St Michael and the Damned Apostle
"One must not believe demons even when they speak the truth."
-Saint Thomas
Part Five: The Other Note
Matt is wandering the halls of Wammy's, and something about these halls is different and very wrong. The floors are still worn from genius children's footfalls. The walls are still painted an expensive and impersonal cream. Even the curtains—sewn from fine, dark cloth—are still heavy from years' accumulated dust. However, Matt cannot shake the entire non-stillness of this situation. Something inhuman—too human—is alive and moving after him. The redhead's hair is like a beacon, so bright it transcends its own un-naturalness. It draws on the named and nameless force that follows him and—because his hair is part of him despite its artificiality—Matt cannot get away.
He tears at himself, tries to strip the dye from his tangled tresses as he runs, but the color refuses to leave. Instead, it grows brighter, richer…until Matt's hair literally drips with deepest red. The color flies off his bangs as he sprints, leaves angry, crimson wheels on the walls and floor. He can feel it running down his shoulders, into his mouth. The color does all it can to entirely possess him.
And still Matt runs. He curses the red and the thing it lures. He curses his smoke-scarred lungs and his laborious breathing. He even curses his own, fearfully pattering heart. However, he doesn't loose hope. Maybe Matt can get away.
Then he sees it: the door at the end of the hall. The other doors that fly past as Matt runs will not open, or rather, he cannot stop running to find out. No. He can only move toward this one—this tall, unyielding, blood-red door.
He stops before it.
Locked.
And turns to the monster that now has him…
…and sees everything in shades of red.
One more day…
Sunlight does not filter well through city smog. It is perverted by the dirty air, broken into something gray and dim and in every way unvirgin. However, even in its disgrace—in its lessened spectrum—light illuminates. It is because of this illumination that Matt is shocked from his nightmare. Mello, too, awakes. They've slept in later than intended…but it doesn't matter. The plot is set.
No loose ends.
Or rather, too many. So many frayed, unfinished edges that their plan might collapse at any moment. Flaws so numerous they no longer warrant mending. There's nothing to be done but wait.
Wait for death.
They cannot speak of it. Not on this tainted but sill lit morning. Matt merely stretches out lazily and lights a cigarette. Mello watches him for a moment, then averts his gaze. A slight redness of the eyes is all that remains of last night's tears. By contrast, the irritation make Matt's irises seem even greener.
"Where are your goggles?"
The hacker shrugs. "Don't remember. Can't see shit though."
Nodding, Mello allows himself to sink back into the ratty mattress. For a moment their situation seems blissfully ordinary. Just another morning. They'll get up. Matt will follow Takada. Mello will do whatever the fuck it is he does. They'll meet at the apartment around 10 p.m. and eat takeout for dinner. Mello will complain because the stir-fry's cold. Matt will pretend to listen. Afterwards, the blonde will shut himself up in the bedroom, and the hacker will sit on the couch and play racing games until he falls asleep…if he does. Perfect. Normal. They can pretend.
However, despite itself, the blonde's mind rejects this normalcy. He craves unconsciously to acknowledge, to somehow validate what, in twenty-four hours, will occur.
He does this by asking of Matt a deeply personal question.
"How did your parents die?"
Chuckling at the absurd, random and tactless nature of this inquiry, Matt tries halfheartedly to suck smoke back through his nose. "I don't remember."
"You're joking."
"No." With his regrettable eyesight, Matt tries to focus on the blonde. "When I was little…I used to think, you know…that I just sort of…spontaneous germination…out of the city streets…the concrete, maybe…I wasn't, and then..."
"…and then you started killing people with exploding watches."
"Yeah." No laugh this time. The smoggy light makes the hacker's skin look pale and sick. "I don't remember much before I met…before Whammy's…but I think I did. I think I've killed a lot of people."
"Me too. We both have."
"And we feel bad. But we don't feel as badly as we should."
"No." Mello gets up and stretches stiffly. Sometimes, in the mornings mostly, the scars feel foreign on his flesh. "But I guess we'll redeem ourselves tomorrow, right?"
"In others' eyes, yeah."
They are doing this for illogical and egotistic reasons. Mello, for revenge…because he hates losing. Matt, out of boredom…because he knows the blonde can't do it on his own. There is no morality in their actions. They don't want to save the world, and they really don't want to risk leaving it either. But they have to. For their own strange and stupid, selfish purposes.
"I just remembered something." Matt gets off the bed and casts about for his goggles and a pair of not so dirty blue jeans. "I'll be back in a few hours."
Mello nods and watches him leave. This time he asks no questions.
After all, I have my own loose ends to tend to.
Between his thumb and index finger, Near holds the envelope at arms length. He handles it like something toxic…like an animal that wants to bite him. His name is written on the face of it in handwriting that is all too familiar and strangely undisguised.
A letter from Mello.
Near doesn't bother asking Giovanni to have the paper analyzed, to look for poison or clues or something else mysterious. He knows Mello too well. That's not his style.
That, and sometimes its best to combat irrationality with the same.
So Near opens the letter and looks inside…and for the first time in a long time is quite surprised.
He's returned it.
The photo of a childhood Mello. Well-groomed baby-blonde hair and unscarred skin and eyes too wild to quite be childish. Despite his shock, Near gazes at this visage for just a second before flipping it around. His message on the back of the photo is crossed out. Mello has written over it.
"Memor meus visio."
"Remember my face."
Near understands much of this. He understands that the Latin is symbolic of Mello's Catholicism. He understands that the phrase's meaning is intended for no higher purpose than mockery. He also understands that, because he returned the photo, Mello no longer cares if his identity is known. This can only mean that Mello intends to die…and there is only one thing for which Mello is willing to be killed.
To catch Kira…incorrect. To beat me. For that, he would end his life.
And even this sentiment is something Near can understand.
What Near cannot understand is how Mello will accomplish this.
Or how he can possibly stop him.
18 hours…
"Hey Mello."
The blonde looks up at Matt, who has just entered the apartment. "What is it?"
"I got you something." Matt smirks. His fading hair is once again dyed a vivid red. "Here."
Deftly, Mello catches the memory stick in a gloved hand. He looks at it, then up at Matt. "You found it."
"Yeah. Just looked at the first line to make sure. Didn't read the rest. L told you something, did he?"
Mello nods and continues to stare at the stick in his hand. "Yeah. The third time I met him…he told me a story, and I thought…thought I should write it down."
"Three times." Behind goggles, Matt raises his eyebrows in surprise. "Most don't even meet him once. L must have liked you."
"Not enough to make me his heir."
"Enough not to, at any rate."
A drawn out silence ensues. Mello sets the memory stick on the coffee table and turns his gaze back to Matt, who has taken out—but does not play—his DS. Sometimes he finds the redhead's logic unsettling. For all his intelligence, there are certain things Mello prefers not to think on too much. What Matt hints at is one of them. He favors, instead, his own straightforward distortion of reality. No gray areas. No guess work.
Hence the appeal of religion.
"You should tack on an author's note or something." Matt sits on the couch next to the blonde. "So people know who wrote it."
"Yeah." Mello does not address what lurks beneath the other's comment—why keep secret his identity? Won't he be dead soon anyway? "Maybe…Matt?"
Mello can't keep the question out of his voice as the redhead leans his head gently against his shoulder. This feels too personal, an invasion of space…but somehow the sensation is not unpleasant…nor unprecedented considering their actions yesterday.
I had sex with Matt.
He still can't say it out loud. However, vocalization no longer matters. They don't have enough time to be bitter—to regret what, in any other situation, would be actions most regrettable. Mello is going to die, and Matt…
He'll live. He has the vest.
These words do little to ease Mello's conscience. Matt, out of all the characters involved in the ghastly spectacle the Kira case has become, is the most innocent. He was never in the running to become L. He doesn't give a fuck about winning. All Matt is really good at is following orders…and then, only those given by a childhood friend. I should have left him in L.A. Even living on the streets would be better than this bullshit.
"What's wrong?" Matt's eyes are fixed on his dormant DS, yet he sees Mello in a way no other can. "You look kind of upset or something."
"I'm not." The blonde's lie is disguised poorly. It's meant as a formality, a confirmation that he is still his callous, angry, certain self rather than as an actual untruth. He runs a hand through the redhead's newly vibrant hair. "You know, I still don't understand why you're going through with all of this."
Matt shrugs. "Why not?"
"Because you'll die."
"I know."
"And that should scare you."
"I know."
"Then why…"
"I…I don't know. Not really." Matt cranes his neck to meet the other's sea-blue gaze. "It was something to do…and once I started I couldn't stop. Life's kind of like that, you know? We do shit without really knowing why, and then…you're not forcing me, Mello. Don't ever think that."
"I'm not. I don't." These lies, too, lack substance. Burying his gratitude in lust, Mello clutches at his crucifix and bends down to kiss Matt's semi-parted lips.
Though he probably expected it, the redhead's breath catches in his throat. Reaching up to tangle a hand in the blonde's unkempt hair, Matt doesn't seem to mind that he refuses to thank him for his loyalty outright. Mello is a man who speaks his thoughts through actions, and he is very lucky that the other knows this. Still, Mello can't ignore the guilt that eats at him. It is the guilt not of his responsibility for Matt's actions but of his relief for these actions. The blonde can't get around it: He doesn't want to be alone.
They share another terrifyingly easy kiss. This time it is Matt's who initiates, Matt who sits up and pins Mello to the sofa so he cannot possibly get away. The blonde, for his part, allows this. Striving always for dominance has left him momentarily exhausted. For this instant, he will allow the redhead some control.
The violent passion Mello usually instigates is something altogether different from Matt's gentler form of love. The hacker is unhurried, almost lazy, in his sexual advances. He takes his time exploring the blonde's mouth, kissing a dawdling trail of kisses across the scarred ridges of his cheek. He doesn't pay attention to Mello's anxious sighs or the exasperated twitches of his aroused body. All his life, Matt has been told to hurry up, to keep going…so, in this, he takes his time…and Mello—whether because he knows this or because he feels bad for the redhead's looming death—lets him do so. Even as he grumbles, he appreciates the warmth of another body on his own.
"Do you remember when we were children…when L gave that computer interview…remember what Linda asked?"
This question distracts Mello from his frustration with Matt's slowness. He props himself up a bit to glance at the redhead. "Of course I remember. She asked him if there were things he was afraid of."
"Yeah, it was…"
"…a childish, cliché question."
"I disagree." Matt rests his chin thoughtfully on Mello's chest. The blonde can count his freckles. "I think it was the most insightful thing in the world to ask."
"Why?" Mello rolls his eyes. Despite himself, he is irritated with the other's contradictory opinion.
"Because fear's important. It can define people, drive them on, destroy them…"
"Save their lives." Grabbing Matt's pale wrist, Mello leans in so that the breath from their lips mingles within just an inch of space.
"Y-yeah. And L's reply. He said he was afraid of monsters."
"Especially the ones that lie."
"And what did he say about monsters who lie?"
Mello smiles grimly. They both remember. "He said that such a monster would eat him…because he was…"
"Because he was that monster."
They sit in silence for a while, each going over in his overachieving brain what transpired on that day that now seems lifetimes gone. Even now L's words refuse to make sense…but there is something of prophecy in them. Mello, with his ability to Believe in that which is baseless, probably appreciates this more so than the secular Matt. However, there is enough irony in L's words to make both of them shiver.
"He was already working on the Kira case at the time. Do you think he knew he'd fail?"
"No." Matt shakes his head, for once more resolute than Mello. "He couldn't have known…but perhaps he did anticipate a little."
"But L wasn't a monster…he didn't always lie."
Matt opens his mouth…and shuts it again when he sees the expression on the other's face. He doesn't have the heart to tell him, to tell Mello what he already knows to be true.
The Kira case is a game…we are the players. The best players are those who lie. That's why Kira is winning…and L, L was a liar too…a liar who opposed Kira, but also a liar who used Kira's tactics…and he lost the game because Kira's lies were better…and I guess that means Kira is still the greater monster…but you wouldn't feel better if I told you so.
11 hours…
It is the deepest part of night—one of those lost hours between midnight and dawn that is black and silent and, for the insomniac, unbearably endless. Matt can't sleep. He stretches out on the couch, gaze lost in the bleeding shadows that play out their lives across the ceiling. Even knowing the horror that tomorrow brings, Matt is impatient for the end of night…for the end of the aloneness darkness forces him to bear. He thinks of going to Mello in the next room but decides against it.
The redhead doesn't want to disturb him.
He's praying.
Latin—so faint it still seems silence—seeps out from the bedroom. If Matt holds his breath, if he remains so still even his atoms cease their buzzing, he can almost make it out…
…and then the prayers stop, and so too does the nighttime's quiet.
"Matt."
The redhead rises. He isn't wearing his goggles, but in such blackness it does not matter. He enters the bedroom by grace of memory and repetition. The instant his skinny thighs brush the mattress, Matt is pulled into Mello's intoxicating, venomous embrace.
"Can't sleep."
"Me neither."
"That's a first. You always sleep."
"Not now." The blonde's lips twitch in a way that is too soft for a smirk and too minute to form a smile…though in the darkness not even Matt can notice. "But I'm not in the mood to sleep anyway." He doesn't wait for the hacker to reply. Instead, Mello brings their lips violently together. The kiss is long and hard and painful in its emotion, and when they pull away both men are aroused and panting and a little bit hurt. However, they continue to tear into each other: Clothing is removed. Skin is marked by teeth and clawing nails. Coarse, gold hair mingles and sweats with that which is a noxious ruby red.
"…can I?"
"Mel…n-no…sore…"
"I don't…Matt, I don't care…"
The redhead's eyes roll back in pain as two of Mello's searching fingers grope his entrance. He grimaces but doesn't try to stop him. Life has taught Matt many things…not the least of which is the art of endurance. He can endure this pain; pain is so secondary anyway…such a simple, ignorable sensation.
Thinking this doesn't stop Matt from seeing red the moment Mello enters.
"F-fuck! Goddamn it Mello!"
"Sorry."
He isn't…the bastard…
In spite of the pain—perhaps because of it—Matt is still viciously aroused. His skin is alive with Mello's heat, his ears ringing with the blonde's grunts and sighs. Matt actually screams as a firm, scarred palm closes around his erection. Mello attends to him with rough, satisfying jerks, and Matt can feel his body tighten as it prepares to shoot its load.
And then all color burns away and all Matt can see is white.
9 hours…
Mello stares down at the hacker, now sleeping naked beside him on the cable-choked mattress. It is almost 6 a.m. and he has not slept a moment. Instead, in the spare minutes he's had between sex and prayer, Mello has been typing, adding the finishing touches to L's story:
"In case anyone besides big-headed Near or the deluded murderer, Kira, is reading these notes, I shall at least perform the basic courtesy of introducing myself: I am your narrator, your navigator, your storyteller..."
Smirking viciously, Mello savors the moment. Matt gave him good advice. He will taint Near's success…and humiliate him with the knowledge that, though Mello will come in second in the end, L told this tale to him. Me. It's a good feeling, being special.
"For anyone but those two, my identity may be of no interest, but I am the world's runner-up who died like a dog, Mihael Keehl."
Mello attaches the document.
Clicks send.
He remains motionless a moment longer, glories in his victory. However, time has little patience for Mihael Keehl and his selfish, joyful triumphs. It's time to get up.
He turns to Matt and shakes him.
"Come on."
Groaning, the redhead pulls himself into a sitting position. His eyes remain strangely un-fogged with slumber. Perhaps he has not slept at all. Either way, he turns to Mello with a sardonic grin.
They are both ready.
They are both afraid.
They have both never regretted anything more in their entire lives.
-TOT
A/N: Originally, I was going to stop writing fanfiction (and I'm very sorry to the readers I have, until now, let down completely). However, I got back into Death Note in a bad way after my first quarter in college and, since I hate leaving things unfinished, decided to complete this fic.
The L/monster quote is taken directly from the English dub of Death Note Relight: L's Successors (which isn't very good except for a couple deleted scenes). I've seen other translations of this scene out there (check Youtube), but this one struck me as the most creepy. I don't necessarily think L is a monster. However, assuming L thinks so about himself offers interesting insight into his character.
Also, what Mello typed at the end of the chapter is taken directly (with minimal editing on my part in the interests of characterization and smoother reading) from the prologue to Death Note: Another Note.
I know I don't deserve them after going so long without updating, but reviews are appreciated and will thankful responses! I'm interested to read readers' insights into Matt and Mello's characters.
I'll have the final chapter out ASAP!