A/N:
Originally a oneshot (I'm in the middle of another DN story), but then I decided to add more Matt. So there will be a few more chapters. Maybe just one more.
SPOILERS FOR MELLO'S NAME.
Takes place somewhere between manga volumes 3 and…6? Sure...
Wammy's is by an ocean and a forest in this fic. It just needed to be.
If I owned Matt, Mello, and L, would I be writing this? No…I'd be doing….other…things.
Enjoy!
"Mello, Mello! Lookit, Mel, I beat the high score!" Matt's lips twisted into a grin. "I beat YOUR high score!"
Mello's 12-year-old eyes looked up from the old crime records he was examining.
"Heh, not for long! Don't you worry, tomorrow morning I'll knock your pathetic score right off the screen!" His voice was light and happy, but there was a note in it that isn't usually heard in children. Chocolate ice cream with coffee bits sprinkled throughout, blemishing the innocence.
Matt looked at Mello's furrowed brows.
"Tomorrow?"
Even without sparing another glance at his friend, Mello could tell his face had fallen.
"How come you won't play now, Mel? We finished dinner already, and bedtime's not for another 2 hours? Besides," Matt added with a touch of satisfaction, "it's Saturday! How come you're working?"
"I have to keep working, Matt. I have to get better, y'know." Mello smiled, his oddly effeminate lips pushing familiar dimples into his cheeks. "You should be studying too, Matt! You barely even touched your vocabulary words this week!"
Matt rolled over onto his stomach and began to load a new game. If the vocabulary word wasn't "battle", "slayer", or "victory", usually he wasn't interested.
"I'll do it tomorrow…" he said absent-mindedly. "AFTER I beat your high score again!"
Mello chuckled and returned to the crime records, his ears well-trained in blocking out the various electronic pings, "Checkpoint!"s and screams coming from Matt's corner.
A sort of cozy peace filled the room, and both boys basked in it, Matt lazily defeating zombies and Mello feverishly learning about alimony. Until—
Knock. Knock.
Both the boys looked up in surprise. No one ever knocked this late, not even Near or Linda.
"Come in?" Mello called. Matt (omg) paused his game.
And in walked the catalyst that changed the course of their lives forever.
Eating a chocolate-covered strawberry.
"L!" They both shot upright, Mello straightening his shirt.
L smiled gently.
"Hello, boys. I hope you are having an enjoyable evening? It certainly looks like it…"
Matt blushed and tried to hide the Playstation controller under the dresser.
"Y-yes, thank you," Mello stuttered.
"You are probably wondering why exactly I am here. I have not visited Wammy's in a very long time." L continued in his even tone. "I have to speak to you." He was looking at Mello.
"Me?" It was almost a squeak, and L's smile grew slightly.
"Yes. But I have something for you too." Now he was looking at Matt, and holding out what seemed to be a large bundle of—
"Video games?!" Matt exclaimed in surprise. Manners forgotten, he grabbed the thick package out of L's hand. "T-t-t-tha—THANK YOU!!" His face was the epitome of childhood ecstasy, as if Christmas had come early. Something clenched at L's heart at the contrast: Matt's unbridled youthful joy next to Mello's solemn eyes. But nothing showed on the young man's face
" You are very welcome. And now," he turned to Mello, "would you please come for a walk with me? I have already cleared it with Roger."
Mello's face nearly exploded in a grin.
"With you? Sure! Y-yes!"
L smiled down at him.
"Then if you will excuse us, Matt?"
Matt nodded mutely, ripping wrappers off little cartridges of Matt-heaven.
Mello followed his idol out the doorway, through the hall, and into the woods Wammy's. The warm twilight caressed his round cheeks and tousled his flaxen hair. The falling sun painted the trees with gold and glanced off Mello's head.
"We are going to a special spot of mine to talk, okay? L turned at the child scrambling to keep up with his long legs and his breath caught in his throat. The gleam of the sun…Mello's face seemed to be encircled by a shimmering halo.
"Okay," said the lips from beneath the halo. Mello noticed that L was carrying something. It looked like a box of some sort. He wondered about it for a while, but then he had to concentrate on where he was going. He had never been to this part of the woods before, and it took a lot of effort to not trip over tree roots. The trees cast long shadows on the illuminated forest floor. Just when Mello opened his breathless mouth to ask how much farther, he knew they had arrived.
"We're here," L said, though he could tell that Mello knew.
They had reached a cliff. The trees stopped about 20 feet behind the edge, as if afraid to go too close. It was sunset now, the fiery pink orb hovering what seemed to be inches over the horizon, setting the sky and the sea glowing fiercely with color.
L looked at the halo-clad boy next to him and blinked to get rid of the hotness pooling the corner of his eyes. He looked back at the sunset to distract himself
"It's beautiful, isn't it?
Mello stood, transfixed. Growing up what he thought was the heart of London, he had never seen a sunset like this before. He never would have guessed it was walking distance from his makeshift home.
"No."
L cocked his head to the side and stuck his pointer finger on his bottom lip.
"No?"
"No," Mello repeated. He was still staring at the sight in front of him. "It's not beautiful. Beautiful is what you call a pretty flower. Look, L. Look at the colors." L didn't. He looked at Mello, but Mello was too caught up to notice. "It's not just red and pink and blue. It's more than that. Lilac. Tiger lily. Bluebell. Rose. And just a hint of baby's breath." He tore his eyes away and stared at L, his smile shining in the fading sunlight. "Don't you see? Tonight, the sky is a garden."
On the outside, L smiled back. On the outside, he ruffled the halo of hair, sat on the grass, and opened the box he had been carrying.
On the inside, L's heart was breaking. How could he ask such a child to do such a thing. How could he ask him to---
"L?"
"Yes?"
"Are those…strawberries?" Mello looked into the box.
L patted the grass beside him.
"Come, sit. I brought them for us to share while we talk."
Mello sat gingerly next to the man he hoped to be just like one day.
"And they're not JUST strawberries. They're chocolate covered strawberries. I've taken a particular liking to them," L said.
Mello picked up a strawberry and popped it into his mouth. Though the strawberry was cold, it somehow tasted warm in his mouth. The chocolate was comforting. He never really ate chocolate much; there wasn't much of it in Wammy's. You had to make a special trip into town to get it.
"Wow," he exclaimed quietly. "Chocolate is really good!"
"I thought you'd like them," L chuckled.
There they sat for a few minutes, munching softly and watching the "garden" slowly turn darker and darker. L couldn't help but notice that as the sky faded, so did Mello's halo.
"Um..what was it you wanted to talk to me about?" Mello's timid voice broke the silence.
L didn't want to do this, but he had to. He had to he had to he had to. There was literally no other choice. He had thought through everything – every other possibility! But this was the only way it would work. Here in the haven of the cliff, the outside world seemed faraway, Kira only a fairytale demon that mothers told their children about to make them behave. The truth was, people were dying, there were probably dying right now. And this was the only way to make the killings stop.
"L?"
-----------------------------
"Awww, they've been gone almost an hour," Matt announced to Mario and Luigi. With a sigh, he switched off the game and turned to his homework. "Might as well…there's no one to play with…"
He sat at the desk in front of the window, not needing to switch on the lamp, as the setting sun provided him with enough light. Matt opened the vocabulary section of his workbook and began copying definitions.
"Sunset," he murmured to himself, as he wrote it painstakingly into his notebook. His tongue poked out of his mouth in concentration. He finished writing the final word, held up his work, and grinned. "That's enough for tonight! Back to Marioworld…"
Matt planted himself back on the floor, neglecting the other 19 vocabulary words on his list. The light from the window shone on the solitary definition in Matt's scrawl.
"The setting or descent of the sun below the western horizon in the evening. Often linked to endings, often symbolizes death. [eg: The death of the sun, the death of the day."
Um…I realize L kinda sounds like a pedo at times….that was not my intent…and I will NOT be pursuing that story line in any way. Anyways, yeah I think I'll continue this…but let me know what YOU think -