A/n This came to me in a really weird way… It started as one paragraph taking up space on my hard drive. Just recently while lying on the ground, mourning my 360, (It's the red ring of death, may it rest in peace) I tried to stand up, hit my head on a table, rolled around in pain for awhile, and then it just came to me- along with a good sized bruise. Was it worth it? You tell me.


The den of the mafia's underground lair is dead silent. Not even Matt's thumbs, hard at work button mashing his way through Kingdom Hearts on the 'proud' setting, make so much as a click against the plastic. No one dares to make a sound- possibly unleashing every ounce of Mello's pent up stress on them. The very same blonde is busy doing nothing himself. Without a single lead on Kira, he could do nothing due to the current situation- save for glare at a list of names, deaths, and times. None of which gave any new information.

Most of the men working under him had already left under the tense of tending to some mundane task. And the few who remained were slowly making their way to the back of the room to slip out of the cyclone of tension brewing inside the area.

Matt, even though sitting in the eye of the storm, seems almost unfazed by the pressure hanging over them. Almost. Occasionally, his practiced thumbs fumble at the buttons, letting his HP fall lower. Tiny droplets of sweat begin to form as his health dips down past the limit breaker. The gamer's eyes dilate, attempting to give him one last push of 'oomph' before the last, blinking red sliver of Roxas' life disappears.

"Ghhaaaa!" Matt screams, clutching at his hair with one hand and springing to his feet, "Done in by a Shadow!" he holds the screen showing the mocking 'continue' option to his face, devastated, "Not even a semi-strong-ish shadow, no, a normal, pansy-ass Shadow! What the hell, man?"

Even though every man in the base now knows of his loss, the only thing Matt's outburst earns is an annoyed glance and a few stern words, however poisonous they might be. Compared to other times, this was pretty tame. Well, only when put next to throwing chairs out of a window, off the roof of an apartment building. But he still knows not to press his luck with the blonde's mood. After having multiple consoles smashed until you can't even distinguish wires apart, anybody would learn a lesson as simple as 'silence from Mello is even more dangerous than a loud rampage' (Although both will leave you equally as dead if you're caught in the middle, it's still a little helpful).

To avoid an injury, he snaps his DS closed and tucks it back into the depths of his Through his dark tinted goggles, Matt glances left at Mello, his feet kicked up onto a smudged glass coffee table.

"Fwaahh…" he grunts, flopping down next to him. Glossy green eyes peek over at the investigation files. Finding nothing new as he expected, he joins his fingers together on top of his scarlet head, leaning back.

"Mel, you really need to take a break. You and I both know not even all the chocolate in the tri-state area can make up for no leads… yet." Matt tilts his head over dramatically, "Whadaya say?"

"Matt, you know I don't play video games." The last couple words from his mouth come out sounding like a child uttering curses behind a teacher's back.

"Of course I know I'm thinking more of a word game,"his face lights up with a bright idea, "and I know just the one: Deep but not Profound."

"That's stupid."

Matt bites his lip in an impish delight, knowing he's about to hit a sensitive subject "Oh? I bet Near would play with me…"

"Fuck off!" Mello smacks the giggling young man across the face with his stack of documents, "Just tell me how to play," he barks out with a scowl.

"The only rule is you have to find the relationship between the two words I say," He presses his gloved hands to his cheeks, framing the smile spreading to show slightly crooked, but cutely so, teeth, "The title of the game's one example, in fact… Deep but not Profound. But don't think it's so easy," for a split second he looks away to come up with another example," Matt but not Mail."

Mello checks to make sure the room's secure, before speaking (obviously he's already scared everyone off already), "Mello but not Mihael?"

"Yep," Matt nods, "fool but not failure."

"Hmmn, is the first word a lie but not the second?"

"Nope, cake doesn't work as the first word, try again."

"They start with the same letter? Wait- Kira but not found?"

Matt shakes head quickly sideways, "Killer but not Kira."

"Then I'm right? Same first letter- mafia but not mad."

"Closer, but still way off. Yellow but not blonde works just fine," He shrugs off the flawed rule, trying not to laugh out loud, "I'll give you an easy one- really but not real."

Mello sits in silence- staring into the indigo paint peeling off of the wall across from him, mentally looking over each pair of words. He hides his frustration by passive-aggressively turning away from Matt, not letting have the satisfaction of stumping him.

Growing bored of waiting, Matt places his head in Mello's lap, letting his legs stretch out on the rest of the couch. Knowing that he really had the older man's attention, even if Mello didn't look directly at him, he pulls his goggles down around his neck. The darkly shaded plastic giving way to a pair of shining eyes, a kind of wanton lust hidden behind their innocence, "Passion but not flame."

One leather covered hand slinks up push a stray strand of pale hair out Mello's eyes, revealing a warmer, and to him, a lovely color spread across his face, "Redden but not blush…"

Against his will, the comment makes his face glow a brighter color of pink. Mello flips his hair to cover the majority of his face, though he won't be able to fool the red head on his lap that way.

Matt utters four soft words before taking the Russian's chin, using just the very tips of his fingers, and lining up Mello's head sideways with his own, "Alluring but not cute," he slightly parts his lips, running his tongue casually over them, taunting his friend.

Turning his head back to the gamer below him, Mello leans in, closing most of the space between them. A slight shiver passes through his entire body. He takes one quick glance at the back of the room, making absolutely sure they were alone.

"Kiss but not lick," he whispers into the final inch of dead space separating them. Gently, their lips come together, the looming tension in the air catching fire like an ember falling onto gasoline. Half-expecting Mello to push him away, Matt's eyes fly fully open in shock. Maybe in excitement. But whatever the emotion, it turned to nervousness as Mello slowly pulls away, both men to shaken up to make eye contact.

Matt props himself back up against the couch uncertainly, watching Mello shift around, his mind thinking about everything but the game. He calmly rests his head against a cool leather clad shoulder, "I guess you just won."


A/n I love that game, its fun to mess with people with it. I doubt it would really trip Mello up for so long. It only took me twelve pairs to figure it out without writing down the words- if you list them in two columns it makes it really easy. I won't tell you what the pattern is if you don't already know, but here's a hint: it's nothing to do with the word.