Author's Note: So, I was planning on posting this tomorrow, but then I realized that tomorrow is Monday, and I am pretty much incapable of doing jack shit on Mondays after work, so… Here we are. Hope you all enjoy—next chapter should be posted next weekend, but I may post early if I get enough reviews… Comments and constructive criticism welcome.

Disclaimer: Still don't own it.

Three Lives Left

Life One

When the alarm on his phone began cheerfully beeping the theme to Mario, announcing to him that it was currently 9a.m. (AKA too damn early), Matt wasn't quite sure how to react. Primarily because he wasn't exactly supposed to be awake right now.

Or, y'know, alive.

If there were alarm clocks in the afterlife, he was going to be so pissed.

Reaching over, he grabbed his phone off of the nightstand and stared at it in disbelief.

January 26, 2010.

The morning of the day of Takada's kidnapping. The morning of the day he died.

What the actual hell?

Confused, Matt rolled out of bed, twisting free of his blankets and falling to the floor with a particularly graceful "thud!" He looked down at his own torso, noting the distinctive lack of bullet holes. He even poked at himself a bit, just to be sure. There was nothing but unmarred skin, that lovely shade of "shut-in pale," badge of many a day spent locked indoors with a stack of video games, of which he was so proud. A cursory glance around the room showed everything the way he had left it the night before, the way he had woken up to it the first time around—the PSP on the nightstand, stack of games next to the bed, two desktop computers and one laptop humming away, even the small pile of clothes that he had worn the day prior that somehow hadn't quite made it to the laundry bin. And if he listened carefully…

Sounds. From the kitchen. Just like the first time.

Disbelief warred with hope in his mind, and hope won out as Matt made the snap decision to stop questioning his situation. For now. Barely remembering to shrug on a tee-shirt, jeans, and his goggles, he ripped his bedroom door open and scurried into the living area like a kid on Christmas morning. When he got there, though, he stopped short, eyes wide behind amber lenses.

The entire kitchen was a mess, every surface spotted with pancake batter, and what seemed like an entire bag of flour had apparently spontaneously combusted over the floor. Half a carton of milk had tipped over at some point, though to be fair, some of it had made it into the sink. Chocolate chips littered the entire countertop. And at the center of all that chaos…

"Mello," he breathed, his heart constricting.

He'd thought he would never see him again. And he hadn't even realized how horribly that thought hurt him until now.

"Hey, Matt—'bout time you dragged your ass out of bed," the blond muttered, scowling down at the skillet in front of him. "Do me a favor and finish making these, will ya?"

Smiling just a tad stupidly, Matt made his way into the kitchen to inspect the damage. Chocolate chip pancakes, charred on the outside, liquid on the inside—a Mello specialty. He was just too damn impatient to cook them on a lower setting, so he always set the burners to high heat to "hurry them along." It was just one of the billion things that Matt found so endearing about his best friend. Would that he cared this strongly for someone else—anyone else, really—someone who could take care of himself without having minions do most of the "boring stuff," someone who was more likely to laugh than to shoot, someone who favored smiles over death-glares…

But no, Matt had fallen for Mello.

Ain't life a bitch sometimes?

"Well?" the blond asked impatiently. "Are you planning to help, or are you just gonna stand there like an idiot?"

The redhead grinned sheepishly, moving to take control of the stovetop from his friend, just as he'd done the last time. As soon as Mello had made his way to the table, facing away from Matt to pore over his notes on the case for approximately the billionth time, the gamer flicked the ruined batch of pancakes into the trash, turned down the heat, and started over. Within minutes, he had two short-stacks of perfectly cooked chocolate chip pancakes, one of which he presented to his roommate along with a glass of chocolate milk before he sat down to dig into his own.

"Thanks, Matt," Mello said distractedly, drenching his own plate in chocolate syrup. Matt just nodded, lost in his own thoughts. Well, mostly just the one thought, really.

How exactly does one go about telling their best friend that they died last night?

…And not end up committed?

Matt may have only been third at Wammy's House, but even he knew that that wasn't the sort of thing one could just announce and expect to be blindly accepted. Mello had already expressed his concerns that the gamer may have had trouble distinguishing reality and fantasy on multiple occasions, and this certainly wasn't going to help with disproving that theory. Besides which, Matt barely believed what had happened himself—a part of him wondered if it had just been an unbelievably vivid dream coupled with an ass-ton of déjà vu. Only the remembered feeling of the bullets slamming into him convinced him otherwise. He couldn't just pretend that what had happened was normal, couldn't just tell Mello the truth…

But that didn't mean he would give up and blindly accept his own death, of course. No, he just had to try a different tactic. One so simple that it simply had to work.

Into the silence of the dining room, Matt cleared his throat, waiting for Mello to glance up.

"So, uh… I've been thinking… How about we don't do that thing tonight?"

Fucking brilliant.

"By 'that thing,' you mean ending the reign of terror imposed upon the world by the man who also happened to kill our mentor?" Mello asked, the anger and disbelief in his voice barely concealed. The way the temperature in the room seemed to drop at those words informed Matt that he may have erred.

Trying for nonchalance, the redhead fiddled with his pancakes, as if he hadn't just suggested that his best friend abandon his ultimate goal hours before it went down. His hands trembled slightly, giving the lie to his calm act. "Well, I mean… yeah," he replied lamely, wincing. Perhaps he should have thought this one through a bit more… not that there was really much time for that…

"…I can't fucking believe you," the blond growled. "No way in hell am I stopping this. Not now."

"Someone else will catch him, Mello," Matt continued, trying to hide the note of pleading in his voice. "It's only a matter of time. We can just leave this behind, and go somewhere else, somewhere without—"

"Dammit, Matt, I said no!" the blond snapped, slamming his fists against the table and making the dishes jump. Matt's jaw clicked shut, his eyes wide behind the goggles. He hadn't seen Mello this angry in a while, but he knew when his friend meant business. "This is not up for discussion! I have come this far, and I will see this through! If you want to pussy out on me now, fine, but I will make sure that this happens!"

He stood up, then, his blue eyes blazing. He practically threw his dishes into the sink, and Matt could hear at least one of them break—not that it mattered, of course, he wouldn't be needing them after today anyway—before he strode towards the exit.

"I've got to go out to get a few last supplies," Mello said tersely over his shoulder as he opened the door. "I'll be back before show time. If you're not here, I'll just have to find some other obnoxious piece of shit to be my distraction."

The door slammed shut behind him, and Matt winced.

'Well,' he thought, 'that could have gone better.'

He was still there when Mello came home, of course.

He was on the couch, playing Pokemon on his DS—because when it was one's last day on earth, what else would one play?—when the door opened and the blond came in, dropping a bag by the door. Mostly chocolate, Matt was sure. The smoke bombs were already made, the guns already loaded, so he wasn't sure what other "supplies" could possibly be necessary. Raising his gaze from the screen in his hands, his eyes met Mello's. He wasn't glaring anymore, which was good, but he didn't exactly look happy to see him right now, either. The redhead didn't say anything, trying his best not to make the situation worse. Again.

After a moment, Mello sighed, made his way to the chair beside Matt's couch, and broke the silence. "So. You're still in?"

Matt nodded. "Yeah. If you're still set on doing this, then I'm still in."

"Want to tell me what happened to cause you to try and bail earlier?" Mello asked. "That way I can make sure it doesn't happen again," he added hastily, lest Matt mistake the question for him actually giving a crap about his friend's feelings (Matt would never dream of it, of course).

The gamer shrugged. "Can't a guy get worried when he's about to aid in a celebrity kidnapping?"

"Oh, please. Up until this morning, the only thing you worried about was whether or not you'll look cool enough when the news gets your high-speed chase on camera," Mello scoffed, rolling his eyes. "What happened, Matt? For real."

"Nothing."

"Bullshit."

A long pause. And then, the truth: "I don't want to die."

Mello blinked. "Seriously?" he asked, voice incredulous. "That's it? Matt, you're not going to die."

The redhead laughed, a half-choked, despairing sound. The blond gave him an odd look—laughter probably wasn't the sanest of responses in this situation, but then, he wasn't the sanest of people right now.

"Yeah, Mello," he said. "I'm pretty damn sure I will."

"No, you won't."

"Yes, I will."

"What is this, a fucking Bugs Bunny cartoon? No, Matt, you're not going to die, and that is final!"

Matt laughed again at the sheer arrogance of that statement—his friend honestly thought he got to decide who lived and who died. Sometimes, Mello's God complex could really get ridiculous. Besides which, he was getting a bit annoyed that his supposed best friend was taking his concern—his extremely valid concern, by the way—so lightly.

"I'm sorry, Mels, but I'm pretty sure you don't get to make that call," he told Mello. He wished there weren't a slightly hysterical edge to his voice at this point—it really was making it harder to convince himself that he wasn't just losing it. "If you don't want to bail on the plan, fine. I gave you my word. I'll stay with you. But if I stay, I will die."

There was a long pause, then. Mello had that look of frustration on his face, like he was trying to find a way to explain something to an imbecilic child—which, to be fair, most of the world was to him. Matt didn't push him, just gave him that moment to gather his thoughts. He always had been the patient one, here.

"Matt," the blond said finally, almost calmly if one didn't notice the way his teeth were gritted and his hands clenched into fists, "I'm giving you this particular part of the job for a reason. It's the safest option for you. They'll want information on the kidnapping, and—"

"I will die, Mello," Matt repeated firmly. "I know it—don't ask me how, I just do. And you'll have to live with the knowledge that your idiot plan got me killed."

"No, I fucking well won't!" Mello snapped at him, eyes blazing. Matt raised an eyebrow at him.

"And why the hell not?"

"Because I'm not coming back from this one, Matt!"

The gamer's eyes widened at that, staring at his best friend, whose face was flushed with… anger, at Matt for arguing? Embarrassment, at revealing that he was essentially planning his own suicide? Matt wasn't sure, and that scared him, but not nearly as much as the way Mello seemed to be completely, one hundred percent sincere.

It wasn't true. It couldn't be true. It made too much damn sense, but it couldn't be true.

Mello couldn't die, too.

The blond shifted uncomfortably beneath Matt's stare, then he reached into his coat pocket for a chocolate bar, as if partaking in his favorite addiction would restore balance, reestablish some semblance of normalcy between them. If anything, it just made the whole situation more surreal.

"What do you mean, Mello?" Matt asked finally, his voice shaking slightly. Mello sighed.

"If we fail, then Kira kills me, and I'm dead," he explained, his voice strained. "If we succeed, I kill him, but his followers kill me for revenge, and I'm dead. Either way, I don't come home."

"But what if—?"

"There's a goddamn miracle?" Mello cut him off, rolling his eyes. "'Cause I'm sorry, but that's the only way I'm getting out of this alive, Matt."

"Have someone else do it," he continued, standing up to pace across the living room. "You've got to still have connections, right? Minions hiding somewhere, waiting to do your bidding? Call one of them up, they can do the kidnapping thing, you can just be like… supervising or something, right?"

"There's no time, Matt!" Mello insisted. "No time to let someone else in on the plan and make sure they've got it down pat. And there's no one else I trust to pull this off properly. Just me, and just you."

Ouch. Playing the trust card—there wasn't any coming back from that one and they both knew it. Matt sank back onto the couch, and put his head in his hands, defeated.

He heard Mello shift on the chair next to him.

"Matt. Look at me."

Ever obedient, the redhead raised his head, hoping that the goggles hid the sheen of tears over his eyes. Bright blue eyes stared back at him, hard and icy, and Mello had that stubborn look on his face, the one that had gotten him to the top of the Mafia hierarchy, because no matter how delicate he looked, there was no stopping him when he was set on something. Like he was now.

"You need to do this for me, Matt," he said firmly. "You live, and when Kira is defeated, you be sure to let Near know that it never would have happened without me."

Fuck. Even now, thinking about Near. Matt didn't know what he expected. Something a little bit more heart-warming, he supposed. His heart sank a little further, but he nodded.

"Yeah," he said. "I'll do that for you, Mels."

Mello nodded. "Good," he said, standing up and heading back to his bag by the door. "I'm gonna get going, then… I'll see you there, Matty."

And that was it. Before Matt could even fully comprehend it, his friend was gone, the door shut behind him with a finality that would have shaken him, had he not already been thoroughly shook.

A long few moments passed, and when Matt looked at the clock, he realized that he had to get moving as well. Standing, he realized that he felt lightheaded. It was a strange thing, this walking-knowingly-into-death business.

Stealing himself, Matt took a shuddering breath that turned into a sob halfway through, and grabbed the keys to the Camaro. He wasn't about to let Mello—his best friend, for fuck's sake—die alone. At least he had a bit of time to think of some new last words.

Why he decided on "Come at me, bro!" he would never fully understand.

End Chapter One

Author's End Note: Romance kind of begins next chapter, so look forward to that! Also, sorry that I'm so rambly and long-winded. It was actually a challenge to not make this chapter more rambly and long-winded, and I had to cut some stuff out… I think it gets better going forward, though. Maybe. Either way, hope you enjoyed!