Death Note Fan Fiction ❯ Shed Your Skin ❯ One-Shot

“Shed Your Skin”
By Viridian5
7/2/06

RATING: PG-13; Matt/Mello. If m/m interaction bothers you, pass this by.
SPOILERS: Mostly vague ones. This story would take place in part 98.
SUMMARY: Matt looks forward to the rest of his life.
ARCHIVAL/DISTRIBUTION: Anywhere, as long as you ask me first.
FEEDBACK: can be sent to Viridian5@aol.com
DISCLAIMERS: All things Death Note belong to Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata. No infringement intended.
NOTE: Since Matt first appeared I wondered what his story was.

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“Shed Your Skin”
By Viridian5
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“It’s cute that you’re so excited,” Mello said as he set his suitcase down on one of the two makeshift beds. They were staying the night in some abandoned factory Mello had found, and Matt thought the covered over crates and naked mannequins lying around added a certain something.

Matt lit up a cigarette. “Come on, like you’re not? No more sitting around on surveillance. Tomorrow we move.”

“I hope it doesn’t bore you too much.”

When Mello pulled his tight gloves off, Matt could see that his black polish job was fairly fresh. Maybe he’d been bored during his bit of the surveillance too and done his nails. Or not.

“I only played video games for a while. That’s not why they got past me.” Matt felt embarrassed about that since it had been pretty damned stupid of him. When you were assigned surveillance, you did surveillance, even when it got boring. Hell, most of surveillance was boring. “At least you got to watch the girl.”

“‘The girl’ is a moron.” And Mello had no respect for stupid people.

Right. “I won’t embarrass myself like that again. I swear. Hey, I got you something.”

Mello caught the chocolate bar tossed to him and looked at it. “Blueberries? They’re ruining good chocolate by putting fruit in it? What did I tell you about putting contraband in my chocolate?”

“You make it sound like I’m tainting it.”

“We both remember the one time I tried that coffee chocolate bar you gave me.”

Hell yeah. Hyper city. “Okay, so some people really don’t need to have coffee added to their chocolate. This is a peace gesture. It’s really good.”

The scarred, discolored skin on the left side of Mello’s face pulled a little as he did a wry expression then started to unwrap the bar. “All right.” How many people’s bosses survived an explosion with scars like Mello had yet kept on going same as ever despite the damage? That was so bad-ass.

Hell, how many people kept on wearing skintight black leather and vinyl and just put on big sunglasses and sometimes wore a hood in an effort to be inconspicuous in public? Sometimes he wore a motorcycle helmet, but only when he was riding a motorcycle.

Matt didn’t know how Mello escaped notice: a young blond guy in tight black with burns scarring almost half his face and the side of his neck. Mello sent weapons and surveillance equipment through baggage check in cases and suitcases when flying without anyone saying a word. How? Was it connections? Distribution of bribes? Jedi mind tricks? Mello kept his secrets, smiled, and just said that no one had checked his midiclorin count recently....

It might sound gay, but Matt couldn’t help thinking his crazy, reckless, wicked-smart boss was damned cool. While the rest of the world mostly sat on its ass and let some mysterious nutcase hold their lives in his hand, Mello and Matt were hunting Kira down. Really, who the hell gave Kira the right to decide who lived and who died? What made Kira better than any other killer? Absolutely nothing.

Mello did what he wanted and never ran out of money. He’d started out working for the Mafia but by the end had the Mafia working for him. Mello didn’t mind Matt speaking his mind and liked the way Matt dressed, not that he had room to talk about someone’s style being outré but Matt had worked for hypocrites before. How many bosses let you be yourself?

Okay, maybe Matt was a little gay for his boss. He blamed all the tight leather and vinyl Mello wore and the way he bared his midriff so often. And all the zippers. How could anyone see so many zippers and not want to undo them? And the way he lounged around, which showed him to be really flexible.

Mello was too fabulous to possibly be straight.... Besides, Matt was seeing for himself that straight wasn’t necessarily forever.

Tomorrow they’d strike at Kira by kidnapping Takada. After that, maybe Matt would test the waters, since Mello was far too focused on his plans now. Maybe Mello would say yes, crazy bastard that he was. Somehow Matt didn’t think things would be ruined even if he said no since they worked together too well for Mello to get rid of him. After all, Mello had forgiven him for the video game thing, and that was worse.

With this next step of his plan accomplished, Mello wouldn’t seem so distracted. Distracted... and worried?

“All right,” Mello said, saluting him with the chocolate bar. “The blueberries aren’t bad. Good call.”

“See?”

Matt couldn’t wait for tomorrow. All the excitement would start then.

  **********************THE END***********************