December/The End

Matt doesn't really believe them.

But when did he ever?

Sitting on the cramped, you-can-barely-step-outside-for-a-cigarette sort of balcony, and listening the the roars of cars on the nearby road, and various sounds of what-have-you, he calmly lights a cigarette and lifts it to his lips.

He stares out at the only view he could afford with the money he earned cheating casinos- he'd always liked places with views. Places from which you could sit, your own personal oasis, and watch the chaos descend.

Lights in the distance glitter, and the cars roar on, and Matt watches, waits.

He relaxes against the icy sliding-glass window and his boots take their place on the shaky railing, and he gets comfortable, in for the long haul.

He's waiting, quiet and comfortable.

Matt scoffed when the letter came, snorted contemptuously at the carefully chosen words of 'comfort' and promptly tossed the letter the the trash, though he tore off the very bottom fold, to keep.

All that's there is a single signature and some numbers, information he could easily get anyway.

He has no idea why he kept the slip with the signature on it. Evidence, what have you, he doesn't care and doesn't know. He slid open the drawer to his Ikea desk and stuffed the page in.

Mello isn't dead.

He's not denying it or grieving over it - even if he was dead, Matt isn't the type to grieve - or trying to block out reality with that wall of ridiculous childrens logic.

He knows Mello isn't dead.

For one, the blonde would be too young to turn in, only a few weeks over the twenty-year mark. They even went out to a smoky pub to celebrate his birthday, got drunk and ended up laying down in a filthy alley and counted the stars. Hand in hand.

And second, he was Mello.

That rough, violent, egotistical, cynical bastard wouldn't die.

Dying meant losing.

And Mello didn't lose.

He knows that Mello's out there, still, probably not even giving Matt a second thought. Living it up with another group of mafia followers, chasing crime and solving it the only way he knows.

With more crime.

And Matt has to snort a little, knows he's wasting his energy and time out here in the freezing cold, waiting for a man he wouldn't see if he did choose to come back to the apartment. No, he'd bang right through the front door and demand to have a meeting with the nearest bottle of alcohol. He wouldn't stand under the balcony and shout for the whole damn world to hear, but what could Matt do?

It occurs to him that he's become more and more like a dog, as time has slipped by, waiting for his master to return, nothing without him. No. Matt can get places without Mello- he's got talent and cash and connections, he could be in Italy by tomorrow if he so wished.

But he chooses to stay in Japan. The last place Mello would choose for him to hide out and expect him, the stupidest desicion he could make, to hole up in this shit-hole and wait, waste away. How else did they know where to send the letter? Figured.

And they would question him, how stupid he was, for waiting for an ungrateful bastard to return to boss him around and take him for granted. That was Mello, probably abusive by state standards- oh well.

They didn't know Mello.

They didn't know that he had a weird freckle on the incline between his foot and the protruding ankle bone (it looked kind of like Texas), didn't know that his back was sort of ticklish, didn't know that he had the oddest habit of returning from the grocery store with lame $1 movies in hand.

They didn't know, and he didn't expect them to know.

So, Matt'll wait, shine his proverbial lantern, and somehow guide Mello back home.

( A/N: Wow, that was a lot longer than usual ! It was mostly rambling, like always~

I'm not all that good at MattxMello writing, and I know why i'm not, and the reason is depressing. D: ;

Anyway, hope you enjoyed !

Thanks for reading, reviews are love, and have a fantasmic day! :D )