Author's Note: Yay! Second story being back on . Don't really know what's up with my writing style in this one; I kind of don't like it, but I guess I'm still getting back into the writing groove. Anyway - please review. Because the whole "story stats" thing is wicked depressing when you can see how many people actually looked at your story compared to how many actually reviewed. Haha - worst feature ever.

Hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: Don't own anything! :(

Thickets

Morning time was the best time of the day, in Matt's opinion. If it weren't for his bedmate, however, he would be inclined to disagree, as the whole 'surveillance on the Kira case' thing didn't allow him to get much sleep on a nightly basis; having to go to sleep after whomever they were watching and then only sleeping for about four hours to be awake before anyone else was for surveillance. However, morning was the only time of the day when Matt could look at Mello in the early morning sun and appreciate how pretty he was without getting hit and asked what the "fucking look" was for.

In the beginning, their living situation had been a little awkward. Matt had answered a call from Mello to help him with the Kira case, and after stalling for a while because he was pissed Mello left Wammy's without telling him, Matt finally went and found him. Unfortunately, at the time when Matt finally got around to showing up, Mello had just nearly blown himself up, and that had put a damper on getting things done.

Mello had already had the apartment they were currently staying in. He had set up the surveillance equipment to the best of his ability, but Matt knew he was hopeless at it, and so he had silently fixed everything, while Mello watched and huffed about how he was "getting to that," and he knew "that went with that."

When Matt had first moved in, Mello had apologized about the place being so small and that there was only one bedroom, to which Matt had volunteered to sleep on the couch and how it wasn't a big deal, but Mello had insisted that he would feel bad, because Matt was taking care of him, and that he'd sleep on the couch, although that was probably just the painkillers talking, because Mello was never that nice.

Eventually they decided that they'd both just sleep in the bed, because after being roommates with someone for the greater part of your life, these sorts of things don't really bother you. There were a great many awkward moments where one of them would roll over on the other one, or they would wake up cuddling, and they would both break apart hastily in the morning and mutter apologies. Or well, Matt would mutter apologies and Mello would tell Matt to fuck off.

After a week or two of doing this, they eventually both just sort of got used to it, and would roll off each other in the mornings and slowly allow themselves to wake up. And then one morning, Mello didn't move off Matt at all. He had muttered something about how he was "too fucking tired to move," and Matt had taken the opportunity as an invitation to kiss him, and when he didn't get punched in the face, he decided it was okay to do that. He had always had a sort of crush on his best friend, but he had previously justified it with the fact that his best friend looked like a girl. And Matt supposed he did sort of still look like a girl, but he looked more like Mello than anything else. So Matt concluded that he just liked Mello. And Matt didn't know many girls who walked around with scars on half of their faces, even if Mello had tried to put concealer on it for the first two weeks after it healed.

This particular morning was two months prior to the first kiss Matt had initiated. They had grown more comfortable with the whole cuddling and kissing thing since then, and the first time they had sex led Matt to question the exact nature of their relationship. Granted, the sex was initiated with a bit of alcohol, but they were both coherent enough to speak words.

"Hey Mello, can I call you my boyfriend?" Matt had asked, and Mello had looked up at him, pissed that he stopped in the middle of sex to ask him that.

"You can call me whatever the fuck you want as long as you KEEP FUCKING MOVING," Mello had responded.

Matt had since held this against Mello, calling him "Princess" at certain points in time, and consequently got things thrown at him. He was usually pretty good at dodging them. Good gamer reflexes. Or just good Mello reflexes.

But explanations of how Matt got most of his bruises aside, Matt woke up on this particular morning before Mello, as he usually did, and carefully rubbed his eyes, so as not to wake up Mello, whose head was resting on Matt's chest.

Matt looked down at Mello, and smiled at how beautiful Mello looked when he was sleeping. He would never tell Mello this though, because even if he knew Mello liked compliments, he would still get yelled at, and besides, it was fucking corny. So he kept such thoughts to himself. He softly raised a hand, and ran his fingers through Mello's hair.

The redhead cast a sidelong glance over to their bedside table, which was where his pack of cigarettes currently was. This usually happened every morning. He would want a cigarette when he first got up, but Mello insisted on keeping the nightstand on his side of the bed because he was closest to the door and he kept his gun on it. So Matt had to suffer every morning and wait for Mello to get up, because he didn't want to move and wake Mello up. Oh, his thankless sacrifices.

Matt would have also liked to pass the time until Mello woke up playing video games, but his DS was currently ALSO on the nightstand, right next to his cigarettes, lying beside his goggles and Mello's rosary and a chocolate bar. The only real signs of their personalities and experiences currently on them, Matt determined, were his Nintendo boxers and Mello's scar. And unfortunately, while he did have video game characters on his boxers, he could not play with that. Well, he supposed he COULD, but he didn't think Mello would much appreciate it if he woke up to him masturbating.

So instead he was forced to lie there for the next ten minutes, staring at the ceiling and playing with Mello's hair, thinking about how much he wanted a cigarette and how much he had to take a piss and calculating how long it would take him to get to the next save point in Zelda.

Mello eventually woke up, and Matt felt the movements of his eyelashes on his chest before he actually saw Mello wake up.

"Good morning, Mels!" Matt greeted cheerily, thinking about how soon he'd be able to piss and smoke, kissing Mello on the forehead.

". . . what the fuck? Were you just playing with my hair? DID YOU JUST KISS MY FOREHEAD?!"

"Uh . . . yeah, now move."

"You're so fucking lame. I don't feel like moving,"

"But Mels," Matt whined. "I really need to pee and I really need a cigarette and maybe I can play some Zelda before anyone wakes up on the surveillance cameras."

". . . are you fucking serious?" Mello questioned, but rolled over and Matt hopped out of bed, grabbing his cigarettes off the nightstand "And don't call me Mels."

"Okay, sorry PRINCESS," Matt said as he was at the door, so he could safely be out of the doorway by the time anything was thrown.

Mello signed and asked, "Aren't you gonna take your DS too? I bet Link misses you."

"Shut up! Link's more badass than you!"

"Link is not more badass than me! Link doesn't have a scar from blowing shit up!"

"Yeah, cause Link's not retarded."

Matt soon found himself on the receiving end of a particular nasty glare.

Mello grabbed his chocolate off the nightstand and mumbled, "I want a new boyfriend."

"I hear Near's still single!" And with that, Matt was off down the hallway, giggling to himself.

"I fucking hate you!"