Matt survives, and writes a letter to Mello.

Dear Mells,

How are you? How's life? What's been going on? Have anything new to tell me?

Matt nearly slaps himself for his awful humor. This isn't funny, it's supposed to be soothing. It's supposed to help him move on, at least, that's what the therapist Near paid for said. He's been putting this off for too long, anyway, and he thinks he'll feel better after he's done writing it. At least, he hopes he does.

He sighs, a cloud of grey smoke leaving his lips as ash from his cigarette falls down onto the page. Scowling, he wipes it away hastily.

Okay, that was a bad joke. Obviously I'm not going to get a response and obviously you're not going to read this. You're...dead, y'know? Well, obviously you know. You were there and everything. And I don't even know why I'm writing this. It's stupid, because this won't bring you back. Nothing can do that. My therapist told me to and...God you'd hate me for seeing a therapist. You'd call me some pansy who's wasting money on a dead practice that only other pansies use to try and feel better about their problems. I don't know why I agreed to see a therapist. It's not helping. She tries, y'know, but at this point the only thing that could help me would to be to hold you in my arms again.

Uh...can't really do that, though. We buried you and everything. Well, what was left of you anyway.

It leaves a sour taste in his mouth to think about the funeral, it's a sensation more bitter than all of the tar and rot he's ingesting, and so he makes a disgusted face. Five months. It's been five months since they've buried Mello, and it's been five months since Kira was stopped. That doesn't really matter to Matt, though, because he didn't even care about stopping Kira in the first place. That's what's so stupid about all of this. It wasn't like he agreed with the killer or anything, he just figured that since he wasn't a criminal it wasn't any of his business. His official stance was to be Switzerland.

The problem was that Mello cared. He cared so much. He wanted to avenge L, and he wanted to prove that he was more than Near. He wanted to show everyone at Wammy's that they were wrong for deeming him only second-best, and he wanted the title of L more than anything. More than life, Matt supposes.

And that's what killed him in the end, Mello was just so stubborn. Matt wants to be mad at him for it, he really does. He thinks it might help if he felt something other than absolute depression or complete despair. He'd even prefer bleakness over this tumultuous storm of agony. He just...can't hate Mello though. His love for him is too strong, even now.

Does he wish the blonde would have listened to him when he told him over and over again that this was going to get them killed? Most definitely. He swore to follow Mello to hell and back, but that's just the thing. He promised to follow him. He never wanted to leave him.

You died, and I survived. That's the worse thing, I think. I mean it would have been preferable if both of us survived, but with only one of us surviving it's worse. I wish you could have been the one to stay alive. Or, better yet, I wish more than anything we could have died together.

His hands are shaking now as the truth bleeds out of him, but he can't stop.

Are you in heaven? Did you manage to get there? I'm in hell, Mells. This is hell. I can barely stand to take a breath nowadays, knowing that you can't anymore. Would you tell me to suck it up, or would you understand? Are you watching me, even now?

It feels like a piece of me has been torn away, and that it's been destroyed. I miss you more than I'd miss one of my legs going missing, because at least then I'd still have you. And I don't...I don't know how to go on. Don't judge me, okay? It's been hard living on my own. I've never been alone. Not when I first came to Wammy's as that scared little five-year-old, because you were there for me then. We've stayed together ever since, hell, I followed you across the Atlantic because I couldn't bear your separation. It's always been Matt and Mello.

He feels a flash of anger towards those damned cops that arrested him. And then he's angrier at himself because he allowed them to. They had their guns trained on him and he was saying his final prayers, but he went away quietly so the bullets stayed firmly caged inside of their chambers. He wanted to survive for Mello, because even though the blonde said there was a chance he wouldn't come back, Matt didn't believe it. Mello seemed so real, so permeant. He seemed like forever and then some. Matt had somehow foolishly believed that Mello could beat Kira. It was only after Near came and bailed him out from jail the next morning that he learned the truth.

Near was the one who told me. They said they had found two bodies at the quarry, and one...well, it wasn't just Takada who was found. And I thought it was another trick. I thought you were going to jump out from a closet or something and say 'surprise motherfuckers! Yeah, this was just to make Kira think that he did kill me when really I found out his identity.' You'd proclaim your victory and all of that, and you would have been so smug, but it would have been adorable. And gratifying, because, I always knew you were better than Near. Nothing against Near, he's a cool guy or whatever, but you were YOU. You were Mello! You were capable of anything and everything, and you were never second best in my eyes. You were just...amazing.

And then I was angry, because you had already survived a fucking fire for God's sakes! You had lived! It was like God had saved you, and I thought it was over. Don't you remember? I nursed you back to health. And I remember shaking when I first held your burnt body because I realized how close I had come to actually loosing you. And that was the scariest feeling ever, because I couldn't imagine losing you.

I thought we were safe, y'know? I thought we had made it out of the storm...but we were simply standing in the eye.

It's not fair. I had you...and I promised to keep you safe. Do you remember that? I said that I swore on everything that I'd let no more harm come to you, because you had already suffered so much.

Matt felt a tear drip from his eye, and the droplet lands on the paper. Sullying it. It makes the ink run, and that makes him angrier.

I guess it's pretty shitty to get mad at a dead man, but I am mad. I try to be. It's better than feeling sad, because anger makes me feel like I'm still alive. Sometimes it makes me feel like you're still alive, and I imagine grabbing you by the shoulders and shaking you until you see stars. Why couldn't you have let it go, hm? You KNEW the risks! I told you this plan would fail, and you just yelled that I didn't believe in you. It wasn't that, I could just see the odds were definitely not in our favor. You kidnapped one of Kira's henchmen for god's sakes, what did you think was going to happen?

I'm mad at myself, too, because more than anything I wish I could have stopped you. I wish I would have kidnapped you instead or something, and I wish we could have gone back to Los Angeles or, hell, even back to England. You would have been mad, but eventually you would have come around. At least you would have had the chance to. I know in my heart that nothing could have changed your mind, but I hate myself that I didn't try harder. All I can think about is everything I could have said, and everything I'll never get to say.

Matt has to force himself to suck in a deep breath, but the room seems to be spinning. He's gasping and panting, but it's like an invisible hand has clutched his windpipe and began to crush it because no air will enter his starved lungs. Suddenly, it's like no time has passed and he's back in that jail cell where Near told him that Mello was gone.

And it didn't matter that Near cried too, it doesn't matter that he called Mello brave and said that he'd solved the case, because Mello was gone. Mello was dead. Matt didn't cry with Near, he just sat and shook his head as numbness overwhelmed him.

But now he's sobbing. Tears stream down his face like a torrential downpour, and his sobs are shaky and broken, and he can only feel his heart tear more so and bleed further.

And he wanted Mello to run into the room, and ask what's wrong, and be so uncharacteristically gentle about it. He wants his blonde Mafia superstar to take him into his arms, and hold onto him, and just whisper that he's there. He wants to wake up in a cold sweat and find Mello laying next to him. He wants to find a time machine and go back to the moment where they last kissed, and Mello promised he'd see him again the next day.

But Mello's blue eyes were so haunted and tired, so grim and empty, that Matt knows now he didn't believe it. He said goodbye and he meant that part, and he tried to water down the words for Matt's sake. Mello knew when he drove off on that bike they'd never see each other again.

And yet, he still did it. Matt stubs out his cigarette angrily, biting his lip and he furiously wipes his eyes.

You solved the case, though. Near gave you credit where credit was due, and you finally proved that you were better. It just took your life, is all. Was that the price you were willing to pay?

Matt takes a heady breath, and closes his eyes. That's not fair. Though he's always tried to pretend that he was immune to Wammy's influences, he felt them. Not as harshly as Mello, but to this day they're still engrained deep inside of his very bone marrow. Wammy's is what killed them, really. Wammy's taught them that even life wasn't too heavy a price to pay. Wammy's destroyed them all, in the end. Just like L. Did Mello really idolize him that much that he was willing to die just like him? He wants to be mad at L for dragging them all into this Kira mess, he really does, but it's not L's fault either. L was just a product of the same environment, and that killed him too. L didn't know better, and while they should have, it was like they couldn't think of anything other than victory.

The spoils of war are shit, though. Matt feels spoiled. Gone is the calm and steady boy he used to be. He's a hollow husk of a man, and no longer can he think of bright futures and sunny skies. The glass has tipped over, and it's half-empty.

Well, we did it Mells. We won. But, it doesn't feel like a victory. In some ways, I wish that we had lost. I wish we had lost and that you had come out alive because of that loss. I wish that everything was how it was before, because hell, even the Mafia was safer than this. Isn't that a funny thought? They say not to poke the bear or it'll bite back, and God I wish we had just ran away from the woods.

The air conditioning turns on, and Matt leans back into his chair as the cool are seemingly turns his insides into ice. His hand is cramping, and he's so tired. He's like his cigarettes that have burnt out and fell into dust. A look out the window confirms that the sun is setting, and he wonders how long he's been at this. Time doesn't seem real anymore, and if anything, he feels like he has too much of it.

Really, he just wants everything to end. And while he's looking out the window at the broken, colorful sky filled with clouds of magentas and lilacs all woven together like a tapestry, he decides he'd like to die alongside the sun. Orange bleeds out over the horizon, and he closes his eyes.

We said we'd see each other later, and I'm still counting on it. I've tried to live without you, but it doesn't work. Everything's just so...pointless. We're Mello and Matt, we're a package deal. Even now.

I'll live, and tell myself that it'll get better, and maybe it will. Maybe the sting will lessen, and it will be like a broken bone that only aches on rainy days after it's healed. I don't think I'll ever heal fully, though. And I know that I'll never love anything or anyone a fraction of what I loved you.

I love you, Mihael Kheel. I still do, and I always will. I can't imagine not loving you, you're a part of me. And I'd be hard pressed to lose that part. It's the part that makes me whole.

I miss you.

And I'll see you later. I still believe it.

Stay cool, blondie.

-Matt