew that all he wanted, all he ever had wanted, was to be close to her. It wasn't like he had always felt that way. He barely paid her any mind back at Whammy's. But of course, why would he? She was always with Near, and all Mello ever did was try to out-do the pastel child. "Anyone associated to him is scum," a young Mello had once told Matt after he had expressed a quiet intrigue in the new girl. He'd forgotten about her after he left Whammy's. She was barely a figment of imaginations memory.
But hearing about her being back in town and seeing her around had made her all too real again. And without Mello telling him he couldn't, Matt decided that he could now try to have the chance he had missed before.
He sat down beside her, the all-too-real Audrey, who was made of warm skin and soft hair and big, round eyes. Who was right next to him, and completely undeniable. "I don't use it, I want you to know."
Audrey blasted a zombie square between the eyes before pausing her game. "You don't owe me an explanation." She cocked her head to look at him. I owe you something, Audrey… Matt gritted his teeth. Her voice was so genuine. He wanted to explain anyway. Something about the way her face was set made him want to clear his name to her. "I mean it, Audrey, I don't use it. It's just here because Mello left it for me." She was watching him closely, taking in every vulnerability that flashed over his features. His eyes searched hers, flitting from one to the other. He fumbled for more words. "Well, I mean, I've used it before, but never for killing someone, I was never interested in killing anyone." He was wringing his hands, Audrey noticed. And licking his bottom lip. Heh, same nervous habits. She was suddenly reminded of an incident at Whammy's. Mello had fallen asleep with chocolate in his hand, which melted to his sheets. Matt was made his scapegoat, and when he stood before Watari, he was wringing his hands and licking his lips in this same manner. You'd think he did something wrong, the way he's acting.
Audrey shook her head slowly at him, a small smile creeping to her mouth. "It's okay, Matt," she said through a laugh. His eyes widened slightly in surprise, like a child let off punishment. He allowed himself the slightest of smiles. "Truly, it's no big deal." His smile widened as he nodded his head with a slight downward jerk of his chin and accepted her answer. He rested his back against the futon, relief washing through him, and Audrey un-paused her game. The sounds of gunshots and groaning zombies filled the room with the flashing lights of the game once again, and the two fell into an easy silence that was comparable to walking in step; second nature. Neither said much of anything, neither felt uncomfortable.
Matt would laugh when she was eaten alive, and she would shove him and challenge him to do better. She would poke and laugh when his character would die, and the cycle would continue.
Audrey wasn't sure when she had drifted into a shallow sleep. She had handed the controller to Matt with a sleepy, challenging smile what felt like mere minutes ago. Matt dropped his controller with a frustrated groan when a zombie came from behind and tore out his throat. He dropped against the futon, rolling his eyes to Audrey. Her knees were folded up, an elbow propped on the armrest, and a hand holding her face up. Strands of her dark hair fell into her face. Matt rubbed at his eyes, adjusting them to the darkness that covered her in the corner of his futon. She looked exactly the same, the sleep pulling her back to adolescence. And she was still as lovely as any memory he had of her.
He glanced down at his watch to see that at a quarter past midnight, he had two options. Wake her and walk her across town in the cold to her home, or cover her in a blanket and let her sleep. Of course the latter was the more appealing choice, but if she woke up in a strange place, it was likely she would freak out. And that would mean a nosebleed, and I don't have any damn crackers.
With a sigh, he leaned toward her, shaking her gently and whispering, "Audrey, its late, let me take you home." She whimpered in her sleep. The hand she wasn't leaning on drifted out to him in a feeble sweeping motion; one of those things children would do to ask for ten more minutes. He took her hand, stopping its lazy motions, and attempted to pull her up. She sat upright for maybe a second without opening her eyes before slumping against his chest. Matt froze from head to foot, his hands in the air, up by his shoulders. Her arms wrapped around his waist, and the words he was going to force out tangled in his throat. "A-Audrey," he choked out. "Audrey, wake up." She shook her head, settling it against his shoulder. "You can't sleep here…" He was trying to sound authoritative, but Matt was fairly sure it wasn't coming out that way.
Her breathing deepened. Matt sighed, defeated, and nestled himself against the futon, sure that she would wake confused and no doubt freaked out. He temporarily considered slipping out of her grasp to slink off to his own bed, but the utter warmth of her was enough to change his mind. And she just smells so good. Her soft breathing hit the skin of his neck in a way that made moving impossible. Everything about her, every piece of her that met a piece of him, it all just felt too right. He wouldn't have moved if someone had paid him in handheld videogames, and he knew it.