WARNING: Light/Mello, cursing, some steaminess

The Fourth Room

They only meet on Saturdays.

There is an apartment- he thinks that Mello is renting it, although it is entirely possible that the place is abandoned and that Mello has simply appropriated it- in a part of the city where the buildings, like the life spans, are shorter. There are none of the usual household necessities there- but then Mello is not a usual household person. What the apartment does have is a room with a mattress; a room with a toilet and a sink with one tap which squeaks and another which only dispenses irregular bursts of rusty air; a room with a microwave and an elderly refrigerator; and a fourth room, the only one which they have made their own additions to- Light has brought a folding table and some chairs, and Mello has brought chocolate.

Neither of them lives in the apartment, but it is where they meet. They never arrange their meetings in advance: other than the unspoken rule that Saturday is the Day, they come and go as they want. Light has spent enough time waiting there on his own to know that Mello enjoys the informality of this arrangement, and also to suspect that the situation is reversed on occasion as well.

All in all, it is a deal that works. It is not a comfortable place, but it is not intended to be. It is simply an isolated place, away from both of their lives, where sometimes they both happen to be.

Today, Mello has brought alcohol. Light can smell it as soon as he opens the door. There are no carpets or cushions here to absorb the smell, but the drinks Mello likes are of the sort that evaporate upon contact with air. It hangs in a heady vapour, stings Light's eyes and slowly eats away at the plaster on the walls.

Mello is sitting on the floor in the fourth room, ignoring the chairs with a stubbornness only equalled by boulders and weeds, contemplating the windowsill and holding a bottle like it is his only weapon. Hardly any of the liquid inside is missing- but then again, even inhaling in the same room as an opened bottle of the substance would be enough to make one woozy for days.

"Why do you drink that stuff?" Light says, sitting in one of the chairs and unlacing his shoes.

"It's cheap," Mello replies, without having so much as glanced in his direction even once so far, "for the number of units you get."

"It's vile."

"Have you ever tried it?"

"Well-"

"Then shut up."

Light rests his chin on his hand. Mello seems to be in an exceptionally bad mood- but then, he never seems happy to see another human being at all. Light wonders, not for the first time, why the blond even bothers coming here.

Mello is sitting with his legs slightly bent in front of him and his elbows resting on his knees. His back is almost completely turned to the door, and what with the way he is leaning forwards and the amount his hair has grown over the last few months, Light is entirely unable to see his face. It is clear from the set of his shoulders, however, that he does not want to be disturbed- so Light says nothing, simply watching Mello's hands tilt the bottle restlessly from side to side without once lifting it.

"Why do you use those chairs?" Mello mutters after a while.

"Why don't you?"

Mello shrugs, making his shoulder blades lift and move together. "I don't see the point."

"That's what I don't understand."

"Why bother? What's wrong with the floor?"

Light says nothing. He has suspected for a while now that Mello's extensive rejection of chairs is nothing more than a symptom of the enormous sulk he embarked on when Light brought them to the apartment in the first place.

"What did you get them for?" he had asked in outrage upon seeing the furniture.

"To make it more comfortable," Light had said with the eternal patience born from the constant need to explain these sorts of supposedly simple things.

"But I found this place. I should decide what goes in it. Anyway, you probably got them from your house, didn't you? We don't need that stuff here."

And he had sat on the floor, just to prove it.

It occurs to Light then, watching Mello lift the bottle to his mouth at last, that the young man is looking unhealthy. Not pale, not clammy, not even thinner than normal- although there is a certain something in the way his elbows stick out that suggests he has lost weight- but lethargic, weary, and somehow insubstantial. His clothes are of a looser cut than he usually favours, making his already small frame seem swamped, and his very posture seems… defeated.

It is entirely unprecedented, and Light cannot help but feel nervous.

"Have you eaten?" he says, looking again at Mello's bare arms and his knees, square through the material of his trousers.

Mello slowly shakes his head- possibly in an attempt to express a negative, possibly in disbelief at Light's question. Light assumes the latter. With Mello, it is always safest to assume he is annoyed unless proven otherwise.

"Well, sorry, but I have to ask. I don't know how you've kept yourself alive as long as you have, to be honest," he says.

For a second Mello tenses as if he is going to respond angrily- but then the moment is gone, and he sighs. "Yeah."

"I could go and get something," Light offers.

"Don't bother."

From a nearby street comes the sound of glass breaking. Light gets up, crosses to the window and slides it closed. He stands there for a little longer, looking out through the grimy glass at the other buildings- all appearing a little frayed around the edges- with bricks like stained polystyrene and windows placed in the walls with the regularity of a chessboard.

Mello has- finally- swivelled himself around and is now watching him, one eyebrow raised, as if anticipating a comment.

"We need curtains," Light says.

"Like that's a priority."

Light shrugs, making his way back to his chair. Halfway there he stops, feeling Mello's glare on the side of his head. Then, in a sudden burst of who-knows-what, he seats himself on the floor instead, and shuffles forwards away from the furniture.

There is the sort of silence that is usually only heard in court cases and at the beginning of tennis matches.

And then Mello drops the bottle with a thud, swings himself forwards onto his knees and lunges at Light, knocking him off balance. He barely has time to acknowledge the pain of his head coming into contact with the floor before he feels Mello's weight on his hips and the breathy warmth of a voice at his ear.

"I told you we don't need that shit."

And then a thin pair of hands turns his face upwards, and a thin pair of lips kisses him angrily.

Maybe it is just the sight of the bottle, maybe it is Mello's mood, but Light is expecting an onslaught of liquor-tinged breath- so he is surprised to discover that in fact the sting of alcohol only constitutes an underlying layer of the kiss. He is even more surprised, however, by the ferocity of it. Mello's mouth is hot and frantic, and it moves as if desperately searching for something. One of his bony hands is pressing fingernails into Light's cheek, while the other works at Light's collar as if his life depends on it. Finding the buttons too stiff to negotiate in such haste, the hand moves lower instead, and busies itself with untucking Light's shirt from his trousers.

Light grabs Mello's wrist and holds him still, astonishing the younger man so much that he lets it happen. Immediately, Light moves backwards, causing Mello to sit up unwillingly, taking a handful or so of Light's shirt with him.

"What?" he says accusingly.

"Nothing," Light says, and then wishes he hadn't as Mello fixes him with a look of loathing. "All right, all right. It's just… You're not drunk."

"Would you rather I was?" Mello says, smirking. "That's pushing it a bit, even for you."

"You buy that stuff and you never even drink it," Light continues, almost to himself. "And when you do it's like you're forcing it."

Mello glares at him, still breathing heavily. "Don't talk shit," he mutters. "What's with the analysis?"

"It's not shit!" Light says heatedly. "I just want to know what's going on."

Mello's eyes are burning with an unidentifiable emotion. "You don't need to know. Just forget it, why don't you?"

"I'm not going to forget it. Why won't you tell me the truth? This whole thing is just a joke to you, isn't it?"

"Shut up!" Mello slams a fist into the floor next to Light's head with a violence that shocks both of them. "I don't need to talk about it! I won't talk about it! Why the fuck do you have to ask this stuff?"

He breaks off, as if stopping himself from saying something further, and stands up instantly, crossing the room in a few swift steps. His fists are clenched and his shoulders hunched over, his hair falling forwards around his neck.

"This is our place," he says.

"I know that-"

"Then why can't you shut the hell up?!"

Light stares at his back, unable to form words.

Then he gets up, walks over, turns Mello around with a hand on his shoulder and strikes him across the face.

It is not a hard blow- Light is not particularly strong, as his years of sitting behind a desk would attest- but the surprise alone would have been enough to knock Mello over. He lands heavily, and stares straight ahead at Light's knees as if they are responsible for everything.

"I know you don't want to talk about you life," Light says, still shaking with anger. "But that doesn't mean you can blow up whenever I want to know what's going on. I've got a right to ask, for fuck's sake! And if I hardly ever see you and then you show up looking like shit, I think I've got a right to know!"

He should not be saying this much, but he is unable to stop himself. All the thousands of petty annoyances he has been choking down until now, like the curse words he normally prevents himself from using, have burst some barrier inside him.

"You hate the whole damn world. I know you do- you only bother with it because it's the only place you can get your precious fucking chocolate. And I'm just another part of that world you hate- maybe you only come here so you can drive me up the fucking wall- or maybe because I bring food sometimes- although I don't know why you allow that when you fucking hate me bringing stuff here normally- but anyway I come here because of you and it matters, goddamn it, it matters to me!"

Light takes a deep breath. The air seems thinner somehow, but at the same time so full of words that he can barely think. He moves backwards blindly until he finds a wall, which he leans his back against, closing his eyes and rubbing his temples.

Mello moves his eyes slowly up to Light's face as if he has barely been listening- although he has in fact been doing the precise opposite. He licks his lips.

"I don't look like shit."

Light exhales heavily. "Right. No."

He lowers his hands and catches Mello staring at him. They hold each other's gaze for a lone time.

Finally Mello speaks. "I think we need a drink," he says, and crawls across the floor to where the bottle has been standing abandoned all this time. For some unfathomable reason, he wipes the top of the bottle with the hem of his coat before drinking from it, and then slides it along the floor to Light.

Light gives up. What the hell is the point? He stoops to receive the bottle, straightens while trying in vain to decipher the label, sighs internally at how low he has sunk, and takes a swig.

Mello watches his next action with interest. "What do you think?" he asks innocently.

"It's horrible," Light says once he has recovered. "Like fire. Like… greasy fire."

Mello looks at him as if he has just crawled out from under a cupboard- and then burst into peals of loud and entirely unacceptable laughter, from which it takes him a good five minutes to calm down.

When he finally subsides, wiping his streaming eyes with the back of his hand as he leans over to retrieve the bottle, he seems almost contented- or at least, the closest he can come to such an emotion. He sits back again, takes another drink and turns his eyes up to the ceiling. "You don't get it, you know," he says coolly.

"Neither do you," Light shoots back at once.

Mello meets his eyes, smiles humourlessly, and pushes the bottle back across.

This is becoming like a very boring game of pass the parcel, Light thinks. One where the only prize is a mouthful of something with a violent grudge against livers and brain cells.

"I've had my money stolen," Mello says then, so emotionlessly that Light has to look over at him to make sure he has heard correctly.

"W-What? When?"

Mello shrugs with infinite apathy. "Dunno. Some time in the last couple of months. I had this bank account, you see. Hardly used it. And then yesterday I went to get some money out, and…" He shrugs again. "Not all of it was dirty money, either. And I can't go to the police. Obviously."

Light is so stunned by this news that he barely registers the incredible irony of Mello, of all people, having his identity stolen. What sort of person would want an identity like that, anyway?

"Well… That's-"

"So I figured, fuck it," Mello continues, staring at the ground. "I've got this place. I could sell my apartment, live here. If I got a job…" He trails off.

It dawns on them simultaneously how extremely poorly suited Mello is to the working lifestyle.

"Still, I've got enough on me for a couple of weeks," Mello says, clearly trying to cut through the uncomfortable moment. "And I could always-"

He stops speaking then, however, as the sudden grip of Light's arms around him has shocked him almost beyond speech. He is caught in an uncomfortable posture, one arm pinned to his side, his head tilted awkwardly by the pressure of Light's face on his neck. "What…" he manages.

Then they separate, Light a little embarrassed by his own behaviour and certain that he has lost his mind completely; Mello with his head still leaning to one side like he is trying to pinpoint the direction of a sound, and no coherent thoughts left in his brain.

"You could always what?" Light's voice says.

"The hell are you talking about?" Mello replies, almost out of obligation by now.

"You were talking about this apartment. You said you could always…"

Mello blinks, and a frown forms slowly in the centre of his forehead while his eyes focus on Light's face. "You were listening to that?"

"Yes."

"Well, if you wanted me to finish, maybe you shouldn't have-"

"I know, I know."

Light looks down. The relevance of what has happened hovers like a bubble in the air between them. It's over, he thinks. The world has caught us. This was never really "our place" anyway.

And he gets to his feet, opens the window, leans out and lets the bottle drop onto the pavement three storeys below.

"Assuming that for now you have to live in this world," he says, turning around, "where do you want to go?"

Mello looks at him sidelong. "You're going to pay for that," he says, and then, "Anywhere. I'll go anywhere. I can live this way."

"That's not what I meant."

He sighs. "There's nowhere I want to go," he says after a pause. "That's the most depressing thing I've ever said, but it's true. I hate travelling anyway. I'll just stay here for a while."

"No you won't. You're coming back with me," Light says. He has decided that phrasing it as if it has already been decided is the safest way to prevent his offer from seeming like an act of charity.

Mello raises his head and gazes at him for a long time. "I don't even know where you live," he says at last.

"It's just a couple of stops on the metro."

"You get here by metro?!"

"Yes," Light says a little defensively.

"Why don't you drive?"

Light shifts uncomfortably. "Er. Well, I… I don't actually know how to drive."

"You what?"

"I never learned to drive," he says, attempting to sound casual while all the while anticipating a barrage of mockery.

And indeed, Mello snorts. "It's all right for you; you've spent your whole life having these sorts of things sorted out for you. You must get shuttled around all the time."

Light opens his mouth to deny it- and then stops. "Well, what about you then?" he says indignantly. "You don't have a car."

"Not now. I just have my bike."

Light grimaces as a hazy memory surfaces in his mind. "That thing? It's as big as a car."

"I tried to sell it yesterday," Mello says vaguely, "but all of the places that gave cash would have ripped me off." He frowns a little, and seems to retreat into the memory. "Are you serious about staying with you?" he adds, turning a blank, disbelieving stare on Light as if he has only just heard the proposition.

Light nods.

"You're crazy. You realise I'll piss you off even more in that situation?"

Light nods.

"I've warned you now. You can't complain later."

"I'll remember that."

Mello stands slowly like a flag unfurling. "I don't have much stuff," he says, walking over to Light with an altogether different look in his eyes, "so I won't take up a lot of space." He moves forwards until they are face to face, and then keeps on moving, slipping a hand inside Light's shirt and bringing his face forwards until his teeth scrape against Light's earlobe.

Light jumps. Mello's fingers are freezing cold, and leave icy trails along his stomach.

"But it'll be tough for you," Mello continues, smirking against Light's skin, "so I ought to do what I can to make it up to you." He drags his lips down Light's neck, from ear to collarbone, while his other hand moves around to the base of Light's spine.

Light closes his eyes momentarily. Images pass through his mind like sand through an hourglass, trickling slowly away until all that is left is sensation. "Well, there is that."

And Mello's hands go to the buttons of his shirt like they never left. "I bet there is," he says.

Author's notes: Still my non-canon OTP. I'm not sure quite why I love these two so much, but it's not going to end any time soon. Reviews make me happy inside.