Vigilante | ✔

Part II: Sidekicks

Never in his life had he expected to be waiting on the rooftop of an old apartment building with a bag of drugs in his pocket.

It was cold that night, his hands feeling numb even as he refused to draw them out into the crisp night air. Standing outside, on top of an old building didn't really help matters. He had to wonder if Matthew had asked him to meet there just to piss him off. That was something that Eli could definitely see the man doing.

He stood there for a while longer, looking around, before he decided to just leave. Eli had other things to do. Better things than standing around in the freezing cold waiting for some masked weirdo to swoop down.

"Hey."

The sudden sound of the man's voice nearly made Eli jump in alarm. As it was, he was able to hold back on that and instead grit his teeth in irritation, turning to look at Matthew with a slight glare. He wasn't surprised to see that the masked man didn't look the least bit apologetic.

"You're late," he managed to say through his annoyance.

"Yeah, I had to stop for a bit a couple of blocks back," Matthew said, not giving any other details. Eli supposed he'd run into another chance to look 'heroic'.

"Right, and you couldn't have picked a better spot to have me wait for you?" he asked, crossing his arms over his chest as a sign of his irritation and because it offered a bit more warmth. "Seriously, why did you pick this place?"

"Don't complain," Matthew said simply, and Eli could tell he was trying not to grin. "It's on your way home, no one ever comes here, and you get a nice view while you wait," he said. Eli just tried not to punch the guy. He'd noticed he had trouble controlling that particular instinct. So far — and miraculously — he'd managed.

"How the hell do you even know it's on my way home?" It was immediately after he'd asked that Eli realized he didn't really want to know. "Wait, you know what, nevermind," he said, effectively stopping Matthew, who looked like he was about to answer with something that would just make Eli want to push him off the roof.

Instead, he dug in his pocket and tossed the little bag with white powder. Matthew caught it easily.

"Good job, I didn't think you'd actually manage it," he said. Eli rolled his eyes — he hadn't thought so either.

When Matthew had scared him nearly half to death in his apartment just a few nights earlier, he never would have guessed what he would be asked to do as a 'favor'. Much less that he would only have to go as far as his own school to complete said favor. Eli tried not to be too shocked, it wasn't like he hadn't heard about college kids dealing. He just hadn't thought it would be his friend's roommate.

"You're not gonna beat up the guy, are you?" Eli asked, shifting nervously on his feet. He knew what the guy was doing was wrong, but he still felt guilty about helping Matthew catch him.

"No, but this will help clean things up in your school," Matthew said, noting the younger man's discomfort. "Besides, I'm not after him. I'm hoping to get someone higher up than him," he added. Eli supposed that was a good thing, so he handed over the slip of paper with the information of the dealer. Matthew tucked it away in his pocket.

"Why are you even bothering with this?" Eli couldn't help but ask. "I mean, shouldn't the cops be dealing with these things?" Matthew just smiled and shook his head.

"Don't worry about that Eli," he said. "You should go home, it's getting late. You have an early class tomorrow, right?"

Eli blinked, surprised at Matthew's knowledge of his schedule. "How the hell do you know that?!" he asked, decidedly creeped out.

"You always talk about school in the coffee shop," Matthew said with a shrug.

"And you just happen to remember my schedule," Eli said, unconvinced.

"What can I say, I'm a good listener," the masked man said easily.

"You're creepy, that's what you are," Eli countered. "And by the way, why are you always following me?" He hadn't had the chance to ask him before, but Eli wouldn't forget this time.

"Because you choose the worst streets to walk through on your way home," Matthew said with a dull tone. Eli tried not to blush at that. It wasn't his fault he was too broke to live in a nice neighborhood. "I figured I could take a break to make sure you made it home in one piece."

"Yeah, well, it's still creepy," Eli said, trying not to wince at how lame that sounded. Matthew laughed, too used to Eli's insults to be offended.

"I'll keep that in mind, now go home," he said. Eli decided he was too tired to keep talking to Matthew and began to make his way to the door that lead inside and to the stairs. "By the way, you make a great sidekick."

Eli stopped and scowled, turning back to look at Matthew with a glare. He wasn't surprised in the least to find him gone.

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11/21/2016 EDIT: Lookit the awesome art by  @AstonishMint of Eli and Matthew! They look so cute! * u *

Hello there lovely readers! Hope you all like this chapter, though it is decidedly shorter than the last. I suppose I didn't feel much like writing back when I worked on this.

Pardon the lateness of this, I had hoped to post it earlier today, but it has been a pain to find the chapters for this. I, in my infinite wisdom, decided to write excerpts of this both in my computer and in my twenty or so notebooks. Now I'm stuck piecing all of them together. Curse you past me!

Ahem, but yes, thanks for reading!