A/N: I know, I know. To my Wammys House readers, I apologize. I really should have been writing that rather than this, but... I've been waiting forever to write this chapter for like, ever! This scene was one of the main ideas floating in my mind when this fic was first formulating! Just as a warning, there is a LOT of talk about religion, morality, and the like. Please know that I am NOT trying to push my beliefs onto you. In fact, although I agree with some of what is said, these are not my beliefs. Not that it matters, but I'm neither a Christian, nor an Atheist. I'll tell you my religion if you ask, but I think it's in poor taste to post it here. :) So enjoy... and please don't take offense. Oh! And I can guarantee that the Mello-hating comments should stop (or at least pause) after this chapter! Yay!
I didn't open my eyes when Mello announced his arrival with the sound of creaking hinges. For a moment, the lack of the usual 'slam' ignited a flicker of fear and suspicion in my gut, but that swiftly dissipated when his raspy baritone unleashed a soft string of cussing. It was definitely Mello in my presence. Still, I kept my eyes sealed shut and my breathing even as I lay tangled in filthy rough sheets, struck by the childish desire to pretend I was asleep.
I tensed when I heard the scream of rusty bedsprings and felt the collapse of the weak mattress. I hadn't even considered the fact that our room only had one bed. Sure I had spent many cold England nights huddled in a mound of blankets and pillows with my old friend when we were young, but I couldn't prevent an icy tingle of fear from curling up my spine. Would he kick me out to sleep on the cold, hard, disease-infested floor? Nor could I suppress the hitch in my breath or the increased rapidity of my heartbeat. Or maybe, we would sleep in the same bed tonight?
"I know you're awake, Matt."
I sighed in quiet defeat and clambered into a sitting position, meeting his eyes cautiously. He didn't appear to still be angry with me for... whatever it was that I did. Or perhaps he was still angry, and simply didn't have enough energy to concentrate his rage into a savage glower. His face and posture only portrayed bone deep exhaustion. I yawned as if in agreement. It had been a long day.
"So," he began when it became clear that uncertainty had sealed my mouth closed. "I found us a new apartment. It's a real shit-hole, but the best I could get at such short notice." He attempted a tired grin. "It's actually nicer than our old one."
"That's not saying much," I nodded in agreement.
"Yeah," was his witty reply.
Awkwardness settled around us, and I shrunk back into the wobbling headboard, as if to escape it's unsettling and menacing presence.
"Um... here," Mello dug into his pocket and held out a small object. I tentatively crept closer, peering into his outstretched palm to find...
A wide grin broke out over my face. "You got me a new game!"
Mello grunted in indifference, but was unable to entirely conceal his returning smile, evident in the slight twitch in the corner of his mouth and the distinctive glean in his warm aqua gaze. "Some zombie game..."
"Age of Zombies!" I replied enthusiastically. In truth, it wasn't the best game in the world and, like all new games at the moment, was completely overshadowed by the eminent arrival of Portal 3 in my mind, but I was beaming more at the sentiment than at the game.
This small gift held all the words Mello was incapable of uttering.
I'm sorry. I was thinking of you. We can still have that nameless relationship that is a little more than friendship, yet still doesn't mean I'm your boyfriend.
Without a word, I clasped the game in my hand and fell into his arms, pulling him into a soft and meaningful embrace.
I forgive you. I love you.
He pulled back, but with a gentleness and ease that prevented the action from being a rejection. "Let's go to sleep."
My lingering grin flared at the statement. So we would be sharing a bed tonight. I settled back into the seemingly softer and less repulsive
sheets, as Mello flickered off the dim bulb and followed suit.
"Hey, Mels?" I whispered into the newly established still darkness, more to verify his proximity than anything else.
"Yeah?" Mello groaned. The fact that he hadn't immediately snapped at me for disrupting his sleep spoke volumes for his current mood and level of conversational ability.
"Do you ever think that it's not worth it?"
I heard him shift uneasily, creating a soft rustle of sandpaper bedclothes. "What's not worth it?"
I rolled my eyes into the dark. "Working with the mafia, risking your life, hopping from one dingy apartment to the next, spending the night in a place like this," I listed. "Just... searching for Kira in general?"
"Of course it is," he snapped. "Are you questioning my drive? My ability to do it?"
"Of course not, Mels! I know you can do it," I assured him, despite the fact that a very large part of me doubted the killer ever would be caught. "But... why? Why is it worth it?"
"You know why!"
"No!" I exploded. "I don't know why I got shot in the leg today, or why we both almost died!"
The last word rung in my ear, as if suspended by the depths of the dark.
Died.
I shouldn't have continued. I should have smiled and nodded and turned over to drift into slumber, where frustrations and confrontations would only occur in my dreams. I'm an idiot, I berated myself. Mello is being nicer to me than he has since... I can't even remember any more. And what do I do? I have to fan the flames of his omnipresent anger.
"You don't have to follow me," he snapped. "Go ahead. Leave right now. See if I care."
Despite the fact that I knew the bitter words were nothing but scathing lies, they had the desired effect. I curled into a ball, harshly pressing my bony knees into my chest, and struggled to fight back the gnawing, raw clawing in my chest.
Mello doesn't want me... he doesn't care...
"I want to follow you, and I always will," I whispered with pained fervor.
"If you don't need an explanation, why should I?" he hissed vehemently.
"I love you, Mello!" I bolted up in bed, and glared down at him. "What? Do you love L? Is that why you're doing this?"
"That's fucking ridiculous, you idiot!" He shot up, exerting his single inch over me, as he steadily glared down his nose.
"Then why?"
"Kira's evil!"
"Someone else can catch him! Near's on the case with far better recourses!"
"Then to beat Near!" he amended.
"You can't honestly be sacrificing your life for a petty rivalry!"
His eyes flashed with furious indignation before settling into a hardened, stoic gaze. "Then for L. And not because I love him," he mocked. "Because he deserves it. He deserves to be avenged, and I want to be the one to do it for him."
"But... it's not like he'll ever know. He's dead, Mello. He- he doesn't exist anymore so why-" a glint of light caught my eye, reflecting off the beads dangling around Mello's neck. His rosary. "Oh, I mean... um," I backpedaled.
I had forgotten. Mello back at Wammys was an atheist, but when he'd gotten a new wardrobe, apparently a rosary went with it. He never took the thing off. I wasn't sure exactly what that meant... but I'm sure he wouldn't appreciate my disregard of the afterlife and shit. "Or... if you believe something different, that's cool."
Even in the dark, I could see his knowing smirk. "The rosary," he concluded, loosely grasping the omnipresent beads. "Don't worry, I'm not some religious freak." He barked an icy, chilling laugh. "Though I guess considering what I am, you wouldn't think that anyway."
He flicked his head away from me, sending thin wisps of glowing blond fluttering past my cheek in a tingling flash of pseudo innocence. "Considering who you are," I corrected. "I guess it is... surprising that someone with your... profession would wear a religious symbol."
He inclined his head back a fraction of an inch, revealing a pointedly raised brow. "You don't need to put it so lightly, Matt. I'm a fucking immoral soulless bastard and I'm wearing a rosary. Ironic, I know."
"You're not-" his pearl white grit teeth flashed through the darkness. I gulped. "Um... so why then?"
"Why what?"
"Why the rosary? Oh shit," I slapped my hand over my mouth. "That must be personal! I-I'm sorry. You don't have to tell me."
Despite my hurried apologies, throbbing curiosity prevented me from flopping over and forcibly ending the conversation like I should have. I looked down at my hands, reluctant to openly wait eagerly for his response.
"No," he sighed. "I don't care. But it's... it's stupid."
"Mello, you're a genius. I can count on one hand the number of truly stupid things you've done in your life," I replied sincerely.
He snorted. "I'd like to see you try to think of one."
"The time you tried to sneak out at night and ended up falling out the window and breaking your leg."
"That's only one..."
"The time you tried to super glue Near's puzzle together incorrectly and got your hand stuck on the puzzle."
"Okay, I think we've heard enough."
"Or," I continued, suddenly giddy with resurrected memories, "the time you wanted to prove you didn't look like a girl and you wore a dress, but you actually-"
"Okay!" He snapped weakly, as if trying to suppress a laugh. "But you just proved my point. I have the capacity to be stupid."
"Wow. Can I get that in writing?"
"No. You didn't hear anything."
"But Mels!" I pouted.
"Shut up, Matt. I'm going to sleep."
"Wait!" I grabbed his sinking shoulder. "You never told me why you wear the rosary."
"I never said I would."
I crossed my arms defiantly. "You said 'it's stupid' in a clearly relenting tone."
"Fine! It's- it's a sort of reminder, and... it's hard to explain. Just forget it."
"I reminder of what?" I pressed.
"It's just..." He trailed off, staring blankly at the wrinkled sheets. I struggled to wait patiently, hiding my anxiously twitching hands under the sheets. After an unnaturally long pause, I released a forlorn internal sigh and made to settle back into the bad. Of course... Just as he's starting to open up, he would get trapped by his own smothering musings...
"I guess you could call it..." I turned to him, snapping to attention, "the last little bit of humanity I have left, or at least... evidence that I still want to be human... at least a little." He froze and shifted imploring eyes towards me, and I smiled sweetly in reassurement, elated by his evident trust in me. "I'm not religious. But... I know how you're supposed to act, how you're meant to live morally. So this rosary," he lifted the object delicately, "reminds me that everything I do is wrong. It gives me... a sense of guilt, even when my own conscience fails me."
"Oh," I whispered, overwhelmed by the raw, brutal sincerity of his confession. It pealed back yet another layer of the veil obscuring my friend's mysterious and undeniably damaged soul.
His face twisted into a grimace, waring between a cold mask and an open expression of pain. "You must think..." he hung his head and cringed away from our suddenly close proximity. "I-I know it's illogical and idiotic. It's an object. It can't possibly hold something so significant as guilt or morals. And besides that... it would be more beneficial to me, and safer for us both if I just... let go. But I... can't."
"Mello..." I trailed off, at a complete loss for words. Instead, I tentatively shifted closer and snaked an arm around his waist. I smiled in relief as he welcomed the half-embrace, leaning into me and resting his head against my shoulder.
"I don't even know if there is a God," he murmured. "But... if there was one, he'd want me to fight Kira. I need to fight. For L, for the world, and to make amends for all I've done. Matt... trying to catch Kira is the only good thing, the only truly good thing that I'm doing with my life."
"I understand... I think. But I would never ask you to stop Mello. I was just kinda hoping you would."
"Isn't that the same thing?"
"No. If I ask for you to stop, you'd be doing it for me. If you do stop, I want it to be for you... because you realize it's killing you."
"It's not killing me, I'm killing me."
"Don't blame yourself, Mello. Please stop blaming yourself."
I was met only with silence, but the wordless response lingered heavily in the air, speaking louder than a verbal response ever could. He would always bear the weight of his own destruction upon his shoulders, right next to the burden of "saving the world" from Kira. Everything he did or said, everything he's become... no matter how many times I tell him it's not his fault, he will continue to believe it is.
Regardless of this tragic yet unsurprising revelation, the silence between us remained warm and comfortable. I sighed and allowed my head to loll to the side and settle on Mello's silken hair. I inhaled deeply... gunpowder and strawberry... The contradictory mesh of innocence and incriminating evidence meeting to form a unique and astonishingly pleasant scent.
"You said God would want you to catch Kira?" I reiterated. The words did not pierce the lengthy bout of silence, but rather mixed with it naturally, as if conversation had never taken a hiatus. "Some think that Kira is God," I mused.
"That's illogical cult belief."
"Yes, and improbable. But maybe... Kira is the work of God. Maybe God created Kira, or at least enabled him."
"Matt," Mello growled, "Kira is evil. You'd better not tell me after all this you're a Kira supporter." Despite his clipped tone, Mello made no move to pull away.
"I never said Kira was good, or right, or justice. I don't think he is. But what if God isn't either?"
"That's stupid."
"Is it? You're not sure if God exists, so how can you be sure He's good?"
"How do you know he isn't?"
"I don't know, you'd just think he should have done more, you know? Sure he's offered peace and salvation to some, but he's brought more wars, prejudice, and bloodshed then peace. L's done more good for the world then God has. If he exists, he's either doing a terrible job or is in cahoots with Kira."
"What? Is L God now?"
"Who knows? You sure treated him like one when we were kids. You still kinda do."
"Shut up," he grumbled. "Do you have a point? Are you saying that God is good or evil? Are you even saying he exists?"
"Dunno," I shrugged. "I don't really have a point."
"You're tired," Mello affirmed.
"It's been a long day."
As if we'd done it a hundred times before, we slowly laid down, nestled into sandpaper motel bed sheets, and drifted to sleep, still encased in eachother's arms.
