For: Rebecca Calzone, Beyond-Control and ANimEisAweSOmE4400 for reviewing "So Close" and giving me the encouragement to continue. I really appreciate it. :)
Just Once
Matt yawned quietly and leant back in his chair, staring blankly at his German teacher. He glanced over at Mello to see the blonde casually slumped in his chair wearing a look that suggested apathy. It was hard to believe that it couldn't have been more than eight or nine hours ago when Matt was holding this seemingly-uncaring boy in his arms while he cried.
Matt slumped forwards against the desk, propping his head up on his hands and neglecting the paper before him, too tired and bored to take notes. He began to zone out, drifting back into his own world where he had more important problems than how to conjugate German verbs. Mello being his biggest problem. Not Mello, exactly, but his sadness. Matt couldn't stand it. He was ready to burst into tears earlier that morning purely because the boy he loved was so upset. It had to be fixed.
Maybe he should just kill Near. Yeah, that would work. No Near would put Mello at number one. Matt sighed, but he could never do it. And besides, Mello would probably be upset anyway because Near would have died without Mello having ever beaten him.
Matt didn't know what to do. It wasn't like he could make Near dumber, and he couldn't make Mello smarter either. Mello already was ridiculously intelligent and studied an insane amount before exams. It wasn't possible to help him there since he was already fulfilling his full potential it would seem.
It was just so difficult to know that this was exactly what could be expected every month. Not just for that one morning every month when results were posted either. The exam was on the fifteenth of the month and Mello spent the days before it revising his arse off. All for nothing.
It seemed somewhat unfair that Near was number one considering that he spent the majority of his time playing with his toys, not needing to truly apply himself in order to effortlessly triumph over Mello. He would sometimes be seen in the library the night before the exam, studying quite hard but nothing compared to Mello. Of course, nobody realised how hard Mello revised. He stressed himself out far too much. Matt strongly suspected that that was the reason why Mello could eat so much chocolate and not put on weight - he was permanently stressed to unhealthy proportions which caused him to lose the weight again.
Mock him as you please, but Matt worried about his Mello. He would kill himself with the pressure and the stress that he applied to himself because of his desperation to be the best. He had once admitted to Matt that it wasn't necessarily that he needed to always be first. Just once would be enough to prove that he could beat Near. Preferably, he just wanted to be some competition. Maybe beginning to alternate between first and second. Anything was better than this.
By the time that German class finished, Matt had already packed up his belongings so the second that they were excused by their teacher, Matt swept his bag up off of the floor and onto his shoulder in one swift movement and exited the classroom, very shortly followed by Mello.
The two strode towards their bedroom and Matt slipped his hand into Mello's. He was often careful to be more codependent than usual after mornings like this one had been. Mornings in which Matt comforted Mello. This was to make sure Mello knew that Matt needed him just as much as he needed Matt.
Matt did not find it easy to sleep that night. He tossed and turned in his bed, unable to remove Mello from his mind. Suddenly, a light flashed from the desk. Matt bolted upright, having been startled by this. He laughed at himself quietly, shaking his head as he realised that it was just an email coming through that woke his laptop up from standby. This was when inspiration struck him.
A smile slowly spread across Matt's face as he placed himself down in the chair beside the desk. He quickly dismissed the notification of a newsletter arriving in his email inbox and got down to business. Hacking. This was his area of expertise. He might not be able to solve equations the fastest or translate Japanese the most accurately but he could hack anything faster and more efficiently than anybody else, leaving no trace that he was ever there. Matt sat forwards in the chair, cracked his knuckles and got down to business.
Two hours later, Matt was still without a plan and now very agitated. He had broken in to Roger's computer, no problem. Unfortunately, after searching and searching for a file containing exam results, there wasn't one. He must have been doing it all by hand, only typing up the score list to print, therefore not saving it. Honestly, did this guy live in the stone age or something? With a perfectly good computer right in front of him, why did he not use it?
Matt sighed and shut down the laptop. He put both elbows on the desk and propped his head up in his hands, fixing his eyes to one spot on the wall and thinking. He ticked off what seemed like thousands of ideas in his head and was about to give up when a plan popped into his head. It wasn't the nicest plan he had come up with, but it was the only one that could really work.
Matt contemplated it for a minute, coming up with a mental list of pros and cons.
Con: Roger would be furious.
Pro: But Mello would be happy.
Con: If I get caught, I'll be in big trouble.
Pro: But Mello would be happy.
Con: It's kind of illegal.
Pro: But Mello would be happy.
Matt gave up after the third con. None of them mattered except for one: If Mello found out, he would be devastated and furious. He would just have to make sure that he didn't find out. But he would not find out if Matt didn't get caught. He would just have to be extra careful.
Deciding to go through with his plan, Matt stood up, pushed the chair out of the way and crossed the room. He completely ignored his own empty and uninviting bed and climbed into Mello's instead. He cuddled up to the blonde and almost instantly, he was asleep.
Two weeks later, the day of the exam arrived. When Matt woke up, he was lying in Mello's bed but Mello wasn't there. He sat up groggily, rubbing his eyes and as expected, Mello was bent over a textbook by the desk, trying to cram more information into his brain.
Matt ruffled his hand through his messy hair.
"'Morning," Matt said.
"'Morning," Mello muttered in response, still not taking his eyes away from the textbook. He was wearing the same clothes from the previous day.
"Mello! Did you sleep at all last night?" Matt exclaimed.
"No," Mello said, shamelessly.
"Why not?" Mello asked.
"Wasn't tired," Mello replied. As if on cue, he yawned very visibly.
Matt climbed out of bed and approached the desk. He looked more closely at Mello and sure enough, he had sharp bags underneath his eyes.
"Oh Mels," Matt sighed, putting his arms around the blonde's shoulders from behind, "At least come and get some breakfast?"
"I'm not hungry," Mello replied.
Matt knew that there was no point in arguing. He placed a kiss on Mello's cheek and went into the bathroom to dress and wash before heading to breakfast. Five minutes later, he had returned with a stack of toast in a napkin and a bottle of orange juice and set it down on top of the textbook in front of Mello.
Mello pushed them both out of the way but Matt persisted. Mello would place the toast to the side, Matt would put it back on the textbook. This repeated four times before Mello started laughing. He picked up a piece of toast and began to eat, still reading from the book.
Matt smiled, and sat back, watching what happened next, knowingly. Mello's appetite kicked in, as Matt knew it would and Mello began to eat the rest of the toast.
Mello turned to the side to get his final slice of toast and when he turned back, his textbook was gone and Matt was standing beside him, smirking.
"Matt, give the book back," Mello said as forcefully as he could with a mouth full of toast.
"No. You've revised enough. You will be fine. Now, you are going to relax for the ten minutes before the exam for the sake of your mental health, okay?"
Matt sat down on the bed and smiled up at Mello.
"No, That's not okay. Give it back!"
Mello dropped his toast on the desk and stood up, ready to wrestle the book off of Matt, only it was nowhere in sight.
"Yeah, that's right. I'm a ninja," Matt smirked, seeing Mello's astounded expression which dissolved into one of annoyance.
"Matt, I always do this. What's the problem? I will be fine."
"Mels-"
"I can't do this if I don't revise and I need to do this!"
"Mels-"
"I just need to look up a couple more things, okay?"
"Mels! I just want you to be okay. I'm only doing this 'cause I love you," Matt stared up at Mello.
Unable to resist Matt's vibrant green eyes and the sweetness of his words, Mello leant down to Matt who was now on the edge of the bed and pressed their lips together. Matt responded eagerly, tilting his head up to Mello's and deepening the kiss.
Mello pushed Matt further onto the bed and straddled the redhead's lap still kissing him enthusiastically. Matt moaned and placed his hands on Mello's hips.
Much too soon, after only two or three minutes, Mello broke the kiss and lent his forehead against Matt's.
"I love you too," Mello whispered. He softly kissed Matt's lips once more before getting up and crossing the room to open the door, picking up his bag on the way.
"Come on, or we'll be late," Mello smiled and Matt followed him. As they approached the exam hall, Mello was becoming increasingly nervous. Matt carefully took Mello's leather-covered hand, not sure if the blonde would appreciate the contact or not at this moment. But surely enough, Mello quickly and gratefully accepted Matt's hand and clutched it, as if hanging on for dear life.
That evening, at dinner, Mello was still fretting over the exam paper.
"I'm sure that I got one of the maths questions wrong. And probably a science one too" Mello worried.
"I'm sure that you didn't," Matt replied.
This didn't comfort Mello at all and he continued to sadly prod his food with his fork, not eating much.
"I'll be right back," Matt said and Mello nodded.
Matt sprinted back to his and Mello's bedroom. He grabbed a small plastic bag out of his drawer and then a chocolate bar from the desk. He opened the bag and slipped it into his sleeve carefully. Upon entering the dining hall, Matt crossed the room directly to the table where Roger sat, eating.
"Roger, there's someone waiting outside of your office to talk to you. They said it's urgent," Matt said.
"Right. Thank you for informing me. I'll be back in a moment," Roger placed down his knife and fork and headed for his office.
Matt checked that nobody was watching him and then subtly twisted the plastic bag in his sleeve. He moved his hand over the top of Roger's glass and a single white pill dropped out of his sleeve and started to dissolve in the water. Matt turned and walked back to his own table and handed Mello the chocolate bar, acting as if this was his sole reason for leaving the room.
"That way at least you're eating something," Matt grinned and Mello bit into the chocolate appreciatively.
"Thanks," Mello smiled with a mouthful of chocolate.
Matt resumed eating his own dinner, chatting with Mello. Roger re-entered the room and sat back down at his table.
Later that night, Matt gently knocked on Roger's office door. There was no response. He smiled to himself and entered the room. Roger was sat in the armchair in the corner, fast asleep. Exactly as Matt intended him to be. The sleeping pill had done its job. Now just to test if it had put Roger into as deep a sleep as was advertised on the label.
Matt knocked on the desk at a louder volume. Then slightly louder. And slightly louder. Roger didn't even stir. Excellent.
Matt didn't know how much time he had, but didn't want to risk waiting around for longer than necessary. He turned to the filing cabinet and checked the labels. The top drawer was labelled Test Papers November so something told Matt that they might be in there. He tried to open it but it was locked. He frowned and turned back to the desk. He rooted through the drawers in search of the key. No luck. He stared at the surface of the desk for a moment and thought. He lifted the keyboard and surely enough, a small metal key was lying underneath. He grinned and tried it in the test paper drawer. A perfect fit. Somebody really needed to teach Roger a better method of hiding things.
Matt placed the stack of papers on top of the cabinet and pulled out the two he wanted. Near's and Mello's. Matt speed-read through Mello's paper and Mello had been right. He had gotten a Maths question wrong. Such a simple one as well. He had tried to solve the simultaneous equations but forgot to change the signs. Matt shook his head. He was sure that if Mello hadn't been so stressed, he wouldn't have made such a stupid mistake. It was the only incorrect answer on the paper by the looks of it and Matt quickly altered it.
Now for Near's alterations. Matt picked up a pencil and a rubber and changed one answer to be incorrect. He pushed both exams back into the stack where they had been originally and put everything back, being sure to lock the drawer and place the key in the exact same place it had been in before.
Matt then left Roger's office and ran back to the bedroom, his heart feeling lighter.
Mello took a deep breath. It was the first of December. His alarm clock had woken him at 4:50am as he had intended. He quickly brushed his teeth and hair and then slid on a pair of shoes, not bothering to change out of his pyjamas.
Mello softly padded down the hallway. He wrestled with himself not to get his hopes up. He knew that it would just set him up for another disappointment. You're second again. Mello told himself. Near has beaten you. He was setting himself up for it this time. He sat down in his usual corner and stared at the ceiling. He couldn't push out the slight hope that still remained inside of him.
Roger was smiling as he entered the room. He put the score sheet up onto the cork board and dug the pin into the top carefully. Mello was a pain in the arse at the best of times, but he couldn't help but root for him, knowing how desperately the boy wanted this. He knew that Mello could do it. He left the room slowly and returned to his office with a smile on his face
Mello sighed and got to his feet. He readied himself and approached the notice board. He planned that this time he would look at the paper, nod when he saw Near's name first as per usual and leave without getting too emotional. He looked at the top two lines and his breath caught in his throat. His heart was racing. Could this be right?
"1. Mello 100%
2. Near 99%"
Mello dug his nails harshly into his arm and felt a sharp sting. He definitely wasn't dreaming. He threw open the door and sprinted back along the corridors that he had been dawdling down only minutes before. He slammed the door of his bedroom open and rushed over to Matt's bed. He shook the supposedly sleeping boy excitedly and grabbed his hand, pulling him out of bed.
"Mello?" Matt asked, rubbing his eyes as though he had actually been asleep the previous night and not excitedly awaiting this moment.
Mello wordlessly dragged Matt out of the room and, still clutching Matt's hand, broke into a run to the lounge. He confirmed that the notice board still said what he thought it did before setting Matt in front of it. Matt's face lit up at seeing these words. He acted completely surprised.
Mello was so happy that he broke into slightly hysterical laughter, quickly joined in this action by Matt.
"Well done! So well done, Mello! You earned this!" Matt grinned so widely that he thought his face would split.
Mello grabbed the front of Matt's pyjama shirt and crashed their lips together. Matt wrapped his arms around Mello, holding him tightly and responding to the kiss with enthusiasm.
Matt didn't feel bad about what he had done. In fact, he felt very good about it. It didn't seem to affect Near in the slightest, but the impact that it had upon Mello was incredible. He immediately loosened some of the stress that he placed on himself and without that pressure began to instantly do better in exams. He wasn't always first but he and Near alternated positions on the leaderboard regularly. Mello was actually competition for Near now and that pleased him more than anything.
So, yeah. Judge Matt as you like for lying to everyone, but clearly it worked out for the best. It made Mello healthier and happier and, honestly? That was worth everything to Matt.
A.N. That took forever. It's around three-thousand words which is more than I have ever done in one go before. I hope that you liked it.
I think it's AU because if that had happened in the actual series, Mello probably wouldn't have had such a bad inferiority complex.
I did read this over a few times afterwards, but you noticed that I missed an error, please tell me. :)
Please review! I spent about six hours on this so I would really appreciate it if you would let me know what you thought. Even if just to say "I like it." or "I don't like it." I am completely open to constructive criticism as well. Particularly about the transitions, which I think were kinda awkward.
Thank you for reading. :)