Faithfully

The world's changed. Or, maybe, it's been this way all along - they've just been behind sealed gates and locked doors far too much to have realized it. Trapped in a competition to become the best, pushed until they, one by one, felt like exploding, numbed so that all they felt was pure drive. So when the first steps begin to carry them away from the little secluded place they've forever known as home, reality hits hard and it hurts.

Matt shivers against Mello's side despite the blanket they're sharing. "What are we going to do from here?" he asks, faltering slightly as his teeth chatter. This apartment is a piece of shit; the air-conditioning won't turn off, and it's in the middle of winter. But it was the best Mello had been able to get with the little money they had, so Matt forces himself to appreciate it.

"Thinking of getting a job," Mello murmurs, head drooping to the side. It fits nicely in the crook of Matt's neck. "Maybe earn some money. By the way, you're not getting any cigarettes until I get my chocolate."

Typical Mello. Matt doesn't mind. "I know." He pauses, fingering the worn material of the couch that they're huddling on. "Is said job illegal?"

Mello manages a small laugh. "I can't hide anything from you, huh?" he says with a hint of amusement, the corners of his mouth twitching up into a smile.

Matt feels proud of the reaction. Mello needs to smile more often. "Of course not," he replies. "So what is it?"

"It's...serious," Mello says reluctantly, tone dropping from light to a bit tormented. He rubs his forefinger back and forth absently on his own clothed knee, trying for a distraction.

"Does that mean you're going to be one of those men who sit in cubicles all day?" Matt wants to know.

Mello makes a face. "Fuck, Matt, I thought you'd have at least higher expectations of me," he replies in the midst of a breathy chuckle. "No. I was thinking of joining the Mafia." Here he stops, because he knows what people sometimes do to get certain things and he doesn't want to give too much of his plan away.

"Really?" Matt twists around in the blanket - "Stop moving, you idiot!" - to look at Mello with awestruck eyes. "That's so badass," he concludes.

Mello releases a snort of disbelief. " 'Badass?' " he echoes.

Matt nods firmly. "Badass. Are you going to wear those fancy black suits and shades and carry around silver Magnums?" Clearly, he's been playing too much of his games. Mello tries to remember what one is called, comes up with something like Grand-Auto-Theft-whatever, and gives up.

"Hopefully not the suit," the blond says, ignoring the twitch that his fingers gave. God, he needed chocolate. "As for the rest, I'll have to get in first."

There's a small stretch of silence after this. Matt's still staring at him, though this time the look in those blue-orbs-tinted-orange is apprehensive.

"Using your body," he finishes softly.

"No," Mello protests, but his heart beats wildly - I'm lying, I'm lying, but he can't know, oh God he can't - and he has to take a breath before continuining, "I'll be shooting the head off of the current Mafia boss and bringing it to the dinner table to share with the others, of course." He adds in a grin, the one that Matt says makes him look half-psychotic.

Matt gives his own wry smile. "And I have no doubts that you will do exactly that."

"I will," Mello says with a hint of finality.

Then Matt leans up and nuzzles into his cheek. "You will." A hesitant little kiss is pressed to the skin, lips just barely brushing the area.

Mello stays quiet until the redhead falls asleep in his arms.

"Matt, I'm leaving," Mello announces as he's tying the laces on his boots. He's donned in a tight-fitting black t-shirt, one of the things he'd taken with him from Wammy's, and old jeans that had a few tears. He'd bought the jeans and the boots for a relatively small amount of money in a little shop around the corner.

Matt appears in the doorway separating the kitchen and the living room. "But I just finished cooking lunch," he says, a pout tugging at his lips. He's dressed in black-and-red stripes, blue jeans, black boots, and trademark orange goggles. While Mello silently commends him for saving them a whole bunch of money with his fashion style, he has to admit that the boy looks like a moving mass of color.

Mello's resolve weakens a little at the rather cute expression Matt's adopted. "I thought we agreed to no tempting me to stay home when this day comes," he reminds him.

"I forgot while I was making this totally awesome pasta."

"Hm, really."

"Really."

"...Matt." Mello's silently pleading.

Matt gets the message, a small smile forming on his face. "I know," he says softly, eyes twinkling with something like...love? "Go and shoot that motherfucker's head off."

Sometimes the redhead isn't as innocent as Mello thinks him to be. "I'll be back in a few hours then," Mello says decisively, tying the final knot on his boot and straightening. He grabs his helmet on the way out, but before he can exit the apartment, Matt stops him again.

"Hey Mels, can you bring me back some Pocky?"

Mello raises an eyebrow. Matt glares through his blush. "What? You can eat chocolate but I can't eat my Pocky in peace?" he queries in an embarrassed tone, and shuts the door for Mello before the blond can make a wisecrack.

Mello merely smiles and rolls his eyes, mentally making adjustments to go to the grocery store first. He jogs down the stairs, past the front desk where the landlord is yelling at some woman with a cat, and out to the parking lot to the motorcycle Matt had stolen for him. Mello puts on his helmet and straddles the bike.

He's sixteen and riding a motorcycle with a recently-purchased handgun in his back pocket.

He already considers himself half-insane.

Once Mello's gone, Matt drops the wooden spoon he'd been holding and rushes to their bedroom, cursing when he bumps into the wall a few times. He has to search the room for his keys, finally finding them under the bed - though he has no idea how they got there - before he's able to rush downstairs the same way Mello had gone. Matt steals a glance at the clock in the lobby of the apartment complex; Mello takes at least thirty minutes minimum when it came to grocery shopping, even for just one item.

Matt has some time but he practically dives into his car - hot-wired and stolen as well - and jams the keys into the slot. He twists once, twice, and the engine roars to life, and he's tearing down the road.

The address that he'd been memorizing surfaces, along with the directions on how to get there. Matt's at his destination before he knows it, and he stumbles a little on the way out of the car.

There's a warehouse up ahead; it's cliche, Matt muses, overused in too many action movies.

But he might as well be sweating bullets as he walks up to the back entrance. Surprisingly, there are no guards or anything of the sort, so he pushes the door open and steps inside.

The first thing that he notices is the strong stench of cigarette smoke combined with the smell of cheap perfume. Then the bright light helps Matt focus a little, and his eyes are drawn to a zebra print couch, a coffee table, several desks with laptops, and a pool table near the back. The carpeted floor is riddled with stains, the walls are slate gray, there's a barred window, and the other is half-blocked by a stand that holds up the pool sticks. The last thing that comes into view are the people.

There are a handful, most men. There were four in the back, one dark-skinned with a bald head, the other two practically covered in piercings. They're playing a game of pool as a fourth man watches from his place against the wall. There are two more at the desks, looking like they were each controlling at least three computers and watching a TV screen. Finally, a big man sits on the zebra print couch, flanked by two brown-haired women in skimpy outfits on both sides.

Upon Matt's arrival, everyone looks up and stares at him. Nine pairs of eyes, looking him up and down, wondering what the hell a kid like him was doing here.

"What do you want?" The voice is gruff. It belongs to one of the men with the piercings.

Matt suddenly hits an epiphany and wonders if hacking into the Mafia's systems and finding out where they were had been a good idea.

"I-I-" Matt stumbles over his own words. Perhaps he should have brought a gun in case...

"Hey kid, are you lost?" This time, the one who'd spoken was the man on the couch.

"Oh, but he's cute," one of the women giggle. "Can we keep him?"

Matt clears his throat and tries again. "In about half an hour, a blond's going to come here and try to get in your organization," he says, speaking directly to the man on the couch. "Give him the spot." A hesitation. "Please," he adds quietly.

"Girls, will you leave us for a moment?" the man on the couch asks. The two girls seem to be used to this, looking annoyed as they transfer to another room.

The doors click shut; Matt's finger twitches.

"My name's Rod Ross," the man's speaking again. "Though you seem to know a bit about us already, I run the Mafia." He steps toward Matt, a dirty grin slowly creeping into his features.

He is big, much bigger than Matt, towering over the redhead at least a good five inches and with a chest probably as broad as two of Matt's combined. Ross's face is square, with a hard chin covered in stray hairs and eyebrows that look bushy. Matt might have laughed if the situation wasn't as dangerous.

"What's your friend's name?" Ross is about a foot away now.

Matt swallows and gathers as much trepidation as he can. "Mello."

Rod raises an eyebrow. "A female?" he asks with an air of bemusement.

"No," Matt says through gritted teeth. "His name is Mello and he's a boy."

"Ah." Ross nods as if he understands perfectly. "You his queer little boyfriend, then?"

The blunt way that the question is posed throws Matt off-track. He resists the urge to take a shaky step backwards. "N-no." He hates the way his tone wavers.

Ross only chuckles knowingly. "Right. So say that I do give this Mello a chance," he says in a casual tone. "What's in it for me?"

"You'll..." Matt scrambles to find an excuse; why hadn't I thought of this before? he asks himself. "...get a hell of a gunman," he finishes weakly, knowing that it wouldn't be enough to sate the man, but hoping anyway.

"That too." A big, meaty hand is placed on Matt's shoulder, holding him firmly in place. "But I have something else in mind..."

And Matt knows. He knows what's being asked of him, knows that he's got to do this... "I figured you'd ask for that," he says impassively, keeping a straight face. Anything to mask the amount of panic he was in.

"It's a deal then?" Ross asks with a predatory grin, and Matt nearly vomits.

"Yes."

Almost directly after the word leaves Matt's mouth, one of the men in the back step forward and twist his arms behind his back. Matt winces but lets them force him down to his knees, right in front of Ross' pants.

All eyes are on him. Matt tries not to start hyperventilating as the sound of a zipper being undone sounds loudly in the room. Ross pulls down his pants and kicks them away, that dirty grin growing wider.

The two techies on the computer had turned around was now watching in interest.

It's almost surreal. They're spiders and Matt's the fly and he'd been stupid enough to get tangled in their web - though maybe, just maybe, this was intentional.

Matt closes his eyes and tries to lose feeling.

His ass is sore. So is his mouth, hand, knees, thighs. Purple hickeys are littered around his neck, crescent-shaped have been indented on his inner thighs, and he smells of dirt and nicotine and sweat and sex.

It's not that I don't have faith in you Mihael, Matt thinks hazily, But sometimes you work too hard... You deserve at least this for the amount of devotion you put into catching Kira...

Matt stumbles to pull his clothes on. The mafia men have since lost interest, everyone going back to their respective places except Ross, who'd gone in another room to meet someone else, which Matt figured was Mello.

I need to get home and clean up... he thinks to himself, managing to sit up. One of the techies feels enough pity to walk over and hold him up as Matt struggles to put on his pants. Once his clothes are on and his hair is somewhat clean of filth, Matt leaves the warehouse without another word.

"Matt, I'm back."

It's Mello's voice.

Matt digs his fingernails into his bare knees, willing himself not to run to his arms. He hastily gathers bubbles around him to mask ugly purple marks.

The bathroom door is opened and Mello steps in, beaming. "I did it. I'm in," he says proudly. "Why are you in the bathtub?"

Matt shrugs. "I wanted to play with bubbles." He pretends to be excited. "What happened? Tell me all about it, and don't leave out the gory parts." Because Matt is supposed to think that Mello killed the current mafia boss.

Mello sits on the edge of the tub, peeling off his gloves - Did he just buy those? Matt thought idly - and setting them on the counter. He proceeds to run his hands through Matt's soapy hair, massaging his scalp.

Out tumbles the story. Mello describes how strange it was when he walked in and Rod Ross already knew who he was. Apparently, he'd only needed to kill this one guy before he was welcomed into the gang.

"It seemed too easy," Mello comments at the end, moving on to rinsing Matt's hair. "I'm going to have to do more research on that later, but first I want to take you out somewhere nice. To celebrate," he adds.

Matt nods. "That sounds good."

There's a brief silence. Mello looks down at the loyal redhead. "...Thanks, Mail," he says softly. He has no idea why he said it, only that he'd felt compelled to.

Matt smiles up at him through overgrown bangs. "Anytime."

I twisted the canon plot around a little. Also, I had a hard time finding the proper genres to describe this. And in case you hadn't been able to tell, Matt didn't do this because he didn't trust that Mello would get into the mafia, but because he felt like the blond worked too much. So, Matt decided to do this in order to ease some weight off of Mello's shoulders. I don't think I explained this very well... :P