Archive of Our Own

The glossy portfolio pictures were spread right out across his desk, and Mello leaned over them, tapping manicured, black varnished fingers against the surface of them. Thinking. 

The model in the pictures stared back at him. 

He was attractive in a Boy Next Door kind of way. Hair thoughtfully tousled, smile a little off centre, baggy clothes hanging off of him in a non-threatening fashion. He had very large eyes, Mello noted. They were warm and endearing. He could definitely see why he was such a popular model at the moment. 

But all he could think was, ‘Why the fuck have they sent him to me?’ 

By now, Mello was well established in the photography community. More than well established, truthfully. He had a cult following. 

Although never destined for the mainstream, Mello’s work dominated dark, indie photography communities, often being picked up for shooting rising Goth bands, or obscure but respected alternative fashion stores. He had a distinct, eerie style that was hard to forget or replicate; a little haunting, a little unsettling, but undeniably beautiful. 

And so he liked models that reflected that aesthetic. 

Tall, pale girls, with long limbs and even longer hair, and always a little too thin. He liked girls with downturned eyes and thick, dark eyelashes, who knew how to whisper secrets through the weight of their stares. Pretty goth girls who knew how to look creepy and macabre in eclectic leather clothing. 

This guy was nothing like that. 

His eyes were too hopeful, his smile was too bright, and though he seemed to be in pretty good shape, he could still stand to skip a meal or two. 

… But Mello knew better than to say that to his face, of course. He’d learnt that lesson the hard way; after once finding his talent hunched over the toilet with her fingers down her throat, following a comment he’d made about being able to see her lunch. 

A whole afternoon of shooting had been ruined, as all the models had sat around comforting her in an impromptu circle time. Confessing deep and disgusting secrets with wide-eyed sincerity, (“I’ve never told anyone this but- I’m addicted to laxatives!”), to which they’d all nod in solidarity and clutch at one another. 

That would not be a mistake he repeated. 

See, not only was Mello known for his distinctive style, he was also known for his strict, no-nonsense approach. He had very little regard for other people’s feelings; he had a vision in mind, and that was what he set out to achieve. If somebody cried in his studio, then so be it. He loved shooting strong emotions anyway; it was sort of the underpinning base of his work. Bring on the tears.

He argued that people knew what they were getting into when they took on a shoot with him, and he wasn’t going to dull his vision over anybody else’s sentimentality. 

He sighed and gathered the photos together, stacking them in a neat pile. There was something about the boy, he supposed. 

He wasn’t attractive in a conventional sense, that was for sure. And those big, earnest eyes were rife with possibilities, like a Margaret Keane painting just missing its haunting touch. 

Yeah, Margaret Keane… They’d made a movie about her. Okay, Mello could work with this; he was incredible, after all. He would make this work.

The biggest crime about the portfolio pictures was definitely the outfits. In most shots, he was wearing jeans and a tank top, or the occasional baggy tee with the brand logo that he was advertising for. He just looked sloppy, Mello thought, and no fucking wonder he was completely uninspired by all of his Hinge matches if they were all modelling themselves off of posters like this. 

It went without saying that Mello’s models did not dress like that. He wasn’t a photographer for Thrasher Magazine, for God’s sake. 

He felt like he had asked for Courtney Love, and been sent Kurt Cobain instead, and he'd never smelled like Teen Spirit before.

Oh well, he could work his magic. He’d take the model and all of his warm, boyish charm… but the clothes would not do. 

He sent a snippy email to the agency, emphasising both his displeasure and his confidence in his own ability to make it work regardless. At the bottom of his message he left an instruction in bold. A very firm demand. This model, Matt, or Mail- he hadn’t bothered to check which one was his stage name- must come in full, gothic attire. He attached four perfectly curated moodboards with outfit ideas on, the contact details to a local rental library, and then pressed send. 

+++++

Matt was late. 

Fifteen minutes late. 

Nobody was late to Mello’s photoshoots. Ever. He didn’t even know what the consequence of lateness was because it just wasn’t a thing that happened to him. Needless to say, he was annoyed.

“Hey! Sorry I’m late, the traffic was seriously crazy!” 

Mello spun around, about to launch into a furious reprimand over his evident lack of planning, but the sight of Matt’s outfit stopped him in his tracks. 

He just froze.

And stared. 

Matt was wearing baggy denim jeans and a neon green hoodie, hood up and yet unzipped to reveal a black t-shirt beneath it, which had a cartoonish yellow outline of a monkey eating a banana across the front. 

For a moment, Mello’s brain short-circuited, because surely this was not happening. It was actually inconceivable that this was happening to him right now.

He chose to believe it wasn’t, and he stalked around Matt to glance down the corridor, assuming he must have a bag somewhere with a change of clothes in it. 

“Where the fuck is your bag?” He demanded, voice harsh. 

“Oh, I don’t have a bag! Everything I need is right here!” Matt replied, slapping the front pocket of his jeans, which was bulging with everything he had crammed in there. 

Mello stared at his pocket in complete disbelief, and Matt grinned, misinterpreting Mello’s shock completely. 

“Yeah, I know, right? These jeans have super deep pockets. I always get this brand, makes it so easy to carry stuff around. There’s actually four pockets and-” 

“Where is your change of clothes?” 

“Huh? I don’t have a change of clothes.” 

Mello paused, still stuck in a strange limbo between fury and denial, fuelled by complete insistence that this could not be happening. He chose to give Matt the benefit of the doubt, surely he hadn’t been briefed in advance.

“Did anybody show you my email? With the outfit briefs? And four moodboards?” 

Matt nodded quickly. He had a stupid smile on his face, like he was proud of himself for getting an answer right, “Yep!” 

Mello took a long, deep breath. “... and yet… You decided to walk in here dressed as Jesse Pinkman?” 

Matt looked down at himself as though checking the validity of Mello’s comparison, and seemed to approve because he laughed cheerfully. 

“Oh yeah! Well, I didn’t really have anything like that! But don’t worry because this t-shirt-” he gestured at his front, hand hovering right over the neon banana outline. “Is black.” 

There was a long silence in which they were just staring at each other, Matt’s cheerful smile met with Mello’s stony glare, and to his credit, his smile never faltered. 

“I have to make a call,” Mello told him, before turning on his heel and walking right out of the room, certain that if he had stayed there for even a second longer, Matt’s pretty smile would be making acquaintances with Mello’s chunky silver rings. 

From behind him, he heard Matt mutter something about professionalism, and he had to count to ten to stop himself from spinning around and throwing him straight out of the window. 

+++++

Mello was not allowed to cancel the shoot. 

It seemed he could not emphasise enough how awful his situation was, or how much danger Matt was currently in just by being in his presence right now, because he so desperately wanted to murder him. 

His phone call was fruitless, teaching him only that the whole world was against him, Matt’s face was insured for more than his damn salary, and he couldn’t fucking wait to go freelance. 

And so, begrudgingly, he marched his ass straight back into the studio, determined to get even one good picture just to make this whole nightmare worth it and then he would be requesting his usual girls again. 

God, he was never going to ask for a new model ever again. 

“Turn your shirt inside out.” He said, picking up his camera. 

Matt snapped into action, shamelessly ripping his t-shirt off and turning it inside out before pulling it back over his head. 

“Stand on the X. Don’t touch the set. Don’t touch the props. Just stand there and look haunted.” 

Matt took his place, bounding over like a puppy and making a face that might have looked vaguely haunted, if you squinted, and Mello took a few warm-up shots to test the camera and lighting out. 

Everything looked perfect (other than Matt and his stupid outfit), but it didn’t make Mello feel any better. He expected perfection, and meeting expectations wasn’t reassuring; it was the bare minimum. 

“Put your left leg forward and tilt your he-“ 

“Hey, why don’t you have anyone working for you?” Matt interrupted, and Mello again found himself just staring at this strange man in utter disbelief. 

Nobody interrupted him. He’d fired a model just for breathing too loudly before, and it wasn’t some industry secret. His reputation preceded hi,m which was exactly how he liked it, because people came and treated him with respect.

But not this guy, apparently. 

“Wow- okay. You interrupted me.” 

“Shit, sorry, just got excited.” 

“Don’t do it again.” 

“Okay! Sorry! Damn.” 

“I did have people… but I choose to work alone because nobody else understands my vision.” 

“Oh, that’s cool… I get that.” 

“Hmm, I doubt that, somehow.” 

“Well, I kinda see it in your pictures at least! That’s why I wanted to shoot with you.” 

“You wanted this?” 

“Yeah! I respect your shit, man.” 

Mello cast his eyes to Matt’s baggy jeans and inside-out t-shirt and found that very hard to believe. 

“Okay… Stop talking now. I want to get on with it.” He tapped the shutter button twice in quick succession, deliberately aiming the flash at Matt, who snapped into action at once. 

For all of his enthusiasm, Matt did not take instruction very well. He seemed to default back to the same four facial expressions; all very hot, unassuming, safe expressions. Clearly, he’d been told just how cute he was one too many times, and he knew it to be true now and would not deviate from his own little script. 

It did not matter how much Mello over described exactly what he wanted Matt to do, or how many times he snapped and scowled and told him how terrible he was, or groaned at how awful the pictures turned out; at every insult, Matt just laughed and made a show of trying to follow direction again, like it was all a game to him. It drove Mello mad. 

Eventually, in a rare moment of admitted defeat, Mello flung his hands up and told Matt just to sit where he was, and he would have to work around him, even if that meant he was going to spend hours editing these pictures tonight, desperately trying to salvage something publishable. 

He rolled off various sad scenarios, hoping to trigger something within the boy, but he was just annoyingly resilient. Not optimistic as such, but he just didn't seem to really care? He always saw a way to power through things. 

"Think about your parents dying." Mello said, at one point, sure that would provoke some kind of reaction. 

Matt looked thoughtful for a second and then sighed. "Well, it was gonna happen sometime. They're really old." 

"Dear God. Fine. Your girlfriend then." 

"I don't have one!" 

“Boyfriend?”

“Nope.”

"Okay. An old friend.” 

"Hmm... okay. How would it happen?" 

"Car crash. An extremely brutal one, they would be completely mangled; it would have been a very slow, painful death."

Matt pondered this and then shook his head. "I just can't see that happening. He doesn't drive anywhere. He doesn't leave the house much- wait, how about a house fire?"

"Jesus! Fine. A house fire! He got burnt alive- why do you not look upset about this?" 

“Well... It just isn’t very realistic! If you knew my friend, you’d know he’s super on top of his electrical work. He takes safety really seriously- and he’d never leave a candle unsupervised.” 

Mello was on his last straw. He let out an aggressive groan of frustration and kicked the stand of the studio light next to him, which was thankfully robust enough to stay in place. 

“You’re seriously the worst model I've ever been sent. I can’t believe anyone’s ever taken a good picture of you, you’re fucking useless! Look sad! Just look fucking sad! How hard is that? A fucking toddler could look sad if you asked them- how are you worse than a toddler?” 

Matt was staring at him like he was utterly insane, as though he hadn’t just been defying Mello’s every order for the past thirty minutes. 

“Well.” He said, with an exaggerated sigh. “You could have just said that in the first place.” 

Just before Mello could snap back a furious retort, Matt’s face shifted into such a perfect look of forlornness that all he could do was blink and then scramble to get a perfect shot. 

By the time the session wrapped up, they'd actually managed to get a few pictures that Mello was reasonably happy with. 

Sure, they were not his usual type, and didn't think they held a candle to the haunting melancholia of his usual pictures, but there was definitely something about Matt. 

He was beautiful. Definitely. In a weird, unique way. When he wasn’t trying to look so normal. 

Mello even thought Matt modelling for such basic companies was a little bit of a waste, he should hone into his oddness and embrace the unconventional side of his attractiveness, instead of forcing his face into the same tight, controlled smiles that he’d been taught. 

Matt could be someone’s fun little project. 

Still, as he sent the edited photos off to the publisher, he basked in the relief that he would never, ever have to deal with Matt again. 

+++++

Infuriatingly, the pictures were very well received. More so than a lot of Mello’s previous works, which meant the agency he worked for was very keen to wave bye-bye to his skinny goth girls and welcome Matt in with open arms. 

They shot together several more times. Matt arrived later each time, and his outfits never changed, despite Mello’s persistent emails. Of course, he’d realised pretty quickly that it was useless and Matt had absolutely no intention of ever changing, but he sent the emails on principle every time. It became part of their little ritual. 

Their dynamic remained much the same. Matt was cheerful and chatty, perpetually immune to Mello’s foul mood. He laughed at the wrong time and teased at even worse times; Mello was constantly right at the end of his tether. 

He knew better than to act on his anger; Matt’s agency would string him alive if he bruised that precious, profitable face, and he was still just on the cusp of freelance, so he couldn’t afford to piss his own agent off either… So he expressed his frustration through glares, snide comments and sarcasm that seeped venom. 

It wasn’t good enough. The problem with passive aggressiveness was that if the other person didn’t react, it was hard to tell if they had got the message and were deliberately ignoring it, or if they were just plain fucking stupid. 

Matt never reacted properly. Mello thought he could just be quite stupid- it was a model thing, after all. 

He could tell Matt liked shooting with him, though. He made it very obvious, and not just with his cheerful demeanour. 

He always chatted away to- or rather, at- him, asking him questions about his personal life like he was using the shoot as a first date, and Mello always found himself waiting for the day Matt would just pluck up the fucking courage and ask him what he was doing after work. 

He’d tell him it was none of his business, of course, but still. It was about time.

The other thing Matt was not particularly discreet about was how much he checked Mello out. He caught the boy staring at his waist, his ass, even his fucking arms! Not one part of his body was safe from Matt’s lewd stares.

He’d had a working theory that Matt had only requested to shoot with him because he had a thing for alt girls, and thought he might be shooting with some of the other models… but now that theory was changing shape in his mind. 

Well, it didn’t matter anyway, because he was absolutely not interested in someone so sloppily dressed and infuriating. So, sorry Matt! But it was time to move on. 

The next time Matt’s agency requested a shoot, Mello had just enough financial wriggle room to be able to reject it, and they didn’t ask again after that. 

+++++

Mello had a very clear vision for this shoot. 

It was on location in a crumbling graveyard, which was perhaps a little on the nose for him, but he’d had such a specific vision for these specific photos that he just couldn’t resist. 

He’d enlisted a model he’d worked with a couple of times before. One with big muscles and long, black hair that snaked down his back, he always looked like he’d stepped right out of a gothic romance fantasy; broody and sexy, and chiselled in all the right places. Hot. 

The shoot was scheduled for the early morning, so he was up at dawn gathering equipment and setting up on site. Everything was going completely according to plan until- 

“Hey! There was a mix-up with that other guy, so you’ve got me!” 

Mello froze at the sound of that voice. This was not happening. Suddenly, his perfectly curated dream of a photoshoot crumbled around him, curdling into a horrible nightmare. 

“Are you fucking kidding me?” 

Matt was smiling, tight-lipped because he had a lit cigarette in his mouth. He was wearing a tank top and his usual baggy jeans, or maybe they were a new pair, because they were even looser than usual, low enough on his hips to reveal the waistband of his boxers. 

“Yeah, he got double-booked so they asked if I’d come here, y’know, since we have such a good rapport and stuff! I thought they’d already run it by you?” 

“No. They didn’t. I don’t want you!” 

“Rude. I came in on my day off for you.” 

“I didn’t ask you to do that! Fuck!” Mello groaned and turned away from Matt. This was an absolute disaster. Matt wasn’t going to be able to pull off what Mello wanted from this and, as usual, he was dressed like a slob. He knew right then and there that this was going to look completely atrocious. 

…But the site owner had been such an asshole about signing a property release and he wasn’t sure he could go through the agony of asking him to sign another one. 

Plus, he was so angry about being the original model’s second choice that he had already vowed never to work with him again under any circumstances and was already mentally drafting the livid email he was going to have to send tonight. 

“Fine.” He turned back to Matt, striding towards him at such breakneck speed that the boy actually took a step back. “But I am not feeling patient enough to be gentle today.” 

Matt nodded quickly, putting his hand to his chest in scout’s honour. “Best behaviour, I promise.” 

Mello bunched up the material of Matt’s tank top and ripped it in three, artful tears (which was honestly a little cathartic), and Matt just let it happen, watching with interest like this was all part of some show. 

He took the cigarette from Matt’s lips and, in a move that looked far cooler than it felt, he took a big, sucking inhale, cheeks hollowing with the strength of it. 

The rizla burnt quickly, leaving behind a little pile of ash, which he tipped onto his own open palm. 

He hadn’t considered the fact it might burn until after he’d already tipped it onto his hand, but holy shit, it did hurt! It felt like he’d sprinkled tiny little hot coals into his palm, but he grit his teeth and held it unflinchingly, loath to look weak, waiting for it to cool down. 

It was worth it for the way Matt stared at him, eyes wide, clearly impressed. 

“Close your eyes.” He asked. 

And Matt did. 

Mello used his pointer finger to drag ash across Matt’s eyelid. It was still slightly warm, but Matt didn’t flinch either. 

Something about his unwavering obedience made Mello’s stomach feel alive with butterflies; a feeling he shut down quickly. 

Still, when Matt’s eyes fluttered open again, he couldn’t deny he looked good. It didn’t look as though he was wearing anything more interesting than messy, grey eyeshadow, but they both knew the truth. It was an intimate little secret between them, sealed in the charcoal grey that lined Matt’s big eyes. 

“That was cool.” Matt said, grinning. 

Mello rolled his eyes, but he was smirking too. Yeah, it was a little cool. He was always cool, though. This was nothing special. 

He took the rosary he wore every day from around his neck and looped it around Matt’s. It was black, glittering with tiny little rubies, and a most prized possession that didn’t feel great to part with... and he wasn’t wholly sure Matt was deserving of it, but it finished the look, and that was all that mattered. 

“You look acceptable. Don’t fuck this up for me.” 

“I won’t!” 

The shoot began, and to his credit, Matt was delivering. He had learnt by now exactly what sullen expression Mello wanted and the poses he liked. The only issue, of course, was the outfit- but honestly, it all looked deliberate. Matt didn’t look out of place in the archaic graveyard.  

He was just starting to feel optimistic about this shoot after all- and then came the questions.

Every time he was about to take what he thought was going to be the perfect shot, Matt would open his stupid mouth and start peppering him with personal questions. Mello was completely at a loss as to why Matt had any interest in where he studied, or if he had any pets, or what he was going to have for lunch today. And try as he might, he could not seem to get through to him that they had limited time before the good light was gone and they’d have to pack up. 

And thus, the usual dynamic returned. Mello was grumpy, and Matt seemed to find this positively charming, because he just started talking more and more. 

“Do you watch movies?” 

“Do. Turn to the left a bit.” 

“What, like not at all? Never?” Matt asked, not turning to the left. 

“Turn to the left.”

“You’ve seen the basics, though, like Fight Club?” 

“Matt! Turn!” 

“Come on- everyone’s seen Fight Club. Are you telling me you’ve never seen-” 

Mello advanced. He dropped his camera, letting it swing on the strap around his neck, and then he was forcibly manhandling Matt into position. If Matt couldn’t turn left, Mello would make him turn left. 

And of course, Matt found this all very fun. He was grinning as Mello moulded his pliant limbs into position, smiling his cheeky smile only inches away from Mello’s face, and he hated how that smile made his insides squirm. 

No. 

He released Matt, gave him a glare that he hoped said ‘if you move, I will murder you with my bare hands’, and returned to his spot to take pictures. 

The rest of the shoot went smoothly; they managed to wrap up before the sun got high, and Matt only had a couple more pressing questions he felt the need to ask… but Mello felt unnerved for the rest of the shoot, and the growing warmth in his chest whenever Matt flashed a smile his way was completely to blame. 

+++++

The next time they shot together was only a couple of weeks later. 

It was only a small thing, low stakes, a request from a small brand, but this time, Mello was in no position to say no, and so the date was set. He sent the perfunctory email to Matt: model release, photo consent, and of course, dress code, along with another mood board that would go disregarded.  

He didn’t want to think about how many hours he had spent curating those poor, unheeded moodbirds. 

He expected Matt to be late and, of course, he was, coming sauntering into the studio almost twenty minutes after they were supposed to begin.  

Not for the first time, the sight of Matt’s outfit stopped Mello in his tracks, but not only because of how basic and uninspired it was, but because of the huge Nike logo emblazoned across the front. 

Mello could have punched him. 

“Are you fucking serious, Matt?” He snapped by way of greeting. 

Matt just looked at him, clearly confused. 

“What?” 

“Oh, I’m sorry, do you want me to lose my job? Is that it? Has that been your plan all along?” 

“Why would I want-?” 

“Your t-shirt!” Mello jabbed an accusatory finger at the incriminating item of clothing, “I can’t take pictures for a company with another brand’s logo right across your fucking front!” 

“Oh!” Matt grinned in understanding and dropped his backpack from his shoulder. “Damn, you gotta relax, man. I brought a spare top! Don’t worry!” 

Mello exhaled in relief, his shoulders easing up just a fraction- but his relief was short-lived because Matt was pulling a ziploc bag from his backpack. 

“Do you want a space cake? Or… space brownie, I guess. I made these for you- because you’re always so fucking tense.”

“What the fuck!?” Mello hissed, snatching the bag from Matt and shoving it right back in his backpack, covering it with whatever other rubbish was in there, “No! I don’t want your fucking drugs- Dear God, you better never, ever tell anybody you’ve been bringing me drugs. Holy shit!” 

“Damn.” Matt sighed, zipping up his backpack with a pout. “I knew I shouldn’t have told you what was in them.”

“Oh right, so you were just planning on drugging me? Good to know.”

“Okay, okay.. It sounds bad when you say it like that. I just thought we could chill!” 

“I don’t do chill. Change your shirt and stand on the X.” He marched away from Matt, leaving him to change in silence whilst he fiddled around with his camera settings. This guy really was crazy, waving his drugs around like that. 

He was lucky Mello was so cool, or he could have gotten him in real trouble. 

He didn’t really care about drugs. He was supportive of them in fact! But only the glamorous uppers, like coke or speed, the ones that made his models fast and exciting- there was nothing glamorous about homemade edibles. 

Matt took his spot and the shoot began. 

As he squinted through the viewfinder, barking directions that Matt only semi-followed, his mind kept wandering back to those brownies. 

Now, he could have blamed it on the fact that he’d skipped lunch and so was feeling a little peckish, or on the fact that shooting with Matt always was a stressful endeavour… but the truth was, he just sort of wanted to get high. 

Clearly, Matt knew his vices, because a chocolate brownie was something he rarely resisted, and even though it wasn’t the most sophisticated route of administration, drugs were drugs. 

“Fine. One.” 

Matt’s eyes lit up, and he bounded over to his backpack, all excited little comments and big smiles at the prospect of doing drugs with his photographer. Mello rolled his eyes. It was pathetic. 

This whole thing was really stupid. 

The brownies were surprisingly tasty- so good in fact, that Mello doubted they’d be very effective, but Matt told him he was only allowed one, assuring him that it would definitely be strong enough. 

“I knew you had an air of Jesse Pinkman to you. These are really good.” 

“I know right? Baking is my hidden talent. Hey, do you wanna know who my Walter White is?” 

“Sure.” 

“Betty Crocker.” 

Mello snorted. “Of course. You loser. You can’t call baking your hidden talent then, anybody can crack an egg into box mix.” 

“Uh no, I’m especially good at egg cracking, I’m a talented box mix user! I’m surprised you couldn’t tell anyway, I thought you were supposed to be some big chocolate guy.” 

“... I could tell.”

“No, you couldn’t!” 

“Yes, I could. I was waiting to see if you were going to tell me yourself.”

“Oh yeah, sure.” Matt teased.

“Go back to your spot. These pictures aren’t going to take themselves.” 

+++++

It took about an hour for them to kick in, an hour and a half for them to kick in properly, and by the two-hour mark, they were well within the grips of the brownies. 

Mello had taken off his boots and jacket and was in full creative flow, convinced the THC had unlocked a valuable, expressive part of his mind that simply had to be explored. 

Matt was all too happy to indulge, apparently a lot better at taking direction when stoned- or maybe Mello was just more lax about how well he complied. Either way, he was on the floor, giggling lazily as Mello towered above him, feet on either side of his body, taking pictures from above. 

“Try to look more…” Mello started, but the words were just out of reach. “Corpse-like.” 

Matt nodded intensely, really taking it on board, and then closed his eyes, letting his tongue lol unattractively out of his mouth. 

“Ew, what the fuck? I meant a hot corpse, obviously.” 

“Right, yeah, hold on!” 

Matt looked thoughtful for a moment, pondering how one made themselves look like a hot corpse, before closing his eyes and making an overly exaggerated pout face that sent Mello into startled giggles. 

For all the jokes he’d heard about it, he’d never actually been blue-steeled in his own studio before. 

“Not what you meant?” Matt asked, blinking his eyes open. He was smiling up at Mello now, something hopeful in his eyes, like he was surprised by how well this whole exchange was going and he didn’t want to fuck it up. 

Mello shook his head and sat down on the floor beside Matt, still laughing a little breathlessly, camera in hand. 

He took a picture of Matt’s hopeful smile. The picture was unfocused and taken at way too close a range; it would never make it into a magazine or portfolio, but he felt the need to capture this moment, even if he would delete the pictures in an embarrassed frenzy the next morning. 

“Not really.” 

“Damn… I never know how to do what you want. That’s why you hate me, right?” 

“I don’t hate you.”

“Really? Not even a tiny bit?” 

“Well… maybe a little.” 

Matt groaned and flung his hands over his face. “Fuck.” 

“It’s alright. I like that you brought me brownies.” He pulled Matt’s hands away from his face and scrutinised him. He looked genuinely a little sheepish, and his big eyes were bloodshot and reddened from his high. It sort of looked like he’d been crying, if you didn’t know the truth. He took another picture. 

“Yeah, but… I kinda wish you just liked me.”

“Why?” 

“I don’t know- I respect your shit, man. I told you that already.” 

“Oh yeah. I thought you were lying.” 

“No! That’s why I keep booking with you! That guy the other week didn’t really have a mix-up, I just… told him you’d cancelled on him and came instead.” 

Mello paused. That was a lot to take in. 

He realised he had a very strongly worded email that he now needed to apologise for. Great. 

“Okay, that’s psychotic, Matt.” 

“Psychotic or like… kind of romantic?” 

Mello burst out in surprised laughter, and Matt sat up now, pouting indignantly. 

“Hey- it’s not funny!” 

“I know, I know. Just- you don’t want to do romantic stuff for me.” 

“I do!” 

“No, you don’t.”

“Why not?” 

“I’m not a romantic person.” 

“I think you are! Your photography is definitely romantic.” 

“Even so, I’m not. You’re… nice; you deserve a nice boy who likes your stupid clothes and doesn’t want to wring your neck every time you speak. I am not that person.” 

“Well… what if I don’t want a nice boy?” 

“You’re a masochist then.” 

“Maybe! Would you like that?” 

Mello looked at him carefully. Matt looked completely earnest, like he really would self-proclaim as a complete masochist at even the slightest inkling that Mello was into pain. That look made Mello want to squirm with the intensity of it; he was used to having domination over people, his models, but that control usually ended once the camera was back in its case and the flood lights were switched off. 

“I’m not getting into this with you.” 

“Why?” 

“It's unprofessional.” 

“You’re doing drugs with me. That’s like a total abuse of power,” Matt sighed deeply. “I didn’t want to do this, but like… I might have to report this.” 

Well, this was a side to Matt he hadn’t expected. It was interesting, even though he could tell he wasn’t putting his whole heart into the threat. 

Still, he appreciated the sentiment. 

“Are you blackmailing me?” 

“Maybe, is it working?” 

“Well, seeing as you brought the drugs and all of the evidence is in your bag… not really.” 

“Oh. Fuck.” 

He looked so genuinely upset that Mello had to take pity on him. 

Because that was all that it was, pity. 

Nothing else. 

He took Matt’s jaw in his hand, tilted his head towards him, and pressed a gentle kiss against his lips. 

“That was an abuse of power. You could report me for that.” 

Matt stared at him in stunned silence for a moment, just long enough for Mello to begin to worry that he’d done the wrong thing, but then he lunged towards him, all greedy hands and hungry lips. 

They kissed aggressively, making up for all the pent-up frustrations that had plagued them every shoot. Matt was a hair-puller, apparently, but it was okay because Mello was a biter, and so they rivalled each other in sadistic pleasure after all anyway. 

By the time the shoot ended, they were both sporting serious hickeys, and most of the pictures Mello had taken were utterly unusable… and yet, all the same, they both agreed it had been the most successful shoot so far. 

+++++

Everybody knew Mello had a favourite model, though they weren’t really sure why it was him.

He was the same redhead who showed up in so many shoots, sometimes alone, sometimes with other models.

He looked different from everybody else; scruffy in a charming sort of way, and whilst he was undeniably attractive, he was just never quite the same as the others. There was nothing particularly dark about him, no morosity, no sullen broodiness that the other models all had. 

He was mouthy, too. Sometimes rude, sometimes cheeky. Mello would ask him week after week to wear the right clothes and to follow instructions well, but he never did. 

Sometimes, that gave the other models an incentive to be a bit rebellious themselves, to push back against Mello’s overly strict rules and boundaries. That was a mistake they’d always regret though. Mello’s mercy did not extend to anybody other than Matt, he was always out for blood. 

And though they’d never announced they were a couple, the beautiful, pale, long-limbed goth girls who Mello shot with whispered in gossip blogs that he’d never tried it on with any of them before. And that he got very snappy if their hands ever lingered on Matt for a beat too long during group shoots, and the way they shared cigarettes like joints in the smoking area was just a little too intimate. 

It was just enough to spark rumours amongst those interested, and provide a little bit of on-set gossip for the girls to giggle about behind their hands, but nobody pried too hard. 

They knew Mello would have their necks if they tried. 

+++++

This was supposed to be a big break. 

Sort of. It wasn’t that he needed a 'big break' exactly… He was doing well on his own. Freelance now, financially stable, fulfilled with his career.

… But he could always do better. Be more successful. He was just driven like that; the sky and everything above it was the limit. 

So this was the sky then, his big break into the mainstream that he was never really expected to have. He’d been approached by a big makeup company, one that proudly catered to alternative audiences, and asked to take pictures for their upcoming foundation release.

He’d seen their campaigns before; they were always dramatic, with a lot of corpse paint and bold, gothic glamour. It fit nice and snug into the little niche he’d spent so many years perfecting; he knew just how to photograph and edit this kind of dark makeup. It was his thing. 

And as if it couldn’t get anymore perfect- they wanted a cute- yet boring- guy too, to contrast the corpse-painted guys and girls, and now that was definitely his thing. He had just the right cute and yet boring guy right at his disposal; he hadn’t had to convince the creative director at all, just a couple of pictures of Matt and she was sold.

It was strange sending Matt an email telling him to dress as his usual self after so many years of campaigning against that godforsaken jeans and tank top duo- because yes, he still sent him reminders of the style he actually wanted, even if it always did fall on deaf ears. Doing otherwise would mean admitting defeat. 

The studio was busy, buzzing with life. The client was so big that he’d had to enlist a lot of other professionals this time; makeup artists, stylists, lighting technicians- there was even a Behind-The-Scenes videographer documenting the whole process. Needless to say, it was incredibly stressful. He just really needed everything to go to plan today.

One of his regular models had bought him a black coffee, which he sipped on in between barked orders. Everything was set up and ready, pretty much; the only thing they had to wait on was, of course, Matt. Even though Mello had told him the shoot started twenty-five minutes before it actually had, he was still late, and as special as their workplace relationship had become over the years, Mello was still really pissed off. 

There was a lull in the noise of the studio, a small pause in the chatter that was just quiet enough for Mello to hear repeated whispers of “Who is that?” 

He turned to see what everybody was staring at. 

There, silhouetted in the doorway, was a figure cloaked in black. 

Matt was wearing a black shirt with billowing sleeves, dripping in silver chains and necklaces, and huge chunky black boots that Mello himself was jealous of. What topped it off was his corpse paint, a stark white base with perfectly precise big black eyes and lips, so professional it looked as though it could only have been done by someone with years of experience at this craft. 

From head to toe, he was a macabre dream. 

He looked hot. 

Mello was fucking furious.