I DON'T OWN DEATH NOTE AND I WON'T MAKE ANY MONEY FROM THIS, OK?

A/N This was inspired by Bialy's seven Mello prompts.

mihael

(eyes)

Mello remembers a lot of his childhood, if childhood begins with abandonment and subsequent dropping off at Wammy's House. Surely it takes something unpleasant to usher one into childhood- the state of complex thinking, growth and memory. Mello spent a lot of time wandering through the hallowed grounds of his new home-, well, his home- leaving long black scuff marks behind him and tracing the patterns on the tapestries. Sometimes, late, when the cheap cotton of his sheets has rubbed him the wrong way one too many times or the lights of the passing cars makes it impossible to sleep, he tries to re-create this on the crumbling paint. Mello has never been good with muscle memory. He remembers the shapes by outline rather than feel. Not to say he didn't do it a thousand times. There were seventy eight doors he passed to get to that tapestry, that Miss Discipline preferred to keep her nails longish and the colour of bandages, and if he craned his neck just so he could see them there on his shoulder. Go on, go on, sit and think about what you've done.

I would, Mello would always think, but this castle is prettier.

He had to have been about eight the last time that happened. After that he learned to toe the line rather than cross it, as so not to give the Misses and Misters and Roger the pleasure of punishing him.

outside

(arms and legs)

Often he ran. More often still Mello wanted to run until his temples burst and his feet folded in on themselves, but that would require a distance farther than the orphanage's courtyard. So he caught the fence just as it caught him, rust chips falling down his shirt and into his hair like snowflakes. His arms can span nearly ten bars now.

Mello was older now and bored with the inane mischief of his childhood, which ultimately only made him act out more. He knew he was being bad, getting up to no good, asking for one. But what will happen to me if I don't get chosen? Mello, I don't know. But what? You already know, don't you? Mello, I don't have time for this.

He knows it will be Near. Were L an archetype, and it is, Near fits it far better. But does he really care what happens to Near? He guesses he does, if he wants to kick his pale, pedantic little ass every time he sees him.

terror

(hands)

It is a habit of Mello's to, when faced with something he does not like, clench his hands into fists. Discreetly, mind you, no shaking of or threatening with. Perhaps it was some sort of a tantrum, akin to a toddler holding his breath.

Mello's hands were girlish and narrow, which he tried to make up for with cuts and calluses. In his mind it would work. He would wake up with hands to match his mind, rather than the hands of the spoiled child he knew he was. Much later, a split second of thoughtless reflex had sent an impossibly fast ball of metal into the neck of some thug twice his size, where it would ricochet off his jawbone and into the life-giving parts of his brain. Ross had then smacked Mello approvingly on the back of the head. But it wasn't supposed to go that way. He was the 110-pound English kid with the spoiled girl's face and spoiled girl's haircut and spoiled girl's hands, who had failed to notice the trigger between his index finger and palm. He wouldn't be putting any more mice in teachers' beds. Death rather than petty annoyance. Perhaps it was the fault of his precocious grasp of mortality, but he was never one to step on bugs for the sake of stepping. People die. I am a person. Therefore I will die. Simple as that. That was empathy, he thinks, and I can't afford it anymore. Oh, Mello, you're so gullible. That night his hands carry out the motions of drugs and drink and prematurely withered breasts, all offered as a means of sealing the deal, and he accepts, if hesitantly, but no one notices his reluctance. The only voice saying to is off in the recesses of his mind, where no one else can hear it.

christmas

(nose and ears)

Mello and Matt are upstairs, rummaging through their shared dresser for what they have been instructed to wear to the Christmas dinner party. In the process they leave their good clothes just as wrinkled as everything else they wear. This dinner party is meant to be a formal affair- candles and cuff links, silver and silence; but somehow pandemonium- the joyful sort only the young can create- always flares up. If it were a question of nature verses nurture- and this was a topic of great interest to the professors- Mello would use the yearly scene of laughter and glass clinking and drinks spilled down blouses and button downs as evidence toward the innate gaiety of children. He and Matt are trying to find Matt's other black trouser sock when they- well, Mello- lift up a layer of cloth to reveal a small perfume bottle. Mello knows what that is, in that he knew it was there. Matt snatches it and tucks it behind their encyclopedia set on the shelf.

"What did you do that for?"

"It's my mum's, okay? It's all I could sneak in of hers."

They dig in silence for a minute after that, until Matt peels the sock off Mello's staticky sweater and they walk down to dinner, taking turns shoving each other aside.

Sometime after he had joined the mafia Mello remembers this. Lucky Matt. If he had a bottle his mother's ghost could have come out of it, and so many things would become clear.

That night, that Christmas Eve, he evades bedtime for as long as possible, head filled with giddiness, nose filled with cinnamon and cookies, moth coated with shortbread. He is reprimanded by Roger for his immaturity, and he tells him without fear that immaturity is innate and no amount of lessons can stop him. Roger frowns. I'll show you logic. Near, who had spent the evening curled in Roger's armchair to get away from the others, merely rolled his eyes and went back to his puzzle.

Matt started smoking not long after they ran away. The smell of his cigarettes didn't particularly agree with Mello, but they both had appearances to keep up, and if Matt felt he had to smell the role as well, so be it.

growing up

(sternum)

The final straw came that December, mere days shy of Mello's fifteenth birthday. The final straw was L dying. Or maybe it was Roger calling Mello and Near into his office. Or it was him saying what he knew was right and Roger wanted to hear.

Oh, never mind. Mello doesn't know what it was.

As he walks down the cobblestoned street with Matt trying to catch up, Mello goes over why he should have fought for it. I have tact! Near does not! I don't require everything I want!

That wouldn't do any good, he thinks bitterly. If the job of L is anything like what Roger told us, Near will do just fine as himself. Matt is at his side now, one hand on Mello's shoulder, stopping him, the other on his own knee as he tries to catch his breath. The air is cold but humid and still, and produces a feeling very similar to illness. Matt shouldn't be with him. He doesn't have to live in the shadow of one hasty decision for the rest of his life, much less live in the ever present threat of mediocrity and failure. Or maybe he does. After all, he is coming with him.

They pool their resources for the cheapest flight they can find and take off in the early evening. Mello is suddenly overcome by an all-consuming dread. If he had stayed behind the embarrassment would have been painful, but he knew exactly what would happen the next day and the next. He has his mind, the 500 pounds he and Matt had exchanged for American money at the airport, but he doesn't have the faintest idea of what will happen when they land. He's going to have to grow up, he thinks, and fast.

This effectively marks the end of another epoch, the first such ending he can remember...

corruption

(lips and teeth)

With foxes one must play the fox, and never has Mello been allowed such free rein on his cunning than here, on his own. He survives because he is smart, or at least that's what he would like to think. Matt survives because he is with Mello. This is my friend. He can hack things. Eight words and being with the right person at the right place at the right time and Mello is in their club, with a room he shares with Mello, cigarettes, an outlet for his laptop and games and the occasional admission to someone's bottle or box or syringe. Life settles into rhythm again, if tensely.

Then Near. Enter Near, and all of Mello's halfway forgotten rage and jealousy are back to course through his veins and burn them away and bleed into his every pore.

Enter Kira, whose deftly inflicted fear and undeniable smugness cause much the same reaction.

Enter Lidner, with her beauty, tact and practiced hand.

Enter Sayu Yagami, who could not bring herself to slap Mello any more than he could bring himself to hold her and reassure her she would make it out alive. Or was it the other way around? Sayu's anger at not screaming loud enough or fending off Mello's cronies, and Mello- why wouldn't he need some semblance of belief that he would live long enough to forget this?

Mello can feel himself twisting into the very person he was once taught to fear- or, more likely, defeat. But, he thinks, even if I could stop this, is it even worth trying?

daybreak

(lungs)

January. Zero hour. He knows with almost unbearable certainty that he will die, but why can't he be a cataclysm of some kind, wind up as a corpse with some sort of significance? He wonders if he has time to write down his memoirs. He still has time. Maybe Matt will survive to-

No.

Their truth will not be accepted as such. Popular opinion becomes belief, belief becomes fact. Of the truth, only the interesting bones are dug up and displayed, and Mello's ego is not so inflated that he doesn't know he isn't one.

It's still early. He has time, but for what, he doesn't know.

Matt is still sleeping, slumped over his fluorescent screensaver with one hand held up by a high cheekbone. He never deserved this. Mello isn't sure whether he himself does, but Matt definitely doesn't. Mello pulls up a chair beside him and puts his arms around Matt's shoulders and lays his chin on top of his head, a gesture of friendship, or maybe just because Matt is the only tangible thing left anymore. In Mello's head they are with their nine-year-old selves, telling them a story they have long ago memorised but do not know the significance of yet.

You know this next bit. Now, stop me if I'm wrong...