I do not seem to be writing nearly as quickly as I wish I was... well, not fanfiction. So, anyway, I've returned, and it is once again Matt's turn to get his mind dissected by me. I'm not entirely sure how well I like this, I wrote it on a bit of a whim and it didn't stay entirely focused as much as I like. It's also a bit less based on the original story than it is just not contradicted by it, but there isn't too much to base anything Matt-related off of anyway.
Oh, and we'll dedicate this one to eleutheraic, seeing as it'll probably be a while before I write another Mello one. (No more attempts at stupid stunts, I don't care if you think they don't matter, I think they do. So no more.)
Matt has never thought that religion made sense.
Maybe it was because he always lived at Wammy's, or as long as he can remember anyway. He'd never cared enough to bother asking how old he'd been when he got there. But he did know that all his life he'd been raised with logic, facts, doubt. Faith was something he'd never been taught, and never really thought to want.
He'd been taught about it, of course. Matt knew all about religions. He knew more, probably, about each religion than most of the people who followed them. He knew their history, their beliefs, their leaders and structure. He could recite any part of the Bible as well as Mello, in as many languages, but he could recite it the way he could recite encyclopedia entries and computer codes. He can recite the main texts of Islam and Hinduism and Buddhism and Wiccan and the stories of the Olympian gods, too.
And he knows why people follow religions, sort of. He knows that it's a comforting thing, that it gives stability and hope and a reason for all the bad things that happen. He doesn't really see why it does any of that for people, though. He felt much more secure when he believed there was no such thing as gods or supernatural powers than before Kira appeared and proved that there was.
Even so, though, he likes religion. He can see, a little, how the chants and prayers can be calming, though he thinks deliberate meditation works just as well, since some people can get worked up and start yelling at whichever god they're talking to for being unfair or too harsh, instead of calming down.
Maybe Mello's just not a normal worshipper. He's often calmer after he yells, whether it's at God or Matt or Near or Kira. And Mello sure isn't a normal anything else, anyway.
It's not the religious aspect of the prayers that Matt likes, though. He likes the sound and the pattern and the rhythm, but he doesn't like being told that he'll be tortured for eternity if he eats the wrong food or says the wrong word. Sometimes he makes his own chants, from nonsense syllables, random words he likes, or by translating the same word into all the different languages he knows over and over just to see how it sounds. Or he uses the prayers and chants from his video games.
Mello tends to yell at him when he does that.
Maybe it's because Matt's too logical that he doesn't understand religion, or maybe it's because he doesn't care. Maybe he's just logical in the wrong way, because he doesn't always understand logic either. He thinks he's logical, he does things that makes sense, but other people don't think what he does makes sense. He doesn't put effort into his schoolwork, because he knows he can do well enough anyway and doesn't care about being the best. It isn't even that he's given up, he thinks he could do as well as Mello and Near if he tried. He just doesn't want to try.
Mello thinks he's insane for that. How can you not want to be the best?
Because after a point, you only gain a little bit of money and respect for a lot of effort and time and responsibility, and after a point it's not worth it. The Law of Diminishing Returns, Matt says.
That's economics, Mello scoffs.
So what? Matt asks. And Mello throws up his hands and declares that if Matt is too crazy to try for the best part of the world, fine, at least Mello has less competition.
Matt has to wonder about that. The Mafia, going after Kira, of all people, running away, refusing to work with Near, blowing himself up—Mello understands religion and faith and, apparently, logic. But he doesn't think Mello understands crazy.
Then again, maybe Mello's right after all, because Matt's right beside Mello now, just like before, just as far into all his crazy schemes and stunts as ever, all the risk and almost none of the gain. So maybe Matt is crazy, too, and maybe Mello and Near and everyone else in the world is crazy, since so many of them believe in gods and religion, and the ones who don't don't bother to pretend they're gods or messengers and live in luxury just for telling people what to think. Maybe Kira's the only sane person in the entire world, and maybe it just doesn't matter.
So, Matt thinks, he understands crazy a little. The loyalty kind of crazy, or the bored and sure-why-not kind, or whatever it is that makes him follow Mello even when he knows he shouldn't. And he watches Mello enough to understand the faith kind of crazy too, or the idealistic and determined kind, whatever it is that makes Mello risk everything he has to catch someone who only ever kills criminals and people who get too close to catching him.
Mello said, once, that faith was loyalty, only it was loyalty to something that wasn't human. Roger told all the Wammy's kids, plenty of times, that they were all far above ordinary humans.
So maybe, Matt thinks, as Mello mutters a line from the Bible about martyrs and Matt follows him out on his latest errand, faith and religion may not be all that hard to understand after all.