Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note or Super Mario Smash Brothers Melee. I also do not condone underage drinking.

Wammy's House was silent as the grave.

...I've really got to start watching my word choice.

I held L's hand tight, and the tightness of his own grip was the only indication that he wasn't as neutral on the inside as he was on the outside. No one looked at us twice, seemingly unsurprised and definitely indifferent.

Matt attached himself to us the moment we saw each other. He seemed better, but not like he'd ever be good again. He was fine. Just fine.

My fault, my fault, my fault.

"Hello, Matt," L said pleasantly.

The boy smiled. Or, at least, his lips did. "Hey. So how'd it happen?"

He meant Watari, I knew. My brain froze up; I couldn't have answered if I'd tried. How could I explain to this kid that it was a (lesbian?) Shinigami, using a murder notebook, because Watari had gone against orders and kept researching the case, putting Misa in danger?

Of course, L could. "He had a heart attack," he supplied easily. Why hadn't it occurred to me to just say that? "We don't know if it was Kira or his old age," he continued. "Kira seems to have stopped his killings, or is at least on hiatus, so we suspect natural causes."

Matt nodded, then frowned. "Kira stopped killing?"

I don't think L saw it, but Matt glanced at me, then our lack of handcuffs, then our hands. The entire motion was quicker than a blink, and then he was looking L dead in the eye.

"Yes, he has," L replied.

They were communicating somehow. I didn't know exactly what they were saying, or how, but after only a few seconds Matt looked satisfied. He nodded.

"Do you guys want to play some games? We have a whole day to kill."

We all pretended he hadn't just used the word 'kill.' Did he know, now, that I was Kira? Had that been one of the things L had just told him? It seemed unlikely- one would think he'd be afraid that Matt would kill me. It would be a logical reaction. I would kill Kira if he was someone else and I met him.

Ryuuzaki looked at me and my heart rate picked up a little bit. "Shall we?" he asked.

I smiled. "Sure."

"You two can team up against me," Matt said, gesturing for us to follow him, which we did.

"I'm not bad at video games," I said. "That doesn't seem fair."

Matt just smiled. It would have been laughter but his laugh had died with the blond tsunami. That smile made me nervous.

As it turns out, rightfully so.

We followed him to the room he had shared with Mello. Only one bed was made, and the one that wasn't was Mello's. Tears instantly prickled at the back of my eyes: Matt had been sleeping in Mello's bed. L noticed this too, and we purposely didn't look at each other.

Whenever I froze up, Ryuuzaki could answer. Whenever he blanked, I could talk. It was just one of the things that made us work so well. The silence needed to be broken, and it was my turn to be coherent. "So, what game?" I asked cheerfully, trying to break the awkward that Matt seemed immune to.

"Melee?"

"...Excuse me?"

He held up the case, and I recognized the design. I hadn't known the English word 'melee.' "Super Mario Smash Brothers Melee," I clarified.

"Yup." He popped it in and tossed a controller to L and to me. I caught mine, but L fumbled and dropped his. You just shouldn't throw things at someone like him; his mad tennis skills do not extend to everyday life.

I laughed at him and handed up the controller. He gazed at the ceiling innocently, as if he had not just dropped something. I couldn't help but peck him on the cheek as I sat down on the floor near the TV.

An unreadable expression crossed Matt's features before he turned away. He fired up the game, giving a rundown of the controls for Ryuuzaki's benefit.

I felt like an idiot for kissing Ryuuzaki (who was listening to Matt's rapid-fire listing of controls, and, I could tell, memorizing them instantly) in front of Matt, but I tried to focus on the game to forget about it. It was too late to take it back, and I definitely needed more things to feel guilty about.

With very little apparent effort, Matt had both of us KO'd in two minutes flat. In ten minutes, he had beaten us seven times.

"You... are fucking incredible..." I said admiringly as Link went flying off the stage for the eighth time.

"It's true," he agreed with a smug grin.

L and I did manage to get him to thirty percent damage. Seeing as the max is 999, that really wasn't saying much.

L eventually dropped his controller, putting both hands in the air.

"I surrender."

"And I capitulate," I agreed, glancing at L.

I looked at the clock. Somehow it was already ten o'clock.

Matt followed my gaze. When he saw the time, his face brightened. "Let's get wasted!" he declared cheerfully.

L frowned. "You are fifteen."

"And you were a virgin until you were twenty-five," he replied mildly. "To each his own."

"I fail to see how that is related," L said tersely.

Matt rolled his eyes and plunged his hand under his bed, withdrawing a three-quarters full bottle (or one-quarter empty bottle, if you're a pessimist) of vodka and a stack of Dixie cups.

"Matt!" L cried, appalled.

He shrugged. "I wasn't gonna use the brain cells anyway."

"But still, Matt..."

"Mello, Watari, and Near are dead," he said simply.

It would have been a classic movie moment if L ever watched movies. Besides Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Without a word, he held out a hand and Matt filled a cup.

And here I was faced with a dilemma.

Now. My father was obsessed with law. I was eighteen. Eighteen was not the legal drinking age in Japan, but it was in England. I was currently in England.

Whatever. What my dad didn't know wouldn't hurt him.

So when Matt handed me my cup, I took it without hesitation and drained it with Ryuuzaki and Matt in a toast.

As Matt had suggested, we did indeed get shitfaced. It took significantly more for Matt than it did for Ryuuzaki, and a lot more for Ryuuzaki than it did for me. I stopped before I threw up, but Matt didn't. Well, he had lost more.

Through a drunken blur, I watched Ryuuzaki watch Matt warily, sadly. The kid, between vomit runs, went through emotions like Sybil went through personalities. ...Wow, that was a really heartless comparison. Anyway, Ryuuzaki turned out to be a calm, quiet drunk, no surprise. And I apparently lost all control of my mouth, although my thoughts appeared to be somewhat stable. Actually, that was worse, because I was perfectly aware of the fact that I was making a fool and an ass out of myself, but entirely unable to stop it.

Had a single person in the room been sober, it would have been humiliating. But L was so chill that I probably could have killed Matt with the Death Note and he'd have blinked and said "oh, okay." And Matt was so emotional that he didn't have time to pay attention to anything I said. He probably wouldn't remember any of it in the morning, anyway.

I was not drunk enough to reveal that I had been and was Kira. Not enough booze in the world. My giraffe-nightmare though? Not so much. When I told the story, L laughed lightly and Matt burst into tears. ('I am so sorry, man. I'm so sorry you have to go through that...')

Try as Ryuuzaki and I might, we couldn't broach the subject of Mello. Watari, however...

"Yeah, 'is name was Quillsh Wammy," Matt slurred.

L added to me, "That's why I got so mad at Roger when he said 'Quillsh.' I was afraid you'd figure out that the, uh, that the name of the orphanage is his last name."

"Oh! Roger," Matt said. "He's-" he hiccupped, "-been a wreck. Cried harder'an he did fer Mello an' Near. Put together." He nodded knowingly, then looked at L to elaborate.

"Yes, they were friends," Ryuuzaki agreed. "Quillsh told me they grew up together. Always been friends. I think they were, um, raised in an orphanage as well."

I tried not to say it, but my vodka-soaked brain sent the command despite me. "Kinda like you and Mello," I said solemnly.

Matt thankfully took that as a philosophical statement. He didn't burst into tears or attack me, for which I was grateful.

"I dunno, were they lovers? L?"

"Not as far as I know," he replied.

"Not everyone here can be gay," I declared. "B, C, Dane, Mello, and the three of us. Not that I live here. But I mean, what are the odds of that, already?"

Ryuuzaki opened his mouth to tell me the odds, but Matt interrupted. "Don't forget Near," he added. "I think. I dunno."

And, as it will at a high school lunch table or in a room full of drunken people, the conversation continued much like that.

L and I left Matt's room at about two in the morning, far from being able to walk in a collective straight line. What followed in our own room was highly predictable.

It was pretty much the same, except we were drunk. Apparently he liked bottom when intoxicated, but that was fine with me. The only thing that was notably different was that this time, the whole event held some kind of desperation, guilt, and thankfulness.

Because we'd left when Matt passed out on Mello's bed. And he'd looked so sad, so small, so alone. In his sleep, he'd rolled over and ended up with his nose in the pillow. And he had smiled when he inhaled, and then mumbled, 'Mello.'

Although I managed not to say it out loud, as we tried to push ourselves into one creature so we'd never be separated, I was desperate not to lose him, guilty that I was glad it was Mello instead of him, and, more than those, thankful, because the one I loved was alive and I didn't have to try to function without him.

He whispered something as we came, and I knew he was thinking the same things.

The next day came much, much too early. However, the piece of Death Note had worked. I had taped it to my hip with medical tape before we'd gotten on the plane. That night, besides drunk, I felt fine.

Ryuuzaki and I, hung over and sad, dressed and made our way downstairs.

It looked just like the funeral for Near and Mello had looked, except there were more adults crowding around the tables than there were before. And as last time there had been a sense of numb shock, now there was a sense of just plain melancholy.

Only the very little kids didn't look like they cared- they probably hadn't met him. But for the older kids, he was their father or grandfather figure. The adults, probably friends and not family if Quillsh had in fact grown up in an orphanage, looked devastated as well.

That was, of course, not including Roger.

Roger was beyond that. When Mello had died, Matt had been blank, dead himself. Roger was the opposite- his eyes were red and swollen, and he slumped in his seat, not even picking at the plate in front of him. He looked lost and entirely pathetic.

It made sense. They were old. They may have known each other for seventy years. It wasn't improbable.

I sighed and followed Ryuuzaki to the food. He poured several cups of coffee and took the whole bowl of sugar cubes, leaving three behind on the saucer as an afterthought. There was cake again, which he collected.

I got oatmeal, treating myself to a touch of maple syrup in it. And about twelve cups of coffee. No hair of the dog- we had finished the bottle the night before.

Heads throbbing, we took the same seats we had taken last time.

When breakfast was over, everyone put on coats and went out to brave the cold.

Another pyre. Another set of people bringing out a coffin, this one reading "Quillsh Wammy." Again, Igloo leaving his igloo for as long as he could stand it and then running right back to it to mourn alone.

The fire was hot on my skin- I could feel it crisping my flesh. From somewhere to my left, I heard a sob, probably belonging to Roger.

Ryuuzaki didn't want to stay the whole time, so we went in. He wanted, quote, "to go home."

After having him tell me where that was, I immediately booked a flight for three hours from that very moment.

Japan.

"Your subtleties, they strangle me... I can't explain myself at all.

And all that wants, and all that needs, all I don't want to need at all.

The walls start breathing, my mind's unweaving... Maybe it's best you leave me alone.

A weight is lifted on this evening.

I give the final blow."

-It Ends Tonight, All-American Rejects

A/N: Again, I don't drink (yeah, good plan, let's make Dlvvanzor MORE unstable) or support excessive/underage drinking.