Negativity
A oneshot that goes along with this Matt's background, for whoever's interested. Not private.
Title: Negativity
Author: Sun
Fandom: Death Note
Characters: Matt, Mello, Lawliet, Beyond, Wammy, and Roger
Rating: Adult+
Genre: Angst, Smut, Drama, Dark, Hurt/Comfort
Word Count: 1912
Summary: He’d never seriously considered killing anyone - it was a sin, everyone knew, including Matt - but maybe, just maybe, God would make an exception.
Warnings: Explicit Sex, Extreme Angst, Abuse, Implied Pedophilia, Implied Non-Con, Graphic Violence, Gore, OC Death
The heavy silence of the Wammy House foyer was broken suddenly by the erratic thunder of footsteps speeding up through the upstairs hallway. Lawliet looked up; as expected, Mello came flying around the corner, his thin blond hair a bedraggled mess as he practically leapt down the stairs, stumbling over his own bare feet. Turning to Beyond, Lawliet nodded; Beyond laid his hand on the boy’s shoulder, steering him in the opposite direction of the staircase. Lawliet turned back to Mello, confident in Beyond’s ability to get everything set back up for Matt.
He would take care of Mello.
“Oi! Lawli! What’s Matt doing back? He was gonna be adopted, right?” Mello questioned, his voice high and shrill with obvious anxiety. Lawliet grimaced at the sharp sound of his words, and he briefly hoped that Matt hadn’t overheard them.
Taking Mello by the arm, Lawliet led the eight-year-old back up the stairs; by the time they’d reached the second step, Mello had begun to struggle, which the exceedingly young detective had predicted.
“No! Dammit, L, tell me what the hell’s goin’ on!”
Lawliet sighed. This was never an easy subject to broach, let alone with a child as small and ill-tempered as Mello. Maybe this is what he needs, though; the world isn’t a pretty place after all, and we can’t afford to keep him sheltered forever. Though Lawliet knew that Mello was one of the least-sheltered of the orphans at Wammy’s, the boy still had a long way to go before he could say that he fully understood the dark depravity that is man.
Without another sound or word, Lawliet tugged on Mello’s arm, and the two made their way back down the stairs; they took the same direction that Beyond and Matt had disappeared to, but they passed right by the doorway that was now shut and locked. Coming to what Mello recognized as Roger’s office, Lawliet opened the door, bringing the boy inside with him. There, already sitting before a strange, wide window that Mello had never known was there, were Roger and Mr. Wammy, who both narrowed their eyes at Lawliet as the two entered.
After another moment, Mr. Wammy nodded, and Lawliet closed the door gently behind them. Roger, huffing slightly, flicked a switch to the far right of the window, and Mello was astounded by the way Beyond’s voice filled the room:
“Tell me what happened, Matt.”
Taking the seat between Lawliet and Mr. Wammy, Mello’s blue-green eyes were glued to sight lying just on the other side of the window - which he had already figured out was a two-way mirror.
In the next room, Matt was curled up in a tan living chair, sitting directly across the narrow, wooden coffee table from Beyond, who was quiet and unreadable as always. Mello couldn’t help but notice the fury tearing at Beyond’s surface; it was seething, slithering just below the tension that was currently filling the room, and it was as though Beyond knew exactly what the boy was about to disclose.
Matt kept silent for a few minutes longer, half-sitting, half-laying in the chair, his knees pressed against his chest; his auburn hair was ruffled somewhat, and Mello was shocked when his best friend turned his head to look directly at him, through the “mirror.” There was a massive bruise forming around his left eye, a dark, slightly disturbing purple tinged at the edges with green and blue. The second-in-line swallowed bile when he realized that there were probably more bruises to be seen.
Everyone watched, silent, as Matt ignored them all.
Finally, the boy opened his mouth, never shedding a tear or choking up as he translated the jumble of memories and thoughts and prayers left over from his time spent outside Wammy’s House:
Fingers wandered along his thigh with a smile. That smile was enough to fuel nightmares for weeks - no, years. Matt’s toes curled and his nose wrinkled as he fought the urge to run. This was a fight or flight situation if he’d ever been caught in one, but it was a foster family, dammit! He’d expected them to be kind and sweet and loving - but the wife was gone most of the time, and little Matt, though tall for his age, was no match for the husband.
Every time the man touched him where no one else had, Matt went to bed with tears on his face and murder on his mind. He’d never seriously considered killing anyone - it was a sin, everyone knew, including Matt - but maybe, just maybe, God would make an exception.
Please, God, make an exception…
The last straw had been when his foster father had awoken with Matt standing over him, knife in hand and raised, poised! He could do it! He was big enough! He was angry enough! Matt could kill him!
A fist flew out of the darkness, meeting Matt’s face with a sickening crunch. Blood poured from his nose as he stumbled backward, the knife slipping from his hand and clattering to the hardwood floor. His foster father was on him in less than a second, yanking at the boy’s hair, tearing at the boy’s clothes. Matt screamed, kicking and hitting back, but to no avail; finally, he bit at the hand attempting to cover his mouth, and his foster father cried out, rearing back and slapping him. The blow numbed Matt all over, and the boy felt as though he couldn’t move as he was violated - again. For some reason, it felt better than all the other times, and that made Matt sickest of all; the thought that he was becoming accustomed to the abuse.
Gritting his teeth, he urged himself into action. Reaching out frantically, his fingers once again found the handle of the kitchen knife, and he struck out. His arms flailed, and he kicked the monster off of him, and he yelled at the top of his lungs as he stabbed him over and over and over. No words came from him - just noise. Endless, angry, terrified noise. That was all that inhabited Matt now.
Finally falling silent, he dropped the knife, horrified at himself. The pool of blood beneath his foster father had spread, soaking into his blue jeans strewn haphazardly across the floor beside the bed.
The man was no longer a man, no longer the monster that had never been in Matt’s closet to begin with.
Stumbling away, Matt crawled down the hallway, grasping the phone tightly in his blood-soaked right hand and punching frantic numbers. Half-sobbing, he’d begged Lawliet to come get him, to come help him. Lawliet was L, the greatest detective ever known! He could talk to the police for him! Matt didn’t want to go to jail - but he’d rather go to jail than continue to stay here.
Once Lawliet was off the phone, Matt had returned to the bedroom; shaking, he bent over his foster father, reaching out to press two fingers covered with flaking red against the monster’s jugular.
A faint pulse, but a pulse nonetheless.
His eyes darted to the side, landing once more on the temporarily discarded knife. It would be so easy to finish everything here and now; after all, he was the victim here, right? Matt stared at the weapon a few moments more before deciding. Hesitating for but a moment, the boy reached forward, his palm finding the cool surface of the handle with barely a hitch in his breath.
A yelp escaped him when the monster pressed weak fingertips against Matt’s wrist; in a panic, the boy stabbed at the body again - “Get the fuck away!” The sharp blade of the knife sank easily between his foster father’s eyes, as easily as butter. There was cracking sound as it pierced the skull, and Matt felt suddenly very cold, his eyes wide as he stared down at the lightless eyes staring back up at him.
Unable to tear his eyes away, the small boy crawled quickly away, curling up into a ball and resting his aching back against the trim of the bedroom doorway. There, he stared at the now-dead body before him, his tears now nonexistent. Even when Lawliet arrived with an entourage - a doctor, a pair of policemen, and Beyond Birthday - Matt never moved, never spoke, never cried. Even as Lawliet stood stoically by, watching as the doctor cleaned the boy and checked him for any physical injury - which there were plenty of. Even as Beyond glared in silent fury at the body of the man they’d trusted with their Matt.
Something inside broke that night; Matt was sure of it.
Years later, he sat across the dank, dark living room from Mello; the young man was sprawled across the sofa, his long legs thrown over the arm without care. Scratching an itch on the right side of his jaw, Matt shoved his yellow-tinted goggles up onto the top of his head; his eyes remained on the screen of the game boy clutched in his hands. It was a decent night, and something, for once, felt right about the way they lived.
For the first time in months, Mello had come home without killing anyone that day; Matt could tell by the way he’d smiled so nicely upon entering the apartment, and it made the other man feel better about his own fucked up life.
Slowly, Mello tilted his head, watching Matt with an intensity only he could pull off. “You’re more silent than usual.”
No reaction.
Yawning widely, Mello rubbed his eyes; the only sound that filled the room was the familiar beeping of Matt’s video game, and, while it normally annoyed the fuck out of the mobster, tonight it was just another comforting aspect of the normal part of his life.
Blinking, he was slightly startled when the beeping ceased, and silence overpowered the mood. Turning to his side, his question died in his throat when he found Matt standing over him, staring down with hollow eyes. Glancing back at the other chair, Mello was more than a little surprised to find that the game boy was not only paused, but it had been saved and shut down.
Turning his eyes back to Matt, he was in slight, unreasonable awe.
“I have a headache.”
Mello’s eyes narrowed, unsure of where this was headed. “All right.”
Crouching down, Matt’s lips brushed Mello’s, and within minutes the boys were in the bedroom, lost amid the tangle of sheets and tongues and limbs. Completely forgetting what Matt had voiced earlier, Mello predictably grappled with his God complex, guiding Matt to his knees and nipping lightly at his shoulder and throat as he fastened the handcuff around his wrist; looping the chain around a bedpost, Mello quickly captured the redhead’s other wrist in the handcuff.
Nails scraped skin away as Mello slid himself into Matt. The way they moved against each other, sweaty skin slapping against sweaty skin… all of it was nearly too much for Matt to bear, and his orgasm overtook him long before Mello could see his own on the horizon, covering the fluffy pillow with his sticky seed.
Throwing his head back, it amused Matt to find that his headache was gone.
Gotta love endorphins.
Groaning loudly as Mello bucked into him, Matt bit his bottom lip, for some reason remembering his foster father’s dead eyes in that moment.
My New Year’s Resolution?
To not be such a fucking masochist.