A/N: Hey, I've written some more drabblefic in honor of the birth of the LJ Mello/Matt comm. 8D Enjoy.
Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note.
Remembering
"Mello, I really don't think this whole Takada scheme is going to work. Honestly, there are too many opportunities for us to be caught." Matt's words were slightly distorted by the cigarette wedged between his lips.
"We'll never know unless we try, now come on, Matt, save the fucking game and get your ass off the couch," hissed Mello, jabbing angrily at the air with his bar of chocolate as he spoke.
"Ah, fine, fine," grumbled the other as he reluctantly hit the power button and carelessly tossed his GameBoy onto the table. Carefully stepping over the technological mess of monitors, laptops, hubs, cables and wires on the ground, he moved towards the door with a slow deliberation that Mello found strangely enticing.
"Oh, Matt." The words that came out of his mouth were not his; he knew this for a fact, because for one, the real Mello was not so sentimental as to stop his partner before he left on a potentially dangerous job; and two, the real Mello was not feeling as nonchalant and dismissive as that sentence had just sounded.
"Uh?" As the aforementioned boy turned around, Mello couldn't help but let his eyes linger on various parts of Matt's body with the thought that he might never see them again. The way his goggles were loosely set at the smallest tilt on his nose; his lean frame and gangly limbs; the way he carried himself, a half-slouch that suggested he had learned proper stature and chosen to ignore it, as opposed to never learning how to stand up straight in the first place.
"Be…careful, okay?" Matt cocked his head as if trying to decipher what was going through his partner's well-guarded mind; he seemed to decide on something and stepped towards Mello, reaching his hand out and opening his mouth as if about to say something.
"What…what I mean is," Mello continued hurriedly, only to find he didn't quite know himself what he meant, and they lapsed into an utterly uncomfortable silence. "…well, who'd take care of the technology and stuff around here? If something happens to you, you know, I'd have to hack everyone without you."
An almost indiscernible look of disappointment fell upon Matt's face, and Mello suddenly found himself with the urge to wipe such a look off his face. He stepped closer. "Look. Regardless of whether…whether…I can deal with technology without you around, I really…think that having you here…it's nice, Matt. It's nice. And...the computer's aren't the only thing that would miss you, I guess."
The first real grin he had ever seen on Matt's features slowly began to materialize; it spread slowly but surely over his face, turning up the sides of his mouth like the sun rising after a polar night. With a nod, Matt turned and walked slowly. His hand brushed against Mello's for a second that was equal to an eternity; fingers with painted black nails entwined briefly with rough and bitten ones; and then Matt was out the door.
And Mello, he set off feeling happy, feeling like they could do it, as if they could capture Kira and the events of the past few years wouldn't have happened (because they shouldn't have happened, really, they shouldn't) and he could bully Near and play jokes with Matt and pull Linda's hair and talk to L again.
The tiny part of him, the part that knew that this could never be; this was the only part of his whole body (his whole heart) that didn't fall into shock when Matt died.
Suddenly, his mind was flooded with images of his posture and his goggles and his hair; of him collapsed on the couch after four consecutive all-nighters, video game still open and singing softly on his chest, cigarette (the ends of it still burning an odd orange color) fallen to the ground.
He thinks of random conversations they had and remembers every last detail of them; a discussion about which Final Fantasy was the best (Matt was all for VII, and Mello liked X) or whether they should put peppers on the pizza (they decided no, he recalled, but accidentally smashed the cell phone in their play-fight).
He remembers every tone that Matt's voice ever carried, the way his tongue jolted out of his mouth ever so briefly when he said certain words. His mind conjures up images of every conversation they ever had, and (even more painfully) every late, passionate night filled with heated kisses and ending with sticky couch cushions that should have been but wasn't.
And, hours later, when he feels his blood bubbling up into his throat and an odd convulsing in his chest (and pain, yes, there is pain, but nothing compared to what he has already felt) he thinks not of himself, but of Matt's smile; and he wishes he could have seen it again, and somewhere far away (or perhaps right in front of his face, or maybe even in his mind) someone, he knows (he can hear them) is crying for them in choked, anguished sobs.