Roger stared across his desk at the defiant blonde boy. Mello's blue eyes flashed and he crossed his arms over his chest confrontationally. "I already told you, Matt did it himself! Quit asking me the same damned thing over and over again! I know he's not telling a different story, because I'm telling the truth!" He slammed his hands onto the desk to punctuate that last sentence, and it echoed resoundingly in the large office.

Roger willed his nerves to remain steady. It was not an easy thing to do during a confrontation with Mello. Surely one of these days the boy was going to jump right across the desk and attack him. But he felt it was important that there be someone who stood up to Mello, and that meant him, because lord knew no one else would risk it. Roger's tenuous opposition was the only thing that kept Mello from having the complete run of Wammy's House.

"But why, Mello," he asked for at least the fifteenth time, allowing his pained worry to seep into his tone. "Why did Matt cut himself so badly?"

Mello turned his face away and remained stubbornly silent. The message was clear.

Roger ground his teeth in frustration. Both boys had indeed told the same story when questioned independently, just as Mello had stated. Matt had cut himself with a steak knife. Where it fell apart was why. Neither boy would say a word about that.

It was baffling. Roger hadn't even been able to construct a reasonable theory. His first thought, as always, was to blame mischief on Mello's part, but he had watched the young man have a complete breakdown while Matt was being treated. He had been in tears, pacing and sniffling and asking over and over again whether his friend was going to be all right. He had been too upset to even concentrate for long enough to listen to Roger's questions, much less answer them.

But that had changed the moment Mrs. Drewett emerged from the back room and informed them that Matt would be fine after a few stitches and some time to heal. Mello had immediately transformed from a scared, vulnerable little boy to the obstinate, willful teenager with an attitude problem that was sitting before him now. Roger hadn't gotten a word of explanation out of him yet.

Matt, for his part, seemed confused about the whole thing. Mrs. Drewett had interrogated him while she stitched him up. He admitted to cutting himself, but he seemed to be unclear as to why he had done it. Mrs. Drewett thought he was in shock and would be better able to answer questions after getting some rest, but Roger had his doubts that they would ever get a straight answer out of him on that score.

He couldn't shake his certainty that Mello had played a large part in what had transpired, despite both boys' insistence to the contrary. He wished, as he had many times in the past, that he still had surveillance in their bedrooms. But he had been forced to turn many of the House's bugs off months ago when Kentin deduced their existence and hacked into the network. His goal had been to watch the feed from the girls' shower, a typical boyish prank given a genius's twist. But the knowledge had spread through the House like wildfire until all of the students could access the network just as easily as they got dressed in the mornings. Faced with the prospect of the students spying on each other, Roger had decided that deactivating some of the bugs was the best option.

At times like this, he regretted that decision. He would have given a lot to be able to see exactly what had passed between Mello and Matt in the privacy of that bedroom during the moments immediately before Mello dragged a bleeding, half-naked Matt into the hallway. The one minor blessing was that when the word "suicide" had been mentioned, both boys had reacted with surprise and horror. That was something, at least.

The current line of questioning was clearly going nowhere. Roger decided to switch gears. He crossed his hands and rested them calmly on the desk in front of him. "Mello. Matt's chest and stomach are covered in scratches," he said. "How did that happen?"

Mello's eyes widened briefly in surprise. Then he smiled coyly. "Wouldn't you like to know?" His tone couldn't have been any more smug.

He sighed in exasperation. "Well, until I get some answers, I'm forced to treat this as a suicide attempt. Matt's going to be held under supervision for seventy-two hours. You won't be able to see him during that time."

That wiped the smirk right off his face. It was instantly replaced with a bug-eyed expression of horror. Then it flipped back to anger. "You can't do that! I need to see him!"

"Maybe so," said Roger mildly. "But he does not need to see you right now."

"Shut up! You're lying! He wants to see me!"

He was probably right about that. Roger doubted that Matt's judgment was sound enough right now to make rational decisions regarding Mello. He considered pointing out that "want" and "need" were two different things, but thought better of it. "You will not see him for seventy-two hours unless I learn what happened," he stated flatly.

"Screw you!" Mello whirled and kicked the nearby chair over, sending it skidding across the floor. Then he stormed out of the room.

Roger watched him go with a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach. He took a deep, shaky breath and sternly forced himself to calm down.


Mello stomped into the study room, fuming. No way in hell was he going to let Roger tell him what to do. The old geezer wanted to keep him away from Matt, the person who by all rights belonged to him! It wasn't right. Matt would be scared and lonely right now. Matt needed him!

He didn't waste any time. He sat down at a computer and got busy hacking the House's surveillance system. He wasn't as good as Matt at this sort of thing, but he could manage. He kicked the desk in irritation when he saw that Roger had changed all the passwords since he had last done this.

It took him ten valuable minutes to gain entrance to the system, but the reward was immediate once he did. As he had expected, the infirmary was still bugged so thoroughly that he could see every inch of it from at least two different angles. He found Matt in a private room, lying calmly on the bed beneath white sheets, staring blankly upwards. He didn't look good. He wasn't even playing his game. Mello bit his lip. Matt needed him there.

He switched his view to outside of the room and took stock of the situation. Mrs. Drewett was sitting at her desk, working at the computer. Mello ground his teeth in frustration. All the hacking in the world wouldn't let him sneak past her. He was going to have to wait until she moved before he could get to Matt, it was as simple as that.

But he could at least be prepared. He used the oldest trick in the book – he cut a five minute loop of himself studying at this very computer and Matt lying still, and laid in wait.

It took nearly an hour for Mrs. Drewett to leave Matt's room unguarded while she picked up dinner. Mello grinned in triumph as he put the looped footage in place, then quietly withdrew from the system. He forced himself to be as casual as possible as he strolled to the infirmary.

His plan was completely successful. Eight minutes after Mrs. Drewett stood up from her desk, Mello was slipping through the door of Matt's room.

Matt didn't react to the door opening until Mello hissed his name. Then he looked over and his eyes widened. A huge grin bloomed on his face. "Mel! I knew you'd be here. Mrs. Drewett said I couldn't see you, but I knew you'd come."

Mello laughed as he dashed across the room to stand by the bed. "Of course I came! I'd follow you anywhere. No one can keep us apart." He sobered as he took in Matt's bandaged arm. "Does it hurt?"

"Yeah," said Matt. "I can't really play my game right now." He shrugged.

Mello reached out and took his hand. The gauze was thick, but some blood had nevertheless managed to soak through. "Can I see?" Matt nodded, and he peeled them back to reveal the wound. The stitches that held the skin together made the cut look far more minor than Mello knew it to be. "Oh, Matty…" He caught his friend's eyes. "What were you thinking?"

"What do you mean?" Matt frowned. "I was just doing what you said."

"No, no…I was picturing more like a drop or two of blood, not a whole river of it."

Matt's expression crumpled. "But it's what you said to do," he said plaintively. "It—it—wasn't right?" He looked devastated.

"No no, that's not what I meant," said Mello quickly. He was relieved to see Matt's frown vanish. He hesitated. It was clear that he was dealing with a delicate situation here. He picked his words carefully. "It was right. In fact, it was…much, much better than I expected."

Matt smiled. It was a fragile, vulnerable expression, one that could be crushed as quickly as it had appeared by even a hint of disapproval from Mello. He brushed his fingers across his cheek lightly, and the redhead closed his eyes in contentment.

Mello chewed on his lip as he looked over his friend. He didn't know what it was, if it was the white sheets or the bandages or just a result of his own rattled nerves, but somehow he was seeing Matt in a whole new light. Suddenly the redhead seemed very small and frail. He was thin, his t-shirt hanging from his shoulders like curtains. Mello knew that he would be able to count his ribs if the shirt were not hiding them. His skin was so pale that it was almost translucent. Mello could see all of his veins. He was beautiful, but he also looked breakable. Mello felt a stab of guilt as his peripheral vision caught the gauze again. Part of him had been broken today.

"Matty, let's finish the promise," he said softly. He climbed into the bed and sat next to his friend. Nothing that was even remotely sharp had been allowed to stay in the room with Matt, so Mello scratched at his wrist with a fingernail. It wasn't very effective. He brought his arm to his mouth and used his teeth to pinch a nub of skin and bite through it. "Ow! Shit," he cursed, but he quickly fell silent as he imagined how much more pain Matt had gone through today for his end of the promise. He pressed his forearm to Matt's so that the two wounds touched each other. Then he rested his forehead against Matt's and laced their fingers together. "This is our promise, Mail. I won't let anyone separate us. I will always come for you, no matter where you are. Because you're mine, now and forever."

When he opened his eyes, Matt was grinning so widely that the top of his head was in danger of falling off. "Yours now and forever," he echoed.

Mello kissed him, then sat against the wall so that Matt could lie down between his legs and lean against him. The redhead settled himself and stilled but for the slow rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. Mello hugged his shoulders and kissed the top of his head. His eyes were inevitably drawn back to the stitches in his arm, and guilt stabbed through him every time. This could have been avoided. He had been kicking himself all day for the leeway he had left in his explanation of the blood promise. If only he had said flat-out to make a small cut, this wouldn't have happened! But it hadn't occurred to him that such a thing would need to be specified. It seemed like common sense.

Matt didn't have any of that, though. This incident proved it more clearly than anything else could. He could get so lost on even very simple things, like how he felt or what he wanted to eat. He just didn't know unless Mello told him. Matt was like an abandoned puppy if he wasn't around; he needed Mello by his side just to live. It was cruel and dangerous for Roger to try to separate them. There was no telling what he would do if Mello wasn't there to instruct him to stop.

And it made him wonder. Had Matt always been like this? Had he always had this lost and confused side, or was it something new? The Matt of his memories was frustratingly ornery, insultingly able to live without his company for days at a time. That was the Matt that had ignored him in favor of video games and told him to be quiet so that he could sleep and insisted that they use separate showers.

That Matt hadn't made an appearance in quite some time. Mello had never expected himself to feel this way, but he missed that Matt a little bit. He had always thought that he was unlocking Matt's vulnerable heart, but now he suddenly wondered if he was also training out some of his core personality traits. Would Matt still really be Matt if his stubbornness vanished completely? What if Mello was actually damaging him?

He tightened his arms around his friend's shoulders. "Matty," he murmured. "Should I be worried about you?"

"Hmm? Why? Mrs. Drewett said it'll be completely healed in ten days."

"No…I don't mean…" Mello hesitated. He wasn't thinking of Matt's physical injury, but he wasn't sure what he did have in mind. He just couldn't fathom what had been going through Matt's head when he decided to do this, and that scared him. He didn't like Matt to have thoughts he didn't understand. It was dangerous. Fifteen stitches because he had thoughtlessly omitted the word "small" from his explanation! And it could have been worse. What if Matt had taken him literally about cutting himself open and seeing his insides?

The idea chilled him to the bone. Suddenly the power he had over Matt seemed just as frightening as it was exhilarating. He needed to be much more careful with his best friend, he realized. He had made Matt his, thus Matt did whatever he wanted; now he could see that the corollary to that was that he had a responsibility to take care of him. The two came together, flip sides of the same coin. Matt had been holding up his end of the bargain beautifully, following the rules almost to a tee, but Mello had dropped the ball. Otherwise they wouldn't be here.

Shame washed over him. "I'm so sorry," he whispered. It was addressed partially to Matt, partially to God. He would have seen this sooner if he didn't indulge in the sin of pride so often. "It's my fault."

"Hmm?" Matt glanced up at him drowsily. "What are you talking about?"

Mello tightened his arms around his shoulders. "It's my fault you got hurt."

"What? No it isn't," said Matt. "That's silly. I'm the one who did it."

"Oh Matt…" Mello shook his head. "Look. Don't hurt yourself like this ever again, okay?"

"But you said—"

Mello waved him into silence. "If you don't understand what I want you to do, just assume that it's the least physically harmful possibility, okay? You're my best friend. I don't want to hurt you."

"But you hurt me all the time."

Mello froze. He had said it so plainly that he might have been stating that the sky was blue. The expression on his face was honestly bewildered. He really thought that his words were true. "I do not," he said icily.

"You do too! Look." He lifted his shirt so that the scratch marks Mello had made on his torso earlier were clearly visible. His lips twitched into a slight grin. "So you're saying that it's not all right if I do it, but it's fine as long as it comes from you? Does that really make sense?"

He was attempting to tease him by pointing out a perceived logical flaw. It made Mello really angry. Yes, he had done that—but that was once, it wasn't fair to say he did it all the time! Yet Matt believed what he was saying, and that gave Mello pause. Why would he feel that way? Could it be that there was some truth to it? Had he been treating his friend more roughly than he realized?

He bit his lip. Near had been occupying most of his attention lately. The white-haired boy's cancerous presence choked him. He always felt like he was on the verge of drowning, fighting with everything he had to keep his head above water in the middle of a storm-tossed sea with no land in sight. Had he been too careless with Matt?

He would have to sit down and review their recent interactions in order to answer that question, something that took time and couldn't be done on the spot. "Matt, I'll never hurt you again!" he exclaimed. "I won't."

Matt shrugged. "You can do whatever you want with me," he said flippantly.

"Stop! Don't talk like that!" exclaimed Mello.

"But that's what it means to be yours, isn't it?" demanded Matt in exasperation. "You aren't making any sense at all today."

Mello was taken aback. It took him several seconds to speak again. "I don't want you hurt," he said firmly. "Just don't do it. And I won't do it either, so you won't get hurt at all! Okay?"

"'Kay," agreed Matt.

Mello buried his face against Matt's neck. Guilt was still eating at him. "I'll make you feel good all the time. We'll be together always, and when we get out of here, we'll be M and we'll be the greatest detective in the world and—everything will be perfect!" He was borderline babbling and he knew it, but he was desperate to reassure Matt. "Everything's going to be so much better after I beat Near! You just have to hang on until then, okay?"

Matt laughed gaily, like he didn't have a care in the world. "Sure, Mel," he agreed easily. "Whatever you want."


Roger stared at his computer screen in dismay. He had been certain that L wouldn't be able to ignore this. Matt had fifteen stitches in his arm! But the black-haired detective had surprised him once again. The return email, sent by Watari, curtly denied his request to move Matt to one of their affiliated orphanages.

He ground his teeth in frustration. Just because L didn't need Matt for the Succession anymore didn't mean that he should quit caring about his wellbeing entirely. It was cruel. What was going to become of him now? Would he just languish here until something even worse happened? What would be next? Concussion? Broken bones? Death?

He squeezed his eyes shut and massaged his temples with his forefingers. No, this was no good, wallowing didn't solve anything. What he needed to do was concentrate on what was going well, not fret himself into uselessness over things he couldn't change. He resisted the urge to pull Dinastes out of his desk and silently asked himself what was right in Wammy's House during this very second. Matt had no permanent injuries, that was one thing; he would walk away from today's incident with no more than a small scar. Temper had finalized her graduation date for the following spring. She would be finished with the House academic program by then, and since she had elected not to go the detective route, there was no reason for her to stay on taking practicals until she turned eighteen. L had been upset to lose his number four candidate, but Roger privately thought that those who got out were the smart ones.

What else? Cethe, their most recent arrival, seemed to be adjusting well and making friends. Neither Kentin nor Linda had caused any trouble since Jury's graduation. Deale, one of the House's first successful alumni, had visited recently, and that had gone fairly well. She seemed to be thriving, albeit in her own strange way. And Mello wasn't raising hell. There were actually quite a few things that were right with the world, now that he was looking at it properly.

Roger glanced at the feed that showed Mello's studying form and frowned. Considering that he had been forcibly separated from Matt, his behavior was quite good. Unbelievably good, actually, for a boy who threw titanic fits if he didn't get his chocolate on time. When was he last time he had seen Mello be this docile?

He groaned. Never, that's when.

He was out of the office mere seconds later. When he arrived at the study room shown in the feed, he found it empty.

Roger dashed to the infirmary as fast as his aged legs would carry him. He found Mrs. Drewett sitting placidly at her desk, sipping at a cup of tea and reading a magazine. She glanced up sharply when he hurried past her without a word.

The sight that met Roger's eyes when he opened the door to Matt's room froze him in his tracks. Mello had his arms around Matt, his face buried against his neck and hidden by blonde hair. It was Matt's appearance that really caught his attention. He was without sunglasses, eyes closed, head rolled back against Mello, lips parted in pleasure. It was perhaps the most exposed that Roger had ever seen him. The expression on his face right now was completely genuine.

Both boys looked up when the door opened. Matt immediately broke eye contact and tried to scramble into a less intimate position, but Mello held him in place. He met Roger's eyes, his gaze almost challenging in its directness, and leaned down to place a very deliberate kiss on Matt's shoulder.

Roger managed to find his voice on the second try. "M—Mello, you can't be here. Matt needs to rest."

Mello laughed, a low, breathy sound. "Matt wants me here," he said. He crossed his arms over the redhead's chest proprietarily. "Don't you, Matty?"

Matt looked up at Roger through his lashes. He was flushed in embarrassment, but he met Roger's eyes squarely. He nodded.

"Matty, show Roger how much you want me here with you." Mello's eyes were fixed on Roger's with an almost frightening intensity.

Matt smiled, and it was the same mysterious, sensual expression that was on Mello's face. He took hold of Mello's hand and brought it to his lips. His eyes fluttered shut as he kissed along the blonde's knuckles.

"See?" said Mello smugly. "I told you he's mine, didn't I?" He disentangled his fingers from Matt's and took hold of his chin instead, tilting his face upwards so that Roger could see him better. "Matty, aren't you mine?"

Matt was trembling visibly, but the smile on his face was beatific. "Yes," he said. "It's like he said. I'm his. Don't try to keep us apart."

Roger felt queasy as he realized what was happening. This was a show that Mello was putting on for his benefit. He wanted him to see how well he had Matt trained. And Matt was happily going along with it! It was sickening.

He stared helplessly back and forth between the two of them. What could he do? His hands were tied by L, by Quillsh, even by Matt himself. As long as the boy thought he wanted this, there was very little that Roger could do to help him.

He turned and walked numbly away from the frightening scene.

Mrs. Drewett jumped back in surprise when he exited. She had been standing a few steps away from the door, trying surreptitiously to overhear the proceedings. She cleared her throat and had the grace to avert her eyes sheepishly, but when Roger closed the door and stepped away, curiosity overtook her. "Mello's in there?" she asked, pacing after him as he crossed the room.

"Yes," he replied.

"Oh!" She paled and sat down heavily on her desk chair. "I…I don't know how he managed to get by me!"

Perversely, Roger felt a surge of satisfaction as he witnessed her reaction. Up until now, he had been the only one who understood how grave things really were between Matt and Mello. But Mrs. Drewett had gotten an eyeful this afternoon, between Matt's slit wrist and clawed torso, and he knew that she now saw what he saw. One other person had gone through the looking glass with him, and he no longer felt like he was lost and flapping in the wind, abandoned by L and even Quillsh. Now he had at least one ally.

"Did you leave your desk at any time?" he asked.

"No—well—" She flushed uncomfortably. "I stepped out for dinner, but it was only for a few minutes! I brought it back here to eat it!"

"A few minutes is more than enough time for Mello to slip past," he sighed. "He was lying in wait for an opportunity, you can be sure."

Mrs. Drewett's hand flew up to her mouth. "I'm so sorry!" she exclaimed. "I didn't realize—"

"Stop." He held his hand up wearily. "It's not your fault. You didn't know." None of them had realized how vigilant they would have to be to keep the two boys apart. In retrospect, it would probably have required armed guards.

He broke off at the sound of a doorknob. Both he and Mrs. Drewett turned toward Matt's room as the door swung back and the two boys walked out. Mrs. Drewett surged halfway up out of her seat, but Roger shook his head. He didn't see any point in trying to stop them now.

Mello led Matt into the office area. He made eye contact with the two adults in turn, almost daring them to try to stop him. Matt, for his part, just watched the back of his friend's head intently.

For a moment, no one moved; then Mello turned to leave the infirmary.

"Matt, wait." To Roger's surprise, Mrs. Drewett had stood up from the desk.

She managed one step towards the boys before Mello's shout stopped her in her tracks. "We're leaving! Right now!"

She blanched and backed away, but found the courage to speak again. "You can leave. I'm not trying to stop you. I just need to tell Matt some things about his injury. Is that all right?"

Mello narrowed his eyes and glared at her for several seconds, but he nodded and allowed Matt to step out from behind him.

Mrs. Drewett didn't speak right away. Her mouth was hanging open slightly and she had a glazed look in her eyes that Roger recognized immediately. It was the moment of surreal disconnection that happened when a grown adult realized that she had just asked the fourteen-year-old Mello's permission to speak, and couldn't quite work out how this turn of events had come to pass. Roger knew the feeling well.

She shook herself and faced Matt, whose sunglasses-covered eyes might be pointing anywhere. "You need to come back twice a day to have your bandages changed. Also, keep an eye on the stitches. If one of them pulls out, come see me immediately. Okay?"

Matt nodded absently. Roger couldn't tell if he was even paying attention. The openness that had been on his face a scant few minutes prior had vanished completely behind his cold façade.

Mello turned and started forward, but Mrs. Drewett's voice stopped the boys again. "Oh, and one more thing, Matt. Be more careful in the future, okay? One millimeter deeper and you would have cut through tendon. That would mean permanent loss of movement in your left hand. You would never play a video game again."

Matt absorbed this in silence, staring at her with an unreadable expression. When he didn't move, Mello jerked on his arm. "C'mon Matty, let's go." He marched the two of them out of the room.

Mrs. Drewett stared after them with a worried frown creasing her brow. "Did that…did that get through to him at all?" she asked Roger anxiously.

He shook his head helplessly. "I have no idea."