In Nomine

by mr. eames

There was a time when you were Mail Jeevas, and you were happy, and you were safe, and you were invincible. But now you're Matt, just Matt, and you're alone. Mattcentric, light Matt/Mello, oneshot.

In Nomine

A/N: This fic takes a lot, and I mean a lot, of liberties with Matt's lack of backstory and proper personality. This is, essentially, Matt's story. Obviously it's not canon, but it's not AU, either, as far as his known involvement with canon occurrences go. I do feel the need to say that Matt is not a social butterfly here, and he is not Mello's super-fun fuck buddy, either. I find the first to be out of character, and the second to be tolerable when done in a light-hearted fic, which this is not.
Quite honestly, I've always been a sucker for characters that show up and disappear, with only inklings about who they really are, and Matt kind of takes the cake in that category, doesn't he? So, this is who Matt is, in my mind.
Warnings: Gratuitous second person point of view, the inevitable gayness that comes along with me writing something, and, oh, you watched Death Note, for fuck's sake, you'll be fine.
Pairings: The Matt/Mello here is light. The one-sided Matt/Mello is heavy. Don't say I didn't warn you.
Summary: There was a time when you were Mail Jeevas, and you were happy, and you were safe, and you were invincible. But now you're Matt, just Matt, and you're alone. [Mattcentric, light Matt/Mello, oneshot.]
Disclaimer: Not mine.

.

You are Mail Jeevas, and you hold the world in the palm of your hands. Nothing is impossible, so far as you know.

You are five years old, and there so are many things that you want to be when you grow up. The possibilities are endless, never ceasing and fascinating. Sometimes you want to be President of the United States, and other times a fireman. There are no reasons, to you, why you cannot be an astronaut, or a world famous detective, or even a rock star–though you don't really want to be that last one.

However, when your father asks you, "Don't you want to be a superhero?" you think it a ridiculous notion.

You are five years old, and you reply, "Superheroes aren't real, Dad, don't be silly."

This is when you realize that you are not quite the same as everyone else, because your father goes all quiet and seems to regard you for a long moment before he nods and tells you to go play outside. You do so, because he is your father, and you love him with your whole entire heart, and you (almost) always do what he tells you to.

.

Looking in the mirror, this is what you see.

Big, dark blue eyes, that your mother says are like the parts of the ocean that no one ever sees. Right now they are shiny and wet with tears, the white parts all interspersed with red lines, and you know that that's called 'bloodshot'.

Dull, red hair, that curls around your ears and is always messy, no matter what you do, though it's not like you really care. Some of it is, currently, plastered to the left side of your face with dried blood, and there's dust and dirt in it, from where you were on the ground.

Freckles, freckles, everywhere, all over the bridge of your nose and the tops of your shoulders, and your father tells you that's what happens to the Jeevas boys when they play outside all day. There are also bruises, mostly on your legs and chest, and your mouth is bleeding, from where your lip was split.

Your mother is walking by with towels to put in the linen closet, and she sees you and she screams, but it's not that angry scream that she does when you won't go to bed or when you won't eat green-colored food, it's the kind where she's scared, and she wants you to be okay.

She says, "What happened to you, honey?" She turns you away from the mirror, hands on your shoulders and looks into your eyes. Her own eyes are a lighter blue than yours, and right now they are your entire world.

You don't tell her that some of the boys in the neighborhood got sick of you simply because you're different, because you're weird. You don't tell her that they dragged you over to the empty lot where sometimes they play baseball, and they beat you up, five on one, not even giving you a chance. You don't tell her that, while they were punching and kicking–mostly kicking–you recited prime numbers to yourself, as something real and true to latch onto.

You don't tell her any of this, because she is your mother, and you know it would hurt her more than it does you.

She takes you to the hospital and when they ask her what happened she says, sounding almost ashamed, "I don't know, he won't tell me."

The doctor has her leave the room and he is a nice man, with thinning hair and glasses, and he has his own little chair that can move about the room on wheels, so he brings it to sit in front of where you are, on the high table, kicking your legs back and forth even though it hurts a little to do so.

You tell him that you and some boys got into a fight, and you don't want your mother to know because she always tells you not to fight.

He seems to understand, says something about, "Boys will be boys," to your mother and that you will be fine and have no broken bones. He acts as if it's a perfectly natural sort of thing.

The explanation, the lie, came to you very easily, but you don't understand it. You see no reason to fight, nor have you ever, and you wonder, then, if boys are supposed to want to fight, and you do not, what does that make you?

.

You have a little sister and her name is Attica. She is tiny and cannot talk much or move around on her own, but you know that she loves you, because one of the few things she can say is your name, and she quite often does so, reaching our her chubby little hands and cooing for you when you walk into a room. Her hair is strawberry-blonde and her eyes are hazel, and she looks like your father, while you look like your mother.

There are a few times where you make her cry, of course, because you're an older brother and they do that, sometimes, but those times are far and few in-between, and you would do anything for her, anything, because she is your sister, and you are her brother, and nothing will ever change that.

.

It is summer time, mid-August, and you are at day camp when one of the counselors finds you and pulls you to the side. He is your favorite one, because he has red hair, like you, and freckles, like you, and you want to grow up to become a camp counselor, now.

He looks very pale as he takes you back to the gymnasium and tells you gather all of your things, because you need to leave early. You are very upset by this, because only the babies leave early, who don't like to be without their parents for a whole day, and you're not a baby, you're seven years old.

For some reason he holds your hand while he walks you to the front of the school and there is a lady there who you think is your aunt, but you don't see her often so you're not sure, and you don't want to go with her, because she looks very, very sad, and she is not your mother. You try to tell the counselor this, but he lets go of your hand and shakes his head, and tells you that she's here to pick you up.

She doesn't tell you who she is as you get into her car, and she buckles you in, while you protest that you can do it yourself. You try to remember her name, or, at least, the letter it started with, and you think it might be an L, but you aren't sure what the rest of it is, not even by the time you arrive at the hospital.

You say, "What are we doing here?" but she does not answer you.

You have never been inside a hospital before, and you don't think you like it very much. Everything is dimly lit with fluorescent lights and all of it is clean, but it smells weird and there are lots of people sitting around and doing nothing, which makes no sense to you. Why in the world would anyone ever sit somewhere and do nothing?

Off to the side, your aunt is talking to a nurse and pointing to you. The nurse says, "Hon, what's your name?"

You smile and say, "Mail Jeevas," because that is who you are.

She does not smile back.

.

There was a time when you were Mail Jeevas, and you were happy, and you were safe, and you were invincible. But now you're Matt, just Matt, and you're alone.

You lived with your aunt until you were nearly eight, and her name was Aunt Lucinda, you found out, but she forgot to feed you a lot and hardly ever talked to you, and then she wouldn't wake up one morning because she was dead, so you don't live with her any more.

After that they didn't know what to do with you, you suppose, because she was your father's only living relative, and you've never met anyone from your mother's side of the family, though you don't understand what 'conceived out of wedlock' or 'disowned' means, so you have no idea why that is.

What they did was they took you to an orphanage, which was something you'd only ever heard about in books and on the television, and left you there to...to...to do whatever it is people do in orphanages–no one ever explained to you what that was.

Then, one day, they gave everyone tests. Not like the ones you took in class, but ones that actually made you think. They weren't horribly interesting tests, but they were easy, for you, yet still hard in a way that no other schoolwork had ever been. And, a few weeks later, some people came to pick you up and you were on a plane to England.

When you came here, to what they call Wammy's House, you, at first, thought it was just another orphanage, but you quickly realized that it was not. They gave you a room with two beds in it, though that was a bit silly, as you only need one, and they gave you things like a new toothbrush and a stack of notebooks and yellow, unsharpened pencils. It took a few days, but soon half of your closet was filled with clothes, all of them in the right sizes.

You were already aware of the fact that this place was different when they took you in to talk to Roger, the manager, who explained it all to you.

Explained that this was an orphanage for gifted children, and therefore, you were gifted, because you were there. That you would go to class and you would study and you would learn, all to become a possible replacement for the world's greatest detective, should he die. That, if there was anything that you wanted, you should never be afraid to ask for it, though you would not always get it.

That you are Matt, and Mail Jeevas does not exist, any longer.

Now, as you lie here in bed, wondering who you are–who you really are–you realize that what you are is terribly, desperately scared and lonely. You want your father to drive you to the store to get popsicles while he sings along with country songs on the radio. You want your mother to comb through your hair and tell you how hopelessly tangled it is. You want Attica to reach out for you and say your name that isn't your name any more.

You are eight years old and you have lost your entire world, so you must create a new one.

.

Much of your first year at Wammy's you pretend to be a superhero, in your mind. You act like Superman, who has to hide his powers and his real self from everyone, and pretends to be normal, when he knows that he is anything but.

During the day you are Matt, who never raises his hand in class, and slumps forwards on the desks when papers are handed out. You always do almost perfect on the tests, which is better than everyone else, but you never try, because it is all so very boring. You sit in the dining hall and push your food around your plate and don't look at anyone, because that is what Matt would do.

Matt is a mild-mannered, quiet young boy who is smart, but disinterested in the world around him.

At night, though, you are Mail Jeevas, kick-ass superhero, who can read through philosophical essays for college students as if they are nothing more than picture books. You leap across the room, from one bed to the other, sometimes falling down, but always getting up. You climb out the bedroom window and sit on the roof, looking up at the moon and pretending that it is your home planet, and you long to go back to it.

You (still) know that superheroes are not real, but you cannot let Mail Jeevas die, and you have to be Matt here, so you need a way to be both–and this may not be the only way to do so, but you are eight, almost nine, and it is the most fun way, so it is the way you choose.

.

When the boy who is to be your roommate arrives, he is loud and biting and kicking, and he is being pulled down the hallway by a couple of the men who work in the building. He is yelling in a different language that you recognize as something from Eastern Europe, but don't know it well enough to translate. You probably wouldn't pay him any attention, except for the fact that they push him into your room.

He starts throwing things, so you say, angry, "Leave my things alone," and, "if you have throw stuff, throw your own stuff."

He is blond and wiry, almost girly, in a way, but he also looks furious and like someone you probably don't want to mess with. He replies, in accented English, "I do not have anything of my own," and looks at you as if you are stupid.

"Wait until you do," you tell him, "and then throw things. I don't have much either, so leave what I do have alone."

He goes 'hmph' and settles onto the bed across from you, and stares at the ceiling. He is wearing all black clothing and it makes his hair look something like a halo, like you think angels have. Your family was never very religious, and you aren't sure you think angels exist, but if they did you think they might have hair like he does.

You ask, "What's your name?"

For a long time he says nothing, and you've almost given up on him answering when he murmurs, "Which one?"

"The one they gave you," you say. It would be nice, you think, to know his real name, but you know that you would never tell him yours. Not ever, because it is the one thing you have, the one remnant of who you used to be. You cannot take that from him any more than he can take the same thing from you. It wouldn't be right.

"Mello," he finally says, and it sounds like he's trying it out, seeing how it sounds in his own voice. "My name is Mello."

.

For your ninth birthday you get a Gameboy Color, in red. You are not sure, who, exactly, bought it for you, but it is on your desk when you come back from your classes that day, and you know it's your birthday, so it must be a present. At first you aren't sure what, exactly, to do with it, and you sit there, staring at it, for the longest time.

Then you notice the colorful box sitting by some of your books, and you realize that it's one of the games that you can play with it. You open that box up, figure out how to put the little cartridge in the back of the Gameboy, and then how to turn it on, and then–you start to play.

It's a simple game, involving puzzles and things of that sort that you have to solve. It's nothing complicated, but...it's nice. It's nice to sit there and play a game that has no consequences on real life, and that lets you drift away and forget about the things that surround you.

Mello thinks it's stupid, but Mello thinks everything is stupid, including you, so that doesn't really bother you much.

He does ask, though, "Where did you get it from?"

"It was sitting on my desk," you shrug, from where you're lying on your stomach on your bed, still playing the game. "I don't know who left it there."

"What if it was, well, you know," whispers Mello, harshly, sounding enchanted by the very idea. He means L, the detective that will die eventually, and whatever. You're not sure how a letter can be a detective, honestly, how does anyone take him seriously? But Mello thinks that he's probably the greatest person in the entire world.

"Oh, come off it," you roll your eyes at him derisively, "like he would take the time to give me a Gameboy. Don't be stupid."

You may be able to shrug off being called stupid, but Mello hates it, and he grumbles under his breath and slinks over to his desk to do schoolwork.

You've beaten the game by the end of the night.

.

The very best thing about Matt is that he does not cry, not ever. As Matt, you have never once cried and you find the idea of doing so to be downright absurd. Matt is amazing, Matt is who you choose to be more and more over time, because he is someone new, someone who can be strong when Mail–poor, poor Mail Jeevas–cannot be.

.

"You are taking a lot of computer classes," Mello says, looking at your schedule for the upcoming semester. You shrug, eyes on the screen of your Gameboy. "And I noticed you spend a lot of time in the computer lab. Why is that?"

"Um," you say, considering the question for half a second, before, "'cause I want to."

The blond huffs and you know him well enough, now, that you don't have to look to see how his bangs flutter upwards for a moment, and how he, more than likely, looks up at the ceiling and you think he's probably asking his God why he has such a dumb roommate. You don't mind, this is how Mello has been for, well, it's nearly been a year now. He's almost comical to you, by this point.

"I was trying to," Mello starts, then he frowns for a moment. "I mean, I had noticed that you were–well, you used to be number one at everything, right?"

"Yes," is all you say, because being number one, in all the subjects, it doesn't matter to you, not anymore. It was just something that happened, and now he's number one in everything, and, really, it's not as if you're happy for him, but at least he truly does care about being number one.

"But now," Mello says, as if to echo your thoughts, but once again he lets the beginning of his sentence trail off. Sometimes he does this, like his mind is working faster than his mouth. "Are you trying to be the best at computers? Because I am no good with them, not really, so you could easily–"

"Mello," you interrupt, turning to look at him, "if I end up being the best with computers, well, then, I do. If I don't...I don't." His eyebrows knit together as if this concept is foreign to him, and you know it is. "I like them, and I like working with them, so, who knows, maybe that's what I'll end up doing with my life." You pause. "Computer stuff."

"Wh–but you–we–what?" he stutters over the words, and he looks lost. You remember, very distinctly, that Roger told you what you were here for, and that was to train to take over for the world's greatest detective, should he die. But, truth be told, you aren't too keen on the idea, so whatever.

"Do you know what I did last week?" you ask, not wanting to have that discussion. He raises an eyebrow at you, and it disappears into his bangs, causing you to grin. "I hacked into the computer system for the house."

"You...you did what?" he sounds incredulous, and he really has every right to.

You know he heard you, that it's not that kind of a 'what', so you continue, "Yeah, it was terribly easy, really. There are records on everyone, even people who were here before us. They started with A and B, yanno."

Mello ignores that, goes, "Did it say anything about...him?"

"Of course not!" you exclaim, even though it surprised you, because there was, quite literally, nothing on the illustrious, elusive letter L in the entire system. Not that you could see, anyway, because, though you've been playing around with computers ever since you arrived at Wammy's, you don't know quite enough about them to know if you managed to peel back all of the layers.

"You didn't look at my record, did you?" he asks, hands akimbo and gaze fiery and daring you to say that you did. Sometimes Mello beats up other boys when he goes outside, but you don't go outside, and, anyway, you know he would never beat you up, because he likes you, even though he never says as much.

"For a second," you admit, shrugging. He looks aghast, more than he looks angry, really. Terrified, more than terrifying. "All I saw was your birthday, Mel, I didn't even see your name, and even then, c'mon, it wouldn't kill you if I knew that, would it?"

It would, and you both know it. Neither of you have ever so much as ventured to ask or to even imply that you want to know the other's name.

He frowns, and, for a moment, the two of you stay like that, looking at one another, but then he looks to the side, and you turn back to your game, and everything is back to normal, again.

It is so hard, you think, that night, as you lie in bed, to remember which name is real and which name is not. Really, you are Mail Jeevas. Mail Jeevas. But hasn't some small part of you become Matt?

.

You have no idea who Near is, or when he arrived, but all of a sudden Mello is number two, you are number three, and Near is in first place in everything. Well, except for computers, but neither Mello nor Near take computer classes, which are optional, so it's almost by default that you're in first there.

Mello is livid and says things like, "Who does he think he is?" and, "What right does he have to do this?"

You don't think that Near, whoever he is, is doing this on purpose. He can't have gotten here very long ago, so it's not as if he knows Mello and wants to take his spot from him. Of course, you don't even bother to think about saying as much to Mello, to suggest that Near might just be smarter than him, or, at least, smarter in a different sort of way, that lends itself to the tests you all take that determine ranking.

Perhaps, you will think, years later, all of this is your fault, every last bit of it. But you are what is left over, you are number three, you are inconsequential, when you get right down to it, and so–so none of it is your fault, really, it can't be.

Still, it doesn't change the fact that you say, "Well, try harder, then."

Mello gapes at you, trying to form words and looking at a loss.

"I know," you sigh, "you work hard as it is, but what else are you supposed to do? Someone is better than you now, so try harder. There's no use in just...sitting around and doing nothing. If you want to be the best, go on and take it."

Mello doesn't say you're right, or smile at you, or even nod, he just stares into your eyes for a few long seconds, then turns, gathers up the work that's piled on his desk from the day's classes and says, "I'll be in the library, then."

A few hours later, when it's getting dark outside, you go to find him and he's there, still working, or, maybe, he's done with all of the work and now he's doing what he can to learn more. You're not sure which it is, or if the difference really matters.

You say, "Mel, don't burn yourself out, c'mon," and put your hand on his shoulder.

It is the first time, in so many years, that you have really touched anyone. His shoulder feels warm under the thin material of his black shirt, and he glances up at you, frowning, before he says, "Alright, fine, I'm coming, Matt."

Because that is who you are. Matt. Quiet, but dependable, not social, but always there. Matt, who has no freckles because he stays inside and plays video games, instead of going out with the others, who sits in the computer lab for hours on end. You have a closet full of striped shirts and a dresser full of jeans, and you are no longer pretending to be someone who you are not, because who you are is Matt.

You are eleven and Mail Jeevas seems to have all but disappeared.

.

Mello makes fun of you for the goggles at first, but stops, gradually, after you don't respond to it.

Roger gave them to you because you've been having trouble with bright lights, especially in the classrooms with lots of windows. It must be, you think, because you hardly ever go outside, and, so, you only have yourself to blame, but blame would probably require you to be upset about the situation, and really you don't care about it any more than you might care about putting on your socks in the morning.

The goggles tint absolutely everything gold and it's almost like living in a dream.

.

When you are thirteen, you sneak out of Wammy's. You know that you will be back–and that you will probably get, at the very least, a week's worth of detention–because you have nowhere else to go, and have not yet formed the thought that you could go anywhere, if you were really that determined.

No, all you do is walk around. It's windy and the sky is grey, but Winchester looks very nice. You keep asking yourself why you're out here, because you've never been anything but happy to stay indoors and pretend the rest of the world–where mothers, fathers and little sisters can die–does not exist.

There is a park a few blocks away from Wammy's, and there are even a few children playing there, despite the fact that the air is cool and dark rain clouds are beginning to gather in the sky.

There is a girl, a teenager, sitting on one of the benches and you think she might be the prettiest person you've ever seen in your entire life. She has long, wavy black hair and big brown eyes and her cheeks are pink. She seems to be watching the kids play, so you imagine at least one of them is probably her sibling.

"Hi," you say, quiet and suddenly feeling very shy and nervous, even though she can't be more than a year older than you, just like Mello–yes, yes, just like Mello, so you shouldn't be nervous at all.

"Oh," she says, looking somewhat startled, as if she didn't notice you, "hello, there." She is wearing sky blue gloves and they're covered in small balls of fuzz. "Are you–do you live around here?"

You stare at your shoes and feel yourself flush as you mumble, "I'm from Wammy's House."

"Wh–oh," she seems to realize what building you're talking about and sounds very sad, but when you look up at her eyes you don't see any pity, which is a relief. You don't know if you could handle seeing pity on her face, because she really is quite pretty. "Why are you alone?"

You almost feel offended by this question. She isn't much older than you, and she's either here by herself or with one of her siblings, and so who is she to ask why you're here alone? Still, though, maybe you can kind of see it from her side of things. Orphans–and that's what you are, an orphan–do not usually tend to wander out and about on their own, do they?

"I'm just taking a walk," you decide upon, hoping that it sounds reasonable. Your mother and father used to take you for walks around the neighborhood, and sometimes you would even ride your bicycle and that's a completely normal thing to do, you think, and you don't want her to see you as someone who is not normal.

"Oh," she says, once again, and you can't help but think that, for as pretty as she is, she certainly does not have a very diverse vocabulary. She is nice–she seems nice, but there is nothing in her that you can relate to, and the same is probably true for her to you. "Well, I hope," she says, and then she pauses and goes pale, and tugs on a strand of hair. "I hope you have a nice walk, then."

You do not have to wonder at what she wanted to say. What does one say to an orphan after all? She probably means to tell you that she hopes you will get adopted by a nice couple, but doesn't know how you'll react.

All you can do is nod to her, and turn away, wishing you had never said anything in the first place.

As you walk back to Wammy's it begins to rain, and the droplets of water cling to the plastic of your goggles, making the whole world look blurry and out of focus, and, for the first time in his life–which is shorter than your own–Matt cries.

.

Back at Wammy's, you don't get in trouble. This is because Mr. Wammy (the Mr. Wammy, who you have only seen and never talked to) has left, and Roger is now in charge permanently, and there are whispers that L has gone to take on some case, the name of which sounds vaguely familiar, and no one is paying much attention to you.

Mello grabs at your arm when he finds you as you're walking through the hallways, heading back to the room you share with him.

He doesn't let go even as you ask, "What do you want?" and frown at him and, well, he must see the tear tracks down your cheeks, unless the rain completely washed them away, which you doubt.

"Matt," he says, "you have heard what everyone is saying, right? L is going to solve the Kira case!"

Your frown deepens as you say, "Yes, Linda was saying something like that down in the playroom, but I don't–" Suddenly you realize that Mello looks worried, perhaps even frightened, and his grip on your arm is as if he's drowning and you're the only thing he has to hang onto so as to keep himself afloat.

"He might die," Mello whispers, and you don't know what to say to that. L is a letter, L is a name, L is an ideal, a goal, a far off shadow of a human being, that is all–to you, anyway. To Mello, he's something much more, something that you've never been able to understand.

You start to walk down the hallway once again, thinking you'll pull away from Mello and leave him to be alone, because Mello usually likes to be alone when he's upset. But Mello's hands don't leave your arm and he follows you, not leaving your side until you get back to the room.

Four years. That is how long you have known Mello for, and still you don't understand him one bit, but–but, it is possible that over that time the two of you have become something. You've never really had a friend, but that must be what he is...mustn't it? Or else, why would he be reaching out to you when he needs someone, why would you be the only one who has ever seen him look scared?

Mello is all black clothing and anger and rosary beads hanging around his neck, but this boy, he's the one who wistfully wonders aloud whether he could get a second serving of chocolate ice cream, he's the one who, after rankings are announced at the end of a semester flies into a rage, but never throws any of your things, and he's the one who's here, right now, and needs you to be here, too.

It is a wonderful thing, to be needed.

You leave your newest Gameboy to the side and talk to him until lights out, and he even laughs, a few times, and it's a beautiful sound.

.

Near is the quiet boy with white hair and even whiter skin who sits in the playroom and puts together puzzles and has toy robots and makes castles out of what must be hundreds and hundreds of individual dice. He always wears pajamas and you always look at him and think to yourself how odd it is that this is the boy who has beaten Mello, and this is the boy who Mello hates the most in the entire world.

When Mello goes outside and you, as usual, ignore him trying to pull you out there with him, you always wander the hallways and, more often than not these days, you end up at the playroom.

You don't sit very close to Near, no one does. He may not talk much, and he may not look like much, either, but you don't doubt that Near would probably hate you forever if you knocked over one of his creations by accident.

What you do is you sit a little bit off to the side on the carpet or, sometimes, lie on your stomach, a good few feet away from him. It's closer than anyone else gets to him, anyway. He never says anything to you, and you never say anything to him–though, there are a few times where you consider asking him how he got so good at puzzles or why he has so many toys, but you never do.

Near doesn't go outside. Not like you, because, from time to time, you'll be dragged out, against your own will. Near simply never leaves Wammy's, and he might just be the only person who's more pale than you are, with his skin looking like paper, and his blue veins showing through starkly on the underside of his arm from what you can see when he raises up a hand and the long sleeve of his white pajama shirt slides down to his elbow.

It's really just that–well, Near is interesting. Even if he does the same thing every day and even if he never looks people in the eye, or perhaps because of those things, he is interesting.

And you don't think that your presence goes unnoticed, either. You don't miss the fact that the younger boy's eyes sometimes fall onto you, probably while he wonders how he should feel about you being there, if anything at all. So, you decide, he must not mind you being there, not really.

The two of you certainly aren't friends, not like you and Mello, no, not at all–but there is some sort of relationship there, and it makes you sort of giddy to think about. Two whole people who you are around on a regular basis, oh, it's–well, pathetic. But you'll take what you can get, because you are Matt and Matt is so very sick of being alone.

.

L does an interview with the Wammy's children when you are fourteen. Of course, it is not a real interview, and you all gather around a laptop instead of an actual person. You stay near the front, leaning over and trying to see what kind of wires and cables they're using for this whole business, wondering what program L uses to distort his voice.

The other children, like Linda and Eliot and Guest, they all ask questions, in timid little voices. Questions that should probably sound off coming out of the mouths of children, except for the fact that you are, all of you, not regular children.

It does not surprise you that Mello and Near are both in the back of the room, away from it all, pretending not to care. Well, you know that Mello is pretending not to care, because the chocolate bar he has in his hands is shaking ever so slightly, and his eyes are shining just the tiniest bit. You have gotten exceptionally well at reading Mello, observing how he acts and coming to conclusions based on his body language and tiny little movements.

Near is not pretending, not really. He will look up, occasionally, from the puzzle he is working on, whenever there is a slightly pertinent question asked, but that's really all. Otherwise he just twists the fingers of one hand, idly, in his hair, and uses the other hand to piece together his puzzle. No, Near is not even trying to make it looks like he cares or like he doesn't, but he is interested, on some level.

You end up paying so much attention to the laptop and to the other two boys that you don't even hear half the question and answer session, and, you figure, that probably means that, out of all of them, you are the one who cares the least about the whole thing.

Somehow, that surprises you.

You remember a time when you would have wanted this, when you would have done anything to be the best, when you would have believed that there was nothing that you could not do. What happened to that person? Is it just that you have grown up, out of your childish beliefs–or are you a new person entirely?

.

Two things happen instantaneously. L dies and Mello leaves. Or, perhaps, more accurately, L's death becomes a known fact and Mello leaves.

Mello comes pushing into your room, and he is distraught, in the sort of way that he only ever lets you see, and he looks as if the entire world is ending, and he says, "L is dead," and you nod, because it is the only thing, really, that would make him hurt this much and this loud.

"So, what're you going to do then?" you ask, looking at him from your bed and worrying at your lip. You know there has to be some sort of system in place, L must have picked one of the two, and–well, it was probably Near, right? Or did he pick Mello instead, because Mello is older? You have never really thought about it, because...because L dying has never seemed like something that was actually possible, for some reason.

Mello says, "I'm leaving," and his English really has gotten nearly perfect over all of these years and–what, you find yourself thinking, what does he mean?

"But," is all you manage to say, not because he interrupts you or anything, but because something inside you, it breaks, at the very idea of not having Mello around. When did you become so attached to him?

"It's the only way," he continues, and he's throwing clothes into a bag you did not know he had, and he's not looking at you. "Roger wanted me to work with Near and–I can't, you understand that, don't you?"

No, you don't. You don't understand it, at all. Why can't he just work with Near, why can't he stay here, why does he have to leave you–you don't understand why he has to leave you, and you feel stupid for it. What are you? A dog who needs his master near him at all times? But, but, really, honest to God, really, Mello is the only person you have, and–

"You don't want me to come with you?" you ask, quietly, staring down at the floor.

You can feel his gaze on you for a moment that is entirely too long before, "Matt. You should stay here." It's quiet for another, maybe, half a minute. "I don't know where I'm going, not exactly, but I know–it will not be anywhere good."

You want to yell at him, shout at him, throw things at him, and tell him not to leave. Because he knows it, and you know it, that you are not going to leave here, and that it isn't fair of you to ask him to stay. But is it fair of him to leave you here?

"I don't want you to go," you finally manage to tell him, because it is the only thing you can think to say. Your voice is small and it cracks a little, and you can feel tears threatening to spill out unto your cheeks, but you blink them back, desperate for Mello not to see.

He says, "Oh," and then does not seem to know what else to say, which is, you think, numbly, probably a first. For a moment you remember the girl in the park, an encounter which embarrasses you to this day, and your cheeks darken as you remember how pretty she was, and see how pretty Mello shouldn't be, but is.

Pretty–pretty is not the word to describe Mello, though. You might have thought, all those years ago, that he looked like a girl, but he doesn't, not really. Sure, that haircut doesn't help, and he is skinny as sin, but so are you. His face is too hard and his body too angular–all the things that every boy is, well, Mello is all of them, but he's...what is he?

He's your best friend, that's what he is. The only thing in the entire world that you can lay some amount of stake on. Even the video games and computer parts and things that you have, they were all given to you by other people. Mello, he is yours, and you are still a child because you do not want to share him with the world.

He leans in front of you and, ever so slowly, tentatively, he pushes your goggles up, your bangs going with them, so he's seeing your eyes, brimming with tears, which you squint in the bright light of the room, and your forehead, sweaty and pale. You want to say, sarcastically, oh, thanks Mello, now I look fabulous, but you find that you cannot say anything.

"Hey," he says, and, even though he is only a year older, he seems so much more grown up. He has his hand under your chin, and he is looking at you as if he is memorizing you, every inch of your face, every one of the pale freckles which are only just dusting your cheeks, and the color of your eyes, which your mother says–said–are like the parts of the ocean that no one ever sees.

Then he pulls you close, closer than the two of you have ever been, his arms around you, so it is a struggle to move your arms so that they are around him, but you do it anyway. He smells like nothing special, maybe like chocolate, a bit, but otherwise he just smells clean.

"You can't come," he finally says, and you wonder if he's saying it like this because he does not want to look at you while he does so, "because I am going to make a million and one mistakes." You know it is incredibly hard for him to admit something like that, so you stay quiet. "And I will probably end up getting hurt, and you–I don't want...you to get hurt." He practically breathes that last bit out, onto your neck as he lets go of you and backs up.

"Someday though," you somehow manage to say, glaring at him furiously, mouth set firmly downwards, so he can see how angry this makes you, "someday I'll find you and I'll-I'll–"

You have no idea what you will do, honestly, and you know you are just saying words that you have heard in movies and read in books, but you also know that you mean them–you really do mean them–more than anything you have ever said before.

"I know," is what Mello says, and you believe him.

.

After Mello leaves, you are in second place, but it's not like it matters. Near sometimes looks at you in classes that you share with him, or when you go to the playroom and sit a few feet away, but he never says anything to you.

Sometimes you imagine telling a joke, something stupid about how quiet it is without Mello around, but you doubt very much that Near would know what to do with a joke if it danced in front of him naked, so you keep those thoughts to yourself.

.

The Christmas party that's held nearly two months after Mello leaves is dreadfully boring. You suppose they have always been boring, but Mello made them better. Mello, Mello, Mello. You aren't doing a very good job of thinking of things other than the blond boy, but you cannot help it.

You get a few video games that you wanted, none of them surprising in the least, not that you mind because, you suppose, it is exactly what you wanted, but you wish people would think outside of the box sometimes, because everything feels so predictable, everyone is so predictable, and you don't like it.

Much of the night you spend sitting by the window in the large dining hall where meals are served, looking out the window. It is snowing and you think you can hear church bells ringing.

All of a sudden, Near is sitting across from you, and you jump a little when you see this, wondering how quiet he must be that you did not even hear him come this close. Or, you wonder, was it because you were so far away, pulled into your own thoughts?

"What?" you ask, not meaning to make the word sound as harsh as it does. He already will not look you in the eye, but he almost never does that to anyone, anyway. You know what he must be here to do. Surely, he will ask you about Mello and whether you know where he went and what he said before he went there–and you will not know how to answer, because this is Near, and he is the only person left who you are close to, but you don't even know him.

He says, "Did you celebrate Christmas with your family, when you were with them?" His words are blunt and almost forced, as if he is not quite sure how to go about saying them.

You do not know what to say for a long moment, because it's not what you were expecting, at all. Finally you say, "Yeah. Yes. We did. At least, I think I remember having done so." Honestly, out of everything you think about doing with your family, celebrating Christmas is not exactly on the top of the list, but you have vague memories of shiny wrapping paper and hot cocoa, so, perhaps.

"I do not think that I did," he murmurs, and he has one knee up to his chest, and one pale hand in his white curls. He looks about ten, but he must be, oh, God, twelve, thirteen? You aren't sure, but you do know he is older than he appears.

However old he is, you think, of course Near never celebrated Christmas. It is the very opposite of a Near-brand event. People getting cozy and sentimental and emotional, all whilst taking pictures? Good God, no wonder Near is never anywhere to be found at these parties.

Except, well, this year, he is sitting with you.

"Why are you here?" you ask, and he blinks at you, without even really looking at you, so you must have startled him out of some thought or another. "I mean–shouldn't you be, I don't know, avoiding everyone and playing with your robots, or something?"

"Shouldn't I be," says Near, quietly, and he's looking out the window now, like you were only a few minutes ago. Honestly, while you know you will never hate him like Mello did, Near can be infuriating at times. At least Mello, for all his faults, knew how to hold a conversation.

"Earth to Near," you say, waving a hand in his face. You almost laugh, too, because his eyes get huge and he looks, for a brief moment, shell-shocked and almost afraid. But...you don't laugh because he really does look scared, at the very least, and you find yourself wondering if there aren't things that you don't know about Near and deciding that there must be, because there are certainly things that he does not know about you.

It seems to take him almost no effort, however, to compose himself, and once again he's blank as a canvas, and his eyes are still big, but they no longer betray any sort of emotion.

"Are you going to leave?" is what he asks, and you know it's what he came here to ask, because Near doesn't care about Christmas, or your family, or any of those things but–he cares about whether or not you'll stay? You aren't entirely sure, but the question seems to have some sort of purpose, more so than the one before it had.

"Wammy's?" you say, stupidly, because of course he means Wammy's–you have nowhere else to leave. Near nods and for a second you think he's looking at you, only to realize that he's staring over your shoulder. Sneaky kid, really. "Um, well, yeah, I guess I will. Eventually."

His mouth twitches downwards and you think that means he's exasperated, or else he's decided you're utterly hopeless, because you were supposed to know that what he was really asking was–"Are you going to find Mello?"

"Oh," right, yeah, of course. As if Near doesn't already know the answer, you think, frowning at him, and, God, why can't you be as good at hiding your emotions as he is at hiding his? "Eventually," you repeat, "I will, yeah. He's my best friend." If ever there was an understatement, honestly.

Mello, ever since he has been gone, might as well be your entire world. What else do you have, after all?

"I see," says Near and, being Near, he probably does.

The two of you sit there for what feels like the longest time. You think about asking him if he's going to leave, but you find that, if you are really honest with yourself, you know the answer and, besides, you don't really care one way or the other.

At this point, you don't care about much of anything, do you?

.

At first you had just thought Kira wrong, because killing people was wrong, no matter what–well, unless it was pixels in a video game, but, otherwise, no matter what. But now, now you decide that you do not like Kira, at all. And, yes, it's because he killed L, and, yes, it's because he took Mello away from you, but more than that it's because Kira not only sees the world in black and white, he decides which parts are black and white, and that, you have come to realize, is the real evil of the whole situation.

To you, Kira is evil because he thinks that he is not.

.

When you are fifteen, almost sixteen, you are supposed to learn how to drive.

You refuse to take the classes, and there really isn't anything they can do to make you take them, because if Near dies somehow, some way, you're next in line. Not Mello, because they don't know where Mello is. You are not indispensible, but you are also not something they want to lost because of a petty argument.

And it is petty, you know that, but you just can't, you just can't–cars kill people, and driving is an entirely awful experience, you're sure, where one is completely dependent upon every other driver to follow the rules. If just one person doesn't, horrible things can happen. You know this better than most people.

You also know that it is completely stupid of you, and you are smarter than that. People die from all sorts of things, and if you were to take every precaution in the world to not die you would end up a bare room with the door locked, alone.

Even Roger points this out when he calls you into his office, saying, "Matt, you take classes where you handle firearms, this is tame by comparison," but eventually giving up on you because that is how Roger is.

Besides, you know that he has looked at your record, that most of the teachers and workers probably have, too–and you did, as well, years ago when you first hacked into the orphanage's database and wanted to see what they had to say about you. It says it plain as day, how your parents and your little sister died, and so they must understand, you think, they must, that cars kill people and leave little boys all alone–so how are you supposed to drive one, knowing that?

.

You do not miss your parents anymore, you come to realize, one day. Even when you try to pull up memories of them, they don't come easily. If someone asked you who your parents were, you would not have an answer.

You used to think about them all the time. Mostly you would think about the day it happened. Wondering why your father wasn't at work, and why they were all in the car together, where they were going. Were they coming to pick you up? Perhaps you had been morbid, but you would wonder how exactly the whole thing happened. Was the other driver drunk, or just horribly careless? Was it all just a tragic accident? How much blood was there, you always wanted to know, and had it hurt to die, or had it simply been that one moment they were alive, and the next they weren't?

No one had ever really bothered to tell you anything more than the basics, probably thinking that you were too young to understand.

After a while it became unbearable to think about, and, now, it doesn't even occur to you to think about it at all.

Even little Attica, who would be, oh, fourteen by now, rarely crosses your mind. There is a girl, younger than you, named Still, and she has strawberry blonde hair that she always wears in braids, but it stirs nothing in you at all, nothing.

This hurts less than it should.

.

There are so many reasons why you like computers that you aren't sure where you would start if someone asked you.

You are sitting at your desk, working on math problems, when you think of this. Math is easy, but it's also completely, unequivocally boring, and you look for any reason to not do it, so you let yourself stare down at the lined paper without really seeing it while you think.

Perhaps it's something like how you used to recite prime numbers when you were little. Computers are something you understand. They're always there, right where you left them and won't betray you, despite what some science-fiction movies might have you believe. They cannot think on their own, and they need you to tell them how to think.

Computers never, ever leave you when you do not want them to.

Yeah, there's all that. But, mostly, you decide, you like computers because they are what you are the best at. You will never be the best with numbers, or the best with words, but you will always be the best with technology. That must be it, there is really no other viable explanation.

...God, but you would be a horrible detective, you think, what with the way you are so determined not to see the things that are right in front of you, simply because the things that they imply do not sit well with you.

That's fine by you, though. You have never wanted to be L–a letter. You may be Mail Jeevas no longer, but you are Matt and that's three more letters than L will ever be.

.

By the time you turn seventeen you are horribly bored. You wonder what Mello is doing, and imagine that either he has died in some grisly, disgusting manner and that it will only be a matter of time before you're told about it, or that he is living a glamorous life in some big American city and probably having sex with several women, all who appear to be flawless and tan and categorically not computer nerds, when you see them in your mind's eye.

Not that you think about it that often. That would be entirely too creepy, if you sat around and thought about Mello's sex life all day. You have your own things to think about, in-between classes that are, by this point, far too easy, the computer system that you've been working on for over a year now, and trying to figure out what you are going to do with your life.

You think, perhaps, that you may want to look into a career as a sidekick. Superheroes are not real, of course, but sidekicks definitely are. You'll skip the whole tights and cape routine, but you've got your goggles and you figure that you would make a good steadfast companion to someone who needs your assistance.

You could be a career best friend, live your life being that one guy, and you might not get any recognition for it, but–well, you were never in it for the recognition, were you? You were never in it for anything at all, actually. No one comes to Wammy's of their own volition, and you know this. Every single person here, genius though they may be, would give this opportunity up if only they could go back to being a normal kid.

Or maybe that's just you, you aren't sure.

Whatever the case, you are seventeen, and you have already decided that your life will not star you. You have resigned yourself to the fact that you are but a bit player on the stage, and, more than likely, you are being manipulated by other people, and you always have been. No matter what might have become of you had things gone differently, this is what you are.

You don't even have to tell yourself that you are Matt anymore–it's as natural a thing as breathing.

.

For some reason you feel a need to say good-bye to Near before you leave. It isn't because you've become close with him, or anything like that. No one is close with Near, after all. It just feels like it is something that you should do.

Maybe because he is the only person you have to say good-bye to, or maybe because it feels wrong to leave without saying good-bye to anyone–but that can't be right, because you did say good-bye to Roger, in a way, simply because you had to let him know you were leaving.

The reason doesn't really matter, though, not when all's said and done.

"Well, I'm...I'm leaving," you say, eighteen years old and not sure of yourself in the least. You're standing in the doorway and you've got a suitcase, just one, and you're trying to look bored, but as usual you're unable to hide the fact that you're a bit nervous and mad at yourself for not being able to avoid using the same words as Mello.

Near is doing what Near always does these days, sitting in the computer lab, in that weird way of his, with toys and papers spread out by the computer space he uses to gather information on the Kira case. The things that Near does are entirely predictable. The things that he says, however...

"Mello is probably in Japan, by now," he murmurs, glancing at you for a moment as if considering something, although you can't imagine what that could be.

You laugh–and it's weak, almost fake sounding, but it's genuine, despite that–and say, "No he's not, and you know it. And don't-don't tell me where you really think he is, because I...I need to find him. I can find him, alright?"

"Alright," Near says, and he says it in a way that you imagine a parent might say patronizingly to a child who is pretending to know more about the world than they actually do. Part of you hates Near for this, hates him horribly, but mostly you just remind yourself that Near does not know you–that he probably, long ago, decided that you were no one who he should really concern himself with.

It hurts, just a little bit, because you let it hurt you.

"Well," you say, turning away from him, "see you around."

His answer is, "Of course."

You decide that when Mello asks you how you left Wammy's you will describe a thrilling escape involving explosions and armed men chasing after you, quiet Winchester turned into a battlefield. He will never believe you, of course, but it's better than telling the truth, that the world ends with a whimper, and not a bang.

.

You take a taxi cab to the airport and book yourself a flight to Los Angeles without much trouble, using a fake credit card. Roger offered to pay, but then he would see where you're going, and then he'd know where Mello is, so you politely declined.

Here is how you know Mello is in Los Angeles: you don't. But it's everything a Mello-city should be. Big, bustling, broken, and one of the few places where crime still flourishes, these days. You considered New York City, but that lacked a certain subtlety. Not that Los Angeles is subtle on its own, but it certainly is in comparison.

And you know Mello is involved with some sort of criminal organization because–well, you'd like to say because you know him so well, but really it's because, when you hacked into the FBI's records on organized crime, you found that, over the past six months, a relatively unimportant sect of the Mafia has grown to be one of the strongest groups in southern California.

Oh, it's not proof, sure, but you still know it's where he is.

Mello would always complain about how finding evidence would be the worst part of being a detective–when you were as smart as you all were you could piece things together and be certain of them without silly little things like evidence. You know what he means, when you look at these records, and imagine little blond Mello, who can't be all that little, any more, working with the Mafia.

It makes sense, in a way–ah, who are you kidding? It makes sense in every way.

But, the thing about the Mafia is, it's hard to find where they are without getting yourself involved. And you aren't Mello. You may be handy with a gun these days, and you may be able to get access to government records like that, but, still, you aren't Mello. You don't know how the underworld of a city works, and you aren't exactly excited to learn, either.

So, you decide, you will just have to wait until Mello needs you. Until he does something stupid, because he will, and he finds you.

Honest to God, you're sick of waiting, but if you've done it all these years you figure you can do it for a while longer.

.

Smoking is something you just fall into, even though it's a total waste of the money you're earning by doing computer work out of the hotel room you're staying in.

It's something to keep your mind off the fact that it's been a whole month and still, nothing, nothing, nothing has happened. Four weeks, however many days, and nothing–you raise a half-smoked cigarette to your lips and watch the sun rise, the sky a myriad of colors that mix together in a way that you might have thought pretty, a long time ago.

Now it's just nature, and you have someone's laptop that needs to have its files wiped, so you get back to work.

All your clothes smell like cigarette smoke and you wonder what Mello will have to say about that.

.

Three more months go by and you get an apartment, though you'd hoped that your living arrangements wouldn't get this permanent. You've picked up Spanish pretty easily by now, just from listening to other people speak it, and sometimes you stare at the ceiling and roll your Rs for lack of anything better to do.

You're up to a pack of cigarettes a day, already, and you barely even notice the smell anymore, or the way the smoke curls around you when you have one in your hand.

There's a guy a few apartments down who drives a delivery truck for a living, and on weekends he teaches fifteen and sixteen year olds how to drive. You offer to pay him fifty bucks a pop if he'll show you the basics, just enough to pass the test for your driver's license, and he sees no reason not to.

He probably regrets it once you're in the car, gripping the steering wheel so hard your knuckles turn white and stomping on the breaks even when there's a good few feet between you and the car in front of you.

He says, "Christ almighty, kid, relax a little, won't you?"

And, somehow, you do, after a while, though you never stop being as careful as you can. You go in and take the test for license and you pass more because the guy taught you exactly how to pass, rather than how to drive, but you pass, regardless.

The license has a fake name, and fake birthday, and fake everything else, because at Wammy's you were taught that you could never let anyone know anything about you–but it's real. You can hold it in your hands, and it is real, and, silly as it is, that makes you something like–not actually, but something like–happy.

.

He finds you, in late October, and, God, you're thinking, it's about time. You think it might be because you've become the sort of person to go to for a lot of people around the area who need someone with technological expertise (or whatever the hell it is you offer), but he doesn't explain himself, and you don't ask.

What he does is he goes, "So, Matt," and smirks, and then, "what brings you to LA?"

You aren't able to answer for a long moment, during which you look at him from where you're sitting on your couch, a few feet away from the door he's just pushed open and barged through. For as much as you might have changed over the years–which isn't much at all–he has changed so much more. It shouldn't surprise you, because you know, at least vaguely, what he's been doing all this time, but it does.

The words to describe Mello are suddenly there, when they weren't before. You used to grasp at them–elegant?–and wonder which–handsome?–described him best, yet–feminine?–none of them ever came close. But now, now, now he's in front of you, and his hair is the same, but a bit longer, and a bit darker, as if he's been spending all his time indoors, and his eyes are hard, like he's seen things you haven't, and he's covered in leather and feathers and his rosary beads, in a way that would look good on no one else but him, and–now you know.

He's terribly beautiful, exquisitely terrifying. He looks like no other person you've ever seen before, not even like the person he used to be, the person who pushed your goggles up your forehead and held you close as he told you that he didn't want you to get hurt.

But, he's also–"Mello, don't be a fucking idiot," you reply, blowing out into the air and grinning when he waves a gloved hand at it, disdainfully. "I know you can't help it sometimes, but do try." He's also Mello, and, despite everything, you still know him better than you know anyone else in the world.

"Hilarious," he responds, rolling his eyes at you, but the corner of his mouth is twitching up in what could possibly be called a smile. "I don't have time for pleasantries," he continues, and you almost snort, because the idea of Mello partaking in pleasantries even if he did have the time for them is almost hysterical, but he ignores you, "I just wanted to inform you, in person, that you owe me."

"For?" you ask, raising an eyebrow and leaning over your piece of shit coffee table to snuff out your cigarette, because you don't want him to notice that your hands are shaking, just a little bit.

He struts–no, he really does, there's no other word for it–over to where you are on the couch, and leans over, and you half-think about saying that he hasn't developed a sense of personal space during all this time, then, but you aren't sure you're able to form words when he's this close.

"I found you," he declares, sounding almost insufferably proud. "You said you would find me, but I found you first, so I win."

"That wasn't–it wasn't a game, Mel," you begin, exasperated.

Then he puts one hand on his hand, dangerously close to where–oh–he has a gun there, in the waist of those horribly (wonderfully) tight leather pants, and you know Mello would never shoot you, just like he never would have beaten you up at Wammy's, but it's still not a pleasant sight to see.

"It doesn't matter if it wasn't a game," he informs you, leaning back and crossing his arms over his chest. "You still lost it, whatever it was, so you have to do something for me."

And, really, you didn't come all this way, and wait all this time, to say no to him, did you?

.

What he wants you to do is set up a sort of rudimentary security system in this warehouse sort of place that he assures you is a Mafia hideout, and then rig up explosives.

"Mel," you say, staring around the place, "I've never done explosives before. I can hack into...whatever you want me to, and I'll set up the security, but–explosives? I've never done that sort of shit." This place unnerves you, because it looks like it's empty, but something...something tells you that it's not.

"Stop being so damn jumpy," he says to you, and he's got this chocolate bar, foil half ripped off, in his hand, and he seems more interested in it than he does in you. "No one's here but us right now, alright?" You nod, hating how, as always, when it comes to you, he's like some sort of psychic.

"But, Mel," you say, again, because sometimes it seems like he doesn't listen to you when you don't say his name, "the explosives–I'm not sure if–"

"I'll help you with them," he interjects, looking up at you, finally. "Explosives don't have to be fancy to work, really, I just need–well, I can't do it on my own and I don't trust any of these guys I'm working with, yanno?"

Which means, on some level, he trusts you, even after all this time.

"Yeah," you answer, quietly, and then the two of you get to work.

.

Mello blows himself up and you can't believe you didn't see it coming. You knew he was going to do something stupid but–of all the things, Mel, of all the goddamned things in the world to do to yourself–you didn't think it would be this monumentally retarded. Then again, you're the one who finds his skinny ass amongst the rubble and the glass, so you must be just as stupid as he is.

.

It takes a while, but Mello–well, he recovers, for the most part. There's the scar, of course, that covers one side of his face, which he hates and which he hides and which he does not like to talk about, but he's no longer in pain, and he's able to do things without your help, which he is, naturally, glad for.

If you thought he was different before, that's nothing compared to how he is now, but it's in a way that is, you think selfishly, better. He tends to stay close to you, when he can, sitting by you silently while you play one of your video games, and following you out onto the balcony of your apartment when you want to smoke outside for a change.

He has this quiet, smoldering determination, which was probably there before, but is so painfully obvious now. Sometimes it seems all he does is think, sit and think, and glare at your cigarettes, and think and sit some more, but then, one day, he asks you to look into the SPK and find out who Near is working with so he can worm his way into headquarters, and that's such a Mello sort of thing to do that you gasp in stunned pride that is most definitely not sarcastic, and get hit upside the head for your trouble.

You both laugh about it, and it's almost like you're thirteen again, but you're nineteen now, and he is twenty, and it shouldn't feel like you're, the both of you, adults, but it does.

And, so, you follow him, as he, unsurprisingly, gets his picture back and tells you that Near is still a little shit, which is hardly an astonishing statement. You follow him to Japan. You follow him everywhere.

.

Somewhere, in-between everything that is going on, in this moment in time that you cannot place, you ask him a question.

"Mello," you say, leaning over the back of the couch he's sitting on, because it's always Mello and not Mel when you're being serious, and he knows this, so he looks up at you from whatever it is that he's doing. "Mello, are you scared to die?"

It's a stupid question, honestly, because you're asking Mello, so sure as water is wet and sure as fire is hot, his answer will be no–"Well...I guess I am," he replies, and he won't look you in the eye. "But that's–I mean, that's not weird or anything, right? Pretty much everyone is scared to die, on some level."

You want to ask Mello why he's so damn embarrassed by the idea of being normal, of being human, of being scared of something that everyone is scared of, whether they know it or not. You want to say something like, oh, heavens no, Mel, you have emotions that aren't anger and a never-ending inferiority complex? You want to remind him that you are scared, too, and he should stop being so damn self-centered. But–but, well.

"Yeah," you say, reaching up to play with your hair, a bit, "that's true. You're right, Mel." Mello smiles at that indulgently, because he loves to be told that he was right about something.

He doesn't say what about you or are you worried about something, which may be because he's intuitive enough to know what the answers would be, but is probably more because he's not overly fond of heart-to-hearts, especially not when there are things to do and plans to set into motion.

What he does say is, "Let's go for a drive," and drags you, though you don't put up much of a fight, out of the apartment the two of you are staying in.

You're not sure where Mello got it, and you don't even really want to think about it, but he has this gorgeous, brand new red Camaro, with leather interior and every optional feature there is. You would assume he's got yakuza connections or something like that, but you aren't even sure if the yakuza exists these days, and, really, you're not going to argue even if he stole it from the Queen of England.

"You can drive," he says, throwing you the keys.

The keys miss you by a foot because Mello has terrible aim, but also because you don't reach out for them. You're too busy going, like, "Oh, no, that's really–I would rather not," and, "I don't have a license for here, for Japan, which is where we are, yanno, so."

He rolls his eyes at you and is like, "Matt, we're going to break about twenty laws worse than this one with what I've got planned, so get in the damn car."

Okay, you're thinking as you get into the driver's seat, okay, this won't be so bad, because you learned how to drive back in California and they gave you a license there, so you've got that going for you. And the car is gorgeous, really it is. You've never been much of a car guy, but you figure you could become one if they were all this nice–and if, you know, you weren't terrified of them.

Mello isn't saying anything, though it is obvious that you're distressed. He's just sitting there, casually, cheek resting in leather-gloved palm, his eyes on you. He smirks, as if to dare you to stop being so afraid–and that is when you realize that you were wrong, and that Mello feels absolutely no shame in his fear for death, rather he embraces it, and he needs you to do the same.

Deep breath, eyes on the road, turn the key in the ignition, and go.

.

It doesn't bother you, not really, but you know it's not normal, the fact that you'll do anything for Mello. He knows it, too, he realizes it and recognizes it and uses it to his advantage, of course, because he wouldn't be Mello if he didn't. But it's not normal, it's not you being a best friend, or a sidekick, or an accomplice–even though you are all of those things, that's not what this is.

Mello must see it in your eyes, even behind the golden plastic of your goggles, he must, and what he's waiting for is for you to have the courage to actually say something, and sometimes you hate yourself because you know, deep down that you never will. It's not who you are, to say things that don't absolutely have to be said.

No, you won't ever say anything. You sit, smoking cigarette after petty (so petty) cigarette, so that you might have something to do with your hands. You throw your goggles across the room, because it has been so long since you have seen everything without that golden glow–only to quickly retrieve them because the sunlight hurts your eyes and you hate what you see.

It's somewhere around four AM when you venture out to the balcony where Mello is, just staring out into the distance. There's nothing but another apartment building in his sightline, but you don't doubt that he's seeing an entirely different world out there. Or, maybe, he's seeing all of this one, set ablaze.

"It's cold, Mel," you say, and you know it's stating the obvious because it's January and he's only wearing one of his leather tops that barely covers his hipbones, but you need something to say. "Aren't you going to come inside?"

He doesn't look at you, and he doesn't reply, not really, as he says, "What are you going to do after this?" Then, "I mean, once this is all over, and done with, once Kira's gone, what are you going to do?"

"I haven't thought–" you start, frowning at the question. It doesn't seem like a very Mello thing to ask.

"You should think about it, though," and he turns back to glance at you now, eyes heavy with some sort of emotion that you can't name. "Think about it for a second. I'm not asking for you to tell me your entire life plan, just what do you think is next, for you?"

"I'll, well, I'll...figure something out," you reply, leaning against the edge of the sliding door, and grimacing when you realize that the cold air is getting into the apartment. "Mel, come inside, really, man, it's gotta be–"

"No," he says, sounding almost like a kid, interrupting you. "Answer my question."

"Fine," you snap, glaring at him just the tiniest bit though he, of course, isn't looking at you to see it. You hate how he'll demand an answer from you and you'll always give in, but how he never answers any of your questions directly and you do nothing about it. "Fine, I'll probably just–well, I thought I'd," you can feel yourself flushing, and you look down at the ground, where it changes from shoddy carpet to the concrete of the balcony, "do whatever, with you."

He's quiet for a long moment and you're thinking about adding some sort of only if that's okay with you, but, before you can, he says, "What if I die, though?"

You stare at him, at the side of his face that you can see, and it's the scarred side, the side that he hates so much. Your lips are dry and chapped, probably just from the winter weather, and you lick them, nervously, out of a habit you haven't really been conscious of until now.

"What?" you breathe out, because although you'd considered the possibility before–of course you had, you aren't stupid–neither of you had ever voiced it. It was better left swept under the carpet. "Mello," you say, and his name hangs in the air, there, for what feels like an achingly long amount of time.

"Matt," he says, turning to look at you again, and it might be the beginning of a sentence, of an apology or of a reprimand, you don't know. All you know is that the way he says your name is so different from how anyone else does. You wish you had it in you to tell him about Mail Jeevas, about the boy you used to be, and see what that name would sound like from Mello's lips, but you don't.

Instead, you reach forward and grab his shoulder and pull him to you, just close enough so that you can bring your lips to his, feeling the way that he stiffens for a moment, and then seems to accept it. You know that he doesn't want this, not like you do, and that he's letting it happen only because he knows that you need it right now, but part of you feels like he needs it to, whether he's aware of it or not, so it's okay.

The truth is, it's your first kiss, and it's chaste and light and dry, but you'll remember it for the rest of your life, you think, because it's Mello, and he's warm even when the rest of the world around you is frozen.

You have no God to pray to, but if you did you think you would only ask for Mello, Mello, Mello, forever and ever, amen.

.

In a little less than a week you'll be twenty. A good age, if there ever was one. Eighteen felt a bit hollow, because it had never been as great as you'd always imagined, and so much of nineteen had been spent doing nothing but waiting, but twenty, yes, twenty is promising.

You wonder what Mail Jeevas would make of your life, now, what he would say, what, perhaps, he does say, but you do not hear because he is so very quiet, these days. Mail Jeevas had such high hopes for himself, and he had believed, in all his childish naïveté, that he could be anything, anything in the world, if he only tried hard enough.

He dreamed of being an astronaut and of flying amongst the stars, and of being the President and having the world at his beck and call. He thought the future that awaited him would be glamorous and exciting, while also realistic and, in some sense of the word, normal.

Now, you are the right-hand man of an orphan scorned, and an orphan yourself, to boot. You're driving a car well over the speed limit and you are, at the very least, wanted for being an accomplice to kidnapping. You are part of something much greater than yourself, an effort to stop Kira, who thinks himself fit to judge humans, but who knows nothing about humanity, you once decided, because you know the real world is not so black and white, and evil is not so easy to see as some might suspect.

Mail Jeevas, you think, wherever he is inside of you, might not be proud, but he definitely understands.

You aren't worried about your name not being known, or your importance not being grasped. You don't care that this will always be a story of Kira and L, Near and Mello, and never, ever, of Matt. You aren't here to be a glory hog or to have your life mean something or to go out in style.

You're here because Mello asked you to be, and he's the only thing you have left in the world.

You're here because you would never be able to forgive yourself if you weren't.

You're here because, because, because–

A long time ago, you were someone else, and you held the world in the palm of your hand, and there were endless possibilities, spread out in front of you and, perhaps without knowing it, this is the one you chose.

Step out of the car, hands up, cigarette lit and–

You are Matt.

You are Mail Jeevas.

You are no more.

.

A/N: ...so, if you've read this beast of a oneshot, I'd love to hear what you thought. If you liked it, if you didn't, if you hate it with every fiber of your being–let me know, and let me know why! I love feedback, and even the tiniest bit is always appreciated, I promise! :3
Due to the narrative style there were a lot of factual things that I couldn't really point out without them seeming obviously obtuse. So if there's anything that you really didn't get, mention it in your review or drop a message or something and I'll try to clear it up for you best I can.