Yeah, so I was listening to some stuff and came across a song by Metro Station, and this just sort of.. appeared. Most of my little drabble fics are depressing, and I'm sure this isn't an expection. Heh, it took me half an hour to write at most, and these are just my little drabbly thingies to keep my head clear for my current in-the-works fic, so I can get any odd ideas out of my head quickly (:
No warnings to speak of, other than maybeez some angstyness? And I don't own Death Note. Cool.
Written from Matt perspective.
~Seventeen Forever~
I couldn't believe it had ever happened, and while I was so young. My parents, dead and gone without a known cause, impossibly unfindable, and there I was, carted through the social system until I eventually came to the place I would come to know as my salvation, my safehouse, for a time at least.
It was impossible, to think that I might make friends here, where I couldn't anywhere else, just because I was different. Six year olds don't understand these things, but I was taken under the wing of an older boy, kind to me but not to others, fiery and sharp. He was calm with me. He said I was a 'bad' influence, but I didn't understand what he meant.
He was smarter than me. Better, he said. I didn't mind. He was my friend. My first friend. My only friend. I didn't want anyone else, because no-one was interesting like him, no was interested in me like him. True, he was only a few months older than I was, but I always felt like it was much more, several years maybe, and I was just a follower to a teenager with a ridiculous social potential he refused to take.
He always said he liked the calm and isolation of his room and the library, where he could submerge himself and be calm, but others would upset him, rub him up the wrong way, make everything wrong, would remind him of all that he had lost. Apparently I didn't do that, but I didn't know why. I was just me. The freak, the misfit, and unwanted one. But he liked to have me around, even if he never said so. I could tell.
It was a surprise. Something different. Something unexpected. But it seemed to fit, in my young mind at any rate. His word was my law, and that was that. I didn't ask questions, but when he called, I would come.
Maybe I was like a pet to him. That's what people said. They said many things, cruel things, which I didn't understand then, but that make me cringe now. Even now, yes. I didn't care either way though, because I had a friend, and he would look out for me, and was always there when everyone started to get rough with me. I wasn't strong like him. I was just a weak little boy that played his games and wore his funny clothes, even when I was barely eight.
No-one considered that I didn't choose my stripes. No-one considered that I didn't choose my goggles. They'd been mine since before I could remember. It was just me. My mother wore stripes, and dressed me in them too. She said I was cute, and smiled when I pulled a face at it. My father, I think, would ski. He wore goggles, and put some on my head, laughing when I wouldn't give them back.
They didn't used to fit, and I'd put them around my neck. I didn't care if it was odd. It was my only connection, my last memory of the parents that had loved me so dearly, even though I was different, weird intelligent. It was unconditional, because it was family, but it was perfect, to me.
Of course it was stripped from me, and my identity as well. My new identity was with the blond that had adopted me, taken me in, looked after for me, protected me more than my parents ever could, because they couldn't save me from the hurt that would tear at me if I fiddled with the goggle strap the way my father used to when he was thinking, just small things like that.
I would cry at night when I was older, when I understood more, when I found out more. It would hurt. I would hurt. And then he heard one night, and sat beside me on my bed, petting my hair softly and telling me everything was ok, even though I knew it wasn't, and he knew it wasn't, not for me, not ever.
I grew older, teenage. I began to understand myself, that I was weak –I was told so many times, by others both older and younger, all in spite – and I built myself a shell, hid my emotions, as so many others did, hiding my eyes behind goggles to loved and scratched it almost made me blind to the world, but it meant I didn't have to see the glares and scornful glances thrown at me. Everyone acted differently. My single, closest friend fought back, with harsh words and swift logic, unbeatably genius.
And then there was another new boy, one of the few that had come in my time. He was different. He was smart. Smarter than my Mello, unbelievable as it seemed to me. He beat him. He even beat L eventually. For that was all anyone ever cared about.
L, L, L, L.
It was always him, but I didn't care. I didn't care where I placed, or who was better or worse than me. Why would I? I didn't care to be ranked out against others, it was never my aim. I never knew where I was, or I wouldn't have if Mello hadn't ever told me, but he would do so, in fits of fury that were such that he almost lashed out at me many times.
I didn't care though. He would apologise, though he'd never hit me, and he would promise he didn't mean it and he'd hold me and wait for me to sleep. I don't know why he did, not even to this day, but I don't mind, because it was simply him. He showed affection better than I did. I, who for all my newfound uncaring attitude found myself crying every night, for years on end. Six when I arrived, fourteen when I left, and never did I have a night of pure peace. Not once.
I didn't care. It meant that he would calm himself, even if it was just to calm me in turn, something only he would ever achieve. No-one else knew. No-one else would see. No-one else cared. Not ever. Just him, and him alone, would I let inside the shell I had designed to keep people out, to keep people looking through me as though I was never there. Indeed, I probably faded from their minds quickly and completely. I wasn't a subject of gossip, and people forgot my name, maybe even my face.
Mello was never forgotten. He was the sparky child, the loud child, the obnoxious teenager, the uncaring youth. He did what was necessary, not what was acceptable.
Yes, at fifteen he started working towards the Mafia, doing everything and anything, I think, in order to catch the needed attention and all of that. I don't know. I was never there, he wouldn't let me. He would still protect me, even then, when I felt less like he were years older. Even when we left for the kidnapping, he was warning me, telling me to be careful.
I don't know why I let myself slip. I told myself everything would be fine, and so I was calm, bored almost.
It's my fault, I know it. All my fault. Always my fault. But what was done was done. I should've listened. I should've been ready. I should've been perfect, just like he always was. He let me help, as I always asked to, and I let him down, costing us ultimately.
I died. Of course I did. It was stupid, I was stupid, and my death… I deserved it. I deserved it all.
So much I never said. I never said 'I love you', not to anyone. Not to my parents, not the ones that looked after me where no-one else would, not to my best friend, the only person who truly worked to protect me. I blocked it all out. A weakness, nothing more. I couldn't understand why I did it. I thought I was lost, forever, tracking the world with a soul so broken once again nothing would fix me and send me through.
I cost Mello his life as well. I was stupid. I blame myself, of course I do, and as would anyone else, I believe. I didn't listen. I wasn't careful. I didn't take precautions. I didn't take the right road, I let them chase me. I thought it was a joke. A gamble. A gamble with lower stakes than there really were.
Yes, I killed us. I believe I killed the both of us. I wasn't supposed to start a car chase. I was supposed to get away, blend in, and find Mello and leave. It was perfect, but I screwed up. And now he's gone. I can't find him, and my memories will fade. Or maybe they won't, and I'll be left, left to roam with this endless pain. This unbelievable pain.
Nineteen forever.
Maybe I could've ended it differently. Better. Mello wouldn't have blamed me. He would've blamed himself, which is wrong, because it was me. All me. I couldn't have ruined his perfectly laid plans more than I did.