I got my head done

When I was young

It's not my problem

It's not my problem

"I'll raise you on that one," said the man at the far end of the table, and Matt fought to tame the small smirk working it's way up to his features, straining to stay honest to his intentions of retaining a stoic demeanor.

Ever since he had moved to Las Vegas—or, rather, taken up temporary residence here—Matt had discovered the joys that the vast array of casinos had to offer.

Or, he would have, if he hadn't stopped at number one.

Poker.

At first, he had been rather skeptical and had joined in because he was curious for an answer to the question why people ever got addicted to something as simple and superfluous as a game. It is plausible that if this query of his were to be said out loud, it might just have sounded a bit ridiculous what with Matt himself being a person that was occasionally more protective of his equipment—computers and consoles, and games, and little contraptions he put together just for the sheer satisfaction of knowing that he could—than his own life, but still.

And so the answer he was seeking successfully eluded him even after a number of games, thus he had no choice except to keep coming back for more and somewhere along the way... well, he mostly forgot his original purpose altogether. If Matt were to stop and spare a few seconds to look back, he would suppose it was his rather unusual upbringing that was the key to it all. It would be only fair noting that growing up at Wammy's most assuredly shaped your future whether you wanted it, were indifferent about it, or dreamed every night of burning the goddamn institution down.

Yes, one could say that Matt was often impassive to most of what the world had to offer; or stick abruptly under his nose, throw ungracefully at his feet—but one day he found himself thinking he didn't really mind having spent most of his childhood where he did. Early on he was introduced to and even forced to live with people that had had some quite obnoxious habits. So when he had left, searching for a dark corner he could call his own, getting practically assaulted by extensive daily grating-on-your-nerves bitching so common in today's society didn't faze him in the slightest. And wasn't that something to be thankful for?

But Matt preferred not wasting his time pondering such trivial matters. There were cigarettes waiting to be smoked out there, after all.

Getting back to the topic of poker, Matt's current situation could be explained fairly easily. Frankly, before long, he became bored and settled on the conclusion that humans were just a fluctuating existence in general, always searching for that divine something that is supposed to miraculously make their lives better than they were before. And so, instead of wasting his time contemplating fruitlessly, he decided to see if there was anything in this highly-worshiped game that would appeal to his tastes specifically.

And that is how he came across analyzing people's quirks—investigating the mind of others, as they say.

Usually, Matt preferred it if he didn't have to mingle with the masses—it had taken him one semi-thorough scout to give up on finding a suitable drinking partner; these so-called infected-with-wanderlust gentlemen were absolutely pathetic at holding their liquor and proved to be no more entertaining conversation partners than the shoelaces of Matt's boots—content with staying immersed in the less complicated universe made solely out of pixels and artificial characters, controllable by a single press of a button. However, through poker he found that spending time noticing minuscule details that revealed nothing to the untrained eye, but could tell a whole biography to someone who knew how to look, was a somewhat pleasing way to pass time.

For example, figuring out unique mannerisms not only provided him with the perfect opportunity to know exactly when his opponents were bluffing, but also served as a weapon of intimidation of a completely different level, the effects of which were often felt afterwards well throughout the week. Take a moment to imagine yourself resting your buttocks on a chair at a poker table, sweating so profusely you feel like you're running a marathon, the refreshing numbness of the alcohol fading away as you belatedly realize that you've just lost every single dime your friend had previously loaned you so that you could delight your family with surprise tickets to Paris for the holidays when someone, an utter stranger to you, casually points out that, gosh, you honestly shouldn't have also purchased the most expensive car you've ever laid eyes upon while hoping you'd win all of the spent money and more back tonight, because your electricity bills have already been overdue for quite a while.

Overwhelming, wouldn't you say.

And that kind of careful jabs was what Matt reveled in. He supposed he had always possessed exceptional observation skills, but he'd never actually tried poking people with them, eager to find out if his deductions were correct. So, when he finally had given it a shot, he had just happened to find it tremendously fun and thus became a regular at the poker table.

Perhaps he would just leave today, so as to bruise the ego of the pompous bald-head over there, because judging the way his escort had been stealing glances at Matt all evening, she was going to ditch the hapless imbecile the moment Matt stood up. And that would be rather interesting.

"I'm done for tonight, love," he winked at the dealer, sliding his cards towards her. She smiled back at him, his unpredictable behavior a familiar occurrence by now.

"I'll see you tomorrow," she said. A much too recherché dame, in his opinion, to be spending her time dealing cards, but then again, this was Vegas.

Most likely, yes, Matt thought, heading for the bar. Patting his coat pockets in search of his cigarettes, he had barely managed to sit down when the bartender placed a glass of whiskey in front of him, mustering as much of a conspiratorial-sounding whisper as he could manage through his cold.

"It seems like you're going to have company tonight, hm?"

Matt looked up to see him eying someone over his shoulder and nodded smugly in acknowledgment.

"Yes, lovely, isn't she?" he chuckled, reaching for his drink. "Thanks, James."

"Always," the bartender replied, waggling his eyebrows in a suggestive way. Matt almost laughed at the childish gesture and waved him off with his free hand. It was a nice accomplishment on Matt's part, he reckoned, that he knew so many people now. Making acquaintances was a necessity when he had just been starting his business here, and so he had unconsciously operated the same way after picking a favorite casino to loiter in. Too bad Matt had never been one for friending people—there were some mighty nice blokes working here.

"Hi there," a voice cut into his thoughts and he slowly turned to meet the hazelnut eyes that during the short three hours he'd stayed at the table had been busy mentally undressing him.

He downed his whiskey. "Well how do you do," he said blithely, gazing at the figure beside him appreciatively. "Would you like to move upstairs?"

Oh what the heck, he thought, sticking his tongue down her throat and doing his best to maneuver with her latched on to him, he might as well sleep with her. Sure, the blind willingness was a poor substitute to the thrill of trapping someone hard to get, and Matt didn't usually make a habit of picking up random women at the casino, but she was considerably attractive and most probably in a relationship—not with the bald stack of meat downstairs, of course—so there would be no awkwardness or hesitation present upon parting ways. And, sex with a desperate partner had some certain benefits, desperation being the key word.

Slamming her against the first door that entered his peripheral vision, Matt struggled to find the door knob. Eventually, something cold grazed his palm and success!—they were in the room, and oh my, she had remarkably quick hands. Except there suddenly was a prickling feeling starting at the back of his neck and that never happened unless there was trouble, so he unglued his lips from hers, raising his head warily. Immediately, his actions were followed by the woman's impatient huffs, but her small noises were fairly easy to ignore as there was that steadily escalating sense of foreboding washing over him, most likely directly connected to the fact that he had found the room already occupied.

Matt had been a part of the underworld long enough to know how to recognize dangerous territory and he had definitely pulled enough stunts in his life to know how exactly people—heavily paranoid people, that had very, very valid reasons to be paranoid—reacted to his exquisitely flashy interruptions. The only difference now was that he was the metaphorical deer caught in headlights, and from the looks of it, he sure as hell had unintentionally barged in to a mafia gathering, god help him. Two extremely tense seconds was how long it had taken him to rediscover the way breathing worked and one more was sacrificed for the greater good of mankind—meaning, falling into a role he deemed suitable for this particular unexpected little snag.

Grinning like a madman, he grabbed the woman by the waist, twirled her around like a ballerina and saluted the thugs that looked like they were almost ready to get over their initial shock at his intrusion and promptly shoot his face.

"Let us go, milady," he slurred, convincingly imitating a man that honestly could not have told his mother from his father that very instant, and wobbled backwards. "Let us pursue true love, our one and only flimsy mistress."

He was already halfway through the door, the utterly confused woman squirming in his arms, when his falsely unsteady gaze landed on a face that almost made him doubt if he had enough acting skills to properly disguise the raw feeling that shot through him upon his realization.

Bowing his head low as a last desperate measure, he gasped, "Gentlemen," and stumbled into the hallway, closing the door in his wake.

"Is something the matter?"

Ah, yes. Now was the time turn off the ever-convenient autopilot, ditch the girl and exit as quietly and quickly as possible. Did he have enough time for a cigarette?

"Not really," he said, pushing past the coquette whose expression now looked awestruck. Well, unfortunately for her, he really wasn't in the mood of elaborating. "Excuse me."

If Matt were to be perfectly honest with himself, he had just seen fucking Mello and for reasons unknown all he could think of was the swelling desire to make a bloody sprint towards the nearest exit. These sensations were quite a new experience for him and therefore he opted to deal with them the way he usually dealt with all things that were foreign. He slowed his hurried footsteps to a comfortable trot, fished out a cigarette from his pocket and lit up. One long drag later, his thoughts were already resetting themselves, a scattered puzzle of unrelated facts falling neatly into an orderly line.

And now he could mayhap deal with the gun at his temple.

Too many shitgoddamn distractions in one day, jeez.

Raising his arms over his head, he lazily turned to face his captor. Blond hair, vicious glare—yep, certainly him. Actually, more often than not it was hard to find a fitting description for Mello. People that had had the pleasure—or misfortune, to be more precise—of crossing his path in the past generally went with "tyrant", but Matt felt content calling him a living, breathing, walking night terror in leather.

With the barrel ever so steadily pointed at Matt, Mello motioned towards the room on Matt's left. Sighing, Matt complied.

"Still sucking on the cancer sticks, I see," was the first thing Mello said as soon as they entered, and Matt heard the lock clicking behind them.

Yes, good day. Nice weather today, wouldn't you say? Oh, how's the mafia and drugs, by the way? (Was it a crime to wonder how the hell he had even recognized Matt in the first place? Was it the hair? Really?)

Matt shrugged, welcoming another dose of smoke into his lungs. While it was true that his little inadvertent trespass earlier might have been a surprise of sorts, he wasn't quite ready to believe that it had been that much of a deal. It wasn't as if he saw anything he shouldn't have and mafia was not an unfamiliar term in his dictionary. Despite what Mello thought, Matt was not a person prone to going moonstruck or starting begging for mercy for no reason. So instead, he just stood there and held Mello's gaze until the said man blinked and turned away.

Well, that was a new development.

In the short seconds to follow, there was a small huff and slowly, Mello lowered the gun. "How much longer do you intend to keep barging into my life accidentally?" he asked, his voice tight and laden with all different kinds of layers of animosity.

What? What?

"Holy jesus, your arrogance has no bounds," spat Matt, outraged, "What the hell are you doing, thinking I actually did that on purpose?"

Mello flared like a New Year's firework. "You slimy little fuck, I just saved your sorry excuse for an ass," he sneered, stepping forward, finger instantly back on the trigger.

"Well, do be so kind and shove that perverse generosity up your own," Matt said, his voice crescendoing into a formidable forte with every word. He had no recollection of doing it, but he had at some point deposited his lovely cigarette on the floor and now very much wanted it back. However, bending down to retrieve it was obviously out of the question, and that amplified his growing frustration quite nicely. "The ever considerate Mello, savior of the world!" he mocked, throwing his arms up in the air, an actor on the stage of a burned-down theater called life.

"You shut the fuck up," Mello bellowed, advancing even further, his muscles taut, straining to hold back the encompassing urge to put holes in Matt's cranium, regardless of whether they belonged there or not.

Except by now, Matt was utterly and wholeheartedly enraged, and he didn't think he had ever been in his life—minus that one time at Wammy's when this poxy undersized git had—. It would have taken him one smoke, he knew it, to return to his stable self, never to be fazed again, but fast approaching was the end of him keeping his composure and he sure as heck wasn't at all, due to the complicated circumstances and the gun in Mello's hand, capable of smoking equals thinking equals rationalizing.

So, he kicked off the ground with speed he wasn't aware he possessed, and landed a very, very solid punch on Mello's jaw. God knows the deafening crack resounding through the air should have snapped him out of his trance—or something, anything—but his fist felt right at home at Mello's face, and that's just how inducing pain became his goal in life for this sole occasion.

"You lousy—" was all that Mello had managed, his whole body convulsing with fury before he hit him back.

It was rather hard to keep track of what had happened after that, because the world had become a large blur filled with continuous motion, and it was as if a void, a black hole, had opened somewhere, rapidly sucking in the noise, their surroundings, devouring even their bodies—since Matt felt no pain, or maybe that was because he hurt everywhere—and spitting out the contents on the other side of the sun.

Matt was a naturally lazy person, always trying to wiggle out of doing more than absolutely necessary, never making plans, schedules, never searching for needless aims or the oh so popular purpose of life. And yet, he uncovered a kind of zealousness in himself he hadn't known before, resoluteness to damage anything within his grasp pulsing erratically in his veins.

And so Matt found himself slamming his knuckles into Mello's abdomen with as much force as he could. Mello's retaliation was swift as always, and his kick was enough to make Matt see the blinking screen of his gameboy, "game over" blaring all over it in angry red letters. But Mello didn't stop there, of course, and barreled his whole body straight into Matt's, introducing them once again to gravity, as they found that they couldn't exactly hover in the air at a 45 degree angle, one atop of the other. With a huge thud, which was promptly followed by a high-frequency sound exploding in Matt's ears as pain originated from the bottom of his backbone and spread like a wildfire even to the very ends of his toes, they landed on the floor. Before Matt could even find his breath, Mello had unceremoniously climbed on top of him and hurled his fist at Matt's cheek with stunning accuracy. Grunting, Matt tried to use their position to his advantage and aimed a bruised knee to Mello's groin, but Mello foresaw his plan, grabbing Matt's leg and holding it in place. Almost immediately he started twisting it so viciously Matt thought the bone would snap, and so, with the last of his fading energy, he embedded his elbow into Mello's side, forcing him to roll off of him gracelessly.

Which was how they had ended up here, two unsightly piles of sore limbs, exhaustion and loud breathing.

Matt wasn't sure who had started it, or when, but by the time he had begun turning his head—damn, that hurt—to glare at Mello, they were both already laughing, guffawing, even.

And that was when Mello had moved. To be perfectly honest, Matt had been bracing himself for another blow, kick, punch—he was even almost ready to accept the fact that the distasteful braking of bones and whatnot was inevitable—hence the reason why it took him a moment to register that the scenario he had formed in his mind was, in fact, faulty and that the actual version included a pleasant presence of a warm mouth against his own. Yes, Matt was almost stunned and shocked to the point of stuttering, if you may, when a wet tongue licked longingly—invitingly, suggestively—several times at his bottom lip and retreated, leaving him to stare at a Mello with impressively tousled hair and a body that was radiating insurmountable degrees of heat above his own.

Matt gulped, something ridiculous tugging at the corners of his mouth, and Mello grinned in response, hoisting himself off of Matt, but settling down so much closer to his side than he had been situated before.

However disconcerting this may have seemed later, then and there Matt had suddenly become strangely content for no reason at all. Mello was the first one to speak once again, his voice brimming with barely disguised laughter.

"So, how are you?"

Matt was staring at the ceiling. Right now? Well...

... if anything, his blood pressure should definitely be breaking world records.

"Hmm," was the answer he gave, smiling at the fancy chandelier, slightly giddy.

Perhaps it was time to put his gambling skills to use. With Mello.

End.

01-17-09, 23:00.