Chapter Text
January 1998 (Prelude)
Et Benedictus, Mello’s Journal [do not edit or repost]
May 15, 1998, St Petersburg, Abandoned Schoolhouse
Mello wakes up screaming “ Mom! Mom!” at the top of his lungs, and the boy next to him punches him and hissed to shut the fuck up, because it’s late, and they don’t get that much time to sleep.
At least he had a fucking chance to meet his parents, the boy spits, but Mello’s in tears, sobbing and whimpering into the ground, arms wrapped around his waist while he curls into himself. It hurts. His stomach’s bruised and the side of his face is stinging, because this boy is so much older than him, and can hit so hard that it makes his vision flash black and adrenaline pool in the back of his throat.
He thinks he’ll die.
He’s not really sure if he minds.
He’s hungry, too.
Mello whimpers again, and this time, the boy grabs him by the shoulders and spits in his face.
Disgusting.
He wants to scream and cry and just get the fuck out because this is awful, this is terrible, no one can survive this.
And not everyone does.
The night ticks on, with shadows dancing in every corner of the room. Rain pelts against molding windows, a dull roar in his ears. Even surrounded by other homeless children, he feels overwhelmingly, destructively, desperately alone.
He tries to think of his mother.
All he can see is the bullets in her chest, and blood pouring from her ears. She flailed on the ground, her nervous system giving its last effort to try and stay afloat. Probably, she had been dead by then, but her body twitched, writhing for a split second as her limbs shut down. He watched from around the corner, clutching his shirt into balls between his fingers. He ran. He saw her eyes, wide, piercing blue staring at him, mouth moving, sputtering for that last split second before she just collapsed .
He thinks of his father.
He feels sick.
It was his fault.
This is his fault.
Realization hits Mello in the pit of his stomach, harsher than any of the swings that other boy had taken at him. His father had done this.
Got his hands on mercury, a couple of tools to open up the car, and that was it.
For what? He still doesn’t understand what these words mean, and the woman in the library won’t let him look in the books for an answer. The specifics don’t matter–the blame still sits the same.
Mello curls his knees into himself, and he bites his tongue to pull his mind out of the nightmare he’s creating for himself.
Mello’s Possessions, May 1998 [do not edit or repost]
-Safety Pin (given to Peter for ear piercing, May 20th)
-Chocolate Wrapper (lost/repurposed, May 15th)
-Rosary
-Crow feathers (given to librarian, May 7th)
-Journal
-Gift Bow (lost, May 4th)
May 31, 1998
Peter’s a son of a bitch, but that’s no big deal.
In the winter, he curls up next to Mello underneath a thick blanket they stole from a shop down the street. Peter’s got the sticky fingers, Mello’s just good at keeping watch. In a few years, he’ll be just as good. But that’s still a while from now, and he’s still worrying about tomorrow.
Peter’s real cool, and everyone that looks at him knows not to fuck with him. Mello’s grateful, because he’s given that same sort of look. He says it’s thanks to Peter.
Peter says it’s because Mello’s got one hell of a nasty look in his eyes.
He was fifteen, and he’d got this shit on his arms that looked kind of like scabs all the way from his wrist up to the crook of his elbow, with specs of green and yellow everywhere in between. Mello loved him, a thick sense of childhood adoration and borderline worship.
And hell, Peter was just trying to get on like the rest of them, but at least he’d had the means to do so.
And a little extra for kicks, he’d like to say.
For spring, they’d ditched the blanket in a dumpster, and rolled up their pants to make shorts.
On May 31st, Peter turned up dead in a tunnel beneath the veins of the city.
He didn’t get a grave, so Mello pretended. On the streets, walking aimlessly through a bleary, foggy evening, he picked out spots that reminded him of his friend, and he’d stop, say a prayer, and move on. It wasn’t for another year that he understood what “track lines” were.
Mello rubs his hands together, and pulls his thin jacket around himself. The days were warm but the evenings were cool. Tucked out of sight down the way of a street rarely traveled, he shuts his eyes and tries to lead himself to sleep. The air stings his ears, and he dips his face down, an exhausted Hail Mary tumbling from his lips.