Day 56: Lil' Tyke Toys (Early Afternoon)

[hairraising]

After lunch with the downright gentlemanly Facilier, Rapunzel made her way back down the street ("Wicker", apparently) to a place that had caught her eye on the way earlier. She might have stopped there before, but between her need to get directions from passers-by and the rumbling in her stomach, she figured it could wait for later.

Well it's

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[swornandbroken]

Mello wasn't putting up with any delays this time: he needed chocolate, and he needed it now, especially after being deprived last night. He would have stomped through the snow if he could have done, but the damn second-hand boots were too worn to chance it.

He assumed Matt would follow, and didn't look back, knowing he was still there by the smell of his cigarette. Nothing was different. Mello had said so, and he'd meant it. The ways Landel's could mindfuck people were rooted in who they were, but couldn't change it. Ah, but you need to believe that, don't you? came the whisper he was all too familiar with by now. How many times have you said to yourself, are you Mello or aren't you? The mask you put on to hide from everyone. The person who gets shit done. Only there hasn't been a lot of that lately, has there?

Shut up, Mello thought, and huffed a breath forceful enough that he saw it cloud the air.

The warmth of the toy store was welcome, but he kept scowling all the same, and ignored the two women he took to be fellow prisoners already at the counter. He was a man on a mission, and that mission wouldn't allow for inferior chocolate. He scanned the offerings, and zeroed in on the deepest, darkest bar he could find, pointed to it imperiously. "That. How much?"

Enough that he could afford two with the paltry 'allowance' the Institute had given them, so Mello didn't see any reason not to tear into one right away. He snapped off a piece, and gave Matt a look that said what?

[still hoveringkeeping an eye on Matt]

[gamingsostfu]

They each had their quirks, Matt knew, but he couldn't help scowling as Mello practically dragged him down the street to the toy store; it wasn't near enough time to finish off the first cigarette of the pack he'd bought back at the grocery store.

They weren't bad, he had to admit; nice and harsh, and the smoke burned just a little as it went down his throat, but it was a soothing burn; relaxing. The effect was mostly instantaneous, and he was grateful that whatever it was Landel or Aguilar or whoever had had their doctor do to him to make him... like he was. Whatever it was hadn't affected his ability to absorb nicotine.

That was either a blessing or a curse; at the moment, he couldn't be sure which.

Mello made a beeline right through the door for the counter, obviously on a hunt to satisfy his own craving. Which Matt could respect, if it wasn't so blatantly interfering with him satisfying his own. Blue eyes narrowed, not in outright anger but annoyance, he smashed the half-smoked cigarette out on the side of the door before pushing the door open with his shoulder, jamming the bent cigarette back into the nearly full pack and following his accomplice inside.

Of course the brunet gave Mello a look, but he wasn't judging. More like he was doing mental cartwheels trying to figure out why someone like Mello would become so invested in something like chocolate bars in the first place. Possibly something about the endorphins.

Maybe that was Mello's problem? Endorphins made people happy, right? Maybe he just needed a dark chocolate-coated kick in the pants.

[swornandbroken]

"Come on, then," Mello answered the look in Matt's eyes as easily as if he'd spoken his thoughts. He could eat the spoils of his bullshit allowance as easily outside as anywhere else.

He didn't want to admit, even to himself, that he was worried about his friend, but. He was. Matt was one person Mello needed to count on, to know he had his back if fucking leeches dropped from the ceiling, or the Institute threw whatever else at them. He figured it went without saying that he had Matt's back in those situations, too.

Matt was his, in a way that went beyond anything as petty as romantic possessiveness. His person, his responsibility to protect, and he'd failed him twice by Mello's reckoning. Once in his own future, once at Landel's. Mello still believed, because he couldn't do otherwise, that he could avert the future where Matt had died. It was just a matter of. Of finding the mechanism Landel's used to drag people in, and controlling it, and reversing it, each of which came with its own subset of tasks that had proved impossible so far.

Mello snapped a particularly vicious bite off the bar as he crossed the threshold to outside, and looked back at Matt. He hadn't forgotten the ominous announcement of earlier, some crap about sessions (trials, Mello had translated that) and groups. He meant to see they both made it through.

"You with me tonight? If I'm not wrong, and I'm not, I'll get my shit back, and we'll be an excellent position to go looking for answers."