There were two caskets. Two pictures at the altar, framed with a russet wood. Matt had his sleeves in his fists, in an old hoodie that belonged to his brother. When he looked down at the ground, the dark brown carpet had marks on it that he'd made when he moved his feet a certain way, the tip of his winter boots stained with salt and snow.

All he could smell was flowers. All he could hear was the sound of a man talking about two people he'd never met in their lives. Old women with perfume that smelled like gardenia, gold bangles on their wrists. Cold January winds blowing snow and dried leaves into the hall.

Someone had left the front doors open. Matt sniffed, and somebody gave him a tissue.

The casket lid fell off with a hefty creak.

A head of red hair, and a hand, long painted red nails like talons emerged from the satin lining. Matt closed his eyes, his heart rate skyrocketing, but he still saw her as she lifted herself off the wooden edge.

This shouldn't happen. She was missing half a face. Burns pink and raw, from her face to her shoulder, oozing blood and pus. Matt squeezed his eyes shut tighter, fisting the fabric of his jeans, but she was still there.

She climbed over the casket, onto the carpeted floor, down the steps. Closer and closer. The stench of smoke from her body was overwhelming. Her skin was sliding off, shedding onto the floor like translucent, fat noodles, boils bubbling and blisters popping and growing back as she slid closer.

Her blood left a trail on the floor, the dark carpet turning black. She was saying his name. His birth name. A big red mouth, bleeding from her teeth as she spoke, her voice empty, toneless.

He looked at the pastor, he looked all around him at his aunts and uncles and grandmothers. Nobody was looking back. The pastor's mumbles didn't sound like words, but everybody but Matt seemed to understand them.

Matt tried to scream out loud, but his throat had been constricted, choked by an invisible hand. The pastor's mumbling didn't stop. Matt tried to climb back on the pews as his mother kept crawling closer.

She touched his leg. His knee. An ice cold shock shot through his veins, and Matt gasped, his heart dropping, and suddenly—

He was sleeping at the end of his mattress, sweating bullets onto the plastic wrap, his heart pounding. The sound of the pastor's mumbling still hadn't stopped even after he'd woken up, and he peeled his cheek off of the Saran wrap with an audible rip, rubbing it softly.

The sound came from the head of his mattress. That human-shaped thing over there.

"Jesus Christ," Matt breathed, straightening up on his elbows and squinting.

It was Mello, praying again. Half-wrapped, still as a Hindu cow.

"You've been doing this all fucking day now," Matt murmured, dropping his head and pulling himself up. "Give it a fucking rest already."

Mello ignored him. He had gone from looking like a sarcophagus to a mummy-patient straight out of Japanese gore fetish porn, chanting on and on and on and on, his fingers rubbing over the wooden beads of his rosary. Matt had given it back to him the other night when he found that it'd been unharmed in the explosion, and Mello hadn't let go of it since.

Whatever. None of his concern.

Matt tried to slow down his breaths, rubbing at his pounding chest. He wasn't sure how long he'd been sleeping — wasn't sure it really mattered, since sleep seemed like a fucking luxury at this point — but the headache made him think that he'd only dozed off for an hour or so, if that. His night terrors hadn't gotten this bad since he left the House, either, so he knew his circadian rhythm was fucked.

Again, life fucking blew. Move along. Nothing new here.

Matt got off the floor and crawled onto the end of the mattress, scooting towards the wall by the window sill. His back needed support. He pried his fingers between the blinds, peering up at the sky above him.

The moon was round and full, real big against the palm trees and the dark hills beyond. Almost hiding behind the ferns. What was that, almost four in the morning?

Mello said something unintelligible, something that broke from the praying schedule for once. Matt looked back, poking his fingers out of the aluminum. "Huh?"

"Where am I?" Mello asked nobody, his voice sounding like how it used to at Wammy's.

Matt frowned. "Uh… my room."

"Oh."

Matt twisted his face. "You don't remember?"

Mello replied by reciting another round of Hail Mary's.

Jesus, there he went again, no matter the amount of loraz that was in his system. Matt was running low already — he'd just dosed him an hour ago, if that; just before he slept. Mello was burning through the drugs with reckless abandon. Quick enough to develop an addiction if Matt wasn't careful.

Ha ha. Who was the junkie now.

Matt pulled his legs to his chest and rummaged around the plastic wrap for his headphones, picking them up from between the bunched up Saran wrap and the wall. His iPod was sitting on the window sill, and he grabbed it in his hand.

Sleep meditation music. That was his new thing. Helped him sleep better.

He replaced his headphones, pressing play on his iPod, but there wasn't any sound. Fuck. He probably needed to charge it again — he'd been listening to it almost nonstop every night.

"—am I here?"

Matt looked up at Mello's voice, catching the tail end of him crossing himself. The first bodily movement he'd seen in days. He pulled out one of his earphones, frowning. "Huh?"

"Why am I here?"

Matt tilted his head. "You blew yourself up," he answered.

"God came back for me. In the burning building."

Matt blinked. "What?"

"He sent an archangel. An angel with wings. Like the ones in Scripture."

Fucking Christ on a bicycle, Mello had gone crazy. Matt shook his head, crawling towards his laptop at the end of the bed and pulling it to his lap. He decided to ignore Mello until he finished rambling, since he was doing that pretty often for the past few days — saying weird shit, not remembering any of it.

"He was big," Mello continued. "Probably twice our size."

Matt straightened out his iPod's USB cable, still connected to the laptop, dangling like a tail.

"God will lead me through the pain," Mello intoned. "Blessed be."

Matt plugged his iPod to the cable. The screen flashed the battery low graphic, and then faded again.

"It had been so long since God had abandoned me," Mello's voice continued, hollow like he was delivering a sermon. "Years ago."

Matt looked up, frowning. What was this, Wammy's all over again?

"Ever since L died," Mello continued. "I hadn't heard Him since."

Matt tilted his head incredulously.

"But it makes sense for Him to come back now."

Matt watched as Mello's fingers rubbed his rosary beads. The veins under his skin glowed with the moonlight. Iridescent, almost.

"I burned to remember my vocation." Matt's eyes followed the bandages up to Mello's face. His eyes were wide open, staring at the ceiling, mumbling, "I won't forget again."

Matt cut in, "God made a megalomaniac kill millions so that you could carry out your vocation?"

Mello sighed lightly, as if Matt was stupid for asking the queston. "We are all being tested," he explained. "That's why I am still alive."

"So you're saying you're God's chosen L."

In a knowing little voice, Mello answered, "Of course."

Huh. In some weird way, the logic parsed. How terrifying.

Mello threaded his fingers past the beads, touching the rosary on his chest. "My grandfather always said I was destined for great things."

Matt quirked a brow, fiddling with his dead iPod.

"Learning with him at the monastery made me strong in my faith," Mello said quietly. "I learned how to serve God the best way that I could."

"Mello," Matt interrupted. "Your grandfather was a Nazi."

"So?"

Matt scoffed. "So. He was a fucking Nazi."

Mello took a small breath, fiddling with the rosary. "He repented before his death."

Low bar. Matt cocked his head, looking back down at his iPod, at his finger caressing the scroll wheel.

"It doesn't matter. I knew he was a good man." Mello paused, taking a small breath, just as Matt's iPod came back to life. Black screen, silver apple. White menu. Fuck, that was bright. "All the monks touched children at the monastery, but he never did."

Matt twisted his features, looking up and squinting, the ghost of the iPod screen still floating in his vision. "What? They touched children?"

"Yes," Mello responded blankly. "They'd bring children to the chapel and lock them up in the sacristy."

"What? Seriously?"

"I heard the boys cry at night."

"What about you?"

The radiator filled the noise between them instead, pumping the air until it was taut. Matt was about to start regretting asking, when Mello replied.

"No. Of course not."

Matt nodded, rubbing the scroll wheel on his iPod absentmindedly, listening to it click rapidly in his headphone. "Oh. Okay."

Jesus Christ, what an uncomfortable conversation.

Matt replaced his iPod back on the windowsill, taking out his remaining earphone to gently unravel the knots. In his mind, he saw Mello — young, small, smaller than they'd ever known one another to be, almost angelic in monk robes. He must have been innocent once. God-fearing and good.

That was before he knew him. Before anybody knew him, before Mello was even Mello. Another name.

How the fuck did they end up here?

Matt looked up from his earphones, back at the bed, and Mello's eyes were closed. Asleep already, somehow, while Matt was battling his own personal demons.

"Goodnight then," Matt mumbled to nobody. He shifted down until he was lying perpendicular to the bed, staring up at the window and the ceiling above, and replaced his headphones in his ears.

The moon was dulling, the sky fading to navy blue outside. Matt pressed Play.

Then, morning.

Baby blue between the blinds, headphones under his cheek. His Blackbird phone screamed bloody murder in the living room, calling his name like he owed it money.

He shot up on the mattress, glancing over at Mello. He looked asleep still, but with the ringtone outside, it probably wasn't going to last very long.

Jesus, why didn't Matt turn his phone on silent mode again?

Matt wiped at his drool, pushing himself onto the floor. He was off the ground before his phone repeated another ringtone loop, running towards the door and dashing to the couch.

He got to the phone with just a few seconds to spare, flipping it open and holding it to his ear. He rubbed the gunk out of his eyes as he answered, "Hello?"

"Hello," came a voice that sounded so robotic for a second Matt had thought he'd gotten connected to an automated response system. "Matthew."

A second later, recognition trickled into his cochlea like lukewarm water. Nobody else called him that.

"That's not my name," he mumbled, slapping the empty cigarette cartons on the floor to clear up a seat on the couch. "What do you want, Near?"

"Have you seen him?"

Matt cleverly asked, "Who?"

"You know who."

"Uh, nope."

"Mello."

Matt sat down and glanced back at the bedroom door, scratching his cheek. "No." He even added, "Isn't it too early for you to be calling? I was asleep."

"It's nine in the morning," Near replied stoically. "Mello has been missing for four days."

"Okay." And then, "What do you want me to do about it?"

"I know that both you and Mello are located in Los Angeles currently, even if this is a registered Arizona phone number."

Matt scoffed. "So? LA's a big place, dude. Does me being here mean I know where Paris Hilton is, too?"

"Who is that?"

Matt shook his head, shivering and grabbing his vest from off the couch to drape over his shoulders. "Nevermind."

"Matt," Near said, "I believe that you know Mello's current whereabouts because, frankly, I find it quite hard to believe that you two haven't been in contact."

Matt grabbed a cigarette from the coffee table, slipping the cig in his mouth, his words hard over the stick. "Yeah, and I find it hard to believe that you guys are still doing this stupid rivalry thing."

"You two were quite close at Wammy's House," Near continued, ignoring Matt. "Knowing Mello's ways of working, he would have reached out to you by now."

"Nope."

"Allow me to catch you up to speed, then," Near intoned. "Mello detonated a large number of explosives at the mafia base to evade capture four days ago on November 11th."

Matt didn't respond, lighting up with a sharp click.

"Since then, he has been missing. All the other mafia members, including two imprisoned, are now deceased."

Matt raised an eyebrow silently, tossing the lighter back on the table.

"As you can see," Near continued impassively. "He may be in danger. He may even be dead."

Matt leaned his elbows on his knees, waiting for Near to finish.

"You're not responding because you already know this information, don't you?" Near concluded.

God, the Wammy's Elites were so fucking annoying — Matt always felt like he was a child, playing monkey in the middle with two very tall adults. As if Mello ever clued Matt in on anything.

"I don't know what the fuck you're on about," Matt replied, half honestly. "I haven't spoken to Mello since he left Wammy's. It sucks that he's missing, but I can't help you, dude."

"All right. Then let me just clarify one small thing." Near's voice took on a gloating tone, turning up like he was smiling. "Were you part of a hacker collective named Blackbird when the California mafia expunged their FBI profiles in April of last year?"

Fuck.

"Is it true that the username associated with your work had been requested to be the leader of that operation?"

The silence stretched on.

"I see." Near sobered up. "Matt, I've been keeping a close watch on all of the notable Wammy's alumni since 2007. There really is no use in keeping secrets. We are all working on the same side, after all."

Matt glanced back at the bedroom door again, staying quiet. He really needed to dispose of his phone. Get a new number. Nobody should use a burner for this long, anyway.

"I take that Mello must still be alive, then, since your silence means that you are trying to protect him."

Matt sighed. "You're full of complete shit, Near, and you know it."

"I'm not." Near switched gears, "Actually, I'm calling to inform you that the NPA may contact you within the next few days to ask about Mello's whereabouts. I doubt that you'd tell them regardless, but I still thought that you should be aware."

Matt blinked, frowning and stubbing his cigarette into his overflowing ashtray. He flicked a cigarette butt that tumbled out back onto the mound, balancing it carefully like a game of Jenga. "NPA?"

"The Japanese National Police Academy. From what I understand, Mello had the head officer killed in the November 11th explosion. While we are trying to confirm his safety, they are trying to track him down. He's a wanted criminal, after all."

Matt exhaled, scratching his head. The fucking SWAT members. "Sounds rough. I don't know."

"Based on the explosion, he must have sustained severe injuries. If this is the case, then I suggest that he take a break. He needn't worry about falling behind. He knows that I'm always willing to work together with him to catch Kira."

Matt snorted, taking out another cigarette. "Just sounds like you're trying to cheat, man."

"I am only being fair. And, the offer extends to you as well," Near added, and Matt rolled his eyes, lighting the next cig up. "The FBI is currently lacking in cybersecurity specialists. Your work would be highly appreciated, and highly necessary, for an international case like this one."

"Yeah, thanks, but no thanks."

"Please consider it." Near concluded his crank call pleasantly, "Good day, Matt."

The line went dead, leaving Matt to shake his head and throw his phone back onto the couch. Near was a fucking creep. Mello always obsessively hated him, but Matt, he, well — just didn't like him very much.

Matt finished his cigarette and snubbed it in the only available gap in his buttheap, walking back to his bedroom. He twisted the doorknob quietly, pushing the door open.

The stuffiness of the radiator pressed down on him like a shockwave. He threw the vest off his shoulders as he reentered, staring at the mattress as he closed the door.

Mello was still knocked out, his hair spilling over the bandages and splayed out on the pillow behind him like some sort of nimbus halo. His arms and legs were spread eagle, his crucifix pulled out of his collar and resting on the pillowcase.

Time for another shot. Matt sighed and took out the paper baggie from the bedside table, dumping the medicine bottles out until they rolled out. He'd gone down to the second bottle of morphine, and there was only one hit of loraz left. He wondered if Mello needed it now, but fuck, his burns still looked like raw meat, and he needed to heal.

More importantly, though, Matt needed to sleep.

Matt took out the syringe and filled it up with a mixture of both liquids. Blue stayed at the top, while the clear liquid stayed firmly at the bottom. A metaphor would apply here, but Matt was too tired to think of one.

Matt was a pro at this now. He didn't even think about how much he wanted the morphine. He kneeled onto the bed and slipped it through Mello's mouth deftly. Mello had learned to take it like a champ, too, swallowing quickly even while unconscious. Not a drop spilled.

After he was done, Matt replaced the syringe onto the bedside and then sighed, dropping his shoulders.

Fuck it. He wanted an actual bed. It didn't matter if Mello was beside him, since there was more than enough room on the mattress regardless. Matt lay down, shifting his back uncomfortably over the plastic wrap.

It hurt. His skin stuck to it, especially with the sweat, but it was better than the hard-ass floor. The only thing was that his pillow smelled like shit now: gauze and antiseptic. But Matt hadn't slept on a proper pillow for days, so beggars weren't going to choose.

Sometime later, sunlight splattered over the back of his eyelids. Matt swung his arm up to cover his face in a weak attempt of shade, the room toasty and hot. It must have been afternoon — Matt felt marginally better-rested.

Until a voice piped up from beside him, "Are you awake?"

"No," Matt grumbled, words muffled by his elbow.

"I can't sleep," Mello said. He shifted, and Matt only heard the sound of his rosary beads falling over each other, the sound of wood scraping along the wall. "I keep having these dreams."

Matt ignored him, turning his head away.

"You remember?" Mello asked, his head shifting against the pillow. "The chapel at Wammy's House."

Not really. Matt never went in there, so he didn't have any clear memories aside from the general location of the chapel doors, off the West Wing across from the main library.

"I always dream about that," Mello said softly.

Matt sighed. There was a time and place for reminiscing, and a few hours of sleep wasn't it. "Go to sleep."

"My head hurts."

"I gave you morphine already."

"Not enough."

"No junk until lunch time." Matt turned away, peeling his back off the Saran wrap as he readjusted. "Now goodnight."

The sun's rays grew brighter over his mattress, shining directly against the back of his eyelids until everything was a shade of flesh-pink. He'd barely even traversed the salty shores of slumber when he felt a warm brush of something ticklish against his cheek, shocking him back to life.

He flinched, his eyelids fluttering back open to see Mello watching him intently, his wrapped finger poised in the air.

Jesus. Mello looked horrifying. There was no amount of time that would make Matt get used to his eye holes. They stared at each other for a long moment before Matt grunted, "What?"

"You haven't shaved."

"Jesus." Matt swatted the air, scratching his cheek and turning away from him. "Shut up."

"How long has it been?"

"I'unno. I haven't had the time to shave, man, get off my ass."

"It suits you."

"Um," Matt mumbled, shifting, his back ungluing itself from the wrap. "Ow. Thanks?"

It wasn't exactly an invitation for Mello's finger to return, but Mello seemed to take it as one. His knuckles brushed against Matt's cheek softly again, almost like a caress, running up and down the length of his jaw. It was a light, feathery touch — ghostlike, the way that people pet birds and the furry little bodies of caterpillars. Almost warm and affectionate if Matt kept his eyes closed.

Felt nice.

The finger became a hand and ran into his hair. A full head-pat. It was cozy, lulling him into a deep hugging sleep. Matt let himself drift off like he was lying in the fields outside of Wammy's House under the sun, the grass blades tickling his skin.

Warm English air, smelling like lavender and wildflowers. Sunshine. A cool breeze. Days at Wammy's — he never really liked them, never really thought of them as much more than the unfortunate outcome of his better past. But today, it felt like summer again.

"Matt," Mello said softly, quietly. They were fourteen again, Mello's cotton sleeves tickling his cheekbone. The whirring of something like a helicopter overhead, flying through the blue skies.

"Hm," Matt mumbled.

"Are you thinking of something?"

The warmth from Matt's body faded as the helicopter morphed back to the radiator, as he realized that those weren't sleeves — they were bandages. Matt sighed, dredged back up to the shores of his shitty life.

"Wammy's," Matt answered, clearing his throat with the residue of sleep.

"Oh." Mello's finger disappeared from his face, though Matt wasn't sure if it was a good thing or not. He heard the crinkling of plastic wrap as Mello moved, trailing his hand back where it belonged on the mattress between them. "Did it feel nice?"

Matt nodded.

"Is that why you're hard?"

Matt blinked awake, the meaning of his words slowly depixelating in his brain. "What?"

"You're hard," Mello said bluntly.

Matt flushed, his blood running into cold sludge. It wasn't like he had any raunchy memories in the backfields by the riverbend, sleeping under the willow trees, but being straight off of dope, it just happened. Whatever it meant. Matt was sure it didn't mean anything.

"Shut up," he mumbled, turning away. "Fuck you, man."

"Did it feel nice?" Mello asked, his hand moving around the mattress again. And then, warmth.

Straight in between his legs, right against his groin.

"Hey," Matt snapped, grabbing Mello's wrist with faster reflexes than he knew he had. "What the fuck, Mello?"

He was expecting Mello to fight back, but Mello didn't respond. No resistance.

No movement at all.

Matt looked up, confused now. Mello's shoddily bandaged face stared back at him earnestly, without a hint of cruelty in his uncovered features. Something deeper than that was in his eyes, warm and liquid as he looked at him. His free hand was frozen in a weird spiderlike position, over Matt's lower body with crackling electricity.

He tilted his head. It was almost catlike if it didn't look creepy as fuck.

"Did it feel nice?" Mello asked again, soft like a secret, and his words took on a new meaning, the subservience sending a jolt down Matt's hips.

Wait. What the fuck was wrong with him? Mello looked almost like a blow up doll, with mouth holes and eye holes, and —

Another jolt shot down Matt's hips at the thought. Jesus Christ, Matt was fucked up.

Mello didn't register Matt's inner turmoil, tugging his arm free from Matt's grasp. Matt could barely react before the warmth returned, this time with pinpoint focus.

Matt gasped and looked down at his pj pants, tented into a humiliating lump of I'm a fucktard creep, and Mello's hand, curled around it gently.

Oh God. Oh no.

Mello's hand engulfed him, squeezing. Matt shut his eyes, out of fear or out of horror he wasn't sure.

Then Mello moved, and Matt thought: I'm fucked.

Warmth bloomed down Matt's legs, up his spine, into his fingertips. It'd been ages since someone else had touched him, and his body was making it damned sure he knew it. Mello shifted to get a better angle, the sound of fabric and plastic wrap loud over the hum of the radiator.

Matt was frozen. His arms and legs refused to move. The clouds outside shifted over the sun as if offering them some privacy, the walls growing dark and cool. Mello didn't stop still, his movements building in intensity. Matt's breaths started to spill over as Mello hooked his fingers around his length and tilted his head to get a better look, the clinical smell of bandages and antiseptic filling Matt's nostrils.

Matt bit his lip. Anything to stop a reaction. He thought about his dead mom, Mr. Hands, the BME Pain Olympics, but Mello let out a tight little exhale from the back of his throat, and another dash of electricity shot through Matt's hips, straight into Mello's fist.

Jesus, Matt could hear him breathing heavily beside him. Mello was enjoying it. Mello was all the way in.

And Matt… well, he cracked open an eye guiltily, glancing down.

Mello's chipped black fingernails worked over his pants, rubbing him intently, and it made something stir in his gut. God, whatever the fuck this was, looking seemed to make it so much more real. Matt shook his hair back over his eyes, holding in his breaths.

Mello's hand sped up in response, pulling harder. It hurt through two layers of fabric. Matt's legs shifted over the crinkling plastic, knocking into Mello's knee, and Mello moved closer, his sharp little elbow pressing into Matt's hip.

Jesus, it felt really good, goddamnit, it felt good, and Matt didn't want it to stop, which was a horrifying thought. Fuck it, let him have this, they were already there, and —

Matt gasped sharply as pleasure exploded through his hips and against Mello's warmth. Mello's hand didn't even leave — he just stopped. As if he wasn't expecting it to end so soon.

Then, nothing.

Oh fuck.

Matt breathed out slowly, trying to control his heart from pounding, so loud that he was sure Mello could hear it past the radiator. His legs felt sticky. His ears rang. The fabric clung to his thighs from the sweat and the cum, and Matt dropped his leg back onto the mattress loudly, staring up at the popcorn ceiling in shock.

What the fuck just happened?

Beside him, Mello's breaths slowed into something deep and heavy, almost like a snore. Reluctantly, Matt looked down, assessing the damage.

"Oh fuck," Matt whispered. Mello had fallen back asleep, his hand still resting limply over Matt's dick.