Chapter Text
“Open up! FBI!”
The words were yelled so fast that one could hardly register them through the haze of adrenaline and headache, Mello’s limbs weighted with fatigue. He could hardly glance up through the strands of blood-soaked blond hair when the basement of Halo was filled with men in black boots, pointing guns and yelling across the room at one another as they came in through the basement doors, the fire escape, and the vent system.
When the Man Upstairs jumped into action, opening the doors and cocking his pistol, he was outnumbered by nearly twenty and taken into custody immediately.
Mello couldn’t help but itch for his Beretta the second he was untied—he knew where they placed it, too, in the second drawer in the filing cabinet. They didn’t even lock it; they just assumed he’d never be freed enough that fighting back would become an issue.
“Hold on, sir—” one of the FBI agents called out to him as Mello quickly shoved him away, reaching for the firearm in his drawer and rushing with black-edged vision and heavy feet, to shoot the Man Upstairs in the back of his shiny, dimpled head. Mello pointed his gun, teeth gnashing together, tipsy on his feet when two of the officers ran in to wrest the gun out of his hands, watching as it clattered lifelessly on the floor.
“Get. Off. Me!” Mello scowled.
“You won't get anywhere by shooting the guy!”
“I want him dead!” Mello gritted his teeth, overwhelmed with the feelings of being released, but what home did he have to go back to? In his mind, nobody saved him for a reason. He deserved his fate as much as The Man Upstairs did, because Mello did cocaine with him, played cards with him, even slept with a few of the women he recognized to be working for him. How stupid could he be?
It was revolting knowing that he could just go on with his life, with blinders on, when he felt as though he was a mere accessory to the situation. The Man Upstairs deserved to be no more than a bloody puddle for fucks sake! A gruesome stoning at the hands of the women he wronged! No more than an unrecognizable mound of flesh, as he saw nothing but the depth of Hell, and Mello lived to see the rest of his days behind cinderblock cells like these. It was what he believed to be just.
“Listen to me! Sir, your testimony could land this man behind bars for life! Don’t waste it by landing a cell next to his.”
Mello rolled his eyes, raising a shaky hand to wipe the crusted blood from beneath his nostrils.
“Fucker deserves a lot worse than jail.” Mello hissed.
The agent shrugged his shoulders.
“Wouldn’t you rather he suffered a little first?”
Halo was shut down, the club was vacant of dancers or patrons, and instead, SWAT teams hovered in the area, ensuring that moving the criminals to jail went smoothly. As he passed the front doors, being brought into the bright of the late autumn day, The Man Upstairs turned and growled at Mello, his eyes narrowed on him, and his teeth clenched shut.
“Don’t think I won't get your ass!” he hooped and called. “I’ve got friends in other places you ain't ever heard of! I’ve got so much shit on you, motherfucker!” he squirmed against the handcuffs, rendered as an oversized delinquent being pressed against a squad car.
Mello couldn’t help but roll his eyes, frustrated that he hadn’t been the one to do him in, that instead of being the one to save the day, he was the one to be rescued.
And then he saw it—through the swarms of women leaving the building, being checked over and taken into ambulances, being sheidled from the news station cameras which parked out front; creating a barricade from the window shopping old ladies and the nosy club neighbours who were awake and out on errands at this time of day, all wearing light jackets and hats, mouths agape — as the crowd slowly parted, being shoved apart by two familiar faces, Mello laid eyes on the exact people he thought abandoned him.
***
The clinic was crowded with people, all waiting to be looked over, while the rest of them were taken in swarms to the downtown police department, to be reunited with their belongings, with their identities, all of which were stowed away by The Man Upstairs.
Mello was in particularly bad condition, though his physical injuries would likely heal a lot quicker than the emotional ones of the others. I paused by the door, Matt taking to the chair outside the door, slumping in it with a long sigh.
The operation took a little longer than intended; it had been 30 hours before they managed to get them all released. It was a miracle they were still alive—Mello especially.
“You’re not coming in?” I asked Matt. He shook his head.
“I'd better stay out here. He probably doesn’t want to see me hangin’ around yaknow? I’m the one who ratted out where he was.”
“Yeah, but you also saved him. Without your cameras, I would’ve never guessed what was going on. I wish I had known sooner…”
Matt frowned, then, as I opened the heavy oak door to his hospital room, the chair creaked as Matt suddenly stood up, hands in the pockets of his skinny jeans and eyes cloudy with nervousness.
“Guess I should say hi,” he muttered, following behind me.
I pushed the door open, shuffling into the sterile hospital room, a single bed illuminated in soft blue lights from the window, the light grey papery sheets ruffled around Mello’s bottom half. He was sitting up, watching a news article on the small, outdated television across from him, captioned: BREAKING NEWS, LOCAL CLUB HOUSING ILLICIT SEX TRAFFICKING RING.
Mello glanced up when we walked in, almost looking guilty for having been the one wounded. His gaze fell upon mine, gunmetal blue, searching for any trace of what was to come. I inhaled slightly, thinking of what to say, when Matt spoke before me.
“I guess you don't have to worry about having a rival club anymore.” Matt clicked his teeth. “Halo's all shut down now.”
Mello nodded slowly, almost unbelieving, like reality hadn't set in yet.
“Yeah… guess that makes me number one, huh?” He croaked, his voice gruff.
“Guess so.” Matt moved a little closer, smirking slightly. “Feel any different?”
“Besides the third-degree burns?”
“Headache, perhaps?”
“Yeah, sure. A little bit of a headache.” Mello shrugged, smirking slightly, like he knew where this was going but entertained Matt anyway.
“Could'ya feel your head growin’ bigger?”
“Mostly just my cock.” Mello snickered, both of them diverging into giggles.
Matt sat on the end of the bed, elbows to his knees, as I stayed like a fly on the wall to their meaningful conversation. What I assumed was the first real one they've had in a very long time, long before I met either of them.
“He pimp you out, too?” Matt frowned.
“Nope. He wanted me to ‘merchandise’ his women. Which I refused to do.” Mello's eyes flickered to me momentarily, then drew away again.
Matt nodded with a heavy sigh, burgundy bangs overhanging his goggles again.
“Glad you're back, Mels,” Matt whispered, glancing up at him.
Mello nodded.
“Yeah, me too. Guess you proved to be pretty useful.”
“I try.” Matt shrugged. Mello then gave his friend a clap on the shoulder, which Matt returned with a quick top and bottom fist bump, a sort of juvenile handshake.
“See ya,” Matt hummed, leaving the room and shutting the door behind him. He shot me a swift nod as he closed the door.
My eyes fell on Mello's, the smirk on my face overbearing.
“What was that?” I called. “Secret handshake?”
“Tsk—I've known Matt for ages. Of course we have a stupid handshake.” Mello smiled grimly with his sharp teeth and his busted lips, bruising in mauve and red.
As my gaze lingered on his face too long, his injuries, nose and mouth, burns poking out beneath the hospital gown, his fingers—
“Your hands,” I remarked, sitting on the bed so close to him, close enough I could smell the antiseptic, and the hint of musk that made him Mello.
“Relax.” He flexed them. “It's just a few fingernails. They will grow back.”
I felt my heart stutter, suddenly so worried for him, what he possibly endured. I gently, carefully, took his hands in mine and looked them over. Band-aids covered most of his fingertips, and crusted blood around them.
“They removed your fingernails!?” I breathed. “Is that, like, a common gang-related torture method?”
Mello snorted.
“You tell me.” He reached up to tuck a strand of my hair behind my ear. “I didn't realize you were pre-law.”
I shrugged, still sour about my program termination.
“I was.”
Mello frowned again, sighing heavily, as he leaned back against his pillows, ruffling his messy, stringy, blond hair. Mello fluttered his eyes shut, bruises behind them, then took in a long, shaking breath.
“At the time, I didn't get it. I'll admit how selfish I was, not giving a fuck about who I hurt, just to pay my debt back. I was in over my head, but that's no excuse.” Mello opened his eyes, and that beautiful shade of icy blue softened as he pleaded. “I didn't take the time to learn how significantly terrible these things can impact your life—the life of unsuspecting victims, who usually aren't even aware of what's happening—or happened, in your case—until it's far too late to get back what was lost.”
Mello sat up and rubbed his face, wincing slightly.
“I'm sorry.” He shook his head, remorseful. “That was so fucked up. I will never have Matt post a video like that ever again. I get the gravity of it now, and what it could lead to. What it could've led to if you had worked there any longer… Christ.”
I felt this sharp pang of tears between my eyes, and quickly blinked them away.
“I just didn't realize how bad it was. I can't believe I didn't notice sooner…” I whispered.
Mello shook his head.
“No, it's not your fault. You saved those girls, Feisty. All of them. Did you see how many there were!? All of them get to go home tonight.”
I sniffled a little, feeling feeble for being so emotional. But surprisingly, Mello didn't tease me about it; he just shifted me up onto the bed beside him and pulled a warm arm around me, nestling me into his side.
I inhaled against his neck, the faint smell of chocolate not lost behind the scent of the overpowering hospital soap.
“Yeah, but I also went to save you,”
I glanced up at him, his fringe overhanging his eyes as he looked down at me in return.
“Never gonna let me live that one down, are you?”
“Nope,” I smirked. “I saved your life.”
“Guess that means I owe you, huh, Feisty?”
My cheeks blushed as I smiled, watching the tips of Mello's ears go red in return.
It was only a few hours later in the afternoon, after sitting together and watching the news, that Mello was cleared to go home.
He was given some antibiotic ointment for his third-degree burns, most of which took up his back, ribs, and right arm, courtesy of the aforementioned cattle prod. Aside from that, his bruises would heal in time, his nails would grow back, and his perfectly sharp and petite nose may have a bump in it indefinitely, but nothing anyone but his vanity would notice.
I had to admit, Mello becoming a martyr for the trapped women was very attractive. He didn't place a single price on any of them, and didn't refer to any of them as a number, or by their physical qualities. It almost made him feel redeemable, viable for remorse and forgiveness. He made a mistake, got in with the wrong crowd, but became resilient because of it and admirable because of it.
When he pushed open the front door to his condo, wearing the complimentary grey on grey hospital sweats in place of the silk robe he was captured in, I couldn't help but feel content in a sort of sullen way.
“Do you want to crash here tonight?” Mello asked, turning over his shoulder with a ruffle of his blond hair. I nodded slowly.
“Yeah, that'd be great. If there's room on the couch—”
“Matt pretty much lives in the living room. He has a bedroom, but he doesn't use it.” He shrugged. “You could sleep there if you wanted. I'd bring in clean sheets. Or you could quit playing coy and sleep with me.”
He winked, and I felt myself scoff, crossing my arms in protest.
“Very forward. You're not out of the doghouse yet.”
“Really? I figured my speech would do it if the flowers didn't. Or the plethora of injuries I endured. I assumed you liked the pathetic type.”
“Pathetic type?” I rolled my eyes. “What makes you think that?”
“Well, you slept with Mat,t didn't you?” his wry grin was sharp as he turned into the kitchen, boiling the kettle and removing the powder hot chocolate mix from the top shelf in the cabinets—he had to stand on his toes, considering his short height.
“Ouch.” I shook my head, face reddening again. “Sorry about that…” I drawled.
Mello turned and glanced me over, setting the mix on the table with an exhausted grunt.
“It's alright. I was being a dick.”
“Yeah, you were. Still shouldn't have slept with your best friend though…”
“Nope,” He shrugged. “It wasn't very classy of you. Hence, I was honestly quite surprised to find you went to UCLA. Guess you're intelligent?”
He snorted when I looked away, trying my hardest not to get flustered as he poured water from his black ceramic kettle into two mugs.
I blew the steam from mine, conversation lulling as Mello grew tired, bags under his eyes as he methodically sipped and looked over flyers, and while I stared off into space.
“I'm going to have to stay on for a little while at the club. Overtime if you have any.” I muttered, finally, knocking him out of his stupor.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I'm looking for another job, but nothing seems to be opening up. Nothing that makes as much as a dancer, that's for sure.”
“Mmphf,” Mello responded, licking some chocolate out of the cut on his lip. “Well, you're good at it. I'd like to keep you on, if you're willing to stay.”
I nodded, giving vent to a pent-up anxious sigh. Mello’s scarred, bandaged fingers crossed the table, the rough surface of the band-aids scrubbed against my hand as he placed his over mine.
“And you can crash here as long as you want. I have more than one bathroom, a full kitchen and dining, plenty of closets for your clothes… girls like you like clothes, right?”
“What's that supposed to mean?” I guffawed.
“Well, I assume you'll need somewhere to hang all your skimpy little bodysuits, bras, and thongs.”
I retracted my hand, teeth gritted in a menacing smile, willing myself not to smack his already smug, but bruised face.
“You're such a prick, Mello.”
“Just saying, my place is like the Ritz compared to Dove's puny apartment. Seriously, I'm going to have to give that woman a raise.”
“Good, I'll let her know. She'll be very happy to hear that.”
“Hmph, good, I wasn't bluffing.”
When we finished our nightly routine, we headed to his bedroom, making up for the night otherwise interrupted by chaos. His bedspread was still stained from the beer from our previous encounter, and when he pulled the duvet back, he revealed silky black sheets and plump pillows. It really was the Ritz.
We settled into bed, first facing opposite directions, then eventually, Mello turned to face me, his body pressing against mine as he wrapped his arms around my back, landing his hands over my belly button. His chin was sharp against my scalp, and when he dipped down, he pressed a kiss against the crown of my head, chaste, maybe even romantic, before he whispered his goodnights.
***
Mello woke before me, the sun splaying in bent lines across the bed and up the wall like spun gold, like the mess of hair that spilled over his shoulders, bedraggled from sleep as he slid himself under the blankets again. He crawled beneath them on all fours before he situated his hands on either side of my hips, slowly tugging down my borrowed pyjama pants, thumbing over the lace edge of my underwear before he slowly pulled them down my thighs as well.
Half-conscious, I grumbled in sleep, eyes fluttering open briefly then shut again.
Mello lowered his mouth to my clit, sucking and lapping with wet, hot ecstasy, his hands—albeit scratchy—squeezed affectionately against my thighs as he bowed them open for him, and efficiency worked me apart.
My back arched, a small moan escaping my throat before my eyes opened, and my heart pounded, instantly noticing the human-sized lump under the blankets.
I lifted the duvet, his gunmetal eyes held mine as his lips closed around me, kissing and thrusting his tongue while his face remained utterly, sinfully, innocent.
“Mello—” I huffed, arching into his touch again. “I didn't say you could do that!!”
“My bad,” He moved his mouth just far enough that the reverberations shook my core. “Do you want me to stop?”
“Fuck no,” I grunted, hands threading back into his hair, body arching in delight off the mattress as he worked and worked, sweaty and beautiful, like the glistening paintings of Titian.
I rushed to a climax, my thighs trembled around his head, closed too tight to be comfortable, as his hands groped my chest beneath my top. Mello resurfaced, sighing pleasantly before he moved in to place a wet, filthy kiss against my lips, prying them open to explore with his tongue. His cock stood thick and flushed, now easily pulled out of his boxers. A rosy brown, perfect curve that lined up against me, with every slow grind of his hips dragging the thick length of him right where I needed it most.
My nails grazed his back, gently over the spots that were decorated with pink and brown welts, hardened like leather from burns.
“Feisty.” He groaned, breath heavy against my face. “You're so fucking perfect for me.”
I moaned against his lips, leaning into his touch as he slowly pressed in against me, gentle with his movements, reverent.
This time was unlike any other. This time we took time to reach our peak, sweaty and labourous, as Mello leaned down against me, his hair in my face as we kissed. He'd break away, biting down on my neck before smoothing over it with his tongue. My hands moved down to his ass, feeling over his dimples, before I gave the flesh a good squeeze that left him breathless.
“Switch me,” I grunted, legs wrapped around him.
“Fuck-what?” Mello let out a guttural grunt. “Seriously?”
“Mhmph.” I returned, an equal wry smile on my features as he helped us turn with a mixture of pants and grunts.
“Whatever.” His hands found my hips, smiling as he looked up at me. “Do all the work then. Gives me a better view anyway.”
Mello reached up, grabbing my tits with admiration before he pressed his mouth to one and ran his thumb over the other.
When he was close, I made him wait again, watching as his brows furrowed, as he relinquished power for me yet again, just for a few minutes longer to evoke the filthiest, wanton, grumbles of his life.
It was hard not to erupt after encountering something so passionate, so visceral.
In the aftermath, we lay in messy blankets hanging half off the bed, his naked tan and taut ass in my peripheral vision as he moved to open the blinds, not a care in the world.
“Need anything?” He turned and looked at me. I shook my head, yawning, and Mello softened. He proceeded into the bathroom, taking the loudest piss of his life, before he returned with a warm, wet cloth and a tenderness I haven't seen in him before.
“What happened to your crass and casual approach?” I mumbled tiredly.
“Mhmpf.” He grunted, focused. “It wore off when I realized what you meant to me.”
I rolled my eyes and snickered softly.
“Whoa, are those feelings, Mello?”
“Don't get used to it.” He leaned in and pressed another kiss to my lips before he smacked my thigh and got up with a jolt that shook the bed.
***
The downtown police station was made from weathered red brick, with big front windows and a paved circle with a fountain in the middle. When we pulled up on Mello’s motorcycle, he turned into the back parking lot, instantly veering away from the front view of the building.
When he cut the vibrating engine, my legs still felt the tremors shuddering through them as I removed my helmet and handed it to Mello.
The blond stood gazing over at the main street, watching as the familiar red Plymouth pulled into the lot, slowing to a stop as Matt tossed his cigarette butt out hte window.
“Matt,” Mello remarked.
“Hey,” he looked at his friend, then at me.
“Thanks for helping back there,” I nodded to Matt again.
“Yeah, course. Your money is on the way, by the way. I wired it to you. 20k.”
“Thank you.” I nodded gratefully.
Matt glanced at Mello, me, and back again. Getting a feeling I wasn’t intended to overhear their impending conversation, I turned away with a quick wave.
“I’ll go ask about the paperwork.” I nodded, parting away from the duo.
Matt leaned against the hood of his car, lighting another cigarette. Mello put out his gloved hand, and Matt handed him a fresh one, lighting the tip of it for him as he placed it between his lips.
“So, now that everything is sorted out… I was thinkin’ of heading to Chula Vista for a while,”
“Really?”
Mello looked up, taking a long drag and emitting a puff of grey smoke. Marlboros definitely weren’t his favourite; he preferred the gentle cooling sensation of menthols, felt less like inhaling velcro.
“Yeah,”
“Are you going to go find Dakota again?” Mello glanced over surreptitiously.
“Probably,” Matt took a long drag. “I’m gonna try at least. I still have her old address, if she even lives there anymore,” he rubbed his forehead with a small groan. “It just really put shit into perspective, yaknow? I was so stupid for making that tape… And then for making one again.”
“I’m the one who told you to make the second, more successful tape, don’t take all the credit.” Mello joked wryly. “Think she’s going to take you back, Matt?”
“I dunno…” he shrugged, eyes glassy, shoulders slouched in that pathetic manner that easily possessed his spindly limbs. “Hope so. Hope I can at least try and apologize.”
Mello nodded curtly.
“So this is it then?” he peeked inside the back seat of Matt’s Plymouth, noticing the laptops were taken from the dashboard, and the suitcases were piled in the back.
“Yeah, I came to say goodbye… Goodbye, Mels,” he pushed his hands in his pockets, his cigarette loosely trapped between his lips.
Mello couldn’t seem to take his eyes off the glass. Matt's belongings, all stuffed away in the back, made for the cover page of a new chapter. Mello could still remember leaving the friary, his bag in tow, leaving the attic over the club we now called The Snake Pit, after he shot the former owner, but he couldn’t really picture himself leaving now.
“Yeah,” he straightened up, blinking away his poignant reflection. “Goodbye, Matt.”
They stood awkwardly for a moment, eyes on each other but bodies unmoving, before, with a jolt, Matt moved forward, offering his fist for their fist bump.
“You realize you can text me, right?”
“Yeah… unless you go to jail or get shot or something,” Matt shrugged, sniffling as he looked away.
“None of that’s going to happen, Matt. My gang days are behind me.”
“Uh huh.” Matt shrugged, focusing on a spot of chewed gum on the pavement.
“Well, see you then.” Mello nodded, stepping toward the front steps of the station.
“Yeah, see ya, Mello.”
***
Inside, a bunch of officers buzzed through the maze of cubicles, responding to phone calls as criminals were taken in and whisked away to be processed. The front desk was busy with a young family expressing distress over their missing eldest daughter, and so many people were talking at once. Caught up in the moving environment, Mello looked around a little, his features distraught before he settled them on me again.
“I’ve never purposely walked in here before,” he muttered dryly. “The last time I was here was for shoplifting charges. Matt stole a bunch of Nintendo DS from the toy store. After that, they locked those trial ones up,” Mello snickered.
I turned my head, proceeding outward the back of the room where officers were huddled in conversation, nodding and speaking to one another, the most noticeable one being my former professor, with his greying sideburns and salt and pepper hair.
The fluorescents hummed overhead as I took off in his direction, arms crossed self-consciously over my chest. Everyone in the building had heard of the reason for my expulsion, and I didn’t want to make this any more awkward than it had to be.
“Hi, I’m here to follow up with the witness statement…” I turned over my shoulder, Mello was still standing in the entryway, disoriented, jaw ticked and on high alert.
“Mello!” I called with an intense whispered shout. He looked up and awkwardly strutted over, hands in the pockets of his leather coat.
My professor smiled in the forced way that teachers did when reunited with students in public, while the two men in uniforms dispersed, one back to his cubicle, and the other taking the seat at the desk before us, chewing gum with vigorous motion.
“Take your seat,” the officer gestured, glancing over the laptop screen. “Name?”
“Mello,” he grunted, leather-clad legs splaying wide in the chair, asserting his dominance as he responded with a stiffly bored expression.
“Full name.” The officer raised hsi eyebrows. Mello shifted in scrutiny just as my former professor, Christopher, benevolently tapped my shoulder. I turned away, leaving Mello and the officer just as I heard his answer.
“Mihael Keehl.”
The officer slowed his fingers over the keyboard, sighing heavily as he took a long sip of coffee.
“How do you spell that?”
Mello rolled his eyes, smirking wryly.
“Phonetically.”
Professor Christopher held a stack of papers beneath his arm, pressed in a manila folder, crinkling the fabric of his houndstooth suit jacket as he presented them to me.
“These are the corresponding case files. I wanted you to take a look at them. I’m sure you could learn a lot from field experience with a real case.”
I raised my eyebrows, then flipped through the pages. He continued.
“With your evidence, we were able to act as fast as we did. Otherwise, this process could’ve taken months to pinpoint. We really needed an inside man—or rather, woman.”
“Thanks,” I met his eyes behind his glasses. “But, I’m not studying at UCLA anymore… I thought you knew?”
“Yes, well…” he cleared his throat awkwardly. “There were some… unfortunate circumstances that caused your expulsion. But if the video being released was no fault of your own, then… it would be grave to have your departure from pre-law on our hands.”
I glanced up at him, then over where Mello sat, elbows to knees, reaching over the laptop to type his own name and earning a swat on his hand as he did—then back to my former professor.
“I don’t understand…” I drawled. “But it's in the code of conduct, and my reputation is tarnished for any future beyond fast food and stripping.” I guffawed softly. He shook his head.
“I’ve contacted the board of directors; they’re reviewing your appeal as we speak.”
“But I didn’t send an appeal.”
“I sent one,” he nodded curtly. “Along with the knowledge and evidence you brought to the case, saving what was estimated to be over 50 women and girls from sex slavery.” he folded his hands over his coat, elbows bowing outwards. “You’ve made a name for yourself. This time, it's a good one.”
I shook my head slowly, handing the file back to him, watching as his face fell beneath his wiry mustache.
“I’m sorry. I really appreciate the offer, but I can’t afford it. I’m currently couch surfing. I was evicted from my apartment for not making rent on time.”
Awkwardly, I smiled. “Your offer means a lot to me, though, really.”
Professor Christopher nodded sullenly, gesturing with the manila folder in hand.
“Alright then. You take care, and take time to think things over, would you? It would be very unfortunate to lose you as a student,” he nodded swiftly, giving me a polite wave. “You know where to reach out if you change your mind.”
I tucked my hands in my pockets, watching him depart through the front doors, a sudden lamentation overcoming me, a compression deep in my chest. I turned around to find Mello approaching me from behind, his hair falling messily over his gunmetal blue eyes, tracing me.
“Ready to go?”
“Yeah,” I nodded, glancing back in the direction of the door. “So, how’d it go?”
“Lots of questions,” Mello shrugged. “They want me to appear in court.”
“Are you going to?”
“Yeah,” he shrugged. “I don’t see why not, the fucker deserves all the evidence against him we can get.”
As we walked back to his motorbike, shining under the spotlight of the parking lot, glimmering with mystique, for some reason, the sight of it filled me with this brewing state of nostalgia, this palimpsest into what was before. Mello, my chaotic and overconfident boss, hovering over the light of his flip phone, the streetlight leaving a bright halo on his gold hair, smoking those stupid Newports. And me, completely unassuming, maybe the tiniest bit titillated by his presence, finding solace in the miniscule, but monumental ways he went to protect me on and off stage.
He handed me a helmet, a large glassy black orb, reflecting the fading light of the sky, and when he turned his back, I let out the tiniest sigh.
“So, Mello isn’t your real name then, is it?”
“You eavesdropping on my private statement to the police, Feisty?” he countered, mischievous smirk on his sharp cupid’s bow.
I shrugged, sliding onto the bike behind him.
“No, it’s not my birth name,” Mello admitted quickly, my arms around the leather of his waist. “Figured I should change it after I left the friary. I didn’t really have good associations with it anyway.”
“I like it. I think it's unique.” I slid closer to him, shaping my lips around his name. “Mihael.”
“Mphmf, and how would you spell it?”
“Probably phonetically,” I responded with an equally wry grin, nestled against the warmth of his neck. Mello snorted, his expanding chest lost in the rumble of the bike as he started the engine, and took us home, back over the swells of town, the pavement roads stretched out like tongues, back through the streets of LA.
***
It took a little while for the cash to come in, for the wire transfer to complete, but when it did, attached was the smallest of apologies, a simple: “sorry again :P” from Matt, the last reminder of the time we shared before life returned to normal again. Until the couch at Mello's condo was no longer covered in takeout boxes, or the pilling Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles blanket, and the cans of Redbull had been purged from the floor. Until the wires were gone and recoiled back into corners, the outlets were otherwise empty. Until Matt’s bedroom door was left half open, the room deserted, a certain sepia tone to what was left as it was captured in time by the sun through the dusty window blinds.
The beer stain on Mello’s duvet was removed in the wash, sprayed with extra-strength stain removed and scrubbed viciously. And my belongings slowly filled his closets, moving in for good.
Things went back to normal. I went back to school, still occasionally taking shifts at The Snake Pit to dance sometimes with Mello, sometimes alone, always with a focus on aerial inversions (my favourite). Not because I had to, but because I wanted to.
It's hard to imagine that there was ever another side to the tumultuous and heavy time in my life, hard to imagine that when obstacles so big present themselves, there’s ever a way through them, to progress without being stuck, without drowning.
But sometimes, things have a way of working out.
Eventually, Matt’s bedroom was stripped of the bed frame and sheets, opened up to house three secure rotating dance poles, a room for me to teach voluntary classes to the other dancers, to learn their styles and how they wanted to be perceived, and to learn the art of dance.
Matt wasn’t gone forever, though. We still saw him over the holidays, a drunk and overzealous host as he introduced me to his girlfriend, Dakota; she was giving him one last shot to not fuck things up.
No videos this time. We were all pretty sure he learned his lesson.
“To the new year!” Matt hiccuped, drink sloshing over the edges as he pumped his fist into the crisp night air, nearly falling face-first over the side of the lifeguard chair the four of us managed to climb by moonlight, watching the tide breathe and ripple roughly against the sandy shore.
“To the new year,” Mello returned, holding his glass in a toast.
“To the new year!” I repeated in turn, clinking glasses with the other three before taking a long sip. Matt swayed again, quickly grabbed by the scruffy fur of his vest by his concerned girlfriend.
“You’re going to fall off! Dios mios, mixing alcohol and heights was not a good idea—”
In the distance, an engine roared, a matte black Mercedes with tinted windows watched and revved, rolling the window down just enough to push the nose of an AR-15, the assailant's eye lined with the scope, breathing steady as he focused in on the slight waving of blond hair in the wind. Our distant laughter picked up against the crashing waves and hiss of the wind.
We wouldn’t have noticed it then, on the beach, our problems so far out of sight, so far down the line.
But as he pulled the trigger, the moonlight illuminated the bumper, the most petite pair of golden angel wings were printed there,
and above them,
a halo.