How Do You Measure The Life? Chapter 20: get away from the confrontation, a death note fanfic

Buying Time - Great Big Sea

Notes: After writing so many of these things, it's surprising to note that certain GBS songs are a surprisingly good fit for MxM. You wouldn't think that that band would get anywhere near Death Note. This one in particular helped tip the scales on that opinion.

He watched Mello sleeping and tried not to feel too creepy about it, but sleep was the only place where Matt could still see glimpses of the boy he'd grown up with, someone a little more disposed towards kindness and a bright smile. The scar on Mello's face was like a mask, taken off and relaxed at last, the stone of his glare softened into something human. He was still in there - Matt knew it. Somewhere behind the cold looks and sullen silences in the pauses in their deliberately light banter was the little blond brat who had terrorized Wammy's for years, the boy who'd spent those first few months hiding his spasming sobs in his pillow at night and hating himself for it, even after he'd learned that it was all right to mourn. He'd never been very good at remembering that.

Neither had Matt. But then Matt was a drifter, detached from the world, doing his thing and paying the rent, playing his games and letting the rest of the world go hang itself however it pleased. It had been his way of coping. Mello hadn't understood. Mello was all passion, and logic shot through with fire, so different, so impulsive, so dynamic, and he'd drawn Matt like a moth from their first meeting. Mello was the most real thing in his life; he supposed that meant he cared.

He cracked open the window, one eye straying back to Mello's face, serene in the neon light creeping in through the slats of the dirty blinds, and lit up, inhaling deeply, exhaling like a sigh.

So it had come to this. An ending of sorts, regardless of how senseless it seemed to Matt; surely there were less dangerous ways of doing this? But Mello had made up his mind and as much as Matt told himself that he didn't give a damn what happened now - that he never had cared how it all finally went down - he kind of... sort of... did.

Matt liked his life right now. There were boring things about it, yes. But it was pleasant, to hear his phone ring and know it was Mello on the other end, to hear a knock on the door and open it and have Mello walk in and collapse on the couch beside him. It was pleasant to have someone to tease and smile at and argue with. It was pleasant to have a screaming fight with someone and then have everything be back to normal fifteen minutes later, as though it had never happened. It was even pleasant to smell the mixed odd scent of ashes and chocolate in the apartment, a bittersweet addictive thing that, to Matt, had come to mean something almost like home.

It wasn't easy to distract Mello, but Matt's 'reconnaissance missions' with Mello and the car had never been turned down. His insistence on at least a couple wholesome meals a week could have them killing hours at a time in the grocery store, Mello looking terribly out of place leaning on the cart and attempting to be interested as Matt debated the difference with him between buying whole grain or white bread, two percent milk or skim. He'd made Mello go with him to the arcade a couple times, claiming terrible boredom and a desire to just hang out with Mello as they'd always done in the past. Anything but talking about what would happen when Mello could no longer be put off, and would tell him that it was time to go.

This morning, it had been Mello ordering him to hop on the back of the bike with him and go off on a mysterious errand. Matt had prepared himself for a couple of boring hours staring out a window at some people he didn't give a damn about, but they'd ended up in a park sitting on a bench, eating ice cream and watching the people go by, Mello insisting that any minute now Misa and Light - Kira - would be coming by, on a date, and once they'd seen them they could safely break into NPA headquarters.

They'd never come, but the sun was warm and Mello was oddly relaxed, joking with Matt, cracking a smile behind his enormous sunglasses. Matt had thought it a little odd that the only thing leather on Mello that morning had been his motorcycle jacket. He looked good though, in the close-fitting black t-shirt and jeans, but then, Mello could probably make a paper bag look sexy. They'd watched the ducks, and made fun of the passerby, and the day had whiled away into late afternoon. Eventually Mello reluctantly acceded that their targets were probably not going to show up today now, and that they'd been wasting their time, but he hadn't sounded all that terribly upset.

Now Matt was wondering if Mello, too, hadn't been stalling for precious time. He inhaled, smoke tingling through him, and thought that maybe they were both holding their breath and praying that the last day would never come.