i.
"We're going to Rome," says the blonde-haired teenager.
The other boy looks up; a muted drowning sound from his game announces a loss of life. "Rome?" he asks. "What's in Rome?"
The blonde boy doesn't answer, only hands the plane ticket to his friend and turns back to the television, fingering the crucifix at his neck.
ii.
"Great timing," comments Matt. "It's Good fucking Friday."
"My mistake," says Mello, but Mello never admits his mistakes, so Matt realizes that the other boy still thinks he can lie to his only friend in the world.
iii.
The light filters in through the broken shutters, illuminating the small room, sending dancing rays of light across the walls, refracted from the humble plastic chandelier hanging from the ceiling. Matt is awake but he doesn't know if his friend is aware because Mello is carefully avoiding looking at him, his eyes focused stonily on the ground, as if ashamed. He isn't wearing his usual leather-studded skull-and-crossbones attire, but his crucifix still hangs from his neck, like a thin, wire-like chain around his pale throat. The clothes he ends up in are comparatively normal, which is very strange for him. Music begins to float through the window, the sounds of a thousand voices joining in adoration. Matt lays there, his eyes on his friend, and he knows that Mello, for some reason, intends to join them.
Mello turns, completely dressed, and heads towards the door. Matt asks softly, "Where are you going?" before he can leave.
Mello stops. Without turning around, he says, "A walk," because if there is one thing in the world that he can't admit, this must be it.
iv.
It's night. The hotel's cheapest room came with a single bed; they've been switching every night. This time, Mello sleeps on the hard mattress, and Matt lies on pillows and sheets on the slightly harder floor. Matt stares up at the ceiling. He takes a moment to think about what they will do, and what they have done. He sees Mello's hand hanging halfway off the bed. He wonders if Mello sleeps with that crucifix around his neck, if it presses into his chest while he sleeps. He wonders if that crucifix has punctured Mello's stone cold heart, and he thinks maybe someday he'll need a crucifix of his own.
He says, "Mello?"
The other boy shifts slightly. "What."
"Do you believe in God?"
A rigid silence. Mello might as well have stopped breathing, he is so completely unresponsive.
He finds it within himself to ask, "Do you?"
Matt thinks about this for a long while. And then, slowly, he says, "I guess that mostly depended on your answer, actually."
Mello sits up and looks at him, lying on the floor there. Matt shrugs as much as he can, lying down as he is. Mello looks at him for a long moment, his form silhouetted in the darkness. Then, slowly, he lays back down, pressing his head deeply into the pillows, closing his eyes. "Why do you have to be such a big fucking idiot all the time, Matty?"
But they are both quiet then, and Matt goes to sleep and he is happy that they came to Rome, even if it was only for three short days.
Um, so I went to Rome on vacation last week and I just had so much inspiration. And they were setting up for Easter, and you know how I feel about the Death Note characters and religion. So. Yes. Tell me what you think and whether or not this makes any sense to you.