Warnings: Some swearing and a lot of mayonnaise (It's not what you think!).
Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note.
Author's Note: This takes place between Mello's accident and Takada's kidnapping. I love fiction about Matt and Mello going through life at their apartment. English is not my mother language, but I tried to be correct. Written for the LJ group dn_contest, prompt 'healthcare'.

Death by Chocolate

Mello was sitting at the small table in the kitchen, devouring a piece of chocolate while he browsed the newspaper, looking for Kira related articles. His quest to surpassing Near had become an even greater obsession during the last weeks. He'd lost a lot of valuable time recovering from his burns.

Matt was standing at the counter, putting a macaroni dish into the microwave. Mello had never understood how the redhead could possible stuff himself with that crap as breakfast. He found it disgusting.

"Matt, you're disgusting," he stated dryly, his eyes not moving away from the paper.

Matt turned around to face his blonde friend and chuckled. "Hey, I'm not the one living of a diet purely consisting of chocolate."

Matt did not see, but Mello got a small smile on his face from that. He usually got pissed off when random people would tell him that too much sugar was not healthy. As if chasing Kira, trying to avenge L and constantly living to fight off an inferiority complex due to Near was healthy. Tssk. But Matt was allowed to make remarks about it. Yeah, Matt was definitely allowed to acknowledge Mello being the Master of Chocolate.

Mello wished he had not just seen Matt taking the dish out to smother it with an insane amount of mayonnaise.

"Matt."

The goggle wearing boy turned his head, a spoon in his mouth. "Hmm?" he mumbled innocently.

The blonde glared at his friend, his eyes resting on the now drowning macaroni. "Dude…"

"What?" Matt asked. "Oh, this?" he said, holding up his masterpiece. "It's so good like this! Seriously, mayonnaise makes everything twice as good."

Mello scowled. "If you're trying to gross me out and make me leave, you could just say so."

"I'm not trying to gross you out, Mels. Seriously, you could try it on one of your chocolate bars sometime," Matt stated friendly.

Mello turned his head and looked at the back of Matt, who was busy mixing the pasta with the yellowish sauce. "That's blasphemy. I should shoot you right now."

He heard Matt laugh.

It was then, that Mello all over sudden felt the weirdest sensation in his body. He was not breathing anymore. Black spots were suddenly swimming in front of his vision. The newspaper was reduced to a blur of white and grey, and Matt was a ghost of stripes and red. He tried to say something, but everything was cut off. His eyes were wide, flaming with panic.

When he felt the unbearable urge to breathe, he realized- he was choking.

"You should try something new once in a while, Mels. There's nothing wrong with mayonnaise. In fact, it is one of the greatest inventions of men. There is nothing else that-" Matt said. He turned to face Mello and saw his friend hunched over the table. He had his fine thin fingers around his throat.

"Mels?" he hesitantly asked, "Are you ok?"

Of course, Mello didn't react. His ears were roaring. He barely heard what Matt said. His body screamed for oxygen and he couldn't do anything. Fuck.

"Mels?" Matt asked again, now quickly approaching the chair where Mello sat. He pulled Mello's shoulder to turn him around and saw his friend's complexion change from a reddish blush to a bitter white. He had never seen the blonde's eyes that big.

"Mello? Mello! Fuck! Are you choking?!" he yelled, stating the obvious while shaking Mello's shoulder harshly.

The blonde didn't react. He had let go of his throat now and his arms were loosely on the table. Matt saw his eyes droop a little, as if they were about to close any second.

"Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. Don't do this to me, Mels," Matt mumbled. He pulled off his goggles for no particular reason and threw them on the table, as if preparing for action. He went to stand behind Mello a bit and with enormous force he hit his friend right between the shoulder blades.

The black spots in Mello's vision began to fade in all around blackness. It was then that Matt hit his friend for a second time. Even harder than the previous time he slammed his hand between the shoulder blades. Apparently, hard enough, since Mello felt his airway open again.

The blonde clutched his throat and coughed a little. With taking heavy ragged breaths, his vision returned and the roaring in his ears came to an end. He felt strong hands on his shoulders, pulling him backwards. A second later, he was facing Matt, who stood behind his chair and looked down at him with panic in his eyes.

"Mels! Are you ok?" he shouted. "Can you breathe?!"

Mello wanted to answer but his body craved the oxygen too much. And damn, his throat hurt so much. And damn, Matt was a loud shouter.

"Mels! Say something, for god's sake!"

Mello managed to bring up his hand to his friend's and squeezed it faintly. The redhead got the message and he stopped shouting. Mello coughed some more, which made his throat feel like he has just swallowed shards of glass.

After a minute or so, his breathing had calmed down a bit and he was merely panting a little. Reality, and life, had fully come back to him.

Matt was just standing there. His hands were trembling and in fact, he was panting too.

"You ok?" he asked quietly.

Mello nodded.

They both felt awkward. Matt wished he could say something useful, but Mello was ok so there was no problem. Somehow he had never experienced such sudden fear. Damn, the mere thought alone of Mello risking to lose his life. Mello, on the other hand, wished he could react in his normal ways, stand up and kick something or shoot Matt's microwave dish. But he couldn't. Not only because his energy level had dropped to zero, but he too had been scared shitless.

"Mels?" Matt mumbled.

"Hmm?" Mello did not look up. He had forgotten about the newspaper and the Kira articles, but his gaze was fixed on the table.

"Did you just nearly choke on your chocolate?"

It was like someone hit Mello with a stick on his head. Bang. Lulz!

"Are you trying to say something of importance, Matt?" Mello growled. He wanted to say more, like 'Stating the obvious, again? No freaking duh.' But damn, his throat still hurt. He coughed some more.

"No. I just figured, it could be kind of funny in a way, when you think about it…" Matt mused.

"Are you making fun of me?" Mello asked dryly. He sure hoped for Matt's sorry ass that it was just a stress reaction.

He had seen his friend have that before. When he had been in the apartment while recovering from his burns, there had been a point when they both thought that he was going to die. The situation had been so utterly hopeless. And right then, he had heard Matt retreat to the bathroom, just to burst out in laughter. Tears had followed quickly, though.

Matt filled a glass with water from the sink and gave it to Mello. He sat down on the second chair that was on the opposite side of the small kitchen table.

"No. You don't see me laughing. I'm just saying, it could have been funny since you're always eating chocolate, and since you're chasing Kira, which is dangerous, and you even survived bombs exploding all around you, and you were in the mafia, which is also kind of dangerous I guess, so it is actually funny because chocolate is such an innocent thing and still, it could've had you." Matt paused for a few seconds. "You see? I mean, irony, much? You know?"

Mello drank some of the water and glared at his friend.

"You know, Matt, even if it had been funny, you would've already ruined the joke by giving a shitload of too much information about it," Mello said, not moving a muscle.

Matt smiled. A wide smile. Mello found it hard to resist smiling too. But he did. Somehow, he was not yet in the mood for smiling, not since minutes ago, he could've been dying for all he knew. The thought of it was so stupid. The fearsome Mello; death by his beloved Chocolate. The irony of life, indeed.

"I'm glad you're ok."

Mello thought for a second that he hadn't been able to hide the gratitude in his eyes. Matt was glad. He cared. Even counting in all the fights, physical or verbal, that they'd had, Matt and Mello functioned very well together. Somehow they both felt better around the other. But Matt had said it out loud. And Mello didn't know what to say, at all. So he didn't say anything and instead, cast Matt a small smirk. It sufficed. It spoke a thousand words, and Mello knew that Matt would understand precisely what it meant. 'Thank you.'

"You know, you can always have some of my macaroni, Mels," Matt offered quietly.

"Shut up," Mello said. He'd rather have a dozen chocolate bars shoved down his throat.

Instead, the blonde took his half eaten piece of chocolate and took a bite of it. Matt glared at his friend. "Are you sure you're gonna eat that? I mean, maybe you should just cut the chocolate for a while…"

Matt felt a piece of chocolate wrapper hitting his forehead.

Hours later, Matt sat on the couch watching some TV. Mello had already gone to bed, which had been quite early for him.

Matt wasn't worried that anything was off. Mello had complained of his throat hurting and he had coughed every once in a while, but he was ok.

The redhead turned off the TV. He was going to play his Nintendo DS some more. But first, he went to Mello's room. He quietly opened the door and stood in the doorway. His blonde friend was sleeping. Peacefully, Matt thought. Mello would have nightmares once in a while, but most of the time, sleeping was the only thing he could do without having struggle written all over his face.

Matt sighed.

"You scared me today," he mumbled.

Seconds passed while he stood there, staring at Mello.

"Don't ever fucking die on me, Mels. Ever."

And with that, he closed the door.

- End.