Fic: Well Worth Winning
Aug. 14th, 2009 09:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
darklunaTitle: Well Worth Winning
Rating: NC-17
Characters: Mello/Matt, L, Light, and Misa and Watari have cameos
Warnings: AU liek whoa! And sex.
Word Count: IT IS OVER 9000. For reals.
Summary: Two orphans in Victorian London set out to hunt down a threat even the greatest detective of their time has been unable to capture.
Notes: Some of you might recognize the first half or so of this from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dn_kink. As my fic tends to even when I set out to write PWP, it grew a plot!
The original prompt was: Mello/Matt in an Oliver Twist kind of setting (Matt as 'Oliver' and Mello taking on an 'Artful Dodger'-type role, not exactly a crossover but just keeping those roles in mind... couldn't think of a better way to describe it). Bonus points for trust, being Matt's first time, and touching.
OP, whoever you may be, thank you! I feel the inspiration and setting belong as much to you as to me. ♥
A multitude of thanks to the people who helped me out with this, more than usual because I flailed over trying to write smut using only period-appropriate terms and made, like, everyone who knew I was tackling it give it a look.vashti, especially, played cheerleader while I was writing it, and thanks also to fidrich, infarium, and anyone I might have forgotten!
Title and cut text are from Dickens, 'cause it had to be done.
Well Worth Winning
Matt thought he'd got away with it. He had a foot out the door, even, when the shopkeeper's meaty hand closed onto his collar and hauled him back. Matt found himself dangling absurdly with his boots a good foot off the floor.
"Right," said the shopkeeper. "You hand back that bread and cheese, and I won't call the bobbies. But if I catch you in here again, street rat, I will call 'em."
Matt shuffled back onto the street despondent and breakfastless.
"Don't nick from shops, you nob."
He thought the voice belonged to a girl at first. Its owner was slouched with arrogant showiness on a nearby stoop, as if daring people to stare. People were staring. The... boy, Matt decided, though he was more than pretty enough to be a girl, was dressed all in black, which made his blond hair look paler and his green eyes look sharper. "What?" Matt said.
"You heard me." He unslouched in a way that made Matt expect him to be tall, though he wasn't, performed a sideways tug with his mouth that seemed to stand in for a shrug, and headed off down the street. After three paces, he looked back. "You coming or not?"
Matt blinked, then jogged to catch up.
"Mello," the blond boy said without turning round, and it took Matt a moment to realize he was introducing himself.
"I'm Matt." He trailed behind as Mello wove a haphazard path through stalls and shoppers, pickpockets and piles of rubbish.
"Been out here, what, a week?"
"How'd you know that?" A week was exactly right.
"That's how long it takes 'til you're so hungry you don't care anymore."
"What about you?" Matt asked.
"Long enough to know what's what." He made a sharp turn down an alley, out of the crowd, slipped a hand into his pocket, and tossed back an apple that Matt only just managed to catch.
"Uh... thanks."
Down the alley, up a rickety fire escape that Mello scaled with elegant ease, past rooftop gardens and shelters ranging from crude lean-tos to elaborate brick constructions as fine, in miniature, as anything in Mayfair. There was, Matt realized, staring around as he tried to keep up, a whole world here whose existence he'd never suspected.
Mello reached the edge of the roof and vanished. Matt hurried over and peered down in time to see Mello wave out the window he'd swung into. After a moment's consideration, Matt used the ladder that was right there.
He stepped through the window into a large room. Mello paced around it, lighting candles, illuminating dusty stacks of books and hulking sheet-draped furniture. He sprawled into a large chair that was not covered, and began emptying his pockets. More apples, several bank notes in a clip, two meat pasties, a gold pocket watch. He looked up at Matt as if he'd forgotten about him. "Not bad for an afternoon's work, mm?"
"All that in one day?" Matt said, staring.
"All that on our little promenade through market." He left a pause for Matt's reaction—he did little, Matt was starting to see, that was not calculated for effect—but this was impressive enough that Matt saw no reason to disappoint him.
"Bloody hell, you're good."
Mello leaned forward, smirking. "Wanna learn?"
***
Mello stalked a slow circle around Matt, looking him up and down with an assessing eye and a thoroughness that made Matt flush. He wasn't used to anyone paying this much attention to him. "You're pretty enough. Won't have to fake the sweet-and-innocent thing. No one will ever suspect you. If you can do it."
Matt wanted to hunch his shoulders, avoid that stare, but he fought the urge. "I can do it."
Mello watched him a moment longer. "Right. Let's find out." He shook his hair, pulled his coat about himself, and put on a grand, strutting manner so different from the insolent prowl of before, Matt had to laugh. Mello's mouth quirked, but he didn't even chuckle. "I'll start you off easy. The money's in this pocket."
"All right." He walked toward Mello, smiling, and Mello immediately held up a hand. "Too purposeful. You look like you're up to something."
A few steps back, and Matt tried again, doing his best to look aimless, even confused.
"Heh, better."
He blundered into Mello and grabbed his lapel to steady himself, slipping the money clip out of the pocket as he tottered and apologized.
"Unhand me, ruffian!" Mello said in a ridiculous posh accent. He still didn't crack a smile.
"Sorry, sor, sorry." Matt's accent was pretty silly too. He let go and hurried back toward the shadowy recesses of the room.
"Not bad," Mello said. "But never run. Running's as good as saying you've done something wrong."
Matt nodded. He felt as if he ought to be taking notes.
They practiced until Mello seemed satisfied and was visibly fighting laughter. Matt flopped onto the floor. "Fancy a game?" The pack of playing cards he carried was battered; he'd had it since his mum was still alive.
"You're a sharper?"
Matt shuffled, making the cards flare out showily. He wasn't above playing for effect either. "I'm not half bad."
"Give me five minutes." Mello was halfway out the window before he'd finished speaking.
It didn't seem like five minutes before he was back. His coat clinked when he hit the floor, and he pulled two bottles of port from the pocket. "Now we have the proper ambience."
"Almost," Matt said. He got out his pouch of tobacco and started rolling a cigarette.
Mello dropped onto the floor beside him in an artful sprawl. "You didn't have food, but you have that?"
Matt grinned, pleased at having surprised Mello. He thought the other boy had still won their impromptu game of one-upmanship, but that he had at least held his own. "I thought the orphanage owed me a farewell present."
"You ran away?"
Matt nodded. "You've been on your own a long time, haven't you?"
Mello had avoided the question before, and Matt thought he would again. He uncorked one of the bottles and swigged straight from it, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, passed it over. "Since I was six."
"Mother of God, Mello."
"Don't swear."
It sounded like a reflexive reply, and it took Matt a moment to realize Mello meant Don't blaspheme. Obviously he wasn't going to get more of an answer to his real question. He started sorting the low cards out of the deck. "Piquet?"
Mello smirked. "I hope you know what you're getting into."
Matt drew the high card on the cut, and dealt first, and for a little while conversation was reduced to the polite irrelevancies of passing the port and the cigarette back and forth, and to the mechanics of the game: "I'll have three cards," "Point of four," "No, not good, I've got forty-seven."
"Forty-seven?" Mello said then. "Bloody hell."
Matt looked at the ace, king, jack, nine, and seven of hearts he held and tried not to smile too smugly. He had a comfortable lead, and what was more, he felt warm, full, and content for the first time all week.
"I knew I wasn't wrong about you," Mello said, with reasonable good humor considering the question was not if Matt would win, but by how humiliating a margin.
What was it? Matt wondered. He decided something about me right away, but how, and what? "What do you mean?"
"You're not just good. You're lucky, too. Can't teach that, you have to be born with it."
Matt laughed, without humor. "If I've got luck, she's taking her sweet time showing herself."
Mello squinted at him through the smoke as he took a puff on their fourth cigarette. "You're overdue for a run of the good, then."
Port-befogged, Matt wondered for a moment how someone practical enough to make it on his own so long could be so superstitious too. Then he held out a hand for the cigarette. "I hope I haven't used it up here."
"It doesn't work like that," Mello said, handing it over, wearing a strange little smile that seemed to mock both of them equally. He shuffled for the last hand. "One more thing you need to know about: the Plowman."
"The... what?"
"He nabs the likes of us off the street. If he catches you, you don't come back. If he catches you, you're on your own, mate."
Matt told himself the bitter taste in his mouth wasn't disappointment, and nodded. "I understand."
There was a weighty silence until Matt frowned thoughtfully. "Why d'they call him the Plowman, then?"
Mello rolled his eyes and picked up his cards. "He kills 'em for sure. Killer... tiller... try to keep up."
Matt won the last hand too. "What do I owe you?" Mello said.
"We weren't playing for money."
"I know. But you beat me fair and square." He looked at the score again and pulled a face. "By a lot. I should owe you a forfeit."
Matt laughed. "I don't know."
"Hmph. I'll think of something."
Music from the tavern drifted in the window. Mello sang along, under his breath, in a language Matt didn't recognize. He looked lost in thought. Matt was too, but he suspected the subject of his musings was more immediate than whatever was on Mello's mind. "Why me?" he said. He was leaning back on his elbows by now. "You were looking for someone, right? A partner? What made you pick me?"
Mello's eyes seemed to glint. "Maybe you were exactly pathetic enough without being completely hopeless."
Matt let the evasion slide this time. "You don't usually work with other people, though."
"No. But believe me, I know everything that goes on."
"I believe you," Matt said, laughing. He sat up—more of a roll, really—to reach the port, and took a big sip. The bottle was getting close to empty, and Matt was getting close to falling asleep. He licked at a dribble of port at the corner of his mouth, making a face.
"Pass that on over, you're messy..." Mello sounded amused, but there was something else in his voice too, something tenser. He leaned over, faster than Matt could've moved in this state, very close suddenly, and wiped the port away with his thumb. Matt wondered why his heart was pounding and why he couldn't seem to look away from Mello's mouth, and then, quite suddenly, Mello was kissing him. Matt had never kissed anyone before, but Mello obviously had. He twined his hands in Matt's hair and pulled him closer. Matt tasted sweet wine and smoke and made a helpless soft noise that meant Don't stop.
He didn't stop. Matt didn't even know what to do, but somehow the kiss slid into something desperate and hungry, a scrape of teeth, the sting when Mello tightened his fingers and tugged. By the time they broke apart, Matt was panting, and his hands had somehow knotted themselves into Mello's shirt.
"There," Mello said, almost steadily. "There's your forfeit."
***
Matt slept, not very well, on the settee. There seemed no question of sharing the big four-poster bed with Mello, though he thought about it a lot, vague notions of being tangled up together, of more kisses, making his head spin.
He woke to Mello shaking his shoulder. "Damn lazybones, get up. We'll miss the morning rush."
He was dressed to go out already, all in black again, and wearing a top hat that should've looked ridiculous but didn't. Matt blinked up at him, muzzily. He felt like his head was stuffed with cotton wool, and here was Mello so aggressively cheery, he made Matt want put his head under the pillow, possibly forever. "My hair hurts," he whined.
"Come on."
Don't pull off the blankets, don't—
He didn't get to finish the thought; Mello swept them off like a magician doing the trick with the tablecloth, but with more unholy glee than sleight-of-handers usually displayed.
"All right, all right, I'm awake." He sat up and started to scrub a hand through his mussed hair.
"No, leave it," Mello said. "It adds to the effect."
The effect, he explained, as he hurried Matt along, into his street clothes from the day before, out the window, down into the street with hardly a pause for breath, was all-important. Matt would be distracting passers-by with his tale of woe while Mello quietly robbed them blind.
"I'm hungry," Matt protested as they passed a cart whose chestnut-scented steam made his stomach rumble.
"Effect!"
Mello picked a corner by seemingly arbitrary criteria; it looked no different from any other in Spitalfields Market. But it wasn't long before a small crowd gathered. This wasn't so different from gaming, Matt realized. It was all bluffing, and the other players didn't even know that was part of the game. The matron who'd be moved by an orphan's tale of how he missed his mum, the gentleman who wanted to hear about a young man who just needed a leg up to make his fortune. Matt watched for flashes of black and blond and timed the story of the moment for maximum distraction.
After the morning crowd dwindled, Mello flopped onto the ground beside Matt, hat cockeyed, and grinned. "We're going out on the town tonight."
***
The days became weeks, and Matt found they made a better team than he ever could have imagined; pocket watches, handkerchiefs, wallets grew in piles on the tables, faster than he and Mello could sell them off. They never went to the same place two days in a row, nor did they seem to need to. Mello would take them to Battersea, to the bustling streets by the 'change, even, once, to Regent's Park, where Matt boggled at how finely even the servant girls were dressed.
And not every night, but more nights than not, Mello would kiss him, on the floor or on the couch or up against the wall by the window, but never in the bed, and he never tried to do anything beyond kissing, though Matt panted and blushed and eventually shamelessly pressed against him, past caring anymore if Mello could feel how needy he was.
"Mello... can't— Would you—"
"What? After all this time, don't tell me you don't like it."
"No, I do, but—" But he didn't know what to do next, and he was terrified of getting it wrong.
"Gonna call me a nancy boy?"
"Mello... If you're one, so am I."
It seemed he'd blundered into exactly the right thing to say. Mello laughed in a short huff. "So, what do you want?"
"I..." He was blushing again, not sure he could say it, but surely Mello did it too, right? If those hushed and furtive noises Matt could hear some nights were what he thought, of course he did, so he finally just blurted it out all in a rush. "I want you to touch me like I touch myself."
"I thought you'd never ask." Mello grinned. "I can do better than that. Come on." He tugged Matt by his sleeve toward the bed, and Matt couldn't have resisted if he'd wanted to.
"Go on, lie down."
Matt climbed into the four-poster and Mello pounced, raising a cloud of dust from the bedclothes. Matt sneezed, and laughed, and Mello cracked up too, and pulled him into a hug. Matt found himself less nervous. He squirmed closer and kissed Mello, the first time he'd felt bold enough to initiate a kiss.
Mello's mouth was hot and ardent, but his fingers were chilly, little shivers stepping up Matt's ribs. Matt hadn't even noticed him unbuttoning his shirt. He dragged his mouth over Matt's jaw, down his neck, his breath hot. Matt tipped his head back. It was all he could do to keep from feeling overwhelmed, and it became almost impossible when Mello reached for the fly of his trousers. Impersonal and businesslike though this touch was, Matt still moaned and lifted his hips.
"Patience," Mello murmured, and before Matt's skin had stopped tingling, he was gone, pulling off the trousers and smallclothes. He looked at Matt and smiled, a feral gleam of teeth. Then he slid off the bed and stripped off without a hint of hesitation or self-consciousness.
Matt took a long look, fixing Mello in his mind. If this never happened again, he knew he'd still come back to this image, and he colored in the mental daguerreotype: bright green for Mello's eyes; pink for his mouth, swollen from kisses; gold for the tangle of curls between his legs; a color like the blush on a peach for his stiff member, to which Matt's attention was irresistibly drawn. He'd never seen another man naked before. He hadn't been prepared to need to touch despite feeling as if he were on fire with uncertainty and wanting.
Mello watched Matt watching him with a small smile, holding a shade too still to seem completely natural, and arched an eyebrow.
"Come here," Matt begged. Mello's smile got wider, and he slid back into the bed. He was all planes and angles, no softness to him at all. Matt sought out his shoulderblades, smooth and shifting beneath his skin, drew his hands around to his sides, found and memorized by feel his sharp hipbones. Mello still only watched, gaze following Matt's hands, flicking up to his face. He seemed perfectly composed, but when Matt leaned in and pressed his lips to his neck, his heart was hammering as hard as Matt's own.
It seemed he'd had done with patience, too. He pulled Matt tight against him, and Matt heard his own breath hitch, heard his own voice saying "Holy God."
Mello didn't chastise him this time. He bent his head, almost lazily, lips parted, hair falling over his eyes, and with unerring aim found a sensitive spot on Matt's neck and grazed it with his teeth.
Matt shuddered, need overtopping his self-consciousness. "I think I'd like— You can— bite, if you want."
Mello laughed, low and breathy, and did just that. He didn't give Matt any time to recover (How can it hurt and feel so good at once? Matt wondered); he moved down, pressing increasingly wet and rough kisses over his chest, sidetracking to suck at a nipple as if marking his place for later, briefly but hard enough that Matt clutched at him, eyes wide. Mello glanced up and smirked, like a promise of all he could show him someday, before continuing downward.
Matt still wanted to touch him, but it took all his concentration to lift his head and watch, and tremble at the kisses, at the slide of silky hair over sensitized skin. He trembled even more at the thought of Mello's mouth on his prick, but he stopped just short, and Matt whimpered, helplessly.
Mello didn't lift his head; he drew an unsteady breath, and then suddenly all Matt knew was the wet heat of his mouth, his hand tight around him, the slick teasing glide of his tongue. He cried out, hoarse and wordless, and before he could even try to voice a warning, he'd arched off the bed and spent. "Sorry, sorry," he panted, feeling his face get even hotter.
Mello wiped his mouth and laughed quietly. "Meant to do that. Now you're relaxed."
"But... what about you?"
"You'll see." He was still smiling. He rummaged around in the table by the bed and brought out a small vial. Matt watched, fascinated and puzzled and trying to catch his breath, as he poured some oil into his palm. It smelled, faintly, of vanilla and cloves. "A dollymop gave it me," Mello explained. "Said some men like to do it to the girls like this."
"Like... what?" Matt said, but Mello moved in close again and nipped at his neck, and reached between his legs and pressed one slick finger inside. Matt gasped.
"All right?" Mello whispered.
Matt nodded. He felt filled, but not uncomfortably, and Mello kissed him like it was a reward. He pressed another finger in, and that hurt a little; he hissed in a breath of surprise at the sting.
"You trust me?" Mello said.
"Y- yes. I trust you."
Mello curled his fingers and twisted and pushed, and suddenly the slight pain twisted too, into startling pleasure, and Matt wondered how he could possibly be getting aroused again already.
Mello's expression betrayed no surprise. He watched with hungry intensity, nudged Matt's legs farther apart, looked at him with a question in his eyes, and oh. Matt nodded. Mello dipped his head for a glancing kiss that Matt leaned up after, but he was already positioning himself between Matt's legs. He reached for the oil again, and Matt shocked himself by stammering, "No, let me."
Mello handed it over, otherwise perfectly still, and Matt mastered the shaking of his hands well enough to pour some out. "Like this?" He slicked it on in slow strokes, taking his time. He wanted to make Mello feel as desperate as he did.
"Yeah, just like that." His composure was starting to crack; he arched against Matt's hand, and after a moment, panting softly, reached down and stopped him. "But not so fast, mm?"
"Oh... right." He didn't know what to do with his hands now, and finally rested them on Mello's shoulders.
Mello didn't ask if he were ready, but he moved with slow care, easing inside as Matt bit his lower lip to keep from making any noises that might make him stop.
Mello read it in his eyes anyway. "I know, I know," he said into Matt's ear. "But there's the worst over with, and I'll make you feel good now, promise."
"I know you will." He thought again of that line between pleasure and pain and how very good Mello was at blurring it. He didn't have time to worry what that said about them, or about himself, because Mello was moving, still slowly, hands on the mattress, barely noticeable tremors shivering along his arms. "I'm all right," Matt whispered. "You don't have to—" Hold yourself back, he wanted to say, but he would have been chagrined to admit he wanted it to hurt a little.
"Oh? Don't have to what?" There was that sly smile again, and he knew, he had to, but it seemed he wanted Matt to say it after all.
"Be... be so careful."
"Mm, I see." It was almost a purr, and he thrust harder, exactly rough enough. Matt began, hesitantly, to rock his hips, matching the rhythm Mello set, and that finally broke his calm; he leaned in for a hard, fast kiss, then pulled away just enough to whisper, "There, it's good, yes?"
"Yeah..." He tried to smile, tried to kiss back, and only half-succeeded at both. "Mello... it's really good." Except that he couldn't get close enough, and Mello's hands were still propped on either side of his head, for all the beseeching downward glances Matt gave. "Please," he murmured when he couldn't stand it any longer, and he knew Mello would ask, so he made himself go on. "Please, touch me."
"Show me first?"
Matt went dizzy from a rush of heat and shyness, but he reached down and stroked himself, slowly and shakily at first, but when he saw how Mello's eyes fell half-closed and his mouth fell half-open, how he moved more urgently, he gained confidence, started to want to put on a good show. He gasped and arched, swirled his thumb around at the top of his stroke, and, hit by a wicked impulse and barely blushing at all, lifted his hand to Mello's mouth.
Mello made a noise that was mostly a growl and sucked at Matt's thumb, and finally, finally reached down. He brushed the back of his hand along Matt's length, and Matt was opening his mouth for another plea when those thin clever fingers wrapped around him, and he forgot how to talk at all.
Their eyes locked and Mello shifted, not gentle at all now, and hit something so good that Matt cried out. Mello was the one who shuddered, though, and gasped "With me, finish with me," and Matt was so close to completion that pushed him over the edge, and he quaked and clung for what felt like ages.
He opened his eyes as if waking, to Mello brushing sweaty strands of hair back from his forehead, grinning not half as smugly as he could have got away with. "Your eyes are changeable-like," he said softly, dreamily, trailing his finger down along Matt's cheek. "One minute blue, the next green."
"Yours are always green. I've never seen anyone's like them."
Mello moved away as carefully as he'd joined them, and lay beside Matt, one arm across his chest. "Not very much sore?"
"Not too much."
"Good." He sighed, the picture of satiety, and Matt snuggled closer. Mello didn't seem to mind.
"Is that why you picked me?" Matt asked. "You wanted to do that?"
Mello laughed. "Maybe a little, possibly."
"That's all right." He closed his eyes, happily exhausted himself. "I would've followed you all the same."
***
Some dissatisfaction or restlessness had been growing in Mello for some days, and one morning soon after they first became lovers, Matt woke knowing it was far later than usual. Mello was sitting up in the bed, arms behind his head, wearing a thoughtful scowl.
"What's the matter?"
"It's not enough," Mello said, and for a sinking moment Matt thought he meant them, him, but Mello looked over at him and his expression softened. "Not this." The sweep of his hand took in Matt and the bed alike. "This life. We don't want you on the blab forever. They'll get wise to us soon enough. We could do more. This griddling, lurking about, cast-off togs, cast-off lodgings. We're smarter than everyone else. We should be running this burg."
"It's not like we're L," Matt said, sitting up.
"Maybe we should be."
Matt just stared.
"No, look. L hasn't caught the Plowman. Maybe he doesn't care that the only ones going missing are burglars and speelers and beggars, but he's not in the Family, and we bloody well do care."
Matt thought he saw where Mello was going with this. "If we take care of the Plowman..."
Mello smirked. "...we'll be rolling in some very useful gratitude."
***
Mello threw himself into this new ambition with an enthusiasm that bordered on obsession, sending Matt out to eavesdrop in places the Plowman was likely to be discussed, going out himself to charm information from the street girls, other toughs, the whole voluble overexcitable London underworld most people never even saw.
Sometimes they discovered that they were not the first to ask questions; maddeningly vague accounts of a young gentleman, remarkable only for his pronounced stoop and eyes more than one girl called "eerie," cropped up several times.
"Could that be him, keeping an ear to the ground?" Matt wondered aloud about a fortnight into it.
"It doesn't make sense. Someone conspicuous like that? Could be a lackey, but he sounds too bright. Someone with the same idea as us, I'd wager." Mello was surrounded by newspapers and broadsheets; he'd been reading for some time, but hadn't even taken his hat off yet.
"Have you had dinner?" Matt asked. Mello had a tendency to forget niceties like food and sleep these days.
"This'll keep me." He waved about the nearly-melted chocolate he held. "There's no real pattern. The bastard's hiding in plain view. Enough people disappear anyway that the ones he takes get lost in the crowd. But look." He held up a flyer. Thiefs Be-Ware! the heading read in huge italics. "This says Clapham's being cleaned up by 'a person or persons unknown'... 'duty of all law-abiding citizens to aid in this effort'... faugh, bloody stupid empty moralizing. Still. I think that's where he started out."
"So we'll go there and ask 'round?"
"No. I have a better idea." He licked the last of the chocolate from his fingers meditatively. "Know that blonde haybag at the Green Hog? She's been awfully noisy about being in favor of the Plowman, even around the very people he's after. Now, she's not blessed with brains, but she has a certain cleverness."
"You think she's under his protection?"
"He is blessed with brains," Mello said, with a scowl at acknowledging it. "If I had a supporter like that, I'd be making use of her."
Matt nodded. "What do you need me to do?"
***
They went out the next night. Mello had probably never had an idea that he'd failed to act on immediately, and Matt was in full accord about the urgency this time. The broadsheet-writers weren't the only ones who'd noticed people going missing from the streets. There was a pall of nervousness hanging over most of the taverns and gaming hells of late. Few people seemed to know for sure what was diminishing their ranks, but even the youngest pickpockets had a hunted look about them, and Matt had noticed a new air about those who considered themselves respectable, a smug sort of certainty that seemed to say Your kind will be a thing of the past soon enough.
Their plan necessarily called for a great deal of improvisation, and Matt tried not to feel nervous about all that might go wrong. His coat was tattered, his gloves were fingerless, and shivering was doing nothing to help his confidence.
"I won't be far," Mello said.
"I know." He looked up and down the street, not as crowded by half as it would have been only a few months ago. Mello seemed to understand that he needed this moment to steel himself.
"You keep your wits about you, hear?"
"I will." He lit the cigarette he'd rolled back in their rooms, dragged on it, held it out.
Mello took it and puffed, eyes narrowed. He seemed to be considering saying something more, but in the end he just said, "Meet by the river in two hours."
"I know."
Mello watched him a moment longer, then handed the cigarette back.
Matt was several paces away before Mello called, "Oi, Matt."
He looked back.
"I'll be angry if you're not there."
"Well. We can't have that." He gave a lazy salute that made Mello chuckle, and forced himself to continue on.
He sized up the people he passed. A gentleman, awfully flash, but in a poor-quality greatcoat. A carriage clattering past; two judies gossiping on the corner, one of whom tipped Matt a wink. A young man, dressed too nicely for this part of town, but not in a showy way. Nothing furtive about him, but his air of having every right to be here looked put on. A gent who pays for company, Matt thought. You mind yours, and I'll mind mine, mate.
He was getting near the tavern, and his steps slowed of their own accord, still sounding deafening in his own ears. He felt in his pocket to make sure, again, of the smoke bomb.
Closing time, and people started to tumble out, leaning on each other, singing, protesting being turned out into the street. Matt scanned the crowd for blond hair. Surely Mello would have gotten close to their target by now. He saw the girl, looking back at someone, talking very fast, wearing a smile that seemed fake. Now or never; he tossed the smoke bomb, watched its trajectory go as perfectly as he could wish, where it would catch the serving-girl in the thick of it. The crowd scattered like ants, and Matt ducked his head and scattered with them.
It was horrible déjà vu, the hand closing on his shoulder, but this time Matt didn't leave the ground; he was frozen by the quiet, insinuating voice. "Matt... or should I say Mail?"
How the hell does he know that?
"Where is your partner?"
"I haven't got one," he spat, trying to wriggle free, to no avail.
"We shall see about that." The voice sounded sickeningly confident as the man pulled Matt along by his collar towards a waiting carriage.
The amount of organization and preparation he clearly had at his disposal was starting to worry Matt. The carriage driver didn't look at him at all, but he wore an unpleasant smirk. Matt's captor bustled him into the carriage with a brusque efficiency which, more than anything else, said he had done this before, was accustomed to resistance and more than ready to quell it. Matt didn't resist. His part was done.
It was the too-nicely-dressed man he had noted a little before. Was he even a policeman? He looked too young, but he had that air about him. He didn't give a name. He sat at his ease across from Matt in the carriage, smiling like he had every card marked. "You are intelligent enough," he said, "that I needn't detail the advantages of cooperation."
Matt scowled. "If you were smart, you'd know you can't hold me when I haven't done anything."
That earned him a flat look. "You've not gone unobserved. I know enough to send you to the workhouse at the least. But you haven't done it alone, have you?" He leaned forward, wearing a frown of regretful concern that might have fooled other people. "A man must eat, and who could blame you? You've only been taking orders. It's the one giving them who concerns me."
Does that actually work on anyone? Matt wondered. "You don't know nothing."
"Well," he said, bland as anything at having his bluff called. "You shan't be my problem any longer when you're on a ship for Sydney."
Transportation? Shite, Matt thought. But he kept his mouth shut and shook his head.
They travelled on in silence for far longer than the trip to Clerkenwell would have taken, and Matt quickly lost track of which way the carriage was headed. He got his bearings again, well enough and for the little they were worth, when at length they drew to a halt and his captor ushered him out onto the cobblestones. Clydegate, a proper prison, which meant no court.
"You can't," Matt protested one last time, as the policeman, with a look of distaste he didn't wholly repress, took him by the sleeve and steered him into the grim grey gaol. "You can't just grab people and make 'em disappear."
"Can't I? The streets are safer already; people have noticed. The law-abiding are already applauding my work. Who else could do it? L? L is soft. He's too fixated on his outdated notion of justice to do what must be done. The magistrate is too busy feathering his own nest. This city is a festering cesspit. Who else can clean it up?"
He'd outright admitted it, and no one but Mello would ever believe Matt, even assuming he got out to tell anyone. He went unresisting into the cell and slouched on the rough plank bolted to the wall. The only other occupant was a boy younger and more ragged than Matt.
Once they were quite alone, Matt turned to him. "What're you in for?" He'd always sort of wanted to ask that, but it didn't make him feel as tough as he'd thought it might.
"Picking pockets, sir."
Matt had to laugh. "You don't have to 'sir' me. That bloke, he brought you in?"
The pickpocket nodded.
"What's your name?"
"They call me Dipper, but he didn't."
"He knew your real name?" He had enough tobacco for one cigarette, and began rolling it.
"Yeah."
"I'm Matt."
"I know who you are."
"Really?" He paused in licking the rolling-paper to regard Dipper with some surprise.
"Sure. Everyone knows who you and Mello are."
Normally this would have been flattering, but under the circumstances, it was worrisome. "Did he say what he was going to do with you?"
Dipper shivered. "He said as he'd give me to the impress-men if I didn't turn nose. I didn't tell him nothing."
"Me neither." Matt looked grimly around the cell. It was clearly meant as a waystation. The ventilation was poor, and the walls had a sweaty look from condensation on the chilly stone. Matt lit his cigarette. "He wants to scare us," he theorized. "That's why he brings us in personal. We're not on the books, anything could happen to us."
Dipper obviously hadn't considered this; his eyes looked huge and pale in his grimy face. "I don't want to go in the Navy," he said. "I get seasick."
"It's wrong, what he's doing," Matt said, knowing even as he did that this was cold comfort. "He'll be found out." But by whom? L didn't care, and even Mello might not be able to follow the trail in time. He sighed and tried to keep from imagining months at sea, a barren shore far from home, labor camps... It wasn't working.
The night wore on. Dipper curled up into a miserable ragged ball and slept, snoring quietly. Matt just waited. The sounds of the city, which must surely be waking up by now, didn't reach the cell at all. They might have been in a mediaeval dungeon, utterly forgotten.
Matt must have finally dozed off, because between closing his eyes one moment and opening them the next, the quality of what dim light there was had changed.
A clang sounded, and he realized the noise had come before and awakened him. Was the Plowman finally coming back?
Dipper startled out of sleep and looked at Matt as if expecting him to know what to do. Matt was just as confused; he'd seen no signs of life all night.
The door at the end of the hall flew open, and a slight figure in a filthy cloak stalked through. Dipper cowered in his corner. "Has this hap—" Matt began, but then the figure pulled back its hood to reveal blond hair.
"Mello!" Matt ran to the bars.
Mello looked up from trying keys in the lock. The Of course I came to spring you was in his eyes; all he said aloud was, "Don't look so surprised."
"I know what he's doing. He's, he's making them vanish. Giving them to the factories, or the impress gangs, or sending 'em overseas."
"Bloody..." He broke off. He'd found the right key. He rattled the cell open, and a whiff of his cloak made Matt wrinkle his nose. He didn't say anything, but Mello noticed and grimaced. "Came up through the culvert. Let's get out of here."
"Wait?" Dipper said. He was staring at Mello as if he would pledge his service then and there. "Let me come too!"
"We don't have time to pick up strays," Mello said.
Matt shrugged. "Sorry, mate." At least you're free now.
Mello headed for the front entrance, stepping almost delicately over a guard lying senseless on the ground by the gate into the cell area, dropping the stinking cloak on top of him as he passed. Matt touched his shoulder, but Mello shook him off. Right, escape first, Matt thought. "How did you find me?" he asked.
"My powers of persuasion," Mello said dryly, and Matt couldn't tell if he was annoyed or amused.
They crossed the courtyard at speed, and once they were back on the street, Mello blending into the crowd with his usual practiced ease, Matt staying close behind, Mello tossed a packet back over his shoulder, and Matt caught it without thinking. It was his tobacco.
"Thanks." He tucked it into his pocket and waited for Mello to get around to answering his question.
"Misa and I had a nice, friendly-like talk after I was kind enough to see her to safety. That is to say, friendly-like at first. She couldn't wait to talk about her beau. Noxon's his name. Light Noxon." He rolled his eyes. "Around the time she started going on about how noble he was, how bloody incorruptible—I'd lay even odds he fed her that line—I knew she wouldn't blow, and I knew he wouldn't be game for a trade." He glanced back at Matt. "Which is when we got less chummy."
"Where is she now?"
Mello shrugged. "She'd been as useful as she could."
"Oh," Matt said. He let her go once he made her tell him where to find me.
Why me? he wondered again. I'm not smarter than he is. I'm not a better thief than he is. Is it really because he wanted me?
No, it was more than that. He'd belonged to Mello, body and soul, from the moment he saw him, and somehow Mello had known it before Matt did. He smiled, privately, knowing neither of them was likely to ever put it into words. That was all right. Knowing was enough.
They reached their rooftop, and for once, Mello took the ladder. Matt climbed in right behind him, and Mello said "Come here," but didn't give him time to; he caught Matt up in his arms at the same instant. Matt held on tight. Now that they were safe, exhaustion and relief washed over him and left him drained. Mello tangled his fingers into Matt's hair. Matt knew by now that he left many things unsaid—unvoiced, anyway. He could read everything he needed to in Mello's breath against his neck, in how he didn't yet show any signs of letting go.
"We need to sleep." This was his own way of saying he knew Mello hadn't any more than he had, but wouldn't make him admit it.
"Yeah," Mello said, and there was a laugh hidden in his voice. "You must be tired."
He took Matt's hands and led him to the bed, and lay beside him some little distance away, his hand resting against Matt's face the only contact. The green of his eyes, as he regarded Matt solemnly for a long moment, burned brighter than ever, but Matt felt no uncertainty or hesitation now. He leaned closer for a kiss, and Mello surged forward to meet him. Tired as he was, Matt still felt swept along by the urgency crackling between them. In what seemed no time at all, they were both quite naked and entwined, trembling.
Matt had never known Mello to be like this, clumsy with haste, unwilling to break their kiss until he had to for the sake of breathing, his hand unsteady when he pressed their pricks together and began stroking. Matt reached down and covered Mello's hand with his own. Mello made a soft, needy sound, but still didn't speak, and Matt didn't need words anyway to know to squeeze his fingers tighter about Mello's and guide their hands faster. They spent at the same time, Mello shuddering out his completion with wordless little cries that were lovelier to Matt than any flowery words could have been.
Mello made not even a cursory attempt at cleaning up; he wrapped his arms around Matt with clear possessiveness and settled his head into the crook of his neck. Matt's last dazed, happy thought before exhaustion claimed him was that it was as if the things unspoken between them had all been said.
***
It was close to dusk when Matt awoke, and Mello stirred sleepily and kissed his shoulder without opening his eyes. Matt would have been perfectly content to stay right here forever, but he knew they still had much to do. Having uncovered the Plowman's identity was one thing, but what were they to do with the knowledge?
Mello stretched and grinned at him. "I'm bloody starving. Downstairs. We've time before word gets out about us."
In the tavern, over rabbit stew and small beer, they considered their options.
"I'd kill him just for taking you," Mello said. Impossible to tell how serious the suggestion was.
"But we can't," Matt said.
"Can't we?" That tone would've meant trouble for anyone else, but Matt wasn't cowed.
"It's about making a name for ourselves, isn't it? People have to know what's happened. He's got to hang."
The chill in Mello's eyes thawed. "Yeah. Those who need to know it was us, they'll know. And the more who know it, the better." He leaned back and regarded Matt fondly. "I outdid myself when I picked you."
"What do we do, then?"
"We can't go to the coppers," Mello said. "He's one of them. But there's someone even the police answer to."
"What are you thinking of?"
"We have to find L."
"Are you mental?" He had presence of mind enough to whisper his shocked exclamation. He glanced about and leaned in over the table. "Nobody can find L."
"Nobody can bust out of Clydegate either," Mello pointed out. "We have to think like him, is all."
"Go where he might go."
"Snoop about where he would, pree-cisely. The mails are too slow for the work he does. He's got to send someone to speak for him." He gestured with his spoon in a sweep that encompassed the tavern and the street beyond its windows. "That means that somewhere, there's someone who's seen his face."
"We find that person, we find L."
Mello nodded. "Normal cases aren't for him. Maybe he's prideful, likes a challenge. Maybe the Yard only calls him in when they're confounded. I think it's the former."
Matt smiled. Of course L's style, outside the law or even above it, would draw Mello's admiration. "And we know one thing that has them fuddled."
"That we do."
It wasn't just the Plowman making lower London feel besieged and nervous. In the last fortnight, body parts had been pulled from the Thames, and the newspapers had been the first to cry that Jack the Ripper was at work again.
"This latest doesn't seem as it quite fits the pattern," Mello went on. "But I'd wager they're begging him to work on it."
***
The latest gruesome discovery on the shore of the Thames had been only days ago, in fact, and that part of Whitechapel was still lousy with coppers and gawkers. Mello and Matt, both in the nicest clothes they had to hand, so as to prevent or delay detection, found a public house within sight of the river and stationed themselves at a table in front.
Matt watched officials bustling about for some time. Then Mello nudged his leg with his foot and tilted his head toward the river bank, and Matt looked where he'd indicated.
If they hadn't been looking for someone doing exactly this sort of thing, the old gentleman would probably have escaped their notice, so nondescript was he amongst the crowd. Most were treating the crime scene as a tourist attraction, collecting in small clumps just far enough to be considered as not interfering, or passing by and jeering openly at the detectives and police. The old gent, however, spoke seriously and at length to one officer, and made discreet notations in a small book. The copper seemed quite familiar with him, gesturing broadly and even appearing to tell a joke.
"Could he be—" Matt began quietly, but Mello shook his head.
"That'll be his mouthpiece."
The gentleman, with every appearance of having accomplished his purpose, shook the policeman's hand and set off towards a waiting carriage.
"Oh, bloody hell," Mello said, but he recovered quickly and rose with no indication of undue haste. Matt was right behind him.
Hurrying on foot as much as they were able, hopping onto the backs of convenient passing wagons or coaches, they managed to keep the carriage just within view all the way to Chelsea. The old gent went into a house that was nice, but not ostentatiously so, certainly no different from its neighbors at a glance.
Mello gave an overbright smile and shrugged. "Here we are, then." He strode up the front steps and rapped smartly on the door, and Matt stood below him, trying not to feel nervous.
The old gent opened the door. He didn't look surprised; he had an air of polite curiosity. "May I help you?"
"We're here to see L," Mello said, more loudly than was strictly necessary, his chin lifted.
The old gent let them in, betraying no irritation, and politely offered them tea, which Mello of course declined, and Matt followed his lead. He took them into a sitting room with the same understated luxury as the house in general, and there left them.
After some time, long enough for Mello to huff an irritated sigh or three, the double doors into another room opened, and a quiet, low voice bade them enter.
It was a large room, well-appointed and full of books, but not tidy in the least. Stacks of newsprint tottered on the desk, and Matt saw a pair of very fine shoes left casually on the carpet.
The man climbing into the chair behind the desk was older than they were, but still quite young, and the most arresting thing about him was not the shock of his wild black hair; nor the dark smudges beneath his eyes that spoke of many sleepless nights; nor even the way he sat, knees up, as if defying convention and daring them to make something of it; but the intensity of that flat grey gaze. If it had ever occurred to Matt that L might be so young, he might have imagined him much like this. He glanced over at Mello, who had also taken the measure of him, and who raised his eyebrows: Now we know who hit our sources before us.
L did not waste time on pleasantries. "Mello, Matt," he said. "How may I help you?"
Matt felt certain of two things: that L could have addressed them by their real names had he so chosen, and that his faintly amused, courteous question might be translated as, "What in hell do you want?"
"It's how we can help you," Mello said, but his cockiness rang the tiniest bit false. Could it be that he was intimidated? Matt would never have said so, but he found the idea rather charming.
"I see. Please continue."
"We know who the Plowman is."
L lifted a hand to his mouth, and though his expression didn't change, it seemed that his attention on them sharpened.
Mello told him the whole story, with Matt chiming in for his discoveries, and L murmured, "hmm," and, "Misa, yes, I am aware of her," and, "do go on." When it was done, he tapped his thumb against his bottom lip and spoke without bothering to remove it from his mouth. "I cannot say that I approve of your methods, but drastic action does have its place." He smiled, very briefly and not very pleasantly. "Had you arrived unable to name anyone capable of substantiating your story, it would be a different matter. You understand this." His eyes rested upon each of them in turn. "It is why you did not kill Noxon, correct?"
"That's right," Mello said.
L regarded them calmly for a moment. "It seems a terrible waste," he said, "that minds like yours should occupy themselves solely with petty larceny."
Mello and Matt exchanged looks. Here comes the lecture, Mello's said. We can hear him out, Matt's said.
"I would like to propose a partnership." When Mello began to draw back, offended, L continued, "Your freedom would not be curtailed in any way. Indeed, I should like you to continue exactly as you have been. Your self-contained society does not bother me." He tapped his thumb against his lower lip once more, and his eyes seemed fully alive for the first time. "I have greater quarry to pursue."
"Like what?" Matt said when it became obvious Mello was turning the possibilities about in his mind.
"Such as corrupt policemen like the one you have so kindly delivered to me. Murderers, conspirators, whoremongers. You two are uniquely placed to act as my eyes and ears and, when necessary, my arm." He paused again, and almost smiled. "I imagine you would have to continue some criminal activity to maintain your contacts and reputation."
Mello subtly took a more relaxed stance, but his eyes stayed narrowed, as if he were wondering what the catch was. Matt gaped at L in frank fascination.
"In return," L said, "I will share such knowledge about investigations as may be helpful to you in your work. There is one thing more, but I require an answer before I tell you that."
Mello tugged Matt back towards the door. "With what he can teach us, we'll never get caught," he whispered.
"He knows that," Matt whispered back.
"And he knows we'd never have to rat anyone out. You don't give something for nothing."
"Maybe he does."
"I don't take something for nothing." The irony struck them both at the same time, and Mello laughed. "Not from anyone who's worth anything, at least."
"I know. Me neither." That was how L had got him, Matt saw, sparing a moment to glance back at the detective in silent admiration. L had recognized, more quickly than Matt had grasped it, Mello's brand of honor: it was off-center, but honor nonetheless. Hell, Matt thought, he probably knows exactly what we are to each other too.
"I'm game," Mello whispered. "Are you?'
Matt nodded, and they both faced L again.
"All right, then," Mello said. "You have a deal. What more is there?"
L looked, in his quiet way, as if he had known they would decide this and that he was pleased they had done as he'd planned. "I am young, but I am by no means immortal," he said. "My name has become, in itself, a deterrent to aspiring criminals. In short, I need someone to be L after I am gone. I am willing to consider the two of you."
Mello laughed, clear and genuine and caught off-guard. "You should've started with that, mate," he said.
Has it really been only a few months since I ran away? Matt wondered as they walked back towards their rooms, sharing a cigarette, Mello's shoulder bumping his too often to be believably accidental. He'd found a whole world to fit into, and more besides, he thought, catching Mello's smile out of the corner of his eye and smiling too.
"First thing," Mello said, a teasing glint in his eye, "we bloody well have to teach you to pass for a gentleman."
Matt laughed. "I'm not sure we can do that."
"We can. We can do anything."
Rating: NC-17
Characters: Mello/Matt, L, Light, and Misa and Watari have cameos
Warnings: AU liek whoa! And sex.
Word Count: IT IS OVER 9000. For reals.
Summary: Two orphans in Victorian London set out to hunt down a threat even the greatest detective of their time has been unable to capture.
Notes: Some of you might recognize the first half or so of this from
dn_kink. As my fic tends to even when I set out to write PWP, it grew a plot!The original prompt was: Mello/Matt in an Oliver Twist kind of setting (Matt as 'Oliver' and Mello taking on an 'Artful Dodger'-type role, not exactly a crossover but just keeping those roles in mind... couldn't think of a better way to describe it). Bonus points for trust, being Matt's first time, and touching.
OP, whoever you may be, thank you! I feel the inspiration and setting belong as much to you as to me. ♥
A multitude of thanks to the people who helped me out with this, more than usual because I flailed over trying to write smut using only period-appropriate terms and made, like, everyone who knew I was tackling it give it a look.
vashti, especially, played cheerleader while I was writing it, and thanks also to fidrich, infarium, and anyone I might have forgotten!Title and cut text are from Dickens, 'cause it had to be done.
Well Worth Winning
Matt thought he'd got away with it. He had a foot out the door, even, when the shopkeeper's meaty hand closed onto his collar and hauled him back. Matt found himself dangling absurdly with his boots a good foot off the floor.
"Right," said the shopkeeper. "You hand back that bread and cheese, and I won't call the bobbies. But if I catch you in here again, street rat, I will call 'em."
Matt shuffled back onto the street despondent and breakfastless.
"Don't nick from shops, you nob."
He thought the voice belonged to a girl at first. Its owner was slouched with arrogant showiness on a nearby stoop, as if daring people to stare. People were staring. The... boy, Matt decided, though he was more than pretty enough to be a girl, was dressed all in black, which made his blond hair look paler and his green eyes look sharper. "What?" Matt said.
"You heard me." He unslouched in a way that made Matt expect him to be tall, though he wasn't, performed a sideways tug with his mouth that seemed to stand in for a shrug, and headed off down the street. After three paces, he looked back. "You coming or not?"
Matt blinked, then jogged to catch up.
"Mello," the blond boy said without turning round, and it took Matt a moment to realize he was introducing himself.
"I'm Matt." He trailed behind as Mello wove a haphazard path through stalls and shoppers, pickpockets and piles of rubbish.
"Been out here, what, a week?"
"How'd you know that?" A week was exactly right.
"That's how long it takes 'til you're so hungry you don't care anymore."
"What about you?" Matt asked.
"Long enough to know what's what." He made a sharp turn down an alley, out of the crowd, slipped a hand into his pocket, and tossed back an apple that Matt only just managed to catch.
"Uh... thanks."
Down the alley, up a rickety fire escape that Mello scaled with elegant ease, past rooftop gardens and shelters ranging from crude lean-tos to elaborate brick constructions as fine, in miniature, as anything in Mayfair. There was, Matt realized, staring around as he tried to keep up, a whole world here whose existence he'd never suspected.
Mello reached the edge of the roof and vanished. Matt hurried over and peered down in time to see Mello wave out the window he'd swung into. After a moment's consideration, Matt used the ladder that was right there.
He stepped through the window into a large room. Mello paced around it, lighting candles, illuminating dusty stacks of books and hulking sheet-draped furniture. He sprawled into a large chair that was not covered, and began emptying his pockets. More apples, several bank notes in a clip, two meat pasties, a gold pocket watch. He looked up at Matt as if he'd forgotten about him. "Not bad for an afternoon's work, mm?"
"All that in one day?" Matt said, staring.
"All that on our little promenade through market." He left a pause for Matt's reaction—he did little, Matt was starting to see, that was not calculated for effect—but this was impressive enough that Matt saw no reason to disappoint him.
"Bloody hell, you're good."
Mello leaned forward, smirking. "Wanna learn?"
***
Mello stalked a slow circle around Matt, looking him up and down with an assessing eye and a thoroughness that made Matt flush. He wasn't used to anyone paying this much attention to him. "You're pretty enough. Won't have to fake the sweet-and-innocent thing. No one will ever suspect you. If you can do it."
Matt wanted to hunch his shoulders, avoid that stare, but he fought the urge. "I can do it."
Mello watched him a moment longer. "Right. Let's find out." He shook his hair, pulled his coat about himself, and put on a grand, strutting manner so different from the insolent prowl of before, Matt had to laugh. Mello's mouth quirked, but he didn't even chuckle. "I'll start you off easy. The money's in this pocket."
"All right." He walked toward Mello, smiling, and Mello immediately held up a hand. "Too purposeful. You look like you're up to something."
A few steps back, and Matt tried again, doing his best to look aimless, even confused.
"Heh, better."
He blundered into Mello and grabbed his lapel to steady himself, slipping the money clip out of the pocket as he tottered and apologized.
"Unhand me, ruffian!" Mello said in a ridiculous posh accent. He still didn't crack a smile.
"Sorry, sor, sorry." Matt's accent was pretty silly too. He let go and hurried back toward the shadowy recesses of the room.
"Not bad," Mello said. "But never run. Running's as good as saying you've done something wrong."
Matt nodded. He felt as if he ought to be taking notes.
They practiced until Mello seemed satisfied and was visibly fighting laughter. Matt flopped onto the floor. "Fancy a game?" The pack of playing cards he carried was battered; he'd had it since his mum was still alive.
"You're a sharper?"
Matt shuffled, making the cards flare out showily. He wasn't above playing for effect either. "I'm not half bad."
"Give me five minutes." Mello was halfway out the window before he'd finished speaking.
It didn't seem like five minutes before he was back. His coat clinked when he hit the floor, and he pulled two bottles of port from the pocket. "Now we have the proper ambience."
"Almost," Matt said. He got out his pouch of tobacco and started rolling a cigarette.
Mello dropped onto the floor beside him in an artful sprawl. "You didn't have food, but you have that?"
Matt grinned, pleased at having surprised Mello. He thought the other boy had still won their impromptu game of one-upmanship, but that he had at least held his own. "I thought the orphanage owed me a farewell present."
"You ran away?"
Matt nodded. "You've been on your own a long time, haven't you?"
Mello had avoided the question before, and Matt thought he would again. He uncorked one of the bottles and swigged straight from it, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, passed it over. "Since I was six."
"Mother of God, Mello."
"Don't swear."
It sounded like a reflexive reply, and it took Matt a moment to realize Mello meant Don't blaspheme. Obviously he wasn't going to get more of an answer to his real question. He started sorting the low cards out of the deck. "Piquet?"
Mello smirked. "I hope you know what you're getting into."
Matt drew the high card on the cut, and dealt first, and for a little while conversation was reduced to the polite irrelevancies of passing the port and the cigarette back and forth, and to the mechanics of the game: "I'll have three cards," "Point of four," "No, not good, I've got forty-seven."
"Forty-seven?" Mello said then. "Bloody hell."
Matt looked at the ace, king, jack, nine, and seven of hearts he held and tried not to smile too smugly. He had a comfortable lead, and what was more, he felt warm, full, and content for the first time all week.
"I knew I wasn't wrong about you," Mello said, with reasonable good humor considering the question was not if Matt would win, but by how humiliating a margin.
What was it? Matt wondered. He decided something about me right away, but how, and what? "What do you mean?"
"You're not just good. You're lucky, too. Can't teach that, you have to be born with it."
Matt laughed, without humor. "If I've got luck, she's taking her sweet time showing herself."
Mello squinted at him through the smoke as he took a puff on their fourth cigarette. "You're overdue for a run of the good, then."
Port-befogged, Matt wondered for a moment how someone practical enough to make it on his own so long could be so superstitious too. Then he held out a hand for the cigarette. "I hope I haven't used it up here."
"It doesn't work like that," Mello said, handing it over, wearing a strange little smile that seemed to mock both of them equally. He shuffled for the last hand. "One more thing you need to know about: the Plowman."
"The... what?"
"He nabs the likes of us off the street. If he catches you, you don't come back. If he catches you, you're on your own, mate."
Matt told himself the bitter taste in his mouth wasn't disappointment, and nodded. "I understand."
There was a weighty silence until Matt frowned thoughtfully. "Why d'they call him the Plowman, then?"
Mello rolled his eyes and picked up his cards. "He kills 'em for sure. Killer... tiller... try to keep up."
Matt won the last hand too. "What do I owe you?" Mello said.
"We weren't playing for money."
"I know. But you beat me fair and square." He looked at the score again and pulled a face. "By a lot. I should owe you a forfeit."
Matt laughed. "I don't know."
"Hmph. I'll think of something."
Music from the tavern drifted in the window. Mello sang along, under his breath, in a language Matt didn't recognize. He looked lost in thought. Matt was too, but he suspected the subject of his musings was more immediate than whatever was on Mello's mind. "Why me?" he said. He was leaning back on his elbows by now. "You were looking for someone, right? A partner? What made you pick me?"
Mello's eyes seemed to glint. "Maybe you were exactly pathetic enough without being completely hopeless."
Matt let the evasion slide this time. "You don't usually work with other people, though."
"No. But believe me, I know everything that goes on."
"I believe you," Matt said, laughing. He sat up—more of a roll, really—to reach the port, and took a big sip. The bottle was getting close to empty, and Matt was getting close to falling asleep. He licked at a dribble of port at the corner of his mouth, making a face.
"Pass that on over, you're messy..." Mello sounded amused, but there was something else in his voice too, something tenser. He leaned over, faster than Matt could've moved in this state, very close suddenly, and wiped the port away with his thumb. Matt wondered why his heart was pounding and why he couldn't seem to look away from Mello's mouth, and then, quite suddenly, Mello was kissing him. Matt had never kissed anyone before, but Mello obviously had. He twined his hands in Matt's hair and pulled him closer. Matt tasted sweet wine and smoke and made a helpless soft noise that meant Don't stop.
He didn't stop. Matt didn't even know what to do, but somehow the kiss slid into something desperate and hungry, a scrape of teeth, the sting when Mello tightened his fingers and tugged. By the time they broke apart, Matt was panting, and his hands had somehow knotted themselves into Mello's shirt.
"There," Mello said, almost steadily. "There's your forfeit."
***
Matt slept, not very well, on the settee. There seemed no question of sharing the big four-poster bed with Mello, though he thought about it a lot, vague notions of being tangled up together, of more kisses, making his head spin.
He woke to Mello shaking his shoulder. "Damn lazybones, get up. We'll miss the morning rush."
He was dressed to go out already, all in black again, and wearing a top hat that should've looked ridiculous but didn't. Matt blinked up at him, muzzily. He felt like his head was stuffed with cotton wool, and here was Mello so aggressively cheery, he made Matt want put his head under the pillow, possibly forever. "My hair hurts," he whined.
"Come on."
Don't pull off the blankets, don't—
He didn't get to finish the thought; Mello swept them off like a magician doing the trick with the tablecloth, but with more unholy glee than sleight-of-handers usually displayed.
"All right, all right, I'm awake." He sat up and started to scrub a hand through his mussed hair.
"No, leave it," Mello said. "It adds to the effect."
The effect, he explained, as he hurried Matt along, into his street clothes from the day before, out the window, down into the street with hardly a pause for breath, was all-important. Matt would be distracting passers-by with his tale of woe while Mello quietly robbed them blind.
"I'm hungry," Matt protested as they passed a cart whose chestnut-scented steam made his stomach rumble.
"Effect!"
Mello picked a corner by seemingly arbitrary criteria; it looked no different from any other in Spitalfields Market. But it wasn't long before a small crowd gathered. This wasn't so different from gaming, Matt realized. It was all bluffing, and the other players didn't even know that was part of the game. The matron who'd be moved by an orphan's tale of how he missed his mum, the gentleman who wanted to hear about a young man who just needed a leg up to make his fortune. Matt watched for flashes of black and blond and timed the story of the moment for maximum distraction.
After the morning crowd dwindled, Mello flopped onto the ground beside Matt, hat cockeyed, and grinned. "We're going out on the town tonight."
***
The days became weeks, and Matt found they made a better team than he ever could have imagined; pocket watches, handkerchiefs, wallets grew in piles on the tables, faster than he and Mello could sell them off. They never went to the same place two days in a row, nor did they seem to need to. Mello would take them to Battersea, to the bustling streets by the 'change, even, once, to Regent's Park, where Matt boggled at how finely even the servant girls were dressed.
And not every night, but more nights than not, Mello would kiss him, on the floor or on the couch or up against the wall by the window, but never in the bed, and he never tried to do anything beyond kissing, though Matt panted and blushed and eventually shamelessly pressed against him, past caring anymore if Mello could feel how needy he was.
"Mello... can't— Would you—"
"What? After all this time, don't tell me you don't like it."
"No, I do, but—" But he didn't know what to do next, and he was terrified of getting it wrong.
"Gonna call me a nancy boy?"
"Mello... If you're one, so am I."
It seemed he'd blundered into exactly the right thing to say. Mello laughed in a short huff. "So, what do you want?"
"I..." He was blushing again, not sure he could say it, but surely Mello did it too, right? If those hushed and furtive noises Matt could hear some nights were what he thought, of course he did, so he finally just blurted it out all in a rush. "I want you to touch me like I touch myself."
"I thought you'd never ask." Mello grinned. "I can do better than that. Come on." He tugged Matt by his sleeve toward the bed, and Matt couldn't have resisted if he'd wanted to.
"Go on, lie down."
Matt climbed into the four-poster and Mello pounced, raising a cloud of dust from the bedclothes. Matt sneezed, and laughed, and Mello cracked up too, and pulled him into a hug. Matt found himself less nervous. He squirmed closer and kissed Mello, the first time he'd felt bold enough to initiate a kiss.
Mello's mouth was hot and ardent, but his fingers were chilly, little shivers stepping up Matt's ribs. Matt hadn't even noticed him unbuttoning his shirt. He dragged his mouth over Matt's jaw, down his neck, his breath hot. Matt tipped his head back. It was all he could do to keep from feeling overwhelmed, and it became almost impossible when Mello reached for the fly of his trousers. Impersonal and businesslike though this touch was, Matt still moaned and lifted his hips.
"Patience," Mello murmured, and before Matt's skin had stopped tingling, he was gone, pulling off the trousers and smallclothes. He looked at Matt and smiled, a feral gleam of teeth. Then he slid off the bed and stripped off without a hint of hesitation or self-consciousness.
Matt took a long look, fixing Mello in his mind. If this never happened again, he knew he'd still come back to this image, and he colored in the mental daguerreotype: bright green for Mello's eyes; pink for his mouth, swollen from kisses; gold for the tangle of curls between his legs; a color like the blush on a peach for his stiff member, to which Matt's attention was irresistibly drawn. He'd never seen another man naked before. He hadn't been prepared to need to touch despite feeling as if he were on fire with uncertainty and wanting.
Mello watched Matt watching him with a small smile, holding a shade too still to seem completely natural, and arched an eyebrow.
"Come here," Matt begged. Mello's smile got wider, and he slid back into the bed. He was all planes and angles, no softness to him at all. Matt sought out his shoulderblades, smooth and shifting beneath his skin, drew his hands around to his sides, found and memorized by feel his sharp hipbones. Mello still only watched, gaze following Matt's hands, flicking up to his face. He seemed perfectly composed, but when Matt leaned in and pressed his lips to his neck, his heart was hammering as hard as Matt's own.
It seemed he'd had done with patience, too. He pulled Matt tight against him, and Matt heard his own breath hitch, heard his own voice saying "Holy God."
Mello didn't chastise him this time. He bent his head, almost lazily, lips parted, hair falling over his eyes, and with unerring aim found a sensitive spot on Matt's neck and grazed it with his teeth.
Matt shuddered, need overtopping his self-consciousness. "I think I'd like— You can— bite, if you want."
Mello laughed, low and breathy, and did just that. He didn't give Matt any time to recover (How can it hurt and feel so good at once? Matt wondered); he moved down, pressing increasingly wet and rough kisses over his chest, sidetracking to suck at a nipple as if marking his place for later, briefly but hard enough that Matt clutched at him, eyes wide. Mello glanced up and smirked, like a promise of all he could show him someday, before continuing downward.
Matt still wanted to touch him, but it took all his concentration to lift his head and watch, and tremble at the kisses, at the slide of silky hair over sensitized skin. He trembled even more at the thought of Mello's mouth on his prick, but he stopped just short, and Matt whimpered, helplessly.
Mello didn't lift his head; he drew an unsteady breath, and then suddenly all Matt knew was the wet heat of his mouth, his hand tight around him, the slick teasing glide of his tongue. He cried out, hoarse and wordless, and before he could even try to voice a warning, he'd arched off the bed and spent. "Sorry, sorry," he panted, feeling his face get even hotter.
Mello wiped his mouth and laughed quietly. "Meant to do that. Now you're relaxed."
"But... what about you?"
"You'll see." He was still smiling. He rummaged around in the table by the bed and brought out a small vial. Matt watched, fascinated and puzzled and trying to catch his breath, as he poured some oil into his palm. It smelled, faintly, of vanilla and cloves. "A dollymop gave it me," Mello explained. "Said some men like to do it to the girls like this."
"Like... what?" Matt said, but Mello moved in close again and nipped at his neck, and reached between his legs and pressed one slick finger inside. Matt gasped.
"All right?" Mello whispered.
Matt nodded. He felt filled, but not uncomfortably, and Mello kissed him like it was a reward. He pressed another finger in, and that hurt a little; he hissed in a breath of surprise at the sting.
"You trust me?" Mello said.
"Y- yes. I trust you."
Mello curled his fingers and twisted and pushed, and suddenly the slight pain twisted too, into startling pleasure, and Matt wondered how he could possibly be getting aroused again already.
Mello's expression betrayed no surprise. He watched with hungry intensity, nudged Matt's legs farther apart, looked at him with a question in his eyes, and oh. Matt nodded. Mello dipped his head for a glancing kiss that Matt leaned up after, but he was already positioning himself between Matt's legs. He reached for the oil again, and Matt shocked himself by stammering, "No, let me."
Mello handed it over, otherwise perfectly still, and Matt mastered the shaking of his hands well enough to pour some out. "Like this?" He slicked it on in slow strokes, taking his time. He wanted to make Mello feel as desperate as he did.
"Yeah, just like that." His composure was starting to crack; he arched against Matt's hand, and after a moment, panting softly, reached down and stopped him. "But not so fast, mm?"
"Oh... right." He didn't know what to do with his hands now, and finally rested them on Mello's shoulders.
Mello didn't ask if he were ready, but he moved with slow care, easing inside as Matt bit his lower lip to keep from making any noises that might make him stop.
Mello read it in his eyes anyway. "I know, I know," he said into Matt's ear. "But there's the worst over with, and I'll make you feel good now, promise."
"I know you will." He thought again of that line between pleasure and pain and how very good Mello was at blurring it. He didn't have time to worry what that said about them, or about himself, because Mello was moving, still slowly, hands on the mattress, barely noticeable tremors shivering along his arms. "I'm all right," Matt whispered. "You don't have to—" Hold yourself back, he wanted to say, but he would have been chagrined to admit he wanted it to hurt a little.
"Oh? Don't have to what?" There was that sly smile again, and he knew, he had to, but it seemed he wanted Matt to say it after all.
"Be... be so careful."
"Mm, I see." It was almost a purr, and he thrust harder, exactly rough enough. Matt began, hesitantly, to rock his hips, matching the rhythm Mello set, and that finally broke his calm; he leaned in for a hard, fast kiss, then pulled away just enough to whisper, "There, it's good, yes?"
"Yeah..." He tried to smile, tried to kiss back, and only half-succeeded at both. "Mello... it's really good." Except that he couldn't get close enough, and Mello's hands were still propped on either side of his head, for all the beseeching downward glances Matt gave. "Please," he murmured when he couldn't stand it any longer, and he knew Mello would ask, so he made himself go on. "Please, touch me."
"Show me first?"
Matt went dizzy from a rush of heat and shyness, but he reached down and stroked himself, slowly and shakily at first, but when he saw how Mello's eyes fell half-closed and his mouth fell half-open, how he moved more urgently, he gained confidence, started to want to put on a good show. He gasped and arched, swirled his thumb around at the top of his stroke, and, hit by a wicked impulse and barely blushing at all, lifted his hand to Mello's mouth.
Mello made a noise that was mostly a growl and sucked at Matt's thumb, and finally, finally reached down. He brushed the back of his hand along Matt's length, and Matt was opening his mouth for another plea when those thin clever fingers wrapped around him, and he forgot how to talk at all.
Their eyes locked and Mello shifted, not gentle at all now, and hit something so good that Matt cried out. Mello was the one who shuddered, though, and gasped "With me, finish with me," and Matt was so close to completion that pushed him over the edge, and he quaked and clung for what felt like ages.
He opened his eyes as if waking, to Mello brushing sweaty strands of hair back from his forehead, grinning not half as smugly as he could have got away with. "Your eyes are changeable-like," he said softly, dreamily, trailing his finger down along Matt's cheek. "One minute blue, the next green."
"Yours are always green. I've never seen anyone's like them."
Mello moved away as carefully as he'd joined them, and lay beside Matt, one arm across his chest. "Not very much sore?"
"Not too much."
"Good." He sighed, the picture of satiety, and Matt snuggled closer. Mello didn't seem to mind.
"Is that why you picked me?" Matt asked. "You wanted to do that?"
Mello laughed. "Maybe a little, possibly."
"That's all right." He closed his eyes, happily exhausted himself. "I would've followed you all the same."
***
Some dissatisfaction or restlessness had been growing in Mello for some days, and one morning soon after they first became lovers, Matt woke knowing it was far later than usual. Mello was sitting up in the bed, arms behind his head, wearing a thoughtful scowl.
"What's the matter?"
"It's not enough," Mello said, and for a sinking moment Matt thought he meant them, him, but Mello looked over at him and his expression softened. "Not this." The sweep of his hand took in Matt and the bed alike. "This life. We don't want you on the blab forever. They'll get wise to us soon enough. We could do more. This griddling, lurking about, cast-off togs, cast-off lodgings. We're smarter than everyone else. We should be running this burg."
"It's not like we're L," Matt said, sitting up.
"Maybe we should be."
Matt just stared.
"No, look. L hasn't caught the Plowman. Maybe he doesn't care that the only ones going missing are burglars and speelers and beggars, but he's not in the Family, and we bloody well do care."
Matt thought he saw where Mello was going with this. "If we take care of the Plowman..."
Mello smirked. "...we'll be rolling in some very useful gratitude."
***
Mello threw himself into this new ambition with an enthusiasm that bordered on obsession, sending Matt out to eavesdrop in places the Plowman was likely to be discussed, going out himself to charm information from the street girls, other toughs, the whole voluble overexcitable London underworld most people never even saw.
Sometimes they discovered that they were not the first to ask questions; maddeningly vague accounts of a young gentleman, remarkable only for his pronounced stoop and eyes more than one girl called "eerie," cropped up several times.
"Could that be him, keeping an ear to the ground?" Matt wondered aloud about a fortnight into it.
"It doesn't make sense. Someone conspicuous like that? Could be a lackey, but he sounds too bright. Someone with the same idea as us, I'd wager." Mello was surrounded by newspapers and broadsheets; he'd been reading for some time, but hadn't even taken his hat off yet.
"Have you had dinner?" Matt asked. Mello had a tendency to forget niceties like food and sleep these days.
"This'll keep me." He waved about the nearly-melted chocolate he held. "There's no real pattern. The bastard's hiding in plain view. Enough people disappear anyway that the ones he takes get lost in the crowd. But look." He held up a flyer. Thiefs Be-Ware! the heading read in huge italics. "This says Clapham's being cleaned up by 'a person or persons unknown'... 'duty of all law-abiding citizens to aid in this effort'... faugh, bloody stupid empty moralizing. Still. I think that's where he started out."
"So we'll go there and ask 'round?"
"No. I have a better idea." He licked the last of the chocolate from his fingers meditatively. "Know that blonde haybag at the Green Hog? She's been awfully noisy about being in favor of the Plowman, even around the very people he's after. Now, she's not blessed with brains, but she has a certain cleverness."
"You think she's under his protection?"
"He is blessed with brains," Mello said, with a scowl at acknowledging it. "If I had a supporter like that, I'd be making use of her."
Matt nodded. "What do you need me to do?"
***
They went out the next night. Mello had probably never had an idea that he'd failed to act on immediately, and Matt was in full accord about the urgency this time. The broadsheet-writers weren't the only ones who'd noticed people going missing from the streets. There was a pall of nervousness hanging over most of the taverns and gaming hells of late. Few people seemed to know for sure what was diminishing their ranks, but even the youngest pickpockets had a hunted look about them, and Matt had noticed a new air about those who considered themselves respectable, a smug sort of certainty that seemed to say Your kind will be a thing of the past soon enough.
Their plan necessarily called for a great deal of improvisation, and Matt tried not to feel nervous about all that might go wrong. His coat was tattered, his gloves were fingerless, and shivering was doing nothing to help his confidence.
"I won't be far," Mello said.
"I know." He looked up and down the street, not as crowded by half as it would have been only a few months ago. Mello seemed to understand that he needed this moment to steel himself.
"You keep your wits about you, hear?"
"I will." He lit the cigarette he'd rolled back in their rooms, dragged on it, held it out.
Mello took it and puffed, eyes narrowed. He seemed to be considering saying something more, but in the end he just said, "Meet by the river in two hours."
"I know."
Mello watched him a moment longer, then handed the cigarette back.
Matt was several paces away before Mello called, "Oi, Matt."
He looked back.
"I'll be angry if you're not there."
"Well. We can't have that." He gave a lazy salute that made Mello chuckle, and forced himself to continue on.
He sized up the people he passed. A gentleman, awfully flash, but in a poor-quality greatcoat. A carriage clattering past; two judies gossiping on the corner, one of whom tipped Matt a wink. A young man, dressed too nicely for this part of town, but not in a showy way. Nothing furtive about him, but his air of having every right to be here looked put on. A gent who pays for company, Matt thought. You mind yours, and I'll mind mine, mate.
He was getting near the tavern, and his steps slowed of their own accord, still sounding deafening in his own ears. He felt in his pocket to make sure, again, of the smoke bomb.
Closing time, and people started to tumble out, leaning on each other, singing, protesting being turned out into the street. Matt scanned the crowd for blond hair. Surely Mello would have gotten close to their target by now. He saw the girl, looking back at someone, talking very fast, wearing a smile that seemed fake. Now or never; he tossed the smoke bomb, watched its trajectory go as perfectly as he could wish, where it would catch the serving-girl in the thick of it. The crowd scattered like ants, and Matt ducked his head and scattered with them.
It was horrible déjà vu, the hand closing on his shoulder, but this time Matt didn't leave the ground; he was frozen by the quiet, insinuating voice. "Matt... or should I say Mail?"
How the hell does he know that?
"Where is your partner?"
"I haven't got one," he spat, trying to wriggle free, to no avail.
"We shall see about that." The voice sounded sickeningly confident as the man pulled Matt along by his collar towards a waiting carriage.
The amount of organization and preparation he clearly had at his disposal was starting to worry Matt. The carriage driver didn't look at him at all, but he wore an unpleasant smirk. Matt's captor bustled him into the carriage with a brusque efficiency which, more than anything else, said he had done this before, was accustomed to resistance and more than ready to quell it. Matt didn't resist. His part was done.
It was the too-nicely-dressed man he had noted a little before. Was he even a policeman? He looked too young, but he had that air about him. He didn't give a name. He sat at his ease across from Matt in the carriage, smiling like he had every card marked. "You are intelligent enough," he said, "that I needn't detail the advantages of cooperation."
Matt scowled. "If you were smart, you'd know you can't hold me when I haven't done anything."
That earned him a flat look. "You've not gone unobserved. I know enough to send you to the workhouse at the least. But you haven't done it alone, have you?" He leaned forward, wearing a frown of regretful concern that might have fooled other people. "A man must eat, and who could blame you? You've only been taking orders. It's the one giving them who concerns me."
Does that actually work on anyone? Matt wondered. "You don't know nothing."
"Well," he said, bland as anything at having his bluff called. "You shan't be my problem any longer when you're on a ship for Sydney."
Transportation? Shite, Matt thought. But he kept his mouth shut and shook his head.
They travelled on in silence for far longer than the trip to Clerkenwell would have taken, and Matt quickly lost track of which way the carriage was headed. He got his bearings again, well enough and for the little they were worth, when at length they drew to a halt and his captor ushered him out onto the cobblestones. Clydegate, a proper prison, which meant no court.
"You can't," Matt protested one last time, as the policeman, with a look of distaste he didn't wholly repress, took him by the sleeve and steered him into the grim grey gaol. "You can't just grab people and make 'em disappear."
"Can't I? The streets are safer already; people have noticed. The law-abiding are already applauding my work. Who else could do it? L? L is soft. He's too fixated on his outdated notion of justice to do what must be done. The magistrate is too busy feathering his own nest. This city is a festering cesspit. Who else can clean it up?"
He'd outright admitted it, and no one but Mello would ever believe Matt, even assuming he got out to tell anyone. He went unresisting into the cell and slouched on the rough plank bolted to the wall. The only other occupant was a boy younger and more ragged than Matt.
Once they were quite alone, Matt turned to him. "What're you in for?" He'd always sort of wanted to ask that, but it didn't make him feel as tough as he'd thought it might.
"Picking pockets, sir."
Matt had to laugh. "You don't have to 'sir' me. That bloke, he brought you in?"
The pickpocket nodded.
"What's your name?"
"They call me Dipper, but he didn't."
"He knew your real name?" He had enough tobacco for one cigarette, and began rolling it.
"Yeah."
"I'm Matt."
"I know who you are."
"Really?" He paused in licking the rolling-paper to regard Dipper with some surprise.
"Sure. Everyone knows who you and Mello are."
Normally this would have been flattering, but under the circumstances, it was worrisome. "Did he say what he was going to do with you?"
Dipper shivered. "He said as he'd give me to the impress-men if I didn't turn nose. I didn't tell him nothing."
"Me neither." Matt looked grimly around the cell. It was clearly meant as a waystation. The ventilation was poor, and the walls had a sweaty look from condensation on the chilly stone. Matt lit his cigarette. "He wants to scare us," he theorized. "That's why he brings us in personal. We're not on the books, anything could happen to us."
Dipper obviously hadn't considered this; his eyes looked huge and pale in his grimy face. "I don't want to go in the Navy," he said. "I get seasick."
"It's wrong, what he's doing," Matt said, knowing even as he did that this was cold comfort. "He'll be found out." But by whom? L didn't care, and even Mello might not be able to follow the trail in time. He sighed and tried to keep from imagining months at sea, a barren shore far from home, labor camps... It wasn't working.
The night wore on. Dipper curled up into a miserable ragged ball and slept, snoring quietly. Matt just waited. The sounds of the city, which must surely be waking up by now, didn't reach the cell at all. They might have been in a mediaeval dungeon, utterly forgotten.
Matt must have finally dozed off, because between closing his eyes one moment and opening them the next, the quality of what dim light there was had changed.
A clang sounded, and he realized the noise had come before and awakened him. Was the Plowman finally coming back?
Dipper startled out of sleep and looked at Matt as if expecting him to know what to do. Matt was just as confused; he'd seen no signs of life all night.
The door at the end of the hall flew open, and a slight figure in a filthy cloak stalked through. Dipper cowered in his corner. "Has this hap—" Matt began, but then the figure pulled back its hood to reveal blond hair.
"Mello!" Matt ran to the bars.
Mello looked up from trying keys in the lock. The Of course I came to spring you was in his eyes; all he said aloud was, "Don't look so surprised."
"I know what he's doing. He's, he's making them vanish. Giving them to the factories, or the impress gangs, or sending 'em overseas."
"Bloody..." He broke off. He'd found the right key. He rattled the cell open, and a whiff of his cloak made Matt wrinkle his nose. He didn't say anything, but Mello noticed and grimaced. "Came up through the culvert. Let's get out of here."
"Wait?" Dipper said. He was staring at Mello as if he would pledge his service then and there. "Let me come too!"
"We don't have time to pick up strays," Mello said.
Matt shrugged. "Sorry, mate." At least you're free now.
Mello headed for the front entrance, stepping almost delicately over a guard lying senseless on the ground by the gate into the cell area, dropping the stinking cloak on top of him as he passed. Matt touched his shoulder, but Mello shook him off. Right, escape first, Matt thought. "How did you find me?" he asked.
"My powers of persuasion," Mello said dryly, and Matt couldn't tell if he was annoyed or amused.
They crossed the courtyard at speed, and once they were back on the street, Mello blending into the crowd with his usual practiced ease, Matt staying close behind, Mello tossed a packet back over his shoulder, and Matt caught it without thinking. It was his tobacco.
"Thanks." He tucked it into his pocket and waited for Mello to get around to answering his question.
"Misa and I had a nice, friendly-like talk after I was kind enough to see her to safety. That is to say, friendly-like at first. She couldn't wait to talk about her beau. Noxon's his name. Light Noxon." He rolled his eyes. "Around the time she started going on about how noble he was, how bloody incorruptible—I'd lay even odds he fed her that line—I knew she wouldn't blow, and I knew he wouldn't be game for a trade." He glanced back at Matt. "Which is when we got less chummy."
"Where is she now?"
Mello shrugged. "She'd been as useful as she could."
"Oh," Matt said. He let her go once he made her tell him where to find me.
Why me? he wondered again. I'm not smarter than he is. I'm not a better thief than he is. Is it really because he wanted me?
No, it was more than that. He'd belonged to Mello, body and soul, from the moment he saw him, and somehow Mello had known it before Matt did. He smiled, privately, knowing neither of them was likely to ever put it into words. That was all right. Knowing was enough.
They reached their rooftop, and for once, Mello took the ladder. Matt climbed in right behind him, and Mello said "Come here," but didn't give him time to; he caught Matt up in his arms at the same instant. Matt held on tight. Now that they were safe, exhaustion and relief washed over him and left him drained. Mello tangled his fingers into Matt's hair. Matt knew by now that he left many things unsaid—unvoiced, anyway. He could read everything he needed to in Mello's breath against his neck, in how he didn't yet show any signs of letting go.
"We need to sleep." This was his own way of saying he knew Mello hadn't any more than he had, but wouldn't make him admit it.
"Yeah," Mello said, and there was a laugh hidden in his voice. "You must be tired."
He took Matt's hands and led him to the bed, and lay beside him some little distance away, his hand resting against Matt's face the only contact. The green of his eyes, as he regarded Matt solemnly for a long moment, burned brighter than ever, but Matt felt no uncertainty or hesitation now. He leaned closer for a kiss, and Mello surged forward to meet him. Tired as he was, Matt still felt swept along by the urgency crackling between them. In what seemed no time at all, they were both quite naked and entwined, trembling.
Matt had never known Mello to be like this, clumsy with haste, unwilling to break their kiss until he had to for the sake of breathing, his hand unsteady when he pressed their pricks together and began stroking. Matt reached down and covered Mello's hand with his own. Mello made a soft, needy sound, but still didn't speak, and Matt didn't need words anyway to know to squeeze his fingers tighter about Mello's and guide their hands faster. They spent at the same time, Mello shuddering out his completion with wordless little cries that were lovelier to Matt than any flowery words could have been.
Mello made not even a cursory attempt at cleaning up; he wrapped his arms around Matt with clear possessiveness and settled his head into the crook of his neck. Matt's last dazed, happy thought before exhaustion claimed him was that it was as if the things unspoken between them had all been said.
***
It was close to dusk when Matt awoke, and Mello stirred sleepily and kissed his shoulder without opening his eyes. Matt would have been perfectly content to stay right here forever, but he knew they still had much to do. Having uncovered the Plowman's identity was one thing, but what were they to do with the knowledge?
Mello stretched and grinned at him. "I'm bloody starving. Downstairs. We've time before word gets out about us."
In the tavern, over rabbit stew and small beer, they considered their options.
"I'd kill him just for taking you," Mello said. Impossible to tell how serious the suggestion was.
"But we can't," Matt said.
"Can't we?" That tone would've meant trouble for anyone else, but Matt wasn't cowed.
"It's about making a name for ourselves, isn't it? People have to know what's happened. He's got to hang."
The chill in Mello's eyes thawed. "Yeah. Those who need to know it was us, they'll know. And the more who know it, the better." He leaned back and regarded Matt fondly. "I outdid myself when I picked you."
"What do we do, then?"
"We can't go to the coppers," Mello said. "He's one of them. But there's someone even the police answer to."
"What are you thinking of?"
"We have to find L."
"Are you mental?" He had presence of mind enough to whisper his shocked exclamation. He glanced about and leaned in over the table. "Nobody can find L."
"Nobody can bust out of Clydegate either," Mello pointed out. "We have to think like him, is all."
"Go where he might go."
"Snoop about where he would, pree-cisely. The mails are too slow for the work he does. He's got to send someone to speak for him." He gestured with his spoon in a sweep that encompassed the tavern and the street beyond its windows. "That means that somewhere, there's someone who's seen his face."
"We find that person, we find L."
Mello nodded. "Normal cases aren't for him. Maybe he's prideful, likes a challenge. Maybe the Yard only calls him in when they're confounded. I think it's the former."
Matt smiled. Of course L's style, outside the law or even above it, would draw Mello's admiration. "And we know one thing that has them fuddled."
"That we do."
It wasn't just the Plowman making lower London feel besieged and nervous. In the last fortnight, body parts had been pulled from the Thames, and the newspapers had been the first to cry that Jack the Ripper was at work again.
"This latest doesn't seem as it quite fits the pattern," Mello went on. "But I'd wager they're begging him to work on it."
***
The latest gruesome discovery on the shore of the Thames had been only days ago, in fact, and that part of Whitechapel was still lousy with coppers and gawkers. Mello and Matt, both in the nicest clothes they had to hand, so as to prevent or delay detection, found a public house within sight of the river and stationed themselves at a table in front.
Matt watched officials bustling about for some time. Then Mello nudged his leg with his foot and tilted his head toward the river bank, and Matt looked where he'd indicated.
If they hadn't been looking for someone doing exactly this sort of thing, the old gentleman would probably have escaped their notice, so nondescript was he amongst the crowd. Most were treating the crime scene as a tourist attraction, collecting in small clumps just far enough to be considered as not interfering, or passing by and jeering openly at the detectives and police. The old gent, however, spoke seriously and at length to one officer, and made discreet notations in a small book. The copper seemed quite familiar with him, gesturing broadly and even appearing to tell a joke.
"Could he be—" Matt began quietly, but Mello shook his head.
"That'll be his mouthpiece."
The gentleman, with every appearance of having accomplished his purpose, shook the policeman's hand and set off towards a waiting carriage.
"Oh, bloody hell," Mello said, but he recovered quickly and rose with no indication of undue haste. Matt was right behind him.
Hurrying on foot as much as they were able, hopping onto the backs of convenient passing wagons or coaches, they managed to keep the carriage just within view all the way to Chelsea. The old gent went into a house that was nice, but not ostentatiously so, certainly no different from its neighbors at a glance.
Mello gave an overbright smile and shrugged. "Here we are, then." He strode up the front steps and rapped smartly on the door, and Matt stood below him, trying not to feel nervous.
The old gent opened the door. He didn't look surprised; he had an air of polite curiosity. "May I help you?"
"We're here to see L," Mello said, more loudly than was strictly necessary, his chin lifted.
The old gent let them in, betraying no irritation, and politely offered them tea, which Mello of course declined, and Matt followed his lead. He took them into a sitting room with the same understated luxury as the house in general, and there left them.
After some time, long enough for Mello to huff an irritated sigh or three, the double doors into another room opened, and a quiet, low voice bade them enter.
It was a large room, well-appointed and full of books, but not tidy in the least. Stacks of newsprint tottered on the desk, and Matt saw a pair of very fine shoes left casually on the carpet.
The man climbing into the chair behind the desk was older than they were, but still quite young, and the most arresting thing about him was not the shock of his wild black hair; nor the dark smudges beneath his eyes that spoke of many sleepless nights; nor even the way he sat, knees up, as if defying convention and daring them to make something of it; but the intensity of that flat grey gaze. If it had ever occurred to Matt that L might be so young, he might have imagined him much like this. He glanced over at Mello, who had also taken the measure of him, and who raised his eyebrows: Now we know who hit our sources before us.
L did not waste time on pleasantries. "Mello, Matt," he said. "How may I help you?"
Matt felt certain of two things: that L could have addressed them by their real names had he so chosen, and that his faintly amused, courteous question might be translated as, "What in hell do you want?"
"It's how we can help you," Mello said, but his cockiness rang the tiniest bit false. Could it be that he was intimidated? Matt would never have said so, but he found the idea rather charming.
"I see. Please continue."
"We know who the Plowman is."
L lifted a hand to his mouth, and though his expression didn't change, it seemed that his attention on them sharpened.
Mello told him the whole story, with Matt chiming in for his discoveries, and L murmured, "hmm," and, "Misa, yes, I am aware of her," and, "do go on." When it was done, he tapped his thumb against his bottom lip and spoke without bothering to remove it from his mouth. "I cannot say that I approve of your methods, but drastic action does have its place." He smiled, very briefly and not very pleasantly. "Had you arrived unable to name anyone capable of substantiating your story, it would be a different matter. You understand this." His eyes rested upon each of them in turn. "It is why you did not kill Noxon, correct?"
"That's right," Mello said.
L regarded them calmly for a moment. "It seems a terrible waste," he said, "that minds like yours should occupy themselves solely with petty larceny."
Mello and Matt exchanged looks. Here comes the lecture, Mello's said. We can hear him out, Matt's said.
"I would like to propose a partnership." When Mello began to draw back, offended, L continued, "Your freedom would not be curtailed in any way. Indeed, I should like you to continue exactly as you have been. Your self-contained society does not bother me." He tapped his thumb against his lower lip once more, and his eyes seemed fully alive for the first time. "I have greater quarry to pursue."
"Like what?" Matt said when it became obvious Mello was turning the possibilities about in his mind.
"Such as corrupt policemen like the one you have so kindly delivered to me. Murderers, conspirators, whoremongers. You two are uniquely placed to act as my eyes and ears and, when necessary, my arm." He paused again, and almost smiled. "I imagine you would have to continue some criminal activity to maintain your contacts and reputation."
Mello subtly took a more relaxed stance, but his eyes stayed narrowed, as if he were wondering what the catch was. Matt gaped at L in frank fascination.
"In return," L said, "I will share such knowledge about investigations as may be helpful to you in your work. There is one thing more, but I require an answer before I tell you that."
Mello tugged Matt back towards the door. "With what he can teach us, we'll never get caught," he whispered.
"He knows that," Matt whispered back.
"And he knows we'd never have to rat anyone out. You don't give something for nothing."
"Maybe he does."
"I don't take something for nothing." The irony struck them both at the same time, and Mello laughed. "Not from anyone who's worth anything, at least."
"I know. Me neither." That was how L had got him, Matt saw, sparing a moment to glance back at the detective in silent admiration. L had recognized, more quickly than Matt had grasped it, Mello's brand of honor: it was off-center, but honor nonetheless. Hell, Matt thought, he probably knows exactly what we are to each other too.
"I'm game," Mello whispered. "Are you?'
Matt nodded, and they both faced L again.
"All right, then," Mello said. "You have a deal. What more is there?"
L looked, in his quiet way, as if he had known they would decide this and that he was pleased they had done as he'd planned. "I am young, but I am by no means immortal," he said. "My name has become, in itself, a deterrent to aspiring criminals. In short, I need someone to be L after I am gone. I am willing to consider the two of you."
Mello laughed, clear and genuine and caught off-guard. "You should've started with that, mate," he said.
Has it really been only a few months since I ran away? Matt wondered as they walked back towards their rooms, sharing a cigarette, Mello's shoulder bumping his too often to be believably accidental. He'd found a whole world to fit into, and more besides, he thought, catching Mello's smile out of the corner of his eye and smiling too.
"First thing," Mello said, a teasing glint in his eye, "we bloody well have to teach you to pass for a gentleman."
Matt laughed. "I'm not sure we can do that."
"We can. We can do anything."
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Date: 2009-08-14 10:24 pm (UTC)OK, I literally LOLed when I read this. It always seems hard to get to an ending that feels right! And thank you so much! :D