Come find me.

Matt and Mello went about an entire year without speaking. At all. No communication whatsoever—they kept track of each other ambiguously, each not knowing how exactly updated the other was, but both trusting their wits about them to keep accurate. This was essential. There was simplicity in contacting one another to make sure, but neither of them really wanted to do that. They'd fallen out and fallen in too many times already, too much like a high school couple; contacting each other after so long would be like forfeiting their manhood.

There was no question as to what Mello had been doing; hanging around with the mafia with a hard-set goal to defeat a mass murderer could only mean so many things. His power had escalated to rival the SPK, every drop of energy in his body directed towards beating Near. As always. Something in his gut told him, though, that Near was winning out on him. It didn't seem to matter that he had possession of the Death Note; nothing seemed to matter. He was two moves away from the king, and yet, his goal seemed so out of reach. So much like someone, some higher power was going to knock this opportunity right out of his hands.

Ring.

Ring.

Mello impatiently pursed his lips and snapped off another piece of chocolate.

Beep. "You've reached Matt's cell. Either I'm not here, or I saw your number and threw my phone. Leave a message."

Growling at the less-than-inviting voicemail recording, Mello opted to not leave a message at all, instead snapping the phone shut and tossing it aside.

"Boss," someone said from the opposite end of the room. "Why don't you just have someone else do it? We know plenty of people who'll set up explosives for us. Just have—"

"No," Mello interrupted, punctuating his defiance with an adamant snap of his candy bar. The entire room sat in silence, the still air stirred only by the sounds of the whirring technology that kept them so adequately prepared. Finally, unexpectedly, the stale sounds shattered. Mello picked up the ringing phone.

"Mello."

"Idiot, what if it wasn't me?" the blonde snapped, but at least inwardly glad that Matt had enough sense to realize.

"It had to've been. You're the only one who's got this number."

Recalling the other's voicemail, Mello found himself vaguely annoyed and slightly offended. He said nothing because he knew very well that it would most likely please Matt. A lot. "How close are you?"

"Close."

"Where are you?"

"Santa Monica. I can get to where you are in probably twenty minutes." Matt had always been adept at seeing what Mello really wanted when he was beating around the bush. Supposedly, that was what friends did the best.

--

Matt actually got to 'where Mello was' in an hour an a half, closer to two hours. It took him about that long to gather everything that Mello wanted him to get and secure a means to pay for it all without suspicion. Of course, in a business as shady as Mello had suddenly involved him in, everyone suspected everything.

Pipes, wires, tubing, capsules, tablets, powder, chemicals. Bomb supplies.

"You want to do what?" Matt questioned hollowly when Mello told him what he wanted. The gamer kept his eyes averted. It hadn't been so long, it suddenly seemed, that he'd last seen Mello in his apartment, telling him how he had to let go. How he had to forget about Mello and the danger his name entailed and how he had to stop being so damn attached. And yet, there he was in Los Angeles because Mello knew he couldn't keep to that.

"Just do it, Matt." Mello's answer sounded slightly exasperated at the very least. He knew from their first meeting since Wammy's that the other was adept at creating and rigging explosives, and especially at containing them to a certain area.

"As a 'safety measure'?" he pushed incredulously, even though the gang members nearest them were throwing each other wary looks. Apparently, no one seemed to second-guess Mello even now. Matt had always been an exception for one reason or another. "You don't use explosives as a 'safety measure', Mello."

"You do if you've got the notebook, okay?" Mello shot back. "You don't get it, Matt. If everything's a fucking game, letting anyone else get the notebook is losing. I'd rather blow it up than let Near or someone have it."

"But first, you'd rather keep it."

"No shit."

"Which means you'd use this as a last resort."

"Exactly."

"Which means you won't have abandoned the notebook."

"What, you think I'm just going to give up and destroy it?"

"… Mello, you're shitting me. Really. You've got to be shitting me." Matt seemed to be otherwise at a loss of words. "You can't be serious."

Growling, Mello tossed the notebook aside, scattering cigarettes and a half-filled glass of whiskey in the process. "Do you think I'd call you after all this time to fuck around? I told you to do it, so do it!"

There was a long pause. And then silence.

Just silence.

Always, Matt had been completely and faithfully obedient.

Some things never changed.

Restless nights are the cousins to insomnia.

Matt was uneasy. Matt was very uneasy. He felt like he'd just swallowed every single bomb he made for Mello and was waiting for them to go off one by one and kill him slowly. He felt sick and queasy. If he'd eaten anything earlier in the day, it probably would have been in vain. True, in an attempt to assuage his reluctance, he'd insisted on surveillance so he could be immediately called for aid if something went… wrong, but Mello had refused. And true, they had devised a way for Mello to stay safe, but Mello was reckless. He always had been. He always would be.

As a kid, Matt chewed his nails down to little more than bleeding half-moons when Mello had bad nights and crashed in his room, only to disappear halfway through. Tonight, Matt chewed his nails, smoked more cigarettes than he had brain cells and tried his damndest to stay away from the heroin.

Moonlight spilled over the bed in broken squares, clinging to the sheets and his legs like panes of old promises. The room wasn't cold, but wherever his body wasn't covered his bare skin was littered with goose bumps that made him roll uncomfortably on his mattress. Something was going to happen. He just knew it. Something bad, something really, really bad. He felt the way he did that night before they'd received the news of L's death. He felt clammy and chilled from the very core of his ribcage, so cold that no amount of smooth smoke could ease the ice water from his lungs.

So Matt bit down his nails until he tasted blood, and then he kept on going.

Days slipped by. Weeks passed. October came and went without consequence.

And then it was November 10th.

Matt wasn't exactly an insomniac. He was close, though, in the family. Something more of a brother or a cousin twice removed. Whatever he was, the night of November 10th—rather, the very early morning of November 11th, his close insomnia found him very awake. Maybe it was the water in his lungs again that no amount of silky cigarette smoke could seem to evaporate. Maybe it was the unease that had settled in a constant course through his veins, like mercury in stream water. It shouldn't have been there and it didn't do any immediate damage, it just slowly withered everything away.

It was nearing two in the morning. Matt debated going to sleep, but he knew that no matter how much he thought about it and how much he tried, he'd never succumb to bliss tonight. Besides that, he had a small candle lit in the center of the room with a wide, silver spoon resting beside it that indicated that his efforts couldn't be met if the smoking foil in his hands didn't.

In spite of the heat in the room that bade him wander around only in a pair of jeans, he was still uneasily cold. Something in the back of his head kept telling him to open his eyes whenever he let his eyelids drop. Something in his fingertips shocked him every time he tried to get comfortable. And then, something jarred him so badly that he jumped when it went off: his phone.

Scrambling frantically for it, Matt realized that he'd accidentally buried it somewhere beneath his video games, notes, computers and naked pillows. He finally managed to procure it from the monstrous depths of his coding papers. Cold dread flooded his system; he still tried to demonstrate some feigned ease. "What's up?"

There was a momentary pause on the other line, then a strained voice. "Everyone's dead."

Matt stiffened. "What do you mean?" The word 'dead' had heavy connotations; even though he didn't know anyone except the person on the other line whom he'd care about if they were dead, he still felt uncannily perturbed. Opiates were his counter-method for exactly this. Unfortunately, he felt utterly failed by them at the time. His heart was racing in his chest in a manner that no amount of chasing could soothe.

"Kira got us. That son of a bitch shinigami… Fucking deputy director, they're all… fuck, fuck them. Fuck everyone. Fuck Snydar. Fuck Jose." The voice trailed off.

If Mello was talking about fucking everyone on the face of the planet and death gods, Matt had to say that he had ample reason now to be worried. All his paranoia did him no good at all; he felt bile rising in his throat and the uncontrollable urge to smoke a cigarette and bite his nails. Swallowing, he chewed at his fingertips as he listened to Mello mumble. Finally, he got the nerve back to say something that wouldn't come out as nonsense. "Mello, what's going on? Where are you?"

Laughter. "I blew everything up, Matt… You're a fucking genius, I fucking blew everything up. It's all fucking gone."

The ice water in his lungs turned immediately to ignited fire as his very nightmares and haunting day dreams were confirmed. "Mello, where are you?" he repeated, still trying to sound calm, but his entire body was rebelling against him. The bombs he'd swallowed were slowly going off. One by one.

"Headquarters."

"Don't tell me…"

"I did."

Fall air mingling into winter chill hit Matt in the face as he suddenly found himself outside. He didn't know how he'd flown through the halls and down the stairs so quickly, or how he even remembered his keys, but there he was, climbing into his car. It was amazing that he could even get his fucked up body to move as fast as it did, but he did. "Mello, keep talking. Hang on, okay? You got out, right? It's not bad, is it?" He barely waited for an answer. They were both talking over each other, except maybe Mello was just talking.

"I… I don't know, Matt. I really don't fuckin' know. It hurts." Matt could barely conceive how weak Mello sounded on the other line. They'd known each other since he was fucking eight years old, and never had he ever heard Mello sound so completely and utterly helpless. There was no anger, no frustration; just pure vulnerability. "…I… remember… Matt, when I left… It hurt like this. Hurt so fuckin' bad… L gone, being a kid gone… you gone…"

Matt wanted to argue that Mello could have taken him. He could have taken him. He didn't say a word.

"My mom… Mother… she had friends. She didn't want me because… I… I don't know Matt. Her friends liked me."

Matt could barely understand what Mello was saying. Not over the roar of the engine, not over the sound of his tires on the deserted road. Not over his beating heart flooding his ears with white noise.

"They helped me. They…" Laughter. "No, no… Matt, they really fucked me over. I'm telling you. Really, they just… oh man… Man, I should be castrated for all the shit they did to me." Through Mello's mumbling, Matt could distinctly hear the word 'shit' spat the way his name was months ago. Like vermin's piss.

Los Angeles.

Luckily, Matt had enough sense to move when he knew that Mello was in far more danger than he could risk being twenty minutes away for.

Los Angeles.

945 Clydown Avenue.

Los Angeles.

Matt didn't even turn off the car when he pulled up past the chain link fence. Mello was still talking.

"And Matt… I was scared, Matt… I knew I had to make it… But God… only if God was on my side."

He didn't even know what Mello was talking about anymore, but to hear his old fearless friend say that he was scared… Matt chewed at his fingernails as he pushed past the rubble of what might have been a regal house some many years ago. He could hear sirens in the distance. No time. No time.

"Where are you?"

"I don't know. Outside?"

Well, seeing as there was no such thing as 'inside' anymore, Matt would have to say that 'outside' was common sense. The thing was, though, he wasn't sure if Mello could actually tell the difference between walls and open air.

"Okay, just… just hang on, Mello. I'm gonna find you." To his utter amazement, Matt sounded a lot more cool-headed than he felt. He could feel his heart thundering in his chest, blood surging through his veins. The heroin took a back seat to this adrenaline. His drug of choice never was the opiate, never was the cocaine. It only just occurred to him that he was just wearing a pair of jeans and looked like he just had sex, considering that he'd bolted from his bed to the car. The chill didn't get to him. It never was the drugs.

Matt started from the back. The room that they had specified Mello be in, should he have to be there at all, would have collapsed on the west side of the building. Lodging his phone between his shoulder and his ear in a painful jam, he started to dig. His raw fingertips burned.

You should have protected him.

Matt threw a slab of concrete aside.

You should have known.

"Mello, where the fuck are you?"

You should have said no.

"I don't know, it's… there's a little bit of light."

You should have been there.

Buried. Mello was fucking buried.

You should have been a better friend.

A hand.

Breathing hard, Matt grabbed that hand, finally feeling icy coldness penetrating his skin and digging into his body. "Mello," he said. "Mello, holy fucking shit, Mello, damn it—Mello—"

A muffled voice.

Matt threw his phone aside, cursing as he, with one hand, pushed away iron rails, broken screens and wires. The sirens were wailing closer.

The white noise that previously pounded on his eardrums was now spreading through his body like wild fire in dry air. The flames were cold instead of hot, turning his limbs to ice as it went. Frigid, frigid, numbing ice. "Hang on, Mello," he muttered, whispered under his breath as he blindly, unfeelingly searched for the rest of his friend's body. His fingers clutched tight to the white hand he held.

Blonde hair.

Black leather.

Burnt skin.

The putrid smell of smoldered flesh and the taste of copper and ash in the air hit Matt like a punch directly in his face. All at once the numbness went away, leaving him feeling expired and ill. He felt like he'd just been mercilessly thrown into a blender, whipped around, and spat out north of the Artic Circle. Disoriented, dizzy, cold.

He balked at the sight of Mello's torn and tattered body, his skin completely burnt away in places, his muscles barely clinging to bone. Blood. Gingerly, Matt dragged the former mafia boss out of the wreckage; former, because everyone else had to have been a fucking demon if they survived. Matt had always known that Mello had to be the Devil's incarnate.

The whine of sirens drew even closer. "We have to get out of here," the redhead stated to no one in particular. He didn't think that Mello could hear him anymore—all he was doing was mumbling incoherently. Saying something about whores and crack.

The ticking of the countdown clock was providing a monotonous chorus in the back of his head, but he couldn't help but to take his time. He accounted it to having to be careful with Mello's battered body, but he knew it was just the ache of holding the barely living, breathing skeleton in his hands. It was uncanny to see hot-shot Mello suddenly so broken and… helpless. It was enthralling in a way that made him feel sick.

Carrying the other back to the car was an easy feat to achieve, even if he did have to quicken his step to hopefully avoid getting cornered by the police. Somehow maneuvering Mello's body in his arms, he managed to get the other into the back seat of his car before clambering into the front.

All right.

What did he do now?

AN: oman guys you don't know how close i came to forgetting to upload this. xD There may or may not be an update next week, I'm sorry! we'll have to see how my schedule pans out. hopefully this semi-long chapter will placate you in the event that i don't update next saturday. hope you enjoyed it. keep reviewing please. 8D It makes me feel like I'm doing something right.