AN: Hello again, everyone! As promised, here it is. My first AU fic, I think... (not counting Unbreakable, which I'm not sure counts exactly as AU). Anywho, sorry the first chapter is so short. I think they'll get longer, but not too long. Oh, and the rating is mostly for language. Just playing it safe since I'd rather not have undue trouble because Matt has a potty mouth.

This was born out of my listening to the radio playing in the campus bookstore during a break between classes, at which point I was mysteriously inspired, and (expecting to be bored to tears in my coming class) I bought a little notebook and a purple pen with which to while away the next 2 or so hours in Physical Geography. If GEs are good for nothing else, at least they give me ample time to write fanfiction. In any case, this is strictly my "bored in class" fic, written entirely in purple pen because since discovering the huge variety of pens available in the bookstore, I have gained a random obsession with pretty colored ink. It's not particularly deep or amazing and is usually written between taking notes, so consider that fair warning.

It is lots of fun to write in an otherwise funless time, so I hope everyone enjoys it. : ) Thanks for reading!

~Tora

I'm not paralyzed, but I seem to be

Struck by you

It was just another one of those parties. You know, the kind where someone's friend invited the kid next to you in Chem and he just slipped you a note and everyone says there's gonna be booze and chicks and everyone's gonna have a fucking grand time. That kind of party.

Frat boys playing drinking games, whores flirting shamelessly with the sports studs, the usual.

I went for the hell of it. I mean, it's not like I had anything better to do. Not like anyone's gonna notice if I'm there, if I'm not there. Not like I need a reason anyway.

So I just went and sat kind of in the back with a bottle of beer and watched. Maybe I did it to disappoint my parents. People always say I'm so fucking brilliant and that I should do something with my life. But I really have no fucking clue.

I don't want to be brilliant. When you're smart, people have expectations of you. They think you'll do something special. I really fucking hate it when people have high expectations of me.

So I just sat in the back near the speakers and let the pulsing beat wrack my eardrums and drown everything out. I wasn't really looking for anything, just sitting there, probably with that kind of glazed look people get when they're staring into space.

I'm not really sure what caught my attention first. Maybe it was a flash of gold, the way the lights from the dance floor glanced off of the golden-blonde when he turned his head or the way the thick strands spread around his shoulders when he tilted his head back to take a swig of the vodka he held casually in one slender hand.

Whatever the reason, I let my eyes follow him for a moment, propping my chin up on one hand and watching discreetly out of the corner of my eye. I always wear goggles--it's kind of a weird habit, I guess--so I was sure no one could tell exactly what I was looking at.

He was sitting on the ledge by the window, near the area cleared off to be a psuedo dance floor. The window was big and set into the wall so there was an outcropping about three feet up and that's where he was, one leg up on the ledge in front of him at a slight angle and the other dangling onto the floor. He was leaning back against the glass, tucked into the corner where I never would have noticed him if it wasn't for that brilliant golden color of his hair.

That was the only bit of color to him. That and some small flash of red when the light shone on his chest right, something like beads of a necklace that gave off tiny crimson flashes when he breathed.

Everything else about him was black. Black and pale, the scattered dance lights skittering across his skin in exotic colors, beneath which the flesh was a luminous white. The guy probably never stepped into the sun from the looks of it.

His taste in clothing seemed rather eccentric too. Leather, judging from the way the way the light shimmered on it. Pulled taut against the muscles of his thigh from the way he was sitting with his legs like that, it left little to the imagination, framing his slender pale body perfectly in black.

He wore a sleeveless leather vest and when I turned my head to get a better view, I knew by the glimmer of paleness that it cut off early to reveal about two inches of pearly skin at his midriff.

Dressed like that, and he was sitting all alone.

I felt myself smirk. Poor kid. Vodka in hand, sitting there by himself in the corner and staring off into the dance floor. Seemed pretty pathetic to me. Whatever he was doing here, the guy was just--

And then he turned his head suddenly and he met my eyes. Looked right at me. Straight through the goggles and all. Looked at me and smirked slowly.

I damn near fell out of my fucking chair.

Pale blue, cold and piercing, he had the eyes of a fucking tiger. Wild. Untamable. Predatory.

He shifted fluidly, and I could see the way the well-toned muscles rippled beneath that skin tight leather. His chiding smirk stayed in place.

He watched me watch him.

Fuck. He was fucking scary.

I have no fucking idea why I smiled back condescendingly, why I took a final swig of my beer and left the bottle on the table, why I stood up, looking down at him though the orange tint that always makes up my world.

Something about him struck me though. A challenge in his eyes, his body coiled gracefully and deceptively at rest, ready to spring and strike.

The people on the dance floor moved in a hot, sweaty mess around us, swaying and jerking, lost in the rhythm that was suddenly drowned out for me in a flash of cold, silent sapphire eyes.

I took a step forward and he tilted his chin up a little, following my motion and raising a single almost invisibly blonde eyebrow in questioning, scoffing sarcasm.

His eyes were drilling a hole in my skull. One finger around the neck of the glass bottle twitched a little in my direction, beckoning. The thin curve of his pale lips was downright sadistic.

I grinned and adjusted my goggles, meeting his gaze straight on until it hurt and walking up to stand right next to him. I reached an arm up, leaning against the wall above his head and resting my weight on the forearm as I tilted my face to peer down at him.

His eyes shot up to meet mine, ice blue molten hot piercing poisonous daggers.

My grin remained plastered on my face like that of a complete imbecile.

Yeah, sometimes I'm real fucking stupid.

Disclaimers: (Don't these usually go in the beginning...? Oh, well.) Matt and Mello do not belong to me, blah blah blah... I wish they did. : (

Song lyrics from Paralyzer by Finger Eleven.